‘Mad Men’ recap: Toning down Michael Ginsberg, Don’s Jewish accent

The two-episode season premiere of "Mad Men" brought us Michael Ginsberg, the first Jewish employee at the advertising firm formerly known as Sterling Cooper. And the reviews — OK, at least mine — were harsh.

I’m happy to report that things were better in Episode 3. Whether Ginsberg is feeling more comfortable at work or the show’s writers have gotten some shtick out of their system, the character felt less forced this week. (OK, he staged a holier-than-thou walkout and had a talk-too-much moment that could have gotten him fired, but that just tells you how bad last week was.)

He even gave us a line worth chewing on. After Don makes a crack about Ginsburg’s voice, he responds without missing a beat: "It’s a regional accent — you have one too."

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No, it wasn’t a deep revelation… but a nice turnaround, reminding us that Don (he’s not who he says he is) was really the first one to crash the rarified WASP party.

Sensing a pattern here…

So far this season Don has hired Sterling Cooper’s first Jewish employee (Ginsberg) and its first black employee (Dawn, a new secretary) [UPDATE: I should have said "unambiguously Jewish," since there was Danny Siegel]. This week we had Ginsberg’s you’re-just-like-me line, last week we had the quip about people confusing Don and Dawn.

None of this should come as a surprise. After all, it was Don who gave Peggy her break as the firm’s first woman copywriter.

This is not meant as some sort of ode to Don — like with everything else, these good deeds are colored by his own self-interest. Yes, all things being equal, Don thinks people should be judged by the work. But having these new arrivals around also provides emotional reassurance and validation — reinforcing his own membership in the old boys club.

UPDATE: Reader HW disagreed with my earlier critical post on Ginsberg:

I disagree. To me, this sort of goes to the point you’ve made many times about Jews learning to accept that they are part of the Establishment. I think this is the converse, in viewing this character, Jews have to UNLEARN 45 years of being in the Establishment and think about how the first Jews may have been perceived and may have been culturally out of sync entering big advertising, investment and law firms in the mid-60s. The character’s performance seems a little over the top to us, but to us, firms that have no Jews working in them are anecdotes from before being born, not reality. Maybe this isn’t the way it objectively looked in 1966– but I’d say its a pretty good bet its the way it looked to the WASPy denizens of these firms hiring their first Jews. Sort of like the great Wisconsin dinner scene in Annie Hall where they look at Woody Allen and see a Hasid. (The home scene was the real Ginsberg, the veil lifted, crazy father and all.)