Mad Men Roundtable – “The Summer Man”

“We’re flawed because we want so much more. We’re ruined because we get these things and wish for what we had.” This is a fantastic line, and it sums up so much about the show. But the interesting thing is that it doesn’t apply to Don. He didn’t lose his family because of his ambition – he lost them because he was a terrible husband who married an unstable woman. His career didn’t drive them apart. His inability to be faithful and Betty’s desire to be touched by strangers did. This is something that Don needs to believe because it takes the blame off of him. You know, achieving your dreams can destroy your life and all – if that’s true of all people, then it’s true of him and his current state is inevitable. But Don is “ruined” because he makes bad decisions and has poor self-control. And it doesn’t need to be this way. Don can have whatever he wants, and he can be whoever he wants. He started over once, and he’s in the perfect position to do it again. If he wants to be Dick Whitman, he can go back to selling cars and jettisoning everything in his life that makes him miserable, but he’s never going to do that. This line is Don reaching for something universal, even if it doesn’t apply to him. It’s the Kodak Carousel pitch all over again – a beautiful appeal to honor the past made by a man who actively avoids his own.