Time and Horizons

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Mad Men Season 8: New Business

What does it take to get past the beginning?

Mad Men Season 8: Severance

The final stretch has begun, but as always, there's hurdles in the way.

Mad Men Season Seven: Waterloo

It feels like the end, but what does that mean?

Mad Men Season 7: The Strategy and a Little Runaways

This week's episode of Mad Men operated at the highest level possible.

Mad Men Season Seven: Time Zones

It's the beginning of the end, which means things are as they always have been.

Puddles of My Mad Men Season Six: "In Care Of"

On the truth, improvement and more James Salter.

Puddles of My Mad Men Season Six: "A Quality of Mercy"

On chameleons, the soul, and learning from history.

Puddles of My Mad Men Season Six: "A Tale of Two Cites"

On living, dying and the James Salter bandwagon.

Puddles of My Mad Men Season Six: "The Crash"

Amphetamines, Finnegan's Wake and knowing what's good.

Puddles of My Mad Men Season Six: "For Immediate Release"

Fate, opportunity and a Swedish twentysomething.

Puddles of My Mad Men Season Six: "The Doorway"

Matt Domino's Mad Men recaps return.

Puddles of My Mad Men: "Mystery Date"

Stifling New Jersey holiday traffic may have delayed Matt Domino's weekly "Mad Men" review, but you can bet that it was worth the wait.

Puddles of My Mad Men: A Little Kiss

 Matt Domino wrote a review of the season premiere of Mad Men, "A Little Kiss" for the Montreal Review and he wants to provide a link as well as get more traffic for Puddles of Myself.

Tomorrow Never Knows

In my review of “Blowing Smoke” last week I made a point of stating that the lead up to the finale of Mad Men lacked the usual feel of a contained “triptych” of episodes that typically brings each season to an end. After last night’s finale, “Tomorrowland,” that observation still holds true.  “Chinese Wall,” “Blowing Smoke,” and “Tomorrowland” all had one similarity, which was the financial struggles of SCDP after losing Lucky Strike, but there was little else uniting each episode besides that fact – little else meaning that strange episodic feeling the last three episodes of a Mad Men season usually give us, which is not a feeling of contrivance but rather of an order or organization that organically leads to the revelations that are unfolded at the season’s conclusion.  This season, each of the final three episodes was its own unique beast.  Plenty of conflicts related to the future of SCDP were raised, but the actions and subplots around those conflicts seemed to be operating in completely different orbits.  Perhaps this is why the past few episodes of Mad Men left me more disoriented than any other stretch of episodes have.  This is not to say it the feeling of disorientation is something bad – in fact I have enjoyed these last few episodes and this entire season because interpreting and experiencing all of the actions has been so challenging – but rather something different than I am used to feeling at the end of a Mad Men season. Regardless of this sensation, the narrative of Season 4 left me in great anticipation of where the finale would leave us in the story.

The main topic of discussion from “Tomorrowland” was obviously the shocking decision that Don made to marry his secretary Megan.  We all know that Don had slept with Megan in “Chinese Wall” but had kept it a secret from Faye and had seemed to move forward in “Blowing Smoke” with Faye as his girlfriend since they no longer had a “work” relationship and could explore their romance out in the open.  However, “Blowing Smoke” presented us with the images of Don walking comfortably down the hall with Megan holding coffee, Megan telling Don she understood his intent when he took out the ad in the New York Times and of course the image of Don and Faye in the conference room with Megan sitting at her desk in the background, positioned so she appeared to be right in between them.  It turns out that meaningful look that Don took at Megan at the end of “Chinese Wall” actually meant something and that Megan positioned between Faye and Don represented the fact that Megan was on Don’s mind, much as she was on the mind of the viewer – does he really like Faye or is there something there with Megan?  Well, as Don said to Megan (and as he once said so earnestly to Miss Farrell) there was something there with Megan because he “couldn’t stop thinking about her.” I am not involved with the television world at all but I have seen and personally heard quite a few complaints about Don’s decision (the second most debated decision of the year behind Lebron’s Decision) already.  The reaction to Don’s choice to marry Megan is justified, but we should look at it step by step over the course of the episode.

We know that Don has slept with Megan and that he may or may not have some kind of growing feelings for her.  However, he still seems committed to Faye if not completely giving himself over (although, when does Don ever do this?) to their relationship.  “Tomorrowland” starts with Faye giving Don advice about taking his head out of the sand about the past.  Don replies stubbornly that it isn’t that easy to do so.  Faye tells him that if he confronts the past, it may make dealing with his present easier and he can be “stuck trying to be a human being like the rest of us.” This again is not something that is easy for Don Draper to do since he has spent much of his adult life trying to be separate from the rest of the humans around him, to maintain his secrecy and in being removed, able to comment or decide what it is exactly that other humans are after, which is really what it is that he is after, what he is missing.  Again, Faye has presented Don with a bit of truth about himself and about life, which is what makes her attractive to him.  So, he tells her that he might miss her when she’s gone and we believe him.

However, at work, after his successful meeting with the American Cancer Society, Betty calls Don to tell him that she fired Carla.  This is important for a variety of reasons (one of the obvious ones being Betty’s mistreatment of Carla), but mostly because Don is going to California for meetings and is going to bring the kids and he needed Carla’s help for “diapers!?” In trying to find a solution, Don propositions Megan to come along.  Remembering Megan’s heroics in “Beautiful Girls,” Don tells Megan she’ll be perfect because “Sally loved you, Bobby likes a pretty face and the baby (wave of the hand).”  Megan accepts and we groan as viewers because this isn’t going to end well.  In California, Don takes the kids to Anna’s old house and admits a slight bit of his past to them, that his nickname is “sometimes Dick.”  The house of the real Don Draper is being sold – symbolically it is no longer a part of Don/Dick’s life anymore.  That place of solace is now gone just as Anna herself is gone.

Meanwhile, when Don and Sally and Bobby back at the hotel, Megan is a beautiful vision of youth with her large sunglasses on as she wades in the pool in the sun as she keeps Baby Gene occupied. The kids beg Don to get in the pool but he uses his usual excuse by telling everyone he is tired and retreats to his room.  While Don is there, he sits on the bed alone, hunched over in thought as we have seen him so many times.  In this instance, he decides to leave the room and go back out into the sun with his family.  Don jumps into the pool and throws Bobby over his head into the deep end with a sense of joy and freedom that we don’t normally see from Don.  Later that evening, Megan goes out with her “college friend” as she leaves with her friend they both look at Don sitting on the bed with his kids in a great snapshot of domesticity. Don loves his kids and has admitted to his struggles in spending time with them since the divorce, but here it seems like he is learning and perhaps it is the influence of this young girl who so openly welcomes and seems to love the children.

When Megan returns from her night out, Don is still up and restless.  He goes over to her room to talk.  She invites him in and they go out onto the balcony and Don tells her that he loves her teeth and that he’s been “thinking about her so much.”  They sleep together and then in the pillow talk afterward, Don admits that he came over because he had to see her and he asks her if she envisioned their sleeping together happening when he asked her to come.  Megan admits she had thought about it and Don tells her he wants to know if this will be an ongoing thing. “We’ll be with each other all day.” She tells him.

Then, they are all at the Howard Johnson’s and Sally spills her milkshake and, in one of the best moments of the series, everyone cringes and gets ready to explode, as things would have happened in the past with Betty at the table. However, Megan is calm and tells everyone that she has brought extra dresses to wear.  The look that Don, Sally and Bobby all exchange is priceless. This, as many have remarked is the key to Don’s final decision to marry Megan because all of a sudden the scene cuts to New York with Don waking Megan up on his apartment to propose to her.  Don is extremely excited and can barely contain himself.  He even says that they will tell everyone at the office, which they do to mixed reactions.  The episode now famously ends with Don and Megan lying in bed. Megan is sleeping while Don is awake looking out the window while “I Got You, Babe” plays.

That was the decision, now we have to look at the nature of Don.  When Don has to call it off with Faye on the phone after his engagement, she tells him that she hopes this new woman “knows that [you] only like the beginnings of things.”  This is not only a true statement for Don but for most people in general. The beginning of romance is always the most exciting. When things get complicated and the true nature of the shape of the relationship, the imperfections come to light, we often want to run away; we want that first impalpable sensation to come burning back deep within us.  The complicated aspects of a relationships are often what makes a relationship true or worth having because it forces you to challenge yourself and not just get by on your charms or your comfort zone – a good relationship finds you trying to change and compromise since you are interacting with the desires and wishes of another human being.  Faye has always challenged Don.  She has met him at every turn intellectually (and by all accounts physically).  Faye knows Don on a fundamental level and perhaps Faye is exactly what Don needs in order to successfully move forward, to reconcile the disparate parts of his past into one person in the present.  However, Don has always looked for a figure that will comfort him as well.  Like Anna Draper, Megan can comfort Don.  She soothes him about his problems in “Chinese Wall.”  She tells him how great his ad is in “Blowing Smoke.”  In “Tomorrowland” she tells him how he is a good person and how she admires his desire to try to do better and to try to change.  She says all this without knowing anything about his past.  There is a strange and large dose of unconditional love in Megan’s relationship with Don and as a viewer we are not sure of it.  In many ways, though, it echoes the viewer’s relationship to Don.  Faye knows Don’s past, which makes her slightly dangerous to him, makes her slightly unattractive.  Megan knows who he is now and who he can try to become. The viewer is a combination of Megan and Faye.  We know all the things that Don has done and we know how he has tried to change and how much he desires to change but always seems to fail to do so. Megan knows nothing about the failures, but Faye does.  We always want Don to come out on top. Why, though? I’m sure many people have asked that, but in all seriousness, why do we want him to succeed?  Its because there is always an element of Megan in all of us, that desire to look past flaws and imperfections to allow people to change – there is a certain unconditional love that we feel for Don Draper.  We don’t completely understand why Megan feels it and we don’t completely understand why we feel it.  This raises a very strange and unique relationship with a character because unconditional love is only supposed to arise within the parameters of one’s family or through a relationship of “true love” with another person (though, many would argue that Peggy and Don have reached a point of unconditional love as well).  We ultimately want to see Don happy for whatever reason.  We would like him to figure himself out the correct way, but there was something utterly strange and intoxicating about seeing him so happy with Megan, seeing the intimacy of their pillow talk in the hotel.  It was a baffling emotion to have for a fictional character, which is why I enjoyed the episode so much.  It not only made me question this emotion but it also made me think about those people we meet and form relationships with, the people who know us but who we ultimately can’t be with for whatever the reason.  And yet, there are other people who don’t know us yet but love us anyway.  There is a skepticism that we should feel because these people don’t know us, how could they love us?  Don does not feel this skepticism because Megan seems to unconditionally love him.  There is no challenge.  Don can be who he always wanted to be, as he tells Megan.  There is a fine line there between what is right for each person and each instance.  Do we want someone who is willing to look at the best in us, to put faith in us no matter what or do we want someone who will challenge us while still loving us for who we are.  So perhaps this sort of muddled line of thinking is what is keeping Don up at night when he faces the reality of his situation and that perhaps he only does just like beginnings.  Perhaps he is thinking of that strange interaction with Betty in the empty kitchen of their old home in Ossining.

Meanwhile, there were plenty of other tremendous moments.  Peggy and Cosgrove team up to land the first account that SCDP has gotten since Lucky Strike left; Cosgrove tells the partners that his fiancée is his “life, life” and that he can never be Pete Campbell, doing whatever it takes to get an account; Henry tells Betty that “no one is on her side” and that “there is no fresh start, lives carry on,” which are two truths that were always unspoken on this show; and Joan was pregnant all along just like I predicted.

The moment between Joan and Peggy was also one of those classic Mad Men payoffs.  These two women have butted heads throughout each season of Mad Men.  There have been times when you though they might break the barrier and show some camaraderie or share an intimate moment.  That never occurred until last night when Peggy storms into Joan’s office after she finds out that Don is engaged to Megan.  Don had just told Peggy that Megan reminded him of her; that they had the same “spark.”  Peggy tells him that she hopes he’s happy, but you can see her disappointment.  She has just landed an account and once again, Don has taken the attention from her.  She’s grown past that, but now that she and Don have reached a certain level in their relationship, she definitely expects more from him as a mentor, friend and confidant.  There may even be that twinge of jealousy when someone we are friends with seems so happy in a relationship while we are still left figuring out why we can’t be happy as well.  Peggy goes to Joan for comfort.  They smoke cigarettes and complain about the firm, about the men that are still keeping them down.  There is a great air of intimacy and we have waited to see these two characters share the screen in this way, but there is also an element of cheapness to the scene – it feels petty.  We don’t want to see these two women acting this away alone and especially not together.  However, maybe we have to allow them this moment.

I briefly mentioned Don and Betty’s “meeting” in the Ossining house.  Betty has planned to meet Don when he shows up to meet the listing agent.  She fixes herself up in her pocket mirror before Don comes in. When he does come in, she laughs at him grabbing the bottle of rye he had hidden in the kitchen cabinet.  They share the liquor out of a big yellow mug and she looks longingly at him, which is fantastic acting by January Jones.  She is a woman who knows Don’s past and she has started to realize that she perhaps misses what she threw away and didn’t understand.  There is no clean start.  Don may be on his way to finding this out in the next season and we may be able to point to this somewhat warm and vaguely intimate moment between he and Betty as leading to that eventual recognition, that look of him awake at night while Megan is sleeping on his chest.

Many people expected the season finale to involve Don landing some new business or a big new account that would save the company, but that wouldn’t have made sense. It wouldn’t have made sense, fiscally, for the company to rely on another big account and it wouldn’t have made sense for the season to wrap that conflict up so easily.  Last year we were left on the precipice of the new agency.  Even though Sterling Cooper had ended, there was a sense of unresolve due to the agency starting and Don moving into his new apartment alone.  Why should this season have been any different? Peggy has landed new business and it looks like SCDP will get the American Cancer account and then perhaps a few other leads off that.  The firm will survive.  Perhaps they won’t prosper, but they will continue on. 

The season finale had me thinking about what Matthew Weiner said in an interview, that this season was about Don figuring out his identity after his constructed world had fallen apart.  He hoped that by the end, people would see the journey he went on this season to finding out who he is.  By the end of this season, every piece of the life Don once had is either literally or figuratively gone: Anna Draper, Anna’s home in California, the Ossining home, Sterling Cooper.  Don is moving on. Perhaps he will not prosper and will come to regret tossing off Faye who could have been the one person that might have saved him.  But often times, the person who can save us is the person we overlook or the person we avoid because we don’t want to face ourselves.  Don has faced many truths this season and has begun to resolve his split identity.  Perhaps the season finale represents a step back in that regard, but Don is moving forward, he is continuing on.  And once again, as in life, we have no idea what is going to happen.

The Women of Mad Men

We had planned to have a guest column up today, but some extenuating circumstances have prevented that.  So, in lieu of those circumstances, you will get a little more of my athletic and fantastic prose.

Now that the Fourth Season of Mad Men is wrapping up, it seems like a good place to do a bit of inventory on one of the most appealing aspects of the show – the women. Through four seasons we have seen a variety of different women enter the story, leave the story and remain focal parts of the story.  Without a doubt, each woman that has been a part of the Mad Men universe has brought her own virtues and vices; from Betty’s icy beauty, to Joan’s full figured intuition and Ms. Farrell’s all around dreaminess.  In the end, we can usually say one thing about the women of Mad Men – they are all astoundingly beautiful (yes, even Ms. Blankenship).  I will disappoint many of you now: Sally Draper is not on this list as she is a little girl and not a “woman.” So now, as one of the most famous Mad Men pontificators, I find that it is my duty to give you the Top 10 Women of Mad Men.  Another list in a growing history of stupid lists.

10.   Trudy Campbell – As I was creating this list one of the strangest placement issues came when I tried to fit Trudy Campbell into the equation.  I almost had her in a  much more prominent spot but then had to bring her down to ten after considering some of the other women and their placement in the show.  I’ll point how far she almost jumped later.  Trudy Campbell, though, is a bit of an underrated character.  In the early seasons, she came off as shrill and annoying.  However, as the series has gone on, she has become perhaps the one reliable woman on the show.  She always values family and has Pete’s back, even after he cheated on her with the German au pair in Season 3.  Even though Pete cheated on her, she saw how much he actually needed her and will always need her.  She has become a very strong and sympathetic character.  Also, she is foxy as hell even when she is pregnant and her belly is ridiculous.  I dare you to find a sexier moment than in Season 1, when Trudy and Pete have pillow talk and Trudy moans “Oh, Peter.”  Always want to hear a woman sound like that.

9. Megan – Now, I know a lot of you out there may be saying, “Hold on, Domino. She was only in Season 4 and she slept with Don. There is no way she is better than Trudy.  She shouldn’t even be in the Top 10. She’s not better than Ms. Blankenship. Plus she has bad teeth.” To which I’d respond, “OK, give me some time to explain and don’t pile on your reasoning, I’m trying to eat here!”  Megan does have bad teeth, but in the sexiest, most French way possible.  I have to say, she is right up my alley.  We don’t know how the last episode will play out yet, but as of now she is rising up the chart.  She has a fantastic resume of: being oblivious to Joyce’s lesbian advances, being nice to Peggy in the bathroom, comforting Sally Draper (which is like averaging a near double-double for a season), making bold, thought provoking comments to Don Draper (this helped Dr. Faye Miller’s stock) and having sex with Don.  Megan came out of nowhere in “Chinese Wall” to rise to this spot and after her understanding of Don’s bold New York Times ad, it seems like she may be hanging around or moving further up the ladder in the near future.

8. Joan Harris – I think this might be the most shocking pick of all to some of you.  Men love Joan’s curves and beautiful face.  Women like her shapely body as an antithesis to toothpick thin models. Women also like her strong attitude and are sympathetic to her because of the terrible husband she ended up with.  However, Joan just doesn’t do it for me in several ways.  Her looks are not totally up my alley (listen to my podcast and you’ll know I prefer brunettes to red heads) and I think as far as her character goes she is definitely lacking in a few areas.  She has remained too stuck in the methods of the 50’s and the “old” ways of women exerting their power.  Don’t get me wrong, using curves and sex appeal will always give a woman the upper hand on a man, but ideally a woman would not completely rely on those tactics.  Now, of course Joan’s tactics were born out of a certain era, but it would be nice to see her evolve and perhaps accept some more of the changing dynamics welcome to women, rather than become frustrated at not being able to navigate them as she did with Peggy in “The Summer Man.”  Yet, she is the classic Mad Men woman in many ways: sexy, witty, tough and classy.  She’s had a highlight reel of lines as wells as hip swivels. I’ve got tough standards.

7. Jane Siegel – “WHAT?” That might be the consensus for all you Mad Men fans out there at seeing this placement.  Well, I’m sorry, but you need to listen to my podcast (Podcast of Myself Episode 16) to really understand that I very much prefer brunettes to red heads or blondes.  Now, it may be easy to overlook Jane Siegel at this point in the series.  She has become a trophy wife to Roger Sterling, a background character who we are not really sympathetic towards.  However, you have to remember when this handsome jewess first showed up on the show back in Season 2.  We were calling her the hottest Mad Men woman in history. Who can forget the episode when she showed up at the office after Memorial Day with the terrible sunburn? Or when she unbuttoned her sweater to distract all the guys? She masterly outmaneuvered Joan by having an affair with Roger and getting her job back after Joan fired her.  There are not many better looking Mad Men woman moments than when Jane was in her bathrobe in bed at the hotel with Roger at the end of Season 2. She may not be the most popular character these days, but you can’t argue that she is one of the finest looking women that has graced the screen in Mad Men.

6. Rachel Mencken – Speaking of handsome jewesses, Rachel Mencken practically invented the category.  She is something out of a Hemingway novel and if I had my way, she would definitely be in the Top Three.  However, I have to take all factors into account, including plausibility, so she hasn’t cracked the Top Five. Rachel Mencken was perhaps Don’s best match as a mistress.  She was a smart and savvy business woman, she was sensitive, she was intelligent, she was nurturing and she was tough.  And damn if she wasn’t sexy in some of those sleeping gowns she used to wear when Don would come over to her apartment, which was probably in some swanky Upper West Side building.  Rachel loved Don and she was the first one who was really able to coax out some moments of intimacy from him.  Unfortunately, when Don got panicked and went into Dick Whitman mode and asked Rachel to run away, she saw right through him and had to call off their affair as well as her direct dealings with him in business.  She later married Tilden Katz (not sure if there were any tie-ins to Katz’s Deli there) and ran into Don in a restaurant with Bobbi Barrett.  Don was dismayed for sure and later used the name Tilden Katz as his alias when he, Roger and Freddy Rumsen went gambling in “Six Month Leave” in Season Two.  Don could’ve been happy with Rachel Mencken.  They could have ordered great delivery quantities from Russ & Daughters and perhaps formed a great union.  Instead, their love was cut short.  They did have some steamy makeout scenes, though, I have to say.

5.  Midge – This character is fresh on a lot of our minds because she just reappeared in “Blowing Smoke,” although she was a bit worse for the wear.  However, Midge holds a special place in any Mad Men fan’s heart as she was Don’s first mistress. She is the founding father of Don’s extra-marital affairs and she set the tone for Don’s mistresses in opposition to Betty.  Midge was an artist who first hinted at the counter-culture changes that were to come in the 60’s.  She was slightly at odds with Don and his nonchalant nature with money as well as his failure to appreciate the bohemian culture.  In “The Hobo Code,” Midge was able to see from Don’s perspective that being a bohemian was just another way of viewing the world and buying products in that world – it was merely another way of branding oneself.  She understood that just as Don understood that she was in love with her bohemian friend and had to let her go (but first he gave her that $5,000.00 bonus check).  As we saw in “Blowing Smoke,” Midge held a special place in Don’s heart, although Don had to let her continue to go adrift with her heroin habit.  On a personal note, I like Midge because I am slightly in love with Rosemarie Dewitt, the actress who plays her; especially because of her stellar participation in an excellent episode of Wainy Days.

4. Betty Draper – She is perhaps the Queen Bee of all the Mad Men women.  Betty Draper is pitied and hated in equal doses by many viewers of the show.  I know women who have been very empathetic towards in the past (though Betty’s recent mistreatment of Sally has changed that) and those who are diametrically opposed to her entire disposition.  There is one constant, though: male viewers of Mad Men find her extraordinarily beautiful (“hot” would not do justice here).  Betty is a complicated character. She is a grown woman who went to a great school in Bryn Mawr, she was raised by a wealthy and classy family, yet she remains frustratingly childish. This could be because Don treated her as a façade of a woman – an image of the wife, rather than an actual partner.  However, we are seeing in Season 4 more than ever that Betty is in many ways a child.  She is constantly being asked what she wants, but she can never truly articulate it. Betty is coming close in certain respects to articulating her wants in this season, by telling Henry when he acts too much like Don, which is what she doesn’t want.  But she still remains far from a mature adult woman or a capable mother.  Some may want her moved down the list for how bad a mother she is, but we have to take the sex factor into account.  Betty is a proven sexpot as her fantasies and use of the drier have shown.  She looks sexy when her hair is frazzled (see middle of Season 2 breakdown) and who can deny how terrific she looked when she cheated on Don in “Meditations in an Emergency.”  Look, Betty Draper will always be a controversial character in the Mad Men universe; she is petulant, abrasive, coy and complicated.  What we can all agree on is that she is one damn beautiful woman with blonde hair.

3.  Peggy “Jimmy” Olsen – Peggy may be the consensus “favorite” woman of the Mad Men series and rightfully so.  Her character has progressed more over the past four seasons than any other female character on the show (Pete and Don being the exceptions, but they are male).  Peggy has moved from the innocent, meek and confused secretary of Season 1, to the poised copywriter and confidant/peer of Don Draper that she is in Season 4.  Now, of course Peggy has had her pratfalls in between: sleeping with Pete, being played by Pete, sleeping with Pete again,  listening to Pete’s story about hunting and having a woman cook his food, being played by Pete again, getting pregnant by Pete, looking terrible as a pregnant woman, giving her baby away, getting schooled by the priest, getting kicked around by Don, sleeping with Duck, having a loser fiancée, etc.   Despite all of this, Peggy has always proven resilient.  She knows how much talent she has and how much Don needs her.  She is a creative and forward thinking young woman who has proven that she knows not only a lot about advertising, but about human nature.  She still has a vulnerable/innocent side to her, but that ads to her charm as well as to her good looks.  There is a mixed opinion about whether or not Peggy is a babe or not.  Don told her in “The Suitcase” that she knows she’s cute and I’d have to agree. She has a unique look but always manages to pull it off.  She has gotten increasingly better looking as the seasons have gone on and she goes from innocent to seductive in a second, which is extremely sexy. Top Peggy Moments include: the way she looked when she told Pete about the baby, Peggy in the blue dress in Season 2, Peggy throughout Season 4.  Nothing trumps the way she looked and spoke in “The Suitcase,” when she was a vision of beauty, especially the way her eyes pierced when she was woken up on the couch by Stan and Joey and then with her tousled hair when Don touched her hand.  We all love Peggy and she is a babe.  The funny thing is, the future of the show definitely hinges on her in a huge way. Now that’s a woman.

2. Dr. Faye Miller – “C’mon, Domino,” you’re probably saying. “We thought that you loved brunettes so much! How’s a blonde going to get the number two slot? And a blonde that’s a new character at that?”  If that’s what you’re saying, then you probably need to get a life and to get off my back. I know these lists are entertaining, but enough already.  You also need to pay attention, because Faye Miller is a babe.  She talks tough with her New York accent.  She had us thinking she was Italian but it turns out that she was secretly Jewish all along.  Her father may or may not be in the mob. She is a perceptive accomplished career woman who apparently has “the softest” skin and who likes to have loud sex.  By every account she is in the upper echelon of what a Mad Man woman should be.  Now, of course I am attracted to Faye Miller (top Doc Miller moments: tight dress when she talked to the secretaries and made Alison cry, washing dishes in her stockings in the office while talking to Don, green dress in the backseat making out with Don, dressed up at the bar when Don drunkenly hit on her, sweaty post-sex with Don, red dress at the beginning of “Blowing Smoke”) on a physical level.  Yet, like Don I really appreciate her on an intellectual level.  Dr. Miller has delivered some of the best lines and this season, while articulating the key themes of Mad Men.  The most specific example being her, “what I want vs. what is expected of me” line from “Christmas Comes But Once a Year.”  She, like Don, is concerned with the identities and roles that people take on in life and at the office.  She wants to discover what those motives are – like Don and his curiosity, which is part of his “hobo” nature.  Dr. Miller is mature emotionally (ranting telephone call aside) and can truly give part of herself to Don.  Whether or not Don is going to accept what she can give and invest in this prize of a woman is another issue altogether. In the end, Faye Miller has been one of the great additions to this season and to the canon of Mad Men woman. She is a surprising, but deserved Number Two on this list.

1. Miss Farrell – One of the great tragedies of real life and of fiction is that Ms. Farrell was not brought back in one of the storylines for Season 4 of Mad Men.  When she burst onto the scene in Season 3 has Sally’s sympathetic, intelligent, empathetic, mysterious and cosmic teacher, well a guy just had to fall in love with her.  Whether it was the long brown hair, the small eyes, her running at night in short shorts and Bowdoin sweatshirt, spinning with the children with flowers in her hair, calling Don at night while drinking whiskey while her bra strap fell off her shoulder, or asking Don if everything was alright when she realized she wasn’t going to see him again after he had to leave her in the car, Ms. Farrell was a once in a lifetime kind of woman.  Again, she had a complexity that intrigued Don.  She was able to talk about perception in “The Color Blue” when she told the anecdote about the student who asked her how everyone knew that “blue” was the same thing.  To which Don replied that he would have told the student that “there is a color blue out there and its my job to tell people what it is.”  There was a certain innocence to Ms. Farrell, but not a naïveté – this is a woman who followed Don on the train and called him at home after she had been drinking.  She seemed to represent an all-natural woman, something sort of mythological or at least “old” that appealed to Don, as he wondered about her as a girl with “long curly hair.”  Ms. Farrell was not only empathetic towards Don when she should have been upset with him, she was also extraordinarily empathetic towards Sally.  Sally loved Ms. Farrell and Don loves Sally, which is one of the true ways to get into Don’s heart. Yet, that isn’t the ultimate criteria of being the top Woman of Mad Men.  Ms. Farrell balanced stunning beauty, grace, intellect, cosmic significance as well as an air of the all-natural, the fundamental that is the key mixture for what I define the best Woman of Mad Men to be.

All of the women on this list have their virtues and vices.  They are all beautiful in their own ways as fictional characters.  There could be only one winner.  So, now you have a list and I’m sure it will inevitably change after Season 5 next year.

Just Another Brick

At this point in the series of “Mad Men,” it seems somewhat redundant to say that a specific episode touches on the main themes of the show.  Nearly all of the episodes at least touch on a variety of the many themes that run throughout the entire series. I go back and forth debating over which of  the topics that the show covers interests me the most.  There is a part of me that is tremendously interested in the element of reinventing one’s self, in creating an identity from scratch and riding that identity for all it is worth no matter what kind of lies rise up, no matter how much fiction you have to create in order to shield your true self from the world when it seems like the stakes have gotten too high. However, last night’s episode, “Chinese Wall,” focused on the other theme that has always kept me interested in the show; that being the dynamics of the work world and how those dynamics and rules run over into one’s personal world.  This subject matter has of course been covered extensively over the history of the show and as recently and expertly as in Episode 7 of this season, “The Suitcase.”

Where “The Suitcase” focused only on Don and Peggy’s relationship with each other in the office and how that could potentially extend in some respects outside the office in a realm of unique (non-sexual) intimacy, “Chinese Wall” spread its scope to the varying members of SCDP and how the lines between work and personal/pleasure have been blurred over time and how they have continued to remain blurred.

At work we always struggle to give that personal side of ourselves to those we work with.  We want to appear amiable and make jokes like we would with out friends in our personal or “real” lives. Sometimes these people that we work with will become our friends and perhaps lifelong friends at that.  We work with them in the office and we spend time with them outside of the office.  The key is that both parties can remember what is involved with business and what is personal.  This understanding is what allows each side to reveal increasingly personal details, which is what friendships, at least good ones, are usually formed on.  However, we also want to achieve, we want to do better in our jobs to move forward with out careers; or, at the very least, we want to remain employed in order to avoid hardship.  This sort of movement will often require that we keep ourselves obscured from those that we work with so that they are left to wonder about who we really are and what we are really like, because we can’t care that much about this job, we can’t be that focused on it.  We don’t want anyone to know the secrets of our lives, or even the personal details because there is no guarantee that these people that we work with could use it in some way to gain leverage.  This is a place of work and at some fundamental level, your co-workers must be kept at bay.

Further, there are those instances when we work with someone that we are attracted to.  How is it possible to deny that attraction, whether it is physical or otherwise?  Would it be possible to pursue that kind of intimacy while working in a close environment, where one relies on the other in order to get work done?; where both sides have to continue on with their jobs, while knowing the secrets of the other, the motions and sounds each make in the heat of the dark.  Again, this hinges on an ability to keep business and personal separate, otherwise the passion that lies between two people can very easily become confused and perverted into an emotion that was not initially born out of the attraction.

In any event, work is a complicated place where we often create a second identity for ourselves that either keeps us removed, ties us to our co-workers in a semblance of unity or attempts to navigate the worlds of the personal and business, sometimes in a chaotic manner.

“Chinese Wall” exhibited how all members of SCDP have interacted with the world of business and the world of the personal.  The entire episode is framed around the birth of Pete Cambell’s daughter as well as the panic around the entire SCDP staff learning that Lucky Strike/American Tobacco has taken their account elsewhere.  There are countless episodes of business running over into the lives of those at the agency, including the start of the episode where Cosgrove’s dinner with his wife and his in-laws is interrupted by a friend from another agency informing him that Lucky Strike/American Tobacco has moved to said rival agency, which leads Cosgrove to plunge into the business world, alerting Pete at the hospital, who immediately alerts Don who is on a date with Faye Miller, a character and relationship that perfectly personifies the volatile mixture that business and pleasure can be.

The episode presents a variety of stances on the issue of the value of the business live versus that of the personal life and how those two virtues can be balanced.  Pete’s father-in-law explains that a job is just a job and that it is the people at home who matter: your wife and children.  Faye tells Don that she knows the difference between their relationship and the work that is done at the office.  Pete, Don, Cosgrove and Bert Cooper attend the funeral of a fellow ad man who his colleagues explain was devoted to his job but also to his wife and kids.  However, as the work stories are relayed it appears that the man was more devoted to his job than he ever was to his wife or children.  Don and Pete look on taking in what should be a cautionary tale. However, what they each take from the scene is left ambiguous.  Pete is also approached by Ted Chaough earlier in the episode with an offer to come to his firm.  With SCDP perhaps facing collapse without Lucky Strike, Pete has to weigh the options of providing for his wife and new child against pursuing the passion for work that led to the initial formation of SCDP.

The pivotal scenes of the episode (if you can even narrow them down) are the scenes involving Roger and Joan, Roger and Jane, Don and Megan, and Don and Faye.  Roger goes to Joan’s apartment because of the guilt he feels at not telling his colleagues at SCDP sooner about Lucky Strike dropping them.  He looks to Joan for solace as she has always been there.  She wants to talk business, the state of the company and why Roger didn’t tell anyone sooner, while all Roger wants to do his sleep with her to escape his troubles. Joan identifies that their romantic relationship would only be another problem and not a solution.  It is their business relationship that matters, that is two people who can professionally share things with each other. Joan puts a stop to the romance, which was originally born out of their office interactions and hidden passion.  Later,  Roger feeling defeated is at home with Jane, whom he married out of an affair created in the office and she shows him copies of his memoir that have arrived at their home.  Roger signs a copy for Jane, writing, “To my loving wife, Jane.”  This statement lacks any intimacy and is something that any author would write in a book as a matter of business.  Roger has never truly taken his work seriously. He has only used the office as a means of meeting women and continuing on a lavish lifestyle and he is left lonely and wanting.  The woman he thinks he loves he can’t commit to or maturely articulate his feelings for and the woman he is married to he feels nothing for.

Don on the other hand knows full well the terrible effects of mixing his personal life with business.  Don has always kept himself distant from everyone at work, even Roger (“you’re so damn mysterious”) but let his guard down earlier this season when he slept with Alison.  Yet, in this episode he makes two mistakes.  The first is asking Faye to help him get clients based on the information she receives from her clients as a consultant. Faye is rightly insulted that Don sees her as another part of his business, but as he tells her, SCDP is “all he has.”  Don later makes another mistake in sleeping with Megan when she comes to help him late at night. Megan shows an interest in the work at the company and even states that she wants to do what Don or Peggy does someday. Don is impressed by this as well as Megan’s aggressive moves to take care of him. There is a certain confidence that Megan takes on in this episode that seems to be inherent in all of Don’s lovers – it is a mixture of tenderness and firmness that is certainly a matronly trait.  It is hard to know what to make of the ultimate scene with Don and Megan.  Megan tells him she won’t be running crying from his office and tells him that their sleeping together has nothing to do with work, even though they are at the office and she has explained her interest in advertising.  How does one separate the two as Megan seems to suggest she can?  After this, Don returns home to find Faye at his apartment. Faye tells him that she got him a meeting with Heinz. Don feels ashamed that she used her connections to get him a meeting, but Faye explains that she wanted to do it. Faye is now accepting that their relationship can merge so closely that what is most important is what matters to the health of their relationship and that is keeping SCDP afloat, because that is what Don’s life is and that is what makes him happy.  This gesture certainly raises questions this about this new level of intimacy and posturing between Don and Faye going forward and how Don is going to either embrace or shun it. They are sharing more than one secret now, while Don is now keeping another from her.

Peggy is the only one who seems to be able to balance her work and pleasure.  She decides to sleep with Abe and appears to be falling for him or at least giving into the initial excitement of a romance.  At the same time, she is able to show Stan what is business and what is personal when she turns down his advances and then nails the Playtex meeting by using details from her personal life in her pitch – much like Don used to effortlessly do.

There is not right or wrong answer as to the balance of business and personal.  It is all about your situation, the people you are involved with, the weight that you can carry.  However, there will always be a line between those two worlds and the way you conduct yourself and view that line will say a lot about what kind of person you are and what you are capable of in a variety of ways – another prime example of how me must decide when to share and when to conceal.

Two more episodes left.

It's a Woman's World

I once wrote on this blog that women were taking over my life. I suppose that I am not really qualified to make that statement and it would seem rather pathetic to say that again after watching an episode of Mad Men, but this blog has never shied away from seeming pathetic, as that comes with all the raging glory and epiphany of life anyway.  So, last night, for an hour, women did take over my life.

“The Beautiful Girls” was a truly fascinating entry into the Mad Men series.  I can’t remember any of the other seasons presenting a truly challenging episode from week to week. Obviously, I love the show and think it is TV of the highest level and has exhibited this in each season, but after every episode this year I have asked myself, “Well, how the hell am I going to make sense of this one?” And maybe its because this episode was about women - and it seems like it will be my (and many other men’s) ongoing journey in life to try to understand them – but this episode left me really puzzled on how to draw some meaning out of it.

Many of the other reviews I have read have clearly focused on the different ways that Dr. Miller, Joan and Peggy represent the women of the time.  All three have different levels of commitment to their careers and all are in danger of dying in the office like Ms. Blankenship did during the episode.  Joan is a woman who’s career is forced to take center stage because her husband has become a failure and is forced to go to Vietnam because of his career decision, a decision he didn’t consult her for.  Roger is the one person she is close to and he is her co-worker/superior.  Peggy is clearly very career driven but also feels the social pressure of finding someone to love before she becomes too old, as Trudy painfully reminded her in “The Suitcase.” She is very open-minded and accepting of the changes that are occuring in the world, whether in the business world or the larger realm of world news and civilization.  However, she encounters men like Abe who claim to be open-minded and part of the youth culture, but who still don’t take into account the rights of women and how their roles are in many ways just as segregated and looked down upon as those of minorities, especially black people at the time. So she seems to have her choice of a man like Duck who is failure of epic proportions and belongs to a different generation; she has a naïve boyfriend like Mark who wants her to be a feminine ideal of a virgin who loves her family; and now she has a guy like Abe who wants her to be open-minded to new ideas, but to still go and make him a drink and tell him how smart he is with his writing.  Dr. Miller is another career woman who has been even more successful than Peggy. She is as devoted to her job as Don is, which has left her without the ability to cook as we found out in her phone conversation last week, as well as without children or any skills with them as her interactions with Sally proved this week. Yet, in two different moments of crisis Don puts her on the spot to try and handle Sally, because that is what Betty would do; that is what the woman should do because she is a woman and is supposed to be good at those kind of things.

Now, these are all fine observations and they are certainly in the episode.  Each of the women get their chance to exhibit their frustrations and this is all nicely framed by the death of Mrs. Blankenship in the middle of the work day.  All the women in the office cry as they have lost one of their own (and of course because it is upsetting), but it esepcially hits home for Joan as she is somewhat of a glorified, younger Mrs. Blankenship (Roger even kids her about this before they are mugged) and her life very well could pass her by in the office.  I think all the women realize this in the episode in one way or another, as well as how much the men in their lives need them in some way, but can’t fully give them credit or the respect they deserve, which leads to that last shot of Dr. Miller, Peggy and Joan standing in the elevator looking completely worn out and desperate for some kind of answer or happiness.

What really gets us to that shot though, is a question that Peggy’s lesbian friend Joyce asks her when she’s in Peggy’s office.  That question is,“Are you angry or love sick?” to which Peggy responds, “I don’t know.”  That is the emotion that all three of these women are going through.  That are all feeling something profound.  They don’t know whether to be angry at the men in their lives or to feel that impalpable sensation, bordering on melancholy that we call love-sickness, which is truly just a feeling of “wanting.”  These women all want something but it does not fall under the category of “love-sickness.”  Each of them has a right to be mad at the men in their life. Joan can certainly be angry at Greg for the life he has given her, for raping her and taking advantage of her and for overall not treating her as a partner, which is perfectly exemplified by him making the decision to enlist in the army without even consulting her – news that surprises Roger when he and Joan have dinner.  Joan can also be upset at Roger for pushing her to comprimise her morals and vision of herself as a married woman.  She tells Roger that she doesn’t regret them having sex after they were robbed, but that she’s married. Roger prods her about still feeling something and Joan can only close the door.  Is she feeling love-sick for a possible true romance with Roger at the end of the episode?  Probably not, she is probably just frustrated that her own husband may be killed in Vietnam and that he didn’t respect her and that she can only find solace at work, where the closest person to her still holds delusional visions of romance.

Dr. Miller can certainly be upset at Don for putting her on the spot, even if he didn’t mean to test her skills with children.  Don’s behavior with Faye and in this episode throughout shows how much men at the time and even now will always need women. When Mrs. Blankenship dies, Don doesn’t know what to do, he just wants to go back into the meeting.  However, Joan needs the strength of a man to life Mrs. Blankenship’s body.  When Sally needs to be taken home, Don has to have Faye do it.  When Sally throws a tantrum, Don expects Faye to know how to handle it, but she doesn’t.  That doesn’t mean there is anything wrong with Faye, that is just a skill she didn’t develop – she made her decisions in life and shouldn’t be blamed for them.  Now, it will always be alright for men to rely on women, just as it should always be alright for women to rely on men, what it comes down to is what we expect out of each other.  We should not expect things out of one or the other based merely on gender (although biology does factor in in some part), but on who we are as humans and what we have experienced.  Now whether or not Don could have stumbled across that thought after Dr. Miller leaves his office and he sips her drink, is up in the air – but that would certainly be a step forward in the formation of their relationship.

Peggy of course is constantly wanting.  She wants success; she wants to be married; she wants her baby back in some way. She is the one who expresses that she doesn’t know how she feels so naturally her story truly exemplifies that sentiment.  She is frustrated that her drive leaves her from just being able to accept being a woman and caretaker, but she is also angry that the men in her life can never seem to appreciate her for who she really is – the only person that seemed to be able to in his own strange way was Pete, but she could never be with him if she wanted to be the person she wanted to be.  So, Peggy is left love-sick for a romance or relationship that will have to force her to question her ambition or to continue to forge ahead to find that person who can fit into her life, can appreciate her drive and ambition.

And of course, there is the daughter of another generation in Sally. Sally who is desperately in love with Don, but already knows how to speak her own mind.  She has seen her mother get what she wants in the past and knows how to work Don into giving her pizza and bring her to the zoo for a  morning trip that lasts well into the afternoon.  Sally takes on so many different postures of a woman in this episode that it is truly fascinating.  She wakes up and makes Don breakfast with her hair tangled like a lover or a wife; she tells him she needs to see him like a mistress; she tells him how much she loves him like an adoring daughter;  she mutters “oh” like a jilted admirer when he tells her she will be seeing Faye again; and she throws a tantrum like the child she actually is when she realizes that she can take on so many postures, but she can’t control her own situation – it is up to the adults, it is up to the man in her life, which will never be Henry, but always Don. 

There is a lot to be said of how Sally loves Don and how Don tries to convey his love for her but never truly can.  He strokes her hair aside and kisses her on the forehead, but when she starts expressing her deep desire to leave home he can only tell her to go to sleep.  This all leads to Sally falling in the hallway and Meghan picking her up and hugging her. The posture and embrace come so naturally for Meghan that it is almost jarring.  This is not to suggest that she is the woman Sally needs or that Don needs, but she just throws into relief how much Sally is missing that pure connection and love in her life.  In the past Don has shown her a great deal of affection, but we never get that moving moment like Don and Bobby had in “Gypsy and the Hobo” when Don wakes Bobby up in the middle of the night to hug him and tell him that he’ll “never lie” to him.  We are far removed from that era of the Drapers and Sally is missing that kind of attention and love, certainly from Betty, but especially from Don who she loves to a degree that is so great that it could be some form of  love-sickness, which leads to her anger.  Sally tells Meghan at the end that its not going to be alright.  And perhaps as all these women ride down the elevator at the end of the episode, struggling with the heat of anger or love-sickness, containing intelligence and strength in each of their own ways, that is the question we have to ask each of them and ourselves for the women in our lives: Is it going to be alright?

Four more episodes left.

Suitcase for Summer

When I take a spur of the moment vacation to remote parts of Vermont and Maine, the bonus that all you Puddlers receive is an extra-special, double episode review of Mad Men.  I will make up for a week of silence by combining reviews of the episodes, “The Suitcase” and “The Summer Man.” In a way, I am glad to be writing about both of these episodes at the same time as they showcase the two different sides of Mad Men episode delivery as well as serve as key back-to-back statements on the state of Don Draper at the current moment in time.  I, like most people, was completely on edge to see how Don Draper would follow up on the personal revelations and experiences he went through with Peggy in “The Suitcase” in “The Summer Man,” so I suppose its only fitting that I get to write about his cathartic night as well as the immediate (for Mad Men) aftermath.

“The Suitcase” has already been widely regarded as the best episode in Mad Men history.  This is funny to me, because many of the early episodes of this season seemed to stake that claim.  However, “The Suitcase” was a coup in so many ways that it was impossible to say that any other episode of the show even came remotely close to the storytelling, drama, precision and overall excellence of that episode.  Much has already been written about this episode and I was so engrossed by it that I read the more Mad Men commentary about “The Suitcase” than I did about any other episode.  I did this mainly because it had such a profound effect on me when I finally was able to watch it that I wanted to make sure that I didn’t completely copy what other people had written about it.  Yet, it remains difficult not to mention the main themes and touchstones of the episode.

Clearly, the relationship between Don and Peggy has been one of the centers of the show.  It’s hard to discount many of the important character relationships and interactions on Mad Men, but over time, we have seen just how vital and important the relationship between Peggy and Don is to the overall themes of the show as a whole.  Their first key interaction comes in the pilot episode where Peggy, after being cajoled by her co-workers into thinking that it is duty to sleep with Don since she is his secretary, grabs Don’s hand in a gesture leading towards sexuality.  Don responds by telling her that he is her boss and not her boyfriend, firmly establishing his rules in relation to his secretaries as well as how Mad Men plays with the work and home environments; who you are at work and who you are at home are drastically different identities and often the politics and the language of that work identity can seep into the identity of who you are outside of work – that is, business can seem personal.  Peggy and Don have navigated these waters before, mainly throughout Season 3 and most notably in “Shut the Door, Have a Seat.”  In that episode Don must confront the fact that he has not been fair to Peggy because he views her as an extension of himself and quite literally, what should have been about business and the quality of ideas that another person was bringing him, became personal to Don as he related Peggy with any shortcomings or frustrations he had with himself. In the end of his conversation with Peggy, he states that he will spend the rest of his life trying to get her to join his new firm because he acknowledges the similarity they share in perhaps my favorite line in the entire show:
“There are people out there who buy things. People like you and me. Then something happened. Something terrible. And the way that they saw themselves... is gone. And nobody understands that. But you do. And that's very valuable.”

That is, it was my favorite line and moment until “The Suitcase.”  As Season 4 has gone on and Don has become drunker and drunker, he has fallen back into the pattern of lashing out at Peggy. However, the change this season has been that that Peggy now feels the confidence to talk back to Don and correct him as she did over the mistake he made with Danny’s tag-line in “Waldorf Stories.”  In “The Suitcase,” Don is on Peggy’s back for a new campaign for Samsonite suitcases.  Don is clearly still drinking very much at work and at the end of the work day before the Clay vs. Liston fight, which happens to be Peggy’s birthday, he calls her into his office to go over the work she has done for Samsonite.  After shooting down all of Peggy’s ideas, he makes her stay late to stand up her fiancée, which eventually leads to Mark breaking up with her over the phone.

This brings us to the big confrontation when Peggy expresses her anger at Don for not giving her credit for the Glo-Coat ad she believes she was responsible for.  Peggy’s confrontation leads to this exchange:

Don: That’s the way this works.  I give you money, you give me ideas.
Peggy: But you never say, thank you.
Don: That’s what the money’s for!

This is perhaps the quintessential statement about work, which is to say that it’s the quintessential statement about Mad Men.  Young, ambitious people want it all when they start working, not realizing that they are actually working for someone else.  We come from years of school where there is no real “boss,” we work for ourselves and to achieve the grades that we deserve.  When you work, there is a boss who gives you money for the work you do – you work and spend your time to make someone else look good; that’s their job, that’s what they get for the time they have put in over the years.  It’s a hierarchy that people often forget and it may seem antiquated and can be exploited at times, but that’s what happens to all hierarchies in the hands of the wrong people, but that’s the way it works.

Now, bosses can obviously show appreciation, but Don has a history of not “valuing” relationships as Roger once said.  Here, Don shows that he does value relationships as he did in “Shut the Door, Have a Seat.”  He shows Peggy how he values her, how they actually value each other through the night that they spend together in the office, at the diner, in the bar and at the office again.  They exchange intimate details, sometimes directly, sometimes skirting around the subject such as how their fathers died, where they came from, and relationship issues.  They even hint at how much they actually know about each other by referencing Don sleeping with Alison and Peggy giving away her baby. “People do things, right?” Don says to Peggy.  It’s like a strange Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus moment for the two characters.  They are like souls who connect on this specific day and allow themselves to open up. It turns out that there is a bit of a cosmic significance as we find out that Anna Draper has died in California, leaving Don feeling very much “alone” (I personally didn’t mind the ghost of Anna appearing as a hazy middle of the nigh image, but I know some people did). Don realizes that he isn’t alone as Peggy comes over, places her hand gently on his back in some mystic moment of healing, and tells him that Anna wasn’t the only person that really knew him.  The episode ends (now famously) with Don holding Peggy’ hand over a new ad campaign idea.  Peggy looks at him once, her hair tousled from sleeping in the office, her skin pure and clear and soft and looks absolutely beautiful in the morning light, the most beautiful that she ever has on the show.  She looks at him once with her piercing green eyes, then once more, almost muttering, “I know,” before asking Don if he wants to leave the door open, to which Don responds that he does.

On that note, the viewer wants to know if Don’s life will be more open, if he will stick to what seems to be a new approach to life.  In “The Suitcase” Don saw a drunken Duck stumbling around the office and could almost see where he was heading in many ways.  Peggy also asks him at once point how much longer he can keep up his drinking. As “The Summer Man” begins, the viewer is greeted with a shot of Don swimming at a pool club.  He becomes exhausted after one lap and we get a voice over narration, which is Don keeping a diary.  Don is trying to get himself organized and into shape.  He admits he has a drinking problem and soon, in a rare licensing moment, “Satisfaction” is playing as Don surveys the streets of New York and takes a pull of cigarette, thinking about how he can smell corn and summer before confidently walking to the office.

Where “The Suitcase” was classic Mad Men, putting two characters in a pressurized situation with pointed dialogue and thorough references to the history of the two characters and the show as a whole, “The Summer Man” is experimental.  There is the voice over, the beginning story telling is slightly disjointed, we hear “Satisfaction,” there are camera tricks played when Don takes a drink at work and feels himself removed from the world.  This is meant to jar the viewer.  Don is making a change, and when we make changes, often we need something drastic or out of our comfort zone to do it, Don admits as much when he confesses to feeling like a little girl writing his journal.  And Don is slowly grabbing the world around him and learning how to place himself in it.

It is a complicated episode that has a lot to do with feeling satisfied.  Does Betty feel satisfied in her new life? She has thought so, until she sees Don on a date with Bethany and can barely breathe. She is so angry at him that it takes Francine telling her how much she has to realize that she should be satisfied with her new marriage, with her children, with all that she has.  However, we leave Betty at the end of this episode, looking longingly at Don and perhaps she is still not satisfied.  Is Henry satisfied? He has the beautiful wife he wanted, much like Don did, however he is slowly realizing that she is a child and that perhaps she still loves Don in some way.  He even says that they may have rushed into their marriage.  In many ways, Henry isn’t satisfied with himself or the position he is in as he makes a weak power play in having Don remove his things from their home on the day before Gene’s birthday.  He does not feel confident and wants to keep Don away.  Can he feel satisfied with his little act of mowing the lawn while stacking Don’s boxes on the curb without acknowledging him?

Joan and Peggy are also looking for satisfaction.  Joan is receiving less and less respect in the office, perhaps less than she even had at Sterling Cooper.  The rules of the world are changing and Joan can’t use her sexuality to get things done behind the scenes.  She has a legitimate office position and the young guys at the firm don’t respect her. But, they don’t respect women at all, as Joey plainly points out when he tells Peggy he doesn’t like working with women because they have no sense of humor.  Peggy isn’t satisfied with this as an apology from Joey or a justification for his actions towards Joan and the pornographic picture he drew of her and Layne.  So, Peggy fires him after she receives encouragement from Don who seems to be keeping up his new approach to treating her right after their night together.  However, Joan is not satisfied with this result as it only perpetuates the polarizing views that men had of women either being objects or humorless bitches.  Joan overall is the least satisfied character.  Her husband is leaving, she has no one to connect to at work and her overall vision of the world seems to have failed her.  She is definitely in a tight corner.

Don, however, receives satisfaction in a couple of ways.  Bethany pleasures him after their date in the back of the cab and he is able to get the date with Dr. Miller that he is looking for. Dr. Miller is even willing to go home with him.  However, Don instead of reaching for “what should satisfy him” is trying to figure out what actually satisfies him and very often that can mean not sleeping with someone if you have the chance; not doing something just because you can, but because you actually want to.  Dr. Miller, whose talent is being able to read people and anticipate what they want or what they will do (much like Don) is surprised by this, which only furthers the theme of the show that she and Don have vocalized of “what I want and what is expected of me.” This theory is being actualized and shown to us in many different interactions and ways this season and if Don and Dr. Miller continue the relationship that may be starting between them, we will obviously see this idea pushed even further and further forward.

There is a lot coming in the next few episodes.  I have not even mentioned how Don seems slightly behind trends like Joe Namath and Muhammad Ali as cultural icons and pitchmen, how Pete seems to still be forward thinking, how Roger’s memoirs are becoming a symbol for how disconnected and lost he is, how Peggy is going to figure out to gain the respect she wants now that she has cleared the air with Don and cemented a huge part of her identity.  And what will become of Betty Draper?  With a slight of hand, Weiner suddenly made her a very interesting character again this week. This season has not disappointed and I think will be the most rewarding yet, and if not, it will at least make us try to see who really knows us – and maybe think about how valuable that is.

Confessions of a Geisha

I was raised a Catholic and one of the pillars of the Catholic faith is the value of confession. As early as seven years old you are taught the joy and reward of confessing your wrongs outward to someone who isn’t your mother or father or your sister or brother, but a man in a uniform, someone who can talk to God – a person just like Santa Claus in the Department Store, a proxy who can speak to the person you want to speak to.  And you are also taught at that time, at the time of Reconciliation that perhaps if you are good and concentrate hard enough you can speak to God as well and admit all of the things you have done wrong, as though at seven years old you have a grasp about what is good and what is bad.  You only have vague notions of people and of what causes pain – you are on the road to understanding these objects and words of the world but lack any true fundamental experience to create concrete definitions that can be chartered through your world, your various worlds as they begin to develop within in you in your Youth.

Now, I was raised a Catholic but I believe in the religion of Mad Men, which also preaches the values of confession and the detriment that it can cause on your life if you do not communicate or open up to the world.  Clearly Don Draper is a character who obscures the truth and does not often confess what is troubling him – and of course he did not confess his true identity to his wife until Season 3. Now, confession is not as dire as having to admit that you are living in sin and have comitted a holy injustice – for perhaps in the end there is nothing so much as a holy injustice for our religions are made up of injustices and there is only the universe in the end, so perhaps the only injustice could be one against the universe and as far as I’ve learned in my life, the only injustices that go against the universe have something to do with love and light, but I’ve been struggling for over ten years to try and put what that is to a word or words that are discernable to other people.  However, Mad Men has always explored that idea of sharing and admitting when you are wrong.  We saw this in “Shut the Door, Have a Seat,” at the end of Season 3, where Don admitted to Peggy that he had been hard on her, when he admitted that he had taken advantage of Roger’s relationship.  Don had already admitted his identity to Peggy so he was able to open the door slightly and make these admissions or confessions to the other important people in his life.

Our current 1965 Don Draper has drawn the shade back across himself.  He has thrown himself into his office life, still concealing his true identity and finding no satisfaction either professionally, personally or sexually.  I bring up “Shut the Door, Have a Seat” because it is closest in theme and tone to  last night’s episode, “The Chrysanthemum and the Sword.”  In “Shut the Door, Have a Seat,” Don found himself against a wall and instead of running away as Dick Whitman is wont to do, he decided to fight and ended up taking control of his professional life.  Here, Don is up against a wall in so many areas of his life: Betty and Henry living in his home, no woman to love him, inability to connect with his kids, another agency gunning for him and trying to take his business.  Earlier in the season we have seen him in disarray, but in this episode he decided to take control of the situation once more by leading the agency on his scheme to fake the Honda motorcycle commercial in an attempt to drive the competing agency into bankruptcy.  This was a brilliant sequence as there is no show more exhilirating than Mad Men when they kick into a frisk gear, when the whole agency is working together towards a cause as they were at the end of Season 3.  Everyone pitches in, from Joan and Don working together to lead the director on, to Peggy riding around the empty sound stage with the Honda motorcycle.  Don was able to unify everyone in the great cause of fighting for the agency, which has had its up and downs and growing pains in its first year of existence.

The fact that Don was able to do this was in no small part due to the confession he was able to make to Faye Miller in the SCDP kitchen when they share the drink of sake that was sent over by the competing firm as a joke (it had a very “I drink your milkshake” vibe).  Faye Miller admits to Don that her wedding ring is a fake, she uses it as a defense to keep people away so that she can get work done – it is an identity she uses and plays into as a means to shield herself.  Don recognizes this confession because there isn’t anyone who has used an identity to shield the world more than Don Draper.  Don admits to his insecurities regarding spending time with his children since he and Betty were divorced and admits his great sadness at feeling relieved when he drops them off and then crushed when he misses them again during the week. As Don says, “its not going well.” 

Don is able to own up to his shortcomings and his faults, just as the Japanese are when Don points out that they did not honor the rules of their own ad contest.  The Japanese know honor and they end up giving SCDP the account for their upcoming Honda car line.  We have seen Don acknowledge his situation on his night out with Lane as the two men share the same pain of loneliness and divorce.  However, that was an evening of simple action between two men.  The intimate moment with Faye Miller, will her stockings off, washing her dish in the sink while she and Don sipped sake was something very different.  He was able to make a confession. And I don’t care if you are Don Draper or another man with an  illusion of toughness or aloofness, you never feel more comfortable or open then when you confess something to a woman – it becomes your chance to tell a story, even if you lack in that area.

This was the theme that drove the episode.  In the early stages when Betty and Don argue about Sally’s hair, it is Betty with Henry Francis’ help that admits she was too hard on Sally, though that breakthrough is soon lost when Betty finds out about Sally masturbating and must take her to therapy – althought the strange moment when Betty smiles at the doll’s house seems like some kind of obscure admission in Betty’s own mind, though that remains to be seen.  Roger even has to come to admit that the Japanese must be forgiven and that he has been living in the past for so many years and can’t afford it professionally and perhaps personally to stayed tied to old grudges and prejudices.

While Don, Faye Miller, Betty and Roger have to come to their confessions in this episode, we see that Peggy, Pete and Joan have already made some sort of confession and admission about who they are.  Clearly, Pete and Peggy reached these admissions last week when they exchanged their glance between the glass windows of the office and admitted the different directions they were taking in life.  We don’t know if they will regress from the progress they made through the exchange of information that Pete would be a father with Trudy, but the beauty of Mad Men is that with a simple shot of Peggy riding on the scooter, looking carefree and iconic, that her lesson seems to have stuck. This is not to overlook the confidence and poise Pete shows in standing up to Roger’s prejudice and lack of business vision, as well as his willingness in joining Don to “risk it all” in order to land the new account.  Meanwhile, Joan, very quietly and simply acknowledges that her husband is going to be going to Vietnam and admits that perhaps the world is not a better place after World War II, but that is what the war was fought for and we have to believe that our wars and our battles whether personal or national are fought to sustain good in the world, even if the world may not ever bet better or good.

And again, this is all only scratching the surface.  We could delve further into Sally’s character and the road she is going down, but that storyline seemed to speak for itself in the sheer weight of what that little girl is experiencing. I’d like to reserve judgment until her character and storyline develops a little further in this season.  But, speaking of reserving judgment you have to love a show like Mad Men where in the first twenty minutes you can’t figure out which character is in the wrong. Whether its Betty slapping Sally, Don going on a date while his kids are visiting or Henry Francis for suggesting Betty had something wrong with her by going to therapy (and for still living in Don’s house yet chiming in about how to raise his kids).  And in the end, none of them is worse than the other because they are all human and we have to see how they try to make it through despite it all.

This is only five episodes into Season 4, traditionally, Mad Men gets stronger around episode 8 each season.  We’ll see where we’re going from here.