Mad Men 1.4: Brought to you by Bethlehem Steel

Pete's wife Trudy shows up unexpectedly for lunch. Pete is annoyed but agrees to go with her. However, he makes eyes at Peggy on his way out.

Pete and Trudy look at a large, gorgeous flat in the city. Pete makes $3500 a year - not nearly enough to get the flat, which they might be able to get for $30,000. Trudy thinks their parents will help with the cost.

Don runs into Rachel at the office. Paul is her new account executive. She turns down Don's lunch invitation.

Betty sees Helen's ex-husband banging on Helen's front door. He asks if he can use Betty's phone. Betty refuses. Helen comes over later to apologize. She says her ex-husband wasn't interested in the kids while they were married. He had many "friends" in the city, but none were men.

Don comes in and says hello. Helen goes home, where are kids are sleeping alone in the house.

Pete meets with his parents to ask for help with the flat. They come from old money; his father scoffs at Pete's silly little job and says the apartment is on the "wrong street." (It's just a few streets away from what Pete's father considers ideal.) He refuses to help Pete with the money, even though he helped Pete's brother cover up a crime. Pete goes home and tells Trudy that his dad was sick, so he didn't ask for the money.

Next day, Don makes his pitch to the Bethlehem Steel. The client thinks that Sal's artwork is too retro, and the ads look like they're for cities rather than steel. The artwork is exactly as Don had ordered it, but the client is obviously not a city guy. Pete tries to take over the meeting, which frustrates Don even more. Later, Pete confronts Don to ask for respect and a chance to do good work. He says he figured out direct marketing all by himself. Sure someone else came up with the idea first, but Pete thought of it independently. He feels that he's being set up to fail.

Helen asks Betty to babysit while Helen stuffs envelopes for the Kennedy campaign. Helen looks like she's dressed for a date, but she says most of the campaign workers are women. Betty's not sure who "we" are voting for.

Pete and Trudy meet with Trudy's parents. Her father Tom is willing to look at the apartment. Pete hesitates, but Tom has faith in Pete. Pete feels nervous and a little emasculated.

Betty uses the bathroom at Helen's house. She snoops through the drawers and finds Helen's diaphragm. (I thought it was birth control pills at first, but it's only 1960 in this episode. It turns out that the familiar round dispenser didn't come along until 1962, and it wasn't that good-looking.)

Glenn walks in on Betty while she's on the toilet. She scolds him. Later he's sorry. He hugs her and cries. He's smitten with Betty and asks for a lock of her princess hair. She resists at first, but he's so earnest and pathetic that she finally gives it to him.

Pete meets with the client from Bethlehem Steel at a bar and introduces him to some "cousins," i.e. bimbos. He pitches an idea, but the client is not in the mood to talk about business. He assumes that Don put him up to this and that the idea Pete pitched was Don's. Given the client's irritation, Pete doesn't let him know it was his own idea.

Helen comes home from her campaign work with some Kennedy pamphlets.

The next day at work, the Bethlehem Steel guy tells Don he loved the idea that Pete pitched. Now Pete is really angry with himself. Don is angry with Pete too. He tells Pete to pack his things. Then he tells Roger what happened too. They're both furious.

Betty goes to the psychiatrist. She tells the doctor that she feels sorry for Helen. She thinks that Helen is jealous of Betty. She's worried about the boy; she thinks he's not "getting what he needs" from the person who takes care of him.

Roger and Don meet with Cooper, the big boss. Cooper says they can't fire Pete, because his socially influential mom might bad-mouth them to her friends, which include potential clients.

They meet with Pete later. Roger tells Pete that he and Cooper both wanted him fired, but Don went to bat for him. This appeases Don and saves Pete's job.

Later, Don and Roger compare generations. Not surprisingly, it seems that there's some competition between the WW2 generation (Roger) and the Korea generation (Don).

Pete and Trudy go to the apartment with Trudy's parents. The Realtor introduces some neighbors. The neighbor is impressed by Pete's family connections, but Pete seems to be in the shadow of his ancestors.