Season 6 Episode 5: The Flood

"We must constantly build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear."

- From his sermon, "Antidotes for Fear" published in his book "Strength to Love" by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., 1963

The flood is the metaphor in this episode for the unleashing of pent up racial tensions following the assassination of Dr Martin Luther King on April 4, 1968. Riots broke out in multiple cities with Washington, D.C., the worst. The National Guard was finally called in to quell the violence there.

It also about the "flood" of emotions for many of the characters, but primarily, the two major ones, Peggy and Don, who are contrasting mirrors. When Dr. King is killed, emotions spill out but not all these can be attributable to him. The emotions are complex, diverse and human. It can be summed up when Abe sits at his typewriter and says "its an emotional story."

The episode opens with Peggy looking out of a high rise apartment that she is considering to buy. She is coming "up" in the world and this is reflected by her now seeing sunshine and blue sky. When we see Don, he has come "down" to the lobby level with Megan and talks to Dr. Rosen and Sylvia about their upcoming train trip to Washington DC.

This contrast between Peggy and Don is further shown when Peggy finds out that Abe in interested in having children with her and has visualized their future together. She is happy in her relationship and in her job. Don, though, is losing his grip becoming more depressed, drinking and smoking more.

Bobby rips the wallpaper because it is not properly aligned, it doesn't quite fit together. The allusion is to the American social fabric: that it has been "papered over" hiding the cracks and imperfections that has buried prejudice and racism underneath.

The tearing of the paper can also be seen as Bobby peeling back the emotions in the household. Betty asks "why are you trying to destroy this house?" For Bobby, Henry is now the father figure. Betty, his mother, is not who she once was: the sexy blond model / mother figure. Now she can't fit into her old dress and she is not a blond. She's not even sure who she is. Her smile fades when Henry says that he's thinking of running for Congress and he wants people to meet "the real you". She is self conscious of her looks and figure. In addition, Betty's annoyance when Don "forgets" to pick up the kids for his weekend outing, shows her lack of maternal instinct and her sole concern with herself (she asks him to come get them even though is danger with looting and the potential for rioting).

When Don takes Bobby to the movie theater, they watch a movie twice, which is Planet of the Apes (1968). The movie was based on a story by the French writer, Pierre Boulle, and reset to take place in the United States. The story illustrates and reverses the roles in contemporary race relations by creating a future where white people are hunted and enslaved by talking apes. Boulle took the racist stereotypes of the portrayal of dark skinned peoples as monkeys (or gorillas, apes, and chimpanzees) and turned the stereotype on it's head by making the apes the dominant power and culture. In the film, white people had become animals.

Pete is rejected by Trudie when he volunteers to come home and protect her. He is angry. When he talks to her, he is trying to say that he cares for her and wants to come home, but the King assassination remains the surface topic of conversation, and he can not really tell her how he feels. At work, he takes the anger out on Harry and accuses him of being a racist because he is concerned with money. When we last see Pete, he has ordered Chinese take out food. He is alone in his dark and depressingly small apartment which he use to think hip. When he tries to talk to the delivery person, the man does not speak English. We realize that Pete is completely alone, isolated and cut off from the rest of the world.

The flood as creation myth, destroys life and then recreates it. Peggy loses her apartment, but finds out that Abe loves her. Pete's epiphany is that he can't go back to his previous life of domesticity. Ginsburg's arranged date with Beverly* is broken up but they may see each other again. The social turmoil has made Henry to think of accepting the vacant Republican seat in Congress that he has been offered. Betty, is adrift in suburbia. And like Pete and Don, Megan is emotionally separated: she is ignored by Don, by the award ceremony and by her father.

Don is aware of his failure as a husband and father. During the Washington, D.C. riots, Don wonders about Sylvia. He doesn't wonder about his children or wife. Don's misplaced emotions makes him feel guilty and he takes to the bottle and cries to Megan who shows sympathy. Don tells her that he really didn't love his children and wonders if he inherited this from his father. But when Bobby shows empathy with the African American theater employee, he finally feels something. He says to Megan, "you feel a feeling that you were pretending to have and it feels like your heart is going to explode." This is brought home to Don and closes the episode, when Bobby tells Don that he's scared because he's afraid someone will shoot Henry, his "new" father. Don tells him "he's not that important". When Bobby falls asleep, Don goes outside to smoke, alone in the dark city night. Bobby feels for Henry what Don feels for Bobby: strong familial commitment. In this case though, Don is not the recipient. 

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Misc notes:

Water references: the real estate agent: "you can smell the ocean", "I'll go flush the toilet"; Gingberg's father talking about the Genesis flood and lining up "two by two".

Animal references: Dr Rosen to Don: "you two going to the (race) track?". Pete calls Harry "a pig". Roger tells Randall to "go back to your cage". Randall later says that "all the animals are crying". In between the showing of the movie, Don reads "The Ape" newspaper with a headline that says, "Big Roundup of Human Beasts".**

* Is it a coincidence that she attends "Hunter" College and then we hear that Dr King is shot in the face?

** Was this a faux newspaper that they gave to the audience as part of the promotion for the film or a Mad Men prop?

Postscript: in a conversation with Gil Zeimer www.zeimer.com over the weekend, he mentioned something that I hadn't noticed before: all the ad campaigns that SCDP has done, does not have the name or logo of the products in them. As I thought about this later, I wondered if it had to do with getting approval from the company (like Heinz) to use their name and trademark. By not including the trademarked material, they could write the episode without prior permission and script approval thus avoiding losing creative control. It seems that they may have come up with a creative and elegant solution to a legal issue.

Season 6 Episode 4: To Have and To Hold

"…to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part, according to God's holy ordinance; and thereto I plight thee my troth" - Book of Common Prayer, 1549.

Relationships, friendships, partnerships and marriages are frayed and coming apart in this episode. War is in the background on a macro basis and creeping into social conversations (dinner with Mel and Arlene) as well as the advertising world (Dow Chemical, maker of Napalm, is protested against by Columbia students, resulting in Dow sponsoring Broadway Joe on television, a variety show with Joe Namath and friends). The glass ceiling for women and minorities is also touched on (Kate's inability to go any higher in Spokane and Dawn's not seeing any other African American faces except the shoe shine man. Joan's realization that she has no real power (firing Scarlett but she is over ruled by Harry).

Kate, from Spokane and a top earner for Mary Kay Cosmetics, is a friend of Joan's and visiting New York for a job interview with Avon. When we first see her she is applying rouge to Gail's cheeks. It is the color of "rust" (decay) and Kate is trying to cosmetically cover up the look of age. The Broadway Joe variety show is also a cosmetic gloss for Dow Chemical: to make them look good in the public eye and to forget that Dow makes a chemical warfare agent that is destructive to vegetation, animal and human life.

Women's roles in business is also looked at: when Joan tells Kate that after 15 years "they treat me like a secretary", Kate responds "I don't care how they make you feel, it's right there for you for the taking." When Joan gives Dawn the keys to the supply room and the time clock, Dawn says, "I don't care if everybody hates me here, as long as you don't." Joan has the respect of women, but not of men. 

There are also marriage references and the dependence on men: Timmy, from Heinz, when he is leaving Pete's apartment, removes his wedding ring and says, "I don't need much of an excuse to come (visit) at midnight". Pete offering his apartment to Don for extra martial affairs, a reference to the 1960 film "The Apartment". Gail, when Kate is applying the rouge, "I need all the help that I can get" implying that she needs a man in her life to be complete.  Don cheating on Megan; Sylvia cheating on Arnie. Dawn is also the Maid of Honor for Nikki, and is asked about bridal magazines or events each time they meet. Dawn also complains how she's not meeting any eligible men and when Nikki suggests going to church, Dawn says she doesn't want to compete against the "harlots" there. An indirect reference to Sylvia and her faith that ends the show?

Women's rise to power in the series has been mostly by marriage or by sex or by physical appearances: Betty, Joan (sleeping her way to the top), Megan (from secretary to Don's wife), Jane Sterling (also a secretary at Sterling Cooper to corporate wife), even Gail, when Kate shows here the diamond bracelet watch she received from Mary Kay, says, "what did you have to do to earn this?". The SCDP partnership is also under stress with Harry's demand to be partner saying that he "earned" it, implying that Joan didn't by sleeping with a client and saving the company. She sacrificed her dignity for the sake of financial gain.

Peggy has been the only one who has not advanced her career by her sexuality: it has been by brains and creativity. But it was a shock to Don to see her outside the hotel room door after Don and his team pitched Project K (k for ketchup). He hears her speak his own words "if you don't like what they say, change the conversation." Don and Stan's friendship with Peggy has now been changed from friend / mentor to ruthless competitor.

Mel and Arlene's open marriage (when he propositions Megan and Don, he calls it a "chemistry experiment") is a direct assault on the traditional concept of marriage by separating love and lust. It is echoed in the cab when Kate and Joan are asked by the manager of the novelty themed soda shop, to find out which is the best kisser. Joan says she doesn't want to play that game. 

The color, scarlet, has historically represented adultery. Harry's secretary is called Scarletl. Harry brings up Joan's rise to partner alluding to her sleeping with Raymond to land the Jaguar account. When Megan finishes her bedroom scene with the actor "Rod" (I don't have to point out the significance of this name, do I?) she drapes a scarlet colored robe and goes to her dressing room. She has now become the adulteress in Don's eyes. This scarlet symbol hearkens back in literature to Hawthorne's 1850 novel "The Scarlet Letter" and Betty Davis's dress in the 1938 film "Jezebel". Don accuses her of being a whore, asks her if she washes her mouth out after (kissing) and tells her to go sleep with Mel and Arlene.

The center of the episode, is all about Megan or references to her French background: when we see her at the TV studio, she is wearing a French maid costume and reading, Emmanuelle (1967), a soft core pornography novel about a sexually liberated young woman. Above her on the wall are etchings of French dancers by Toulouse-Lautrec; a French bottle of wine is on the table at the restaurant when they have dinner with Mel and Arlene; Harry tells Scarlet to get a bottle of champagne to celebrate the Broadway Joe sale; Scarlett buys a French scarf for Clara as a birthday present; the French language song "Bonnie and Clyde" by Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot is playing at the nightclub that Kate and Joan go to. The references are to remind us of Megan. Her simulated adultery is tame and artificial yet magnifies Don's actions when juxtaposed to his flagrant acts of adultery. His anger rings hollow because we know he is duplicitous. What's good for the gander is not good for the goose. He proposed to Megan on a whim when she was taking care of his children. But now that there are no children around, he doesn't know how to deal with her.

Sylvia has left a penny under the mat as a signal to Don that her husband is gone. Is he the "bad penny" that always turns up? A "bad penny" is a counterfeit coin, like Don. When he gives her the penny, there is a closeup of it changing hands, a visual reference for payment for sex.

Don tells Sylvia to take off her cross before sex. She says, "Why, does it mean something to you?" "No," he replies, "it means something to you." Don, the atheist with a broken moral compass is lost. Lost among the changing attitudes of the times and in his own spin of lies.

Season 6 Episode 3 The Collaborators

"No lover, if he be of good faith, and sincere, will deny he would prefer to see his mistress dead than unfaithful." - Marquis De Sade

The reference to Munich, is the key to this episode, aptly named, The Collaborators. When Pete asks, "what's Munich?" Roger explains that "we gave the Germans whatever they wanted, and they just wanted more." * The collaborators here are: Trudy, Sylvia, Joan, Peggy, and SCDP when the partners (save Don) pimped Joan to Raymond for the Jaguar account. Germany takes the human form of Don, Pete, Raymond, and Ted, Peggy's boss at her new firm. Each party needs the other in order to survive as it is a symbiotic relationship, however damaged. Sometimes the result is rebellion (Trudy ending the relationship with Pete); or self destructive silence (Joan entering Don's office and pouring a glass of Beefeater gin (a symbol for England / Jaguar) and only saying, "they're here"). For Peggy, it is an uneasy alliance, where she can economically benefit but possibly destroy her friendship with Stan by going after the Heinz account.

On a macro level, we have in the background, the taking of the USS Pueblo ** crew and ship by the North Koreans in International waters. Also the Tet Offensive, a military campaign by the North Vietnamese against the US and South Korea forces during a ceasefire that was agreed to by both sides. These two events at the time were important in US history (in hindsight) and both were seen as violations of trust between international parties. There is also a mention of Jim Garrison, the DA from Louisiana, on a tv clip with Johnny Carson. Garrison believed that Lee Harvey Oswald was not the sole shooter of President Kennedy and that there was a conspiracy to murder the President. This belief shook the faith in the US Government by many of the populace at the time. ***

When we find out that Trudy has only played the innocent and naive wife and that she was quite aware of Pete's infidelities, we are shocked. We thought that Pete was getting away with it. So did Pete. And we realize how the appearance of a happy marriage was more important to her that a real marriage when she says "there's no way for me to escape; to be an object of pity while you get to do whatever you feel like". She has lived with his indiscretions without complaint, but now she is forced to confront the truth. Pete, too, realizes the illusion when he speaks to Bob Benson "it's all about what it looks like." Pete has now "donned" the public mantle of a philanderer. He and Don are now the same sad figures in terms of their relationships with women.

We should have seen Pete's fall coming: at the start of the episode, Pete offers to give Brenda tickets to the play, Hair, and she says, "all my forays into Manhattan have been a disaster." After they sleep together in his apartment, she emerges from the bathroom and says, "you're out of toilet paper." Her statement become real: the "s**t hits the fan when she comes over to his house beaten by her husband and Trudy finds out about the affair. Pete asks Bob Benson to go buy him some toilet paper. Bob agrees and becomes his new collaborator, replacing Trudy.

Trudy has been indispensable for Pete's career. She is the one who talked her father in helping Pete by moving his control of advertising of his company to SCDP. It will be interesting to see if she will now be part of his or the firms' downfall.

When Megan is talking to the maid and Sylvia enters, it is in the laundry room. This is where Megan starts to "air her dirty laundry". When she later confides to Sylvia upstairs about the miscarriage, it is not because she is a woman (although that is part of it) but it is because they are both Catholic. Megan says, "I knew what I wanted to do. I was so relieved that I didn't have to do anything." Here Megan is talking about having an abortion, but Sylvia doesn't agree with her. This is why Megan does not join them for dinner and tells Don, "I'll be better by the time you come back".

The unseen blood of the miscarriage, Brenda's bloody nose , the blood soaked rag. Even Peggy's feminine hygiene product, given to her as a prank, reminds us of sex, motherhood and birth.

When Don gives Sylvia money, it is as though he is paying for sex, and she seems to enjoy it. When Don has flashbacks of his mother, it is when they move into the brothel where his aunt lives with Mack, his new "uncle". Don (or rather his true name, Dick) stands in the hallway with his mother who is pregnant with his soon to be brother. Don looks with interest at one of the prostitutes. Later, when his is watching his mother through the peephole with Mack, the prostitute calls him a dirty little spy and says "you get your own room, that's how things work around her." Don's mother becomes a prostitute because she has no other option available to her to take care of her family. She "collaborates" with Mack. Don, due to his young age, is helpless to help. He is also attracted as he grows into his sexual self and is conflicted with the role that his mother has taken on: as mother and whore. It is this blend of motherhood, sex and money that swirls around Don.

* the agreement by the Western Powers was the tacit approval for Hitler to invade Czechoslovakia. 

** the crew was released in December 1968. The ship is still held to this day by the North Koreans.

*** Garrison's writings influenced the 1991, film JFK, by Oliver Stone.

Postscript: when Peggy has a meeting with her copy writers it is about the Clearasil account. In real life, Elizabeth Moss, who plays Peggy, starred in a Clearasil television ad when she was a young girl. Clearasil re-released the ad due to the shows success. It is still on today. Having Peggy talk about the Clearasil account, becomes an in house joke.