Mad Men Roundtable – “The Summer Man”
Don and Faye go to dinner, and he has had more dates in this episode than I have had during the current Presidential Administration. As they talk, Faye invokes the old Aesop’s Fable about the wind and the sun, which is a nice parallel to the way Peggy and Joan handle the Joey situation. However, I think there’s more and I can’t quite get to it. This is a weird fable, because the implication is that the wind has no idea how it actually affects people. It’s a ridiculous wager! I think the point we’re supposed to get is how self-delusion (“If I make it cold, he’ll take off his coat!”) gets exposed in the end. I’m not looking at a literal reading of the fable here – I think they’re going deeper.
I just rewatched this episode during its rerun on AMC Sunday mornings – the first time I saw it, I noted that it was the first time “Mad Men” ended with the credits rolling but no music playing over them. I wondered if there was something particular in the episode that made it special (like the silent clock in “24”). However, I wasn’t certain, so I’d be interested in hearing what you or other readers have to say about the matter.