'Mad Men': Atomic Secretaries and Feminine Mistakes

Horse meat! And a thump on the head. We here at Woman Up are back on the "Mad Men" beat.

An attractive, middle-aged widow from Roger Sterling's past showed up at Sterling Cooper to 1) ask for help handling a public relations crisis at her dog-food company, and 2) cozy up to Roger to see if the spark is still there.

It ain't. At least, not on Roger's side of the fence.

I was not surprised, since this woman was demonized within her first five minutes on screen. She practically sneers in disdain at customers who recoil at the slaughter of horses. She points out that cows are beef and chickens are poultry. She wants Sterling Cooper to come up with a pseudonym for horse meat, blithely assuming that our only problem with horse meat is the word.

She's wrong. I know someone who pays dearly every month to board her glossy, cinnamon-colored horse Missy and would ride her every day if she could. I don't know anybody who pays to board a cow or keeps a chicken indoors with a litter box.

Ms. Horsemeat didn't mention baby cow and veal, but that's OK because my Woman Up colleague Bonnie did.

John Slattery is a great actor and all, but I'm sorry, no cigar this time. I'm just not buying the sincerity. Men have special schools where they go to learn to be glib and vague. They do not talk about broken hearts unless they're sporting a sardonic smile. They do not talk about anyone being, or not being, "the one," and if YOU talk about it, they will cease all eye contact and suddenly remember a pressing appointment.

It's not Slattery's fault, mind you. Probably some damned writer living in la la land and interfering with Roger's natural uber-cool persona.

Christina Hendricks as Joan Holloway, on the other hand, showed off her acting chops in a big way. In the last couple of episodes she has had to communicate her real feelings to the audience while still hiding them from her husband. Hendricks is gorgeous, of course, but there's an intelligent, gifted actress lurking underneath that rack.

Joan's pompous, incompetent husband got a thwack (great word, Mary) on the head for being a self-pitying fool. Soon he'll be going away to Army boot camp for six weeks. And Joan called Roger for help in finding a job. Hmmm.

We know from Roger's rejection of Ms. Horsemeat that he's faithful to his young wife. But Ms. Horsemeat is one thing, and Joan quite another. We'll see if Roger's marital fidelity can withstand Joan's nuclear-powered charisma.

I loves me some Betts barking orders to her lying husband. And the classy mistress, too. The Don Draper meltdown was not pretty. Not a good week for the men! And as my colleague Mary noted, there's definitely some feminine mystique bubbling under the "Mad Men" surface.