ClubThe Hobo Code season 1, episode 8 originally aired 962. In which you can only runAvailable on NetflixIf Mad Men is about inviting the audience to discern the truest selves of its characters, then Don Drapers truest self is the man who leaves when the going gets tough, whos made note of all of the escape hatches on his first time through the bunker, just in case. The problem is that the switch for just in case gets flipped sooner and sooner with every year. First, its leaving behind his past to join the military. Then, its assuming someone elses identity under what are still mysterious circumstances at this point in the shows run. But eventually, its just something like trying to decamp for Paris after Bert gives him a little pep talk that hits too close to home. Bert thinks of this as a good thing. Center your life on escape, and pretty soon, all you see are escape hatches. The Hobo Code digs down to try and figure out who the true selves of three of the shows most enigmatic characters are. Hey Arnold Season 1 Episode 19' title='Hey Arnold Season 1 Episode 19' />We watch as Peggy finds herself enamored with Pete once again, even as her campaign wins over Belle Jolie with a little forceful convincing by Don. Don spends the episode trying to deal with what Bert told him, then ends up smoking some marijuana and reflecting on his past. Sal finds himself out on what amounts to a date with one of the Belle Jolie clients, only to admit that hes not as experienced as he might seem. If the first few episodes were about carefully sketching in the outlines of these characters and this world, then weve reached the point where Matthew Weiner and his team have finally reached the apex of the first hill and have tilted those characters toward the long descent that will take us from what we thought we knew about them to who they actually are. The Hobo Code is perhaps the most important episode in the whole series to understanding what makes Don Draper tick, but as an episode of television, its a touch ungainly. Theres nothing bad here, per se though the Peggy and Pete thing is a little too difficult to figure out at this point, particularly for a first time viewer, but the episode doesnt hang together as much as I might like it to. The Jungle Movie is the upcoming second animated film based on the Nickelodeon. The best episodes of Mad Men have a satisfying snap that comes when all of the stories slot into place around the same themes and ideas, and The Hobo Code has some of that, in its examination of these people running from their truest selves, but it doesnt have that snap, that moment when you recognize how interconnected everything has been. What it does have are a bunch of bravura sequences and moments that are almost enough on their very own. Think, for instance, of the episodes finale, which takes us from Don Drapers childhood and the carving in the fence post outside his home that marks his father as a dishonest man all the way to his office at Sterling Cooper, the door of which marks a very different kind of dishonest man. But its also indicating that the apple doesnt fall far from the tree, so to speak, no matter how much Don might wish that not to be true. Don might have adopted the hobos code as his own, but he cant escape the many other fragments and pieces that made him who he is, including the life he visibly tried to shunt aside. The harder he tries to run away from Dick Whitman and his past, the more his past comes back to haunt him. Its a fairly common theme in fiction, but thats because its true. The things about ourselves we try to deny are often those that most come to define us. Thats true of Salvatore Romano as well. I dont know if hes actively trying to deny his sexuality, but hes clearly doing his level best to not think about it. The scene with Elliott the Belle Jolie guy is a heartbreaker, as the two seem to be feeling each other out, but then we swiftly realize that for Sal, this always stops at flirtation. Hes not only inexperienced hes a virgin, well past the age most of us have our first fumbling adventures in sex. And not only that He lacks the vocabulary to talk about this in any meaningful way. To be sure, gay men trying to hook up in 1. New York have to speak in code and talk around what theyre talking about to get anywhere. But heres a guy whos all too willing to move past the code with Sal and get to what matters, and Sals just not able to do so. And from the way he rushes from the restaurant, it seems almost as if hell never be able to. This is contrasted with the person Sal does successfully flirt with, the new switchboard operator Lois Sadler. She loves listening to him talk to his mother in Italian, and she wants to meet this suave, debonair man. When she does, shes a little too eager, a little too ready to impress. But Sal handles the encounter well. Hes probably had many encounters with women like this in his life. He might have even taken a few of them to the bedroom and faked his way through that as well. But deep down, he knows that the only person hed ultimately disappoint if he got together with Lois would be Lois. He knows who he is, but hes scared to admit it to himself, just as Don Draper would be terrified if those words fell off his office door and were replaced by DICK WHITMAN. Sal seemed almost like a character of uncertain comic relief in the first half of this season, but The Hobo Code finds the tragedy in the character handily. This is a man who longs to be open, yet the world mistakes him for a straight man because its the only box anyone knows to put him in. And because it would never occur to Sal to start constructing other boxes because it occurs to so few of us, he simply tries to get as comfortable as he can in the life thats been made for him by other people. The Peggy and Pete stuff doesnt work as wellthough I love the little shot of Peggys heels flying into the air in silhouette that marks the end of this sceneand in trying to figure out why, I went back to look at some contemporaneous reviews of the episode, particularly Alan Sepinwalls. What I find interesting about Sepinwalls piece is that he actually blames the actors here, believing that Elisabeth Moss and Vincent Kartheiser are, respectively, too weak and too mannered to carry over material that leaves lots of room to guess about motivation, as opposed to Hamm, whos better able to get us invested in the mysteries of Don Drapers past as Dick Whitman. Now, with the benefit of hindsight, Id put the blame for why some of this doesnt work at the feet of the writers, who havent yet realized that Mad Men isnt a Lost or Battlestar Galactica style mystery show that can be carried by the audience wondering about a characters cryptic motivations. In the absence of larger mysterieswhich Mad Men doesnt haveits usually better to simply present the story in a more or less straightforward fashion. Here is why this character does this here is why that character does that. We dont get that for Peggy or Pete, not really. But thats why it can be so fun to go back to the first season of a show you love and look at all of the things that the series once thought it was going to be able to do, then slowly shut itself off from. The switchboard operators are another example of this. They seemed like theyd be a pretty big deal in the pilot, or at least a minor Greek chorus of recurring characters, and then they got shunted off to the side in favor of larger roles for some of the other women of the office, particularly Joan. The sequence where he goes over to Midges apartment is interspersed with those flashbacks to his Dick Whitman past, but its perfect in its own right, centered as it is on Dons certainty that this beatnik business is just another pose. Hes probably right. He gives Midge the 2,5. Bert and tells her to buy a car. Then he leaves, walking right into the middle of a bunch of cops, because he knows theyll never see through his disguise in the way they would through the beatniks. Watch Wrong Side Of Town Megavideo. Dancing With the Stars 2. Live Recap Season 2. Episode 7 We have your all new Monday, May 1, 2. A Night at the Movies and we have your Dancing With The Stars recap below Mandy Bonner I have worked with you since the beginning and I am proud of you. Bruno  A fantastic scene but they forgot to oil the joints. Carrie Ann Hey I love this one so much I disagree I feel you got a little lost. That you have, I dont feel like you matched up to the paso. Scores Carrie Ann 7  Len 7 Mandy 8 Bruno 7 TOTAL 2. Nancy Kerrigan Artem Chigvintsev ROMANCE Tango Oh, Pretty Woman by Roy Orbison. Your footwork was impeccable. Carrie Ann After last weeks paso something has opened you look so much more relaxed but watch your arms. Len  You put your moves into movies. It was fantastic You came out and sold it. Mandy I loved it. Bruno  I think you have earned the license to thrill. Mandy Great Job  Bruno  What I like is it had a kind of gothic feeling you played it in an operatic way. You are a joy. Len The fact is it was fun there was a lot of touches of salsa you come entertain and I love watching you. SCORES Carrie Ann 8 Len 8 Mandy 8 Bruno 8 TOTAL 3. Normani Kordei Valentin Chmerkovskiy FOREIGN Argentine Tango Quiz. Carrie Ann  I have so much say. You dance beautiful you are an artist. For me perhaps it was the best dance. Mandy I agree with all of that but I was most impressed with your leg action. SCORES Carrie Ann 1. Len 1. 0 Mandy 1. Bruno 1. 0 TOTAL 4. DANCE OFFNormani and Val win immunity and 3 points so now the remaining six couples have to dance in for additional judges points in an attempt to help lift their scores. At the end of the night, based on the evenings judges scores and votes from last Monday, two couples will say their goodbyes to the ballroom in a double elimination. Simone picks to dance off against Nancy.