Also, just a hair under six months have passed since the first episode of the season took place on Valentine’s Day
What am I going to do? …If I don’t go into that office, every day …what am I going to do?
– Freddy Rumsen
You’ve got to listen closely and pay attention. What’s Mad Men’s and Matt Weiner’s angle, here? Are they trying to make this show political, philosophical, spiritual, or is that simply a byproduct of amazing storytelling? Is Mad Men, this episode in particular, knowingly self-reflective in that the “characters” created on the show are representing “characters” we all play in real life. We all have our roles. Be it husband, wife, secretary, Creative Director, Pastor, mother, or sex-symbol. Freddy’s back-alley revelation is the first time anyone on the show has given voice to the self-doubt we see written across all their confused, conflicted faces (unless you count Pete Campbell when he asked how to feel upon learning about his father’s death). What creates depth in each character on Mad Men is their obvious pain and hurt that bubbles and boils just below their surfaces.
Mad Men represents the early infancy of the ‘ad game’. These were pre-Beatle years. The first Super Bowl wouldn’t be played for 5 more years. People only got 1 or 2 catalogs to their homes in any given year (I got 5, just today). Sure, there was mass-marketing, but it wasn’t to the level we have today (experts say you and I are exposed to nearly 3,000 ad messages in a single day). It was a simpler time, or so we think. Mad Men, similarly, is the early 1960s as we’ve all come to understand it from legend and lore. In the early 1960s, people (especially men) didn’t talk about their feelings, their fears, or their failures. Talk to anyone from the era and they’ll tell you …you knew your role, you played it well, and you kept your mouth shut.
Men were men. Business was business.
Don’t think of it as an ending. Think of it as a new beginning.
-Don Draper to Freddy Rumsen
If only it were that easy. Just ask Duck.
Seems to me, these characters live their lives like candles in the wind. Not knowing who to cling to when the rain sets in. Their lonliness seems awfully tough …the toughest role they play. Now …who does that sound like?
