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Mad Men Ep. 6 Review: Don Plays Chess, But Who Are His Pawns?

Erin Klingsberg

  When “Shut the Door. Have A Seat” happened at the end of Season 3, it was revolutionary. IT was exciting and electric and bold. It was a few frustrated and visionary men approaching their best people and stealing clients and starting up a new agency from a hotel room. Since then we’ve seen the fledgling SDCP struggle, expand, strive and succeed, and we forgot that it was still a small company as far as advertising agencies go. They snagged their car and compromise a hell of a lot in doing so, but Jaguar was still a small, luxury, European car. They have Vicks, but they lost Heinz, both beans and Ketchup. Still, at the beginning of “For Immediate Release”, Bert Cooper, Pete and Joan are meeting in regards to taking the agency public. An odd combination of partners, no? I’m dying to know how that came about. But it was also just as electric and exciting as before. A big idea that begins in small meeting rooms and requires finesse to accomplish is always exciting on this show. Maybe it’s me, but Mad Men always manages to make business the most thrilling thing on television.

I should have seen it coming. I mean, this is Matthew Weiner and he leaves clues like landmines that you can’t miss. I should have seen it coming when Dr. Rosen quit his job. He lost a child and a heart and a shot at a heart transplant. And remember, the first successful heart transplant ever had only occurred a year prior. Dr. Rosen feels powerless, like the stars are conspiring against him in a Shakespearean way. But Don isn’t very sympathetic. “I don’t believe in fate. You make your own opportunities,” he says. And at first it seems grating, because we all know Don is stuck in a prison of his own making. But it’s very true. Don Draper scoffs at the idea of fate. A poor rural farm boy went to war, stole a dead man’s identity and used it to create his own success in the world. He’s the guy who once sold a suit to Roger Sterling and showed him his sketches and is now a partner and lead creative executive at a Madison Avenue advertising firm. I mean the guy is deplorable, but he’s a rockstar and quite frankly a genius at what he does. He’s an artist in the way Dr. Rosen is a surgical artist, but he’s not fighting with God, he is God.

While Pete tries to lock down the details of the cost of shares and how best to make all of the partners millionaires, Roger ditches a dinner with that awful Jaguar guy to stalk someone on a Pan Am flight. At first I was like well okay this makes sense, Roger was definitely always a spy, but what is his game here? Meanwhile, Pete runs into his father-in-law at a whorehouse and is assured by Ken that the encounter was mutually embarrassing so naturally both parties will pretend it never happened. Almost simultaneously, it seems, Don loses the Jaguar account because he just can’t restrain his utter disdain for pretend Vito Corleone any longer. It’s a perfect, spiraling storm of disaster. It seems all of the partners are on separate pages, running the company on their own terms, and no one knows anything.

And then Pete loses Vicks, but he finds this out later so when everyone converges he feels entirely justified to throw a public fit at Don - complete with falling down the stairs - that only Pete Campbell can properly throw. He yells and yells about Don ruining plans to take the company public, Don is super annoyed and dismissive and Roger swoops in after having followed a Chevrolet exec to Detroit, announcing that he’s gotten the firm a pitch meeting. Roger Sterling, actual superhero! Everyone rejoices, Don is very pleased that he has a shot at nabbing his holy grail and is definitely relieved that this news means his Jaguar sabotage won’t bite him in the ass. He’s so pleased that he orders Joan to wrangle the creatives right. this. second! But Joan, prostituted, humiliated, still treated like a secretary Joan, has another idea. “Get them yourself,” she spits out at Don, but Don’s elation can’t be quelled so easily. “Don’t you feel 300 pounds lighter?” he asks her, like he did her a favor by getting rid of Jaguar, the disgusting reminder of their collective shame and Joan’s misery. Of course, Joan doesn’t see it that way, because she’s a woman and he’s a man and if he doesn’t want to put up with bullshit, he can cancel said bullshit. But as a woman, all Joan has ever done is learn to live with it and make the best of a terrible situation. And while Don’s refusal to cater to ignorant clients has always seemed heroic before, now she just makes him look like a brat. If Joan could put up with it, he can certainly put up with some painful dinners.

Don promises to be the hero. Don’t worry, Joan, I’ll win this. Don’t worry, everyone, I’ve got this. That’s what he does at the office, he gets to be the hero he can’t be in his own life. And Joan has always been someone that let him play that role, but she won’t any longer. Joan, whom we saw feel powerless a few episodes ago, and who was in on her first big partner plan to go public, gets brushed aside for Don Draper to swoop in and save the day for everyone. We know Pete has never liked it, struggling for years to make a name for himself in Don’s shadow, but now Joan won’t be carried on Don’s strong back either. She calls him out on his egotism and narcissism; his belief that he truly is the central character in the firm and that everyone revolves around him, looks up to him, follows him. No, Don, you can’t play God anymore.

And so he goes to Detroit, and he sits in a bar and drinks alone. Classic Don Draper. But then Ted, in one fabulous turtleneck, saunters in. Earlier we saw Ted in a place of unease for his agency after learning one of his partners has cancer. Also Harry Hamlin was there wearing hipster glasses, but I generally don’t remember his status. Ted’s definitely going through some shit too, he kissed Peggy and he really loves turtlenecks. But his dismay at encountering Don in Detroit isn’t because he thinks Don will beat him out (after all, they got Ketchup from him), but because the presence of two or more small agencies means a setup for idea stealing in the advertising world. Who knew? These two guys did, and they proceed to throw themselves a pity party over the fact that Chevy wants to hear the inspired ideas but take them to a larger agency who can devote an entire floor to them. They share their pitches and exchange some sullen words, and then Don has an idea.

All of a sudden it’s Shut the Door. Have A Seat, but with less camaraderie, more rugged individualism. Don proposes they go in together, they pitch together and offer them not only their ideas but the resources of a large agency to boot. It’s bold. It’s risky. It’s Don refusing to adhere to the conventional rules of the business and creating his own opportunities. It’s Dons sticking it to the existing power struggle and circumventing it. Or is it? It’s spring of 1968 and I couldn’t help think for a second how in tune with the rest of the world this move is, but it doesn’t feel as triumphant as it should. He ropes Bert and Roger in, and Harry Hamlin pops up on Ted’s side to say something sassy. And they win it.

I won’t pretend like the reveal of Don sitting in Ted’s office telling Peggy they’ve won Chevy before she sees him isn’t amazing. It’s totally amazing. When he told her they’re not just merging to work on Chevy, but they’re merging agencies entirely in order to become one of the largest and most formidable agencies in the country, I think my heart skipped a beat as I remembered when Don told Peggy in “Shut the Door. Have A Seat” that if he lost her he’d spend the rest of his life trying to hire her. But Peggy’s ambivalent response was unsettling. I had been busy recalling “If you don’t like what they’re saying, change the conversation” that I briefly forgot about Joan’s visceral condemnation of Don’s arrogance. In truth he made a decision that seems good for everyone on paper, but he consulted no one. He once again decided what was good for everyone else’s lives. And not only will Peggy be thrown into a situation she hadn’t planned for, but what of Pete and Joan’s plans to go public? What about Harry Crane? The little bigot won’t ever get his partnership now that this new Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce Campbell Harris Harry Hamlin Ted agency will have approximately five thousand partners.

So how in keeping with the atmosphere of 1968 is this new business development really? After all it can’t be likened to the Prague Spring or the French youth protests or the protests that erupted on campuses all around the country. Don’s move appears to be revolutionary, to be fighting an established system that has oppressed and dictated the game for far too long, but it’s not. It’s nothing but a well orchestrated chess move in the corporate game. One that was made before consulting anyone else, and it’s that flippant disregard by someone in a position of power that puts Don more on the side of the establishment than he has ever been before. He makes and breaks and changes rules as he sees fit to please him, and does so easily with the supreme advantage of being charming, good-looking, rich, white and male. Welcome to privilege.

And why does Don get to make these decisions and shake things up for the rest of the company to live with? Why does he get to play God?

In fact, is Don a living, breathing representation of the exact thing that those not as privileged, not as white or male or lucky or powerful in 1968 feel the need to rally against and overthrow? Why do you get to dictate? Why do you get to rule us and regulate us and use us as pawns in your chess game?

Welcome to metaphor city, where Don Draper and SCDP just became a microcosm for all of 1968. 

all images from amctv.com 

[zefrublog]

Mad Men - “To Have and to Hold”/“The Flood” Recap

Erin Klingsberg

I’m not sure why I couldn’t find the time to write a review of last week’s episode, especially considering it was my favorite kind, an episode of Mad Women. Maybe it was because I knew what I’d be writing about and it made me weary. See, the thing about AMC is that most of their shows center around a male protagonist. The other thing about AMC shows is that said male protagonist isn’t really a guy you root for, not even in an anti-hero sense. This is a bold way of storytelling because it’s difficult to pull off. But I believe “Mad Men” and “Breaking Bad” do it expertly. But when you mistake your male protagonist for the character you’re supposed to be rooting for, even as he’s entrapping his wife in misery, you’re missing the point. I’m looking at you, Skyler haters and Walt apologists. Newsflash, the show knows Walt is the villain, why don’t you? But I digress. What I’m saying is that I knew I’d be writing a review once again praising and defending Megan and once again begging you to see that there’s so much more to Pete. That was all well and good though, I love getting revved up about divisive characters, until I realized Don was the enemy. I know longer wanted to find the theme of the episode and use it to psychoanalyze him because he sucks and I’m over it. Frankly it seems that most viewers are over it. You can make a compelling movie about a man who can’t change and it’s his own fault (i.e. one of my favorites, “Five Easy Pieces”), but stretching it six seasons has become exhausting. I’ll get to Don, of course, because I have a hunch that this frustration is intentional. But I’ll start with Joan. Everybody loves Joan.

In 6x04 we saw a really perplexing and sad Joan storyline. Joan, much like the men of SDCP, is becoming a relic of the old times. So when she goes out on the town with a friend it seems odd, it seems juvenile and beneath her. But alas, she’s a single mother in 1968 and she’s gotta do what she’s gotta do, right? But her storyline emasculates her. Joan, the pillar of female power and authority in the office and in the show, is brought down hard. Harry’s anger over her firing his secretary unleashes the ever present but ever quiet sexism and misogyny that lives within seemingly good men. He thinks he should be partner. He says he can do his work in the daylight. It’s harsh. It’s true in that Harry does a hell of a lot for the company, but he didn’t have the luxury of watching the episode last season in which Joan prostitutes herself for a partnership and he has no idea what the real circumstances were. Still, she realizes that her partnership doesn’t do anything in terms of elevating her to something more than the head secretary in most of the men’s eyes. In a setting where she typically rules, she’s crippled, weak and vulnerable. And I suppose it’s that knowledge that made her third wheeling and psychedelic make-out session on a couch rendez-vous seem so sad. It dawns on her that as much as tries not to be, she’s still ruled by men. As much as she tries to be taken seriously as a partner, she’s accused of pettiness. Joan has lost the power she usually has. She still exudes it, it’s her armor, but you know it’s lost.

Now of course no one sided with Harry (although his bravado in front of Roger and Bert was kind of amazing) because Joan is a beloved character. Even if his reaction is a little bit fair, at least understandable, it still drips with sexism and any man treating Joan in that way is unacceptable. So I wonder, is it still acceptable for Don to bed anyone he pleases while punishing his wife for doing nothing at all except her job? I don’t care that he was morally against Joan sleeping with the Jaguar guy for the account last year, he’s not one of the good ones. He loves Megan, but only insofar as she remains his. And that means his in every way. her independence as a working woman means she has a life and job outside of him and his control. And when she tells him she’s being given a love scene on her soap opera, she’s nervous. This is Megan Draper and she knows her husband. And she knows that when he shows up on set to stoically and silently gaze his sour gaze, it’s for nothing except to try to ruin her success and her happiness. “You couldn’t stop it. So I guess ruining it was enough for you,” she tells him. It’s the only time he’d even bothered to show up to her work, and it was to make her as miserable as possible, all while continuing to sleep with the neighbor’s wife. But Megan Draper can’t possibly kiss another man for her job! And like any good misogynist, he accuses her of enjoying it, forgetting what the definition of acting means. Ironic, since a couple of episodes ago he was burdened by the realization that maybe he’s just a whore, whereas his wife is not at all a whore and yet he’s happy to imply that she is. Double standard thy name is Don Draper.

Truth be told this is the first season in which I’ve had it with Don. He’s never been a good person. He’s always had demons. But he was interesting. He was complicated. And I don’t know if it’s his inability to change that’s making him worse, if he’s actually becoming worse, or if my patience has worn thin, but at the end of the day Don Draper is really nothing more than a mean, selfish, broken man who’s incapable of love.

And my sentiment towards Don continued in “The Flood”. This episode covered Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, and similarly to its JFK episode, the characters are flooded with news and must figure out how to act and react accordingly. It’s monumentally interesting in every way. In fact most characters are in shock, upset, but treat it with distance. They’re nervous of increased racial tensions, and they generally detach themselves, deeming it a much more personal issue to their African-American employees. But when Harry begins to complain about losing money due to preemptive news broadcasting, Pete pops up as the moral compass of the episode! How awesome. No, seriously. He lashes into Harry and it’s a great, great confrontation. He says it’s a shameful, shameful day, that MLK was a great man and he had a wife and children. God, it’s so beautiful. I’m not sure how I can express how much I loved this, and his phone call to Trudy, and the last shot of Pete ordering delivery and standing alone in his apartment. But I’m going to try, because I’m pretty sure Pete has become my favorite character and Don my least favorite.

I’ve written previously about Pete and how he should be seen as much more than a slimy, terrible person. The fact of the matter is is that Pete wears his feelings about things on his sleeve. More than that, he readily offers up his feelings on a silver platter. And more often than not these sentiments have been pretty appalling. He’s not a stand-up guy and his values are questionable at best, but isn’t that true of everyone else on this show too? The unique and wonderful thing about Pete is that he’s different than Don, who’s made of stone, or Roger, who deflects everything with sarcasm. He’s more outwardly earnest than any man at SCDP, and he’s always been far more emotional. His father died in a plane crash, he was arguably the most affected by JFK’s death, so it’s very on point and in character that he feels this one strongly too. He feels these things so strongly that he reaches out for love, but finds none from Trudy. He’s kind to his delivery man and asks how it is out there, but gets a polite nod in response. In day to day life Pete has no problem living for himself and acknowledging the coldness of people and society around him, but on days like this day, it’s different. He wants connection. He wants community. And he finds none.

Meanwhile Don naturally reveals no feelings whatsoever. Megan even comments on it. He was just about to win parenting of the year award until he forgot to pick up the kids, and Betty makes him get them anyway even though I’m pretty sure there was a curfew at the time due to rioting. In an even better example of excellent co-parenting, Bobby isn’t allowed to watch TV for a week so Don takes him to the movies (ha!). They go to see Planet of the Apes, and we’re gifted with two clips, of the Apes talking about the stupidity of man, and the end in which Charlton Heston pounds his fists on the sand, realizing he’s on Earth and that they’ve destroyed New York. It hits hard in some Matthew Weiner themed way, and they stay to watch it again. Bobby reaches out to an African-American movie theater usher and asks if he’s seen it, because when people are sad they go to the movies. Bobby’s also been ripping his wallpaper off the wall to get to what’s underneath so this boy is obviously deep.

Cue Don’s emotional flood.

Don comes home and gets pathetically drunk, Megan scolds him for his inability to explain anything to his kids in a time of tragedy, and then he gives an epic monologue about not loving his kids. Now, Jon Hamm is a better actor than most people in the universe, so it was a damn heavy hitting scene. When Don describes his inability to love his kids until one moment in a movie theater when all of the feelings he’d been pretending to feel came flooding in and his heart felt like it were going to explode, it’s pretty stunning. (Also note that Megan is wholly comforting and supportive so tell me again why you hate her please because I do not understand). Except the problem is, Don, that you just said you never loved your kids and I hate you. Of course we knew this was true from his actions over the years, but to actually vocalize this is the least relatable thing I can possibly imagine. There are fathers out there who are  just as absent and awful as he is but who actually, in some warped way, do love their children as much as they are able. I don’t care if he felt love wash over him for the first time, it’s too little too late, which may or may not be my theme for him this season.

I’ve lost my empathy for Don Draper, but I wonder if that’s the intention. Does Matthew Weiner want to turn him into a self-made man of stone by the end of the show? Is it his criticism and his punishment of a man who can’t change who he is? We know there is no redemption for Don, so can someone like Pete change before the end? What if the end of the show finds Pete as its hero because he was able to feel and change and adapt? If that happens I’m going to laugh and cry hysterically at the same time because it would be the best.

In other news Ginsberg is virgin and most likely related to Woody Allen in some way. Peggy and Megan were the only SDCP employees nominated for an advertising award, both of them are women and neither of them even work there anymore. A+.

all images from AMC.com

[zefrublog]

Mad Men - "The Collaborators" Recap

Erin Klingsberg

Well, I think it’s safe to say that this week’s Mad Men paled a bit in comparison to the symbolism packed premiere. This episode, entitled The Collaborators, followed up with Pete after we saw him at a devastating low last season, expanded upon Don’s affair with his doctor-neighbor-friend’s wife, and packed on Peggy’s new job woes.

While I thoroughly enjoy anything Peggy related, this week’s storyline for her reeked of conventionality. I mean, this is Peggy Olsen, deliverer of hand jobs to strangers in movie theaters and someone who yells at Don. She’s a boss now, and she’s a woman in a man's world and she's completely brilliant. But instead of respect, she gets a practical joke on her desk in the form of women’s deodorant powder for down there. Albeit, I love how she handles such situations. “Of course when I need them to be funny they’re useless”. She’s the best, isn’t she? But things get murkier when she accidentally relays some sensitive Sterling Cooper Draper Price information to her boss, who then sees an opportunity to snatch a client. Peggy protests, not wanting to betray Stan’s confidence or disrespect her former home of employment. But, as she’s aptly reminded, they are no longer her friends, but her enemies. Uh-oh, Peggy’s in a pickle. It’s realistic I suppose, but how boring! 

Meanwhile Pete and Trudy Campbell host a dinner party with neighbors, and the two blonde wives ridiculously hit on Pete while the two husbands ridiculously hit on Trudy. It ever amazes me how Pete Campbell has SO much game. I mean he has game to the point where it’s kind of ridiculous, right? Regardless, these women throw themselves at him under the pretense of Broadway tickets he can arrange for them, and don’t forget he weaseled his way into that apartment in the city! If this weren’t a show about ad executives in the 1960’s this entire plot would read like a Criminal Minds episode. But, I’m being too hard on Pete. See, I love Pete. I think he’s one of the most intriguing, entertaining and dynamic male characters on the show. He’s too easily written off as the one to hate, but the subtleties of his character are then lost. So, when one of the neighbor-wives comes to his bachelor-pad abode in Manhattan and they get down and dirty, his brushing off of her plans for future trysts can be overlooked as classic, terrible Pete.

But this is Mad Men and everything matters, and lest we forget Pete’s heart was broken last season by Beth, and I would wager he doesn’t want to get emotionally attached to a neighbor’s wife again. Maybe, even, he can't. Is he just going through the motions at this point? It's uncomfortable but a little sad until his cold shouldering of the whole matter comes to kick him in the face as neighbor-wife appears screaming and banging at the Campbell’s door, her face bloodied from a domestic disturbance with her husband. He knows, of course. And Pete knows he knows. And hell if he isn’t trying his darnedest to keep the lid on the debacle in front of Trudy. As it turns out, neighbor-wife seems all kinds of crazy, whispering to Pete that she wants to be with him, and he reels. Though, is this how he was with Beth last season? He doesn’t have the self-awareness to ponder such an idea, so he elegantly panics in only the fashion that Pete Campbell can.

Anyway, like I said, Pete endlessly entertains me, but in comparison to his arc last season, this storyline again seemed a rather conventional route to take, if not for his last scene with Trudy. For years we’ve watched the wondrous Alison Brie play Trudy as the perfect 1950’s era housewife with a sliver of know-all underneath. And as she proved over and over again to be too kind and too lovely, Pete proved over and over that he neither loved nor respected her very much. And this made Trudy seem like a fool in the eyes of the audience. Betty could see through Don, why not Trudy through Pete? And then she unleashes fire and brimstone upon him in the breakfast room. It’s surprising, but not at all unwelcome. In fact, my heart swelled and I fought of the urge to cheer. Trudy revealed that she’s always known of his philandering, but that she expected discreteness in exchange for her never saying no to anything. And no, Pete, moving to the suburbs and building a pool doesn’t count. See, Trudy has been playing a shrewd game this entire time. A calculating game to get what she wants from a sham marriage. But he’s gone too far with someone from the neighborhood, and she declares the marriage over. He asks if she really wants a divorce, but Trudy won't be a failure. She gives him guidelines regarding how to conduct their sham marriage from now on, concluding that, “If you so much as open your fly to urinate, I will destroy you. Do you understand?” Understood, queen Trudy. And she officially wins this episode of Mad Men: Which Woman is More Awesome Than the Men?

And with a groan I sadly leave my unconditional love for Trudy paragraph to start on Don’s story of the episode, which I would usually eat right up, but for some reason, like the others of the hour, left me pretty hollow. Framed with a quick two-scene flashback in which his pregnant mother takes him to a relative’s whorehouse to stay and ends with a young Dick Whitman peeping through the keyhole to witness the head rooster having sex with his pregnant mother, I think it’s safe to say that Don’s ideas about sex and prostitution stem from not understanding the difference at a very young age. His affair with Sylvia Rosen unfolds, and in a very uncomfortably unexplained moment, he gives her cash after they’ve copulated and he gets ready to head to work. Neither party treats it with any importance, it's completely nonchalant, and Dr. Rosen had just complained about having to keep giving his wife money. But regardless if it is meant as innocent walking around money, they had sex and there is an exchange of cash, and it’s weird. Prostitution weird, which is of course the next installment in Don’s ever miserable life: a serial.

This storyline is complex though, and however frustrating, warrants digging in. Megan reveals to Sylvia that she has suffered a miscarriage, and that Don didn’t even know she was pregnant. Next, Megan bails on a couples dinner and Dr. Rosen is called to surgery, leaving Don and Sylvia effectively on a date. Sylvia is clearly shaken, having to face their affair in reality, and not just in her maid’s bedroom. However, Don is perfectly happy to continue with dinner as planned, to wine and dine her, with the looming knowledge that they are totally going to do it after. At her hesitation, he gives her the classic Don Draper pitch speech. The bottom line: either way this ends with her dress off. She acquiesces to a rushed dinner, after which he obliges her with the sex she wants. And here we have the rub. Sylvia is the one using Don as an object of pleasure, and not necessarily the other way around. Don, ever the conquistador, has strange and complicated reasons as to why he engages in the affairs he does, and while sex is the bottom line, when he is faced with the fact that no, Sylvia doesn’t exactly want to interact with him alone in a social setting, he is reduced to one thing. Let’s face it, he thinks of himself as a gigolo, only good for one thing, and that’s sex. 

It kind of slaps us in the face as he slumps against the wall outside of his apartment and a lovely old-timey song about being a gigolo plays over and into the closing credits. I guess it should be really interesting that we’re discovering deeply rooted sexual neuroses, misconceptions and misplaced correlations about him, as it destroys the shallowly painted picture of an Alpha male who sleeps around just because. It is, but I don’t know, maybe I was let down after how much I dug the age and death themes of the premiere.

Of course, Matt Weiner’s proclivity for prostitution metaphors, or prostitution in the literal sense, is nothing new. In fact, one could see Don Draper as a prostitute doing his everyday job. He’s good at what he does, but at the end of the day he is still forced to cater to demanding clients and their expectations and desires. They pay him for his performance, and disregard Don the artist, Don the thinker, Don the innovator because all they want at the end of the day is to pay him for his work. Don’s interactions with clients may be one of my favorite things about the show, and his saccharine sabotage of the Jaguar pimp’s “suggestion” that he crassly force fed Don and his team was a delight to watch. The very man that forced the company to prostitute Joan to him in order to get his account now tries to finagle more from Sterling Cooper Draper Price, as if the entire company were his personal whore. Don’s overindulgence of his terrible idea to push local ads over a national campaign leaves the Jaguar guys feeling not so great about their car being thrown to the commoners to push sales, rather than a luxury vehicle. So, Don’s small victory at the office allows him his dignity in the professional realm, which is great because it’s not very present anywhere else. 

images from slate.com, tvfilmnews.com, pandawhale.com