Trendy TV Recap: Mad Men’s Ode to Lane Pryce

Well, it was only a matter of time that Brit export and founding partner Lane Pryce, would make his blithering exit after a season bloated with his trials and tribulations

After last week’s episode’s expose which showed Lane at his most pathetic, it was clear the future was anything but bright for the unfortunate Englishman.

Lane always seemed like a loose cannon, weighed down by an astronomical amount of emotional baggage that he obviously brought along with him when he moved his family across the pond to New York. Everything about him was annoyingly desperate and uncomfortably displaced; he always appeared pathetically rigid in even the most normal of circumstances.

So it was only natural that his mounting inconsistencies would lead him to a place of no return and that was how last night tumultuous episode played out.

Don didn’t hide his displeasure when his suspicions about Lane’s dubious activities that included forgery and mismanaged funds came to light, and he rightfully demanded his exit from the firm. The crumpled Lane childishly pleaded for Don to re-consider and then proceeded to display an array of unbridled emotions that ranged from temper tantrums to resigned hysterics. Finally, defeated and battered, Lane spent the rest of the episode in a fog of torment and disillusionment. His conveniently clueless wife gave him the final push he needed to end his misery when she excitedly revealed the new jaguar she had purchased for him. Paid for in full after heavy negotiation.

The jaguar didn’t’ live up to its lofty expectations when the engine didn’t work during Lane’s attempt to end it all with the help of the exhaust pipe. So he chose a more fitting location where the tragic consequences of his violent actions would be more appreciated and dramatized.

Spalding Cooper Draper Pryce won’t ever be the same after the gruesome discovery of one of their own after Lane methodically hanged himself. And Don Draper will have another ghost to add to the ones that are already feverishly haunting him.

But for now, it’s valid to say that Lane Pryce’s watery disposition will not be missed anytime soon.