We all want to see a huge family sitting around a long dining room table, in a warm cozy living room, with smiles on everyone’s faces as Grand Dad carves the turkey.
I go so hot and cold on the characters on this show. For the first two seasons, I thought Pete Campbell was despicable. Now, he’s my favorite guy on the show. His only flaws are his crazy brother and family, and inability to leave a marriage he loathes. I wish he had been in this episode.
And what’s up with brothers on this show? They ruin everything.
EJ
Nobody can ever accuse Mad Men of stagnation – this episode opened an almost literal Pandora’s Box, and there’s no way to go back to the way things were. Betty finding that key? That’s huge – it’s a game changer. In its way, it’s as significant as the flash-forward at the end of Season Three of Lost. This throws everything into disarray, and you’ve got to be impressed that Matt Weiner went for it. It’s almost like he’s trying to actively sidestep any criticism people had of The Sopranos. Too many dangling plot threads with no pay off? Oh, we’ve got your resolution right here. Usually within about three episodes, there’s some degree of follow-up to any meaningful scene or interaction. Long tangents on characters we’ll never see again? Not a problem here! Heck, that seemingly throwaway scene with Conrad Hilton all those weeks back turned out to be huge. Long waits between seasons? Nope, Weiner’s bringing you a new season every summer. By Season Three, David Chase was already about two years behind on Sopranos. And heck, he ended Season Three by focusing almost entirely on the minor (and inconsequential) Jackie Jr. What are the odds that this season’s Mad Men finale is going to be an all-Francine Hanson extravaganza?
This week had some nice, small moments surrounding the big events. I liked Miss Farrell asking Don if he ever feels bad about what he does. I think we’ve mentioned this before, but the general public was contemptuous of ad men back then, and we’ve seen a lot of that this season. To me, it’s kind of funny that her implied attitude is that he should feel guilty. There they are, engaging in an extramarital affair, but it’s that Kodak ad he should really feel sorry about.
And while I have more to say about Miss Farrell, I think it’s worth noting that Betty had her own Great Moment in Passive-Aggressive Bitchiness. When Sally asks why they don’t go to church more often, comparing them to weekly attendee Carla (who is standing right there), Betty responds “We don’t need to go to church every week.” The clear implication, intended or not, is that Carla does, in fact, need to go to church every week. She turns a perfectly innocent question into an assertion of her own superiority. There’s a reason why you can’t completely feel sorry for Betty when Don is awful to her, and this is it.
Anyway, back to Miss Farrell. (Does she have a first name yet? Even if she did, I probably wouldn’t use it.) This week’s episode introduced her down-on-his-luck, epileptic brother, and this is one of the things I really like about Mad Men. We’ve seen Miss Farrell to this point as flaky and erratic. But now we know that she’s supporting her brother, which requires a lot of sacrifice on her part, and that gives her a dignity that she didn’t have before. It’s the flipside of the “Who is Don Draper?” question that forms the spine of the series – no matter how well you know somebody, there’s more to them than you realize. And sometimes those things make them more admirable, interesting, and maybe even heroic.
There’s something very sad to her now – Miss Farrell clearly believes that she’s the great love of Don’s life. (Witness their scene on the train.) We know full well that she’s just another in a line of long-term affairs for Don. In fact, she doesn’t even challenge him in the ways that Rachel Mencken or Bobbi Barrett did. This will not end well, and it’s going to destroy her. And for the first time, I’m really sad about that.
Paul and Peggy get a nice storyline this week – I love that Paul thinks Peggy is Don’s favorite, and she’s pretty sure that he actually hates her. See, I don’t think Don would take the time to tell Paul why he was disappointed in him. He’s just cut him to shreds with a well-timed comment, or worse, just cast that withering stare at him. Don really does interact with Peggy in a way that he doesn’t afford the other writers. And anybody who writes can sympathize with Paul’s predicament – when you have that brilliant idea but you lose it in the light of day. I was actually yelling at him to write it down, but he ignored me. (Who wants to bet that Paul’s idea was “Flaming globes of Sigmund”?) It was nice to sympathize with Paul and not be irritated by his fake Socialism.
And who says you can’t write something timely for a series set 46 years ago? With Sterling Cooper back on the market again, their jobs are in just as much jeopardy as most of ours. Poor Bert’s shown nothing but regret ever since the initial sale, and to be put on the block, rather than simply entertaining an offer, is going to put him through hell. Man, I hate those London guys. At first I was impressed by Lane Pryce’s seemingly sympathetic attitude, but then I remembered that he was scheduled to ship out to Bombay right up until the lawnmower incident. Once they unload Sterling-Cooper, Lane is going to be on the first boat over.
But the big event has to be Betty finding Don’s key and unlocking the drawer. Last week I said that Don was acting like a guy who wanted to get caught, and then after years of successfully staying hidden he leaves the mystery key in the laundry. Funny how that happened. (Unless the implication is that this has happened before, but Betty never acted on it.) I didn’t realize (or remember, maybe) that Don was keeping stacks of cash in his Secret Drawer – is that in case he has to beat a hasty retreat? Is he actually hedging his bets in case he has to start over once again? Regardless, this is a major change in the series – Betty knows the name “Dick Whitman” now, and she knows that there’s an Anna Draper out in California. I think, because Don didn’t come home the night of the discovery, that Betty will sit on this information rather than confronting him. She’ll use it to internally justify her own misdeeds, and she’s going to act on all those impulses that she barely suppresses. Either way, their relationship will never go back to what it was.
Before I drink myself to sleep on the couch, I just want to make a couple of predictions. The mysterious phone call to the Draper residence? I don’t think either Miss Farrell or Henry would lie about making the call. I think it was either Anna Draper or Sal who called. And for either of them to call Don at home, they would have to be in real trouble. Also, I think Sal is going to end up going over to Duck Phillip’s firm. Even if Duck knows he’s gay, I don’t see that being an issue. He’s so eager to snap up Sterling-Cooper talent that he wouldn’t care. And besides, Sal is actually really good at his job, and with a couple of directing gigs under his belt, he’s a very appealing prospect.
Three episodes left this season! I expect to have my heart broken at least a dozen times over the course of those episodes.
MYNDI
A few bits of housekeeping. To answer EJ’s question, Miss Farrell’s first name is Suzanne. And, in a note that perhaps only I will find amusing, I managed to see the actor who plays Powell, Charles Shaughnessy, on two shows in one night. In addition to his appearance on Mad Men, he was on Sunday’s brand new episode of Hannah Montana! Very jarring for me.
I’m not sure where the story with Miss Farrell is going. She is looking like a bit of a “bunny boiler”, what with the way she wanted Don to meet her brother and then stalked him onto the train during his morning commute. Then again, she’s also quite obviously the product of an unusual upbringing and someone who may share more in common with Dick Whitman than even he realizes yet. Plus, she has a wayward brother that Don may be able to help down the line as a way to sublimate his guilt for driving his own brother to hang himself. He does seem very comfortable and cozy in her bed, and it’s been a long time since Don has seemed so relaxed. You know what happens when people are relaxed? They let their guard down, and do silly things, like leaving keys to secret drawers in the pocket of their robe.
I wonder if Betty has any concept of how deep Don’s box of secrets really goes. She can’t, can she? All she can truly be angry about is the betrayal of Don evidently having been previously married. Is there any chance he’ll be able to spin things so as explain away Anna Draper and everything else in that box without his world being destroyed? And how awesome would it be if EJ’s theory were true and it was Anna who called?
I’m fascinated to see how the impending sale of Sterling Cooper might impact our whole crew, and if it might drive Bert Cooper off the deep end altogether. He can go hang out with Roger’s mother, who didn’t know the Waldorf had moved (which, apparently happened many, many years before 1963), or who the hell Jane was, for that matter. Roger’s speech about Don was the very definition of why and how he is who he is; he’s able to seem like he loves someone he now loathes and really sell it.
Paul was being such a jerk to Peggy. In the end, you would think he’d be happy their brainstorming session yielded something so solid; and was truly collaborative. He’s in even bigger trouble than he seems if he feels he has to come up with every idea on his own. I wasn’t sure when we left them that he realized how fortunate he was, or if he was still stewing; which has always been Paul’s biggest problem. That and Lois being his secretary. How the hell does the woman who ran over a PPL executive’s foot still have her job at Sterling Cooper?
It’s interesting how really hateful the writers now seem to be making Don to as many audience segments as possible. Last week, there was the whole “you people” comment about homosexuals, and now, any woman who could look past his philandering and still be charmed by the man, has to take exception with how stupid he thinks women are. During Paul’s Aquanet pitch, he objected to the narrative mostly because he felt every “and then” gave the ladies at home an opportunity to misunderstand. Yes, Don, all women are so bubbleheaded that we can’t follow the storyline of a 30 second ad.
And, now, we’re back at the beginning, aren’t we? See you all next week!
