Season 6 Episode 13: In Care Of

The episode, In Care Of, centers on family relationships leading up to Thanksgiving. It is also plays on the phrase that the U.S. Postal Service uses for forwarding mail to another person or location. Part of the drama of the episode is finding out who will be moved (forwarded) out to Los Angeles to start a new life. Stan volunteers; Don decides to go; Megan wants to go; Ted wants to go to save his marriage; Don swaps places with Ted; Megan will go without Don. Then we find out that Pete will be going with Ted.

Don gets drunk on the fifth anniversary of the assassination of JFK. Don says that God must have had a bad year because of the assassination of JFK, RFK and Martin Luther King (God was not taking care of them). When the evangelist says that they were not true believers, Don (off camera) hits him. Don  spends the night in a drunk tank. In the morning, he quits drinking. Part of his "12 step program" is to tell the truth, which he does at the Hershey meeting and with his kids when he shows them where he grew up. Don's drinking is mirrored with Sally. Sally is caught drinking and being drunk at school. Both are suspended from their respective workplaces. Sally also uses a fake ID to buy alcohol. She, like her father, assumed another's identity. 

Before Don's turnaround, he hears Stan's pitch to go to California. When he stops drinking he tells Megan his idea for moving to California and repeats Stan's words saying that he would like to have a "one desk office" and "build it into an agency" and being a "homesteader". Don doesn't have his own dreams, he copies the dreams of others because he has not come to terms with who he is or what he wants.

When Dot is lost at sea upon the S.S. Sunset Princess*, Manolo, as a nurse (and we find out as a husband) failed to take care of her. When Pete and Bud talk about the expense it would cost to bring Dot's "killer to justice" they decide not to spend the money, justifying that "she liked water" and now she is "with Dad" who died in a plane crash in the ocean. Pete and Bud also did not take care of their mother in life, by out sourcing her care taking, and in death, by pursuing "her killer" (if indeed she was killed). 

Roger also does not take care of his daughter and son-in-law. When Brooks (his son-in-law) asks for money for a business venture, Roger declines. Margaret asks how to get on the "list of girls that you give money to." By not taking care of her family, she bans him from Thanksgiving. 

Roger and Ted are both mirrored in their jealousy for women: Roger is jealous of Bob when he sees them talking together. Ted is jealous of everybody and he shows up at Peggy's apartment saying that "I don't want anyone else to have you". What was humorous was when Roger is invited over to Joan's house for Thanksgiving and sees Bob carving the turkey. It is almost a scene from a Norman Rockwell painting except that Bob is wearing an apron like a woman.

When Don is told to "take time off" from his job, Peggy moves into his office. Peggy, Don's protege, will take care of the creative accounts while he is gone. 

During the Hershey meeting, Don says, "the wrapper looked like what was inside." Don came clean because his "wrapper" (persona) did not look like what was inside. It was not the Norman Rockwell family painting. The season plumbed the depths and darkness of Don's world. The final episode has Don looking up (hope), surrounded by his children. He has rediscovered that his salvation is through his sense and belonging to family, which for him, is a day of thanks.

* a fitting name for a ship for an elderly WASP matron to disappear from.

Season 6 Episode 11: Favors

Favors is at once complex on many emotional levels for the characters but simple enough to move the plot forward.

Roger's juggling at the beginning of the episode represents the upcoming conflict with the Sunkist and Ocean Spray accounts.

For Sally, her continued education into the realm of the sex is tainted by adultery and betrayal. As a favor for Sally, her friend, Julie, forges her name on a note listing the reasons why she and Julie admire Mitchel. This betrayal leads her to the Rosen's apartment where she sees her father having sex with Sylvia. Sally had previously come upon Marie Calvet, Megan's mother, performing fellatio on Roger at a wedding reception. Both of these were adulterous affairs. When Don tries to convince her that he was just "comforting" Mrs Rosen, Sally knew he was lying, but she lied also by agreeing with his story. This does not bode well for Sally first sexual experience or with her relationships with boys.

The funniest part of the episode is when Peggy offered sexual favors to Stan if he came to remove a dying rat. When she asked Stan why he was using his "sexy" voice, she realized that he was not alone but with his girlfriend. "You can bring her too, if you want," she says. Peggy at that moment embodied everything her ex-boyfriend hated about Madison Avenue: that she was willing to sell herself and her self respect. In fact, the image of the blood trail under the couch as a reminder of the previous episode when she stabbed accidentally stabbed Abe with her homemade spear. 

As predicted, Bob came out of the closet to make his move on Pete and Pete rejected it. What are the chances Pete will respond to Bob in the future? And regret it? Pretty high. The favor that Bob did for Pete by providing a nurse for his mother was initially welcomed but now rejected. But Pete has become completely isolated from family and associates at work. Even his mother described him as unlovable and sour. It would not be surprising if he turns to someone who shows him affection, like Bob.

Don's change of heart to offer a favor to Mitchell after having a drink in the bar with Arnold Rosen (with the boxing photos over both of them) makes one wonder if his decision to help was for Sylvia or himself. I was under the impression that Don felt guilty for his actions in Korea and his subsequent life lie (when he assumed another man's identity) was his reason for helping. It was an act of selfishness and not because of concern for Arnold's and Sylvia's child. Don's relationship with Sylvia has always been sexual, but his affection is more rooted with his need for a mother figure than another sexual partner / conquest. 

When Don is in the living room pouring a drink, what is on TV? Run for Your Life. The series which ran from 1965-1968, was about a man who had only one to two years to live, and decides to go experience life before his death. These continued signals to Don's demise are also pointing to other characters in the series. More death references: Ernest Hemingway's suicide by shotgun during the dinner with Chevy; Ted's wife reminding him that their pastor told them that "God can turn out your lights at any time." Mitchell becoming 1A in the draft ("his number is up"). Pete's father dying in an airplane crash. The bloody rat. 

Season 6 Episode 10: Tale of Two Cities

“There are books of which the backs and covers are by far the best parts.”

- Charles Dickens "Oliver Twist"

I've always felt that this series (as well as the Sopranos and Boardwalk Empire) suffer from a creative malaise: three to four well crafted beginning and ending episodes but the middle ones just meander. This was one of those middle ones that feels like filler until the end approaches. The only interesting developments were from the supporting characters: Joan's ambition; Ginsburg's (possible future) breakdown, and the continuing ambiguity of Bob Benson's sexual orientation.

The episode is titled "A Tale of Two Cities". Dickens's novel of the same name was about the class system in France leading up to and after the French Revolution. The theme of revolution is played out in this episode with the Chicago Democratic National Convention of 1968 as political background. We have multiple characters following the convention and subsequent protest on TV. In real life, the protesters in Chicago chanted "the world is watching, the world is watching" as the police beat the non-violent protesters. This gives some interesting depth, as we watch the characters watch the riot as the protesters chant. It is a history lesson with touches of voyeurism. The 1968 convention witnessed the fracturing of the Democratic Party which in many respects echo the fracturing of the Republican Party today: old alliances and deal makers were pushed aside by younger and more vibrant participants. 

Ginsberg begins to echo Abe, Peggy's ex-boyfriend from the last episode, with his wild rant on the corruption and decay of the corporations they represent. Ted describes Ginsberg as "lightening in a bottle" when Jim wants to fire him. While Ted means that Ginsberg has a spark of creativity, lightening also represents a volatile, dangerous and unpredictable substance. Of interest to us, is Ginsberg's mention of "the destroyer" a reference to the god Shiva in Hinduism. Eastern philosophy is also represented in Hollywood with Lotus, the girl that Roger and Daniel fight over. The lotus flower is revered by many Eastern religions as a physical form of beauty and purity.

One thing we have learned about Ginsburg is his sharp and intuitive perception (and judgement) of people. When he asked Bob Benson if he was a "homo", Bob did not answer directly: he said, "there's your sense of humor" as though it was a joke. Since we haven't had a gay character for awhile, I'm guessing that Bob will come out of the closet, which will cause some problems, probably with Pete.

In Homer's Odyssey (one of the keystones of Western literature), Odysseus tries to return home to his wife after ten years of war. One of his many experiences (obstacles) was when he visited an island inhabited by the Lotus eaters. When the lotus flower was eaten, the sailors discovered that it was a narcotic and made them blissfully apathetic to life and their journey home.

The Hollywood party that Harry takes them to, may reference this, as well as Alice in Wonderland. When Don meets Daniel (Roger's in-law and ex adman) Daniel mentions that there is a movie being made called Alice in Wonderland. A few minutes later, Don goes into a room where people are smoking hashish from a hookah, a scene from Alice in Wonderland (with the caterpillar). Don's interior journey has him see and talk to Megan (who quits her job and is barefoot and pregnant). He also talks to the soldier that he met at the bar in Hawaii where he gave away the bride.

When Don is floating face down at the pool, it's seems like a nod to the film, Sunset Blvd, which is narrated by the deceased screenwriter, played by William Holden. But there was a foreshadowing before, when Joan and Peggy were arguing back in the office and Joan says to Peggy that Don carried you "down to the deep end of the pool." The floating figure is more of a visual reference than a direct connection.

Joan's ambition to become a participating player at the firm is welcome but threatens Pete. Pete is the quintessential WASP. In the final sequence, he is ogling the legs of a secretary in a miniskirt, a vision in which he only sees her as a sexual object. He like Don's vision of Megan as barefoot and pregnant, is out of step with the times.

Season 6 Episode 9: The Better Half

"It's not hard to make decisions when you know what your values are."

- Roy Disney

The episode is called "The Better Half" and the main characters are given sexual, emotional and work choices within their triangles: Don with Betty and Megan; Betty with Henry and Don; Peggy with Don and Ted; Peggy with Abe and Ted; Joan with Bob and Roger; and Joan with Bob and Pete. Megan also has the distinction of playing two roles on the TV show, a brunette and a blond against Arlene, a bi-sexual, who chooses pleasure between a man and a woman (or perhaps both at the same time).

There is no surfeit of conflict here: it begins and ends with Peggy between the two creative heads Don and Ted. She does not take sides and is criticized for it by Don, and later by Abe who calls her "complacent". Peggy later accidentally stabs Abe but does not blame her, yet calls her the "enemy". Roger and Pete are bookends to each other and are both estranged from their families; Betty and Don rekindle their sexual attraction to each other; and every time we see Don with Megan, we hear police and / or ambulance sirens, signaling trouble. 

At summer camp, Bobby teaches Betty and Don a song, "Father Abraham had Seven Sons." When they sing, they raise their right arms, which is the symbol of the raised fist, a gesture used to signify unity, solidarity and resistance. It was most famously used in 1968 (the year of the episode) during the Summer Olympics, when the African American athletes, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, stood on the platform and received their gold and bronze medals with their fists raised and heads bowed while the Star Spangled Banner played. At the time, this gesture was a symbol of Black Power for African Americans. Their non-verbal communication became front page news around the world.

We are also given an abundance of political references to external conflicts: when Duck Phillips is talking to Pete about a potential job, Pete asks a question instead of answering one. Duck calls it a "Yankee wrinkle" a reference to a New Englander from a Southern perspective. The Civil War is also brought up when Arlene is rebuffed by Megan and says "status quo ante bellum, everything as it was" a reference to a time before the (Civil) war. Race too is referenced with the mention of the Planet of the Apes movie, a parable about race relations in America, and when Abe reminds Peggy that the neighborhood youth (criminals to Peggy) were brought to America in slave ships. And as Abe becomes more radicalized, he calls a NYPD officer a fascist and voices his solidarity with the May strikes in Paris (France) and the Prague Spring (Czechoslovakia) against the Soviet Union. When Don comforts Megan on the balcony, she is wearing a t-shirt with a red star, which is the trademarked symbol of Macy's department store*, but the red star has also been associated with Socialism and Communism since 1917**. When Abe agrees to move from their neighborhood and sell the building, he says "not everyone is a pioneer." While we take this to mean a reference to their failed attempt to gentrify the neighborhood, we should not forget that the "pioneer" movement was an organization for children modeled on the Scout movement and run by the Communist Party. The Vietnam War is also obliquely mentioned when Joan reminds Roger that Kevin's father is an Army doctor "a hero over there" and the nurse that Bob Benson recommends to Pete is "Army trained."

The conflicts of East and West (Cold War and Vietnam War), Black and White (race relations in America), Culture and Counter Culture (Tradition and non tradition) and the rising emergence of women breaking the glass ceiling in corporate America are the recurring sub themes of the show. And while we shouldn't give too much weight to these signs and symbols, we should acknowledge them as cultural shadings for the overall development of the plot and tension between the characters.

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* When R.H. Macy was a sailor, he received a star shaped tattoo. He used this symbol as branding when he opened his eponymous store in 1858.

** Megan's father is also a Socialist / Marxist.

Season 6 Episode 8: The Crash

My heart leaps up when I behold

A Rainbow in the sky:

So was it when my life began;

So is it now I am a man;

So be it when I shall grow old,

Or let me die!

The Child is father of the man;

And I wish my days to be

Bound each to each by natural piety.      

- William Wordsworth, "My Heart Leaps Up" 1802

When Peggy quotes Wordsworth's poem with the line "The Child is father of the man", she is giving us an idea of the structure of the episode. Wordsworth wrote how a child sees the world, so sees the man, i.e., our experiences in our youth, shape our perception and emotions in the future as adults. When Don sees Peggy comforting Ted, in his drug induced state he is reminded of his illness as a teenager. Amee Swenson, a prostitute in the brothel, takes care of him during his fever and coughing* attacks, spoon feeding him soup. Don's memory of this reminds him of the Granger Oatmeal ad campaign that he previously designed, showing a Norman Rockwell type illustration of a mother feeding a small boy. Don finds it "in the archives" i.e., his memory. When Ken performs the song and dance routine, Don asks, "where did you learn that?" Ken answers, "My mother, no, my first girlfriend". Here is the key to Don's attraction and conflict with Sylvia: it reminds him of Amee Swenson, the mother figure / prostitute who was also his first sexual experience. Amee also betrayed him by telling his family of their experience resulting in the young Don being beat with a spoon by the step mother. 

Peggy is also the mother figure / girlfriend in this episode, first comforting Ted, then being sexually attracted to Stan. Peggy's advice to Stan, to experience grief and not bury it with drugs and sex is what Stan (and Don) should be doing, but don't. It is the road not taken, as she and Ginsburg quote Alice** to give us a literary equivalent to the surrealism they are experiencing in the office.

Christian symbols pop up: "I hate how dying makes saints out of people" when describing the death of Frank Gleason; Ginsburg comparing Stan to St. Sebastian (death by arrows) and then throws a Xacto knife to his arm; Stan says that he's come up with 666 (the numeric symbol of the Beast in the Book of Revelation) ideas for Chevy: Sally reading Rosemary's Baby***. However, the symbols seem more cultural flotsam than a meaningful plot line.

We also find that Wendy, who offers herself sexually to Don and then she sleeps with Stan, is Frank Gleason's teenage daughter. She is the mirror to Sally and we can only assume that she is using sex, as mentioned by Peggy, to dull the emotional loss of her father. Sally is also beginning to be aware of her sexuality and dressing provocatively. Betty asks how she earned the money to buy the skirt "from working on a street corner?".  We have the tension pitting the jealous (and protective) mother with the daughter and morphing Don's memories into the mix that combines the confusion of emotions of mother and girlfriend.

When Ida robs the apartment, she tells Sally that's she's Don's mother. Ida is a counterfeit mother to a counterfeit son. And even though it's preposterous, Sally believes her, because she doesn't know her father. Ida also becomes the embodiment of advertising, as discussed by Don and Ginzburg, which is to say anything to get your foot in the door. And when she steals, what does she steal? Time from Don (watches)****.

The Crash, starts with a car crash and ends with an emotional one. Wendy uses divination of the I Ching to arrive at Don's silent emotional question: "does anyone love me"? Don's self realization leaves him cold to Sylvia, Megan and to his co-worker and rival Ted, who he dumps the responsibility of the Chevy account on.

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* Don's coughing and smoking makes me think that the show may end with Don dying of lung cancer.

**
“Alice came to a fork in the road. 'Which road do I take?' she asked.

'Where do you want to go?' responded the Cheshire Cat.

'I don't know,' Alice answered.

'Then,' said the Cat, 'it doesn't matter.” 

-Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, 1865

*** In the book and movie, the husband is an actor (like Megan) who "prostitutes" himself to Satan and pimps his wife to have his child. Betty says that Megan was on the "casting couch" (prostituting herself) in order to get a role on Broadway. The implication is that Megan is "preparing" Sally for sex .

**** We also learn that they work in the "Time Life" building.

Season 6 Episode 7: The Man with a Plan

The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men*

Gang aft agley,

An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,

For promis'd joy!

Modern Translation 

The best laid schemes of mice and men

Go often awry, 

And leave us nothing but grief and pain, 

For promised joy!

- Robert Burns, from his poem, To a Mouse, on Turning Her Up in Her Nest with the Plough, 1785

Don's brilliant plan that landed the Chevy account becomes real and the (painful) merger of the two firms is played out (perhaps represented by Joan's cyst which was benign but painful?). The effects and repercussions of it shake the identity and insecurities of several characters. We are given a preview of the conflict during a meeting with the partners. Bert Cooper reads a draft press release about the union where he says, "and in closing" and stops: he's missing the ending. He doesn't know it and neither do we because it's ambiguous and changing.

Chaos reigns as Ted's firm moves in. Space is tight, compressed and claustrophobic. People are let go (Roger lays off Burt Peterson to protect himself), jockey for power (Joan and Moira) or maneuver for territory (Peggy gets a windowless office with a hand made door sign that says Chief Coffee Writer and Harry complains about being moved again to a smaller space). The creatives with the two firms could also not be more different: Stan and Ginsberg represent the hip, smart, pot smoking creative team for SCDP versus the white shirt and tie, whispering to each other CGC team. The only two people who seem to enjoy the merger is Roger and Jim, who both act royal and imperialistic. During the commotion of the office, there is also an odd moment when movers bring in a "modern" chaise and it is carried up the stairs. We later see it in Roger's office when he fires Burt. Burt can't figure out how to sit on it and asks if it's a bed.**

Don is the primary focus in this episode and his world goes upside down. In fact, we are told this twice: once, when he says to Sylvia that he wants her to please him, she replies, "I can stand on my head and do that at any time". And again, in the plane while flying up to visit the Mohawk Airlines, Ted tells him, "you think you're right side up, but sometimes when you're flying you're upside down". The merger has caused Don's world to become unsteady. We see Don's jealousy of Ted when he gives up his chair for Moira and when Ted asks the secretary taking the meeting notes a question she makes "goo goo" eyes at him. Don doesn't like it. And on the plane trip, Don looks disgusted and says that it doesn't matter what he says to Mohawk, because "you just flew your own plane to see him". Don is not the alpha dog any more.

When the episode begins and the elevator door opens to Arnie"s and Sylvia's hallway, we see a suitcase and a hat in the middle of the floor. We hear Sylvia yelling, but we never hear Arnie. It's as if he's not there. The conversation is one sided and she says "you are not taking care of me, you are taking care of yourself". When she calls Don at work and wants to see him, he does the same thing to her, symbolically locking her up in the hotel room (when he takes the key) and effectively putting her into solitary confinement with no food or entertainment (before hotel rooms had TVs). This becomes apparent when he cruelly takes her book, The Last Picture Show***, away to read on the plane. Don has gone to a dark place. We have not seen him treat a woman like this before.

So where is Don during the merger? Absent without leave. As one of the key figures and partners, he doesn't care. He's more interested in playing mind and sex games with his mistress than running the agency. Sylvia finally tires of him when she imagines him dead.**** Only then, does Don feel anything. Sylvia's problem is that she confused sex with love. Don doesn't know the meaning of love, only the meaning of sex. The most important thing to happen to the firm and he is not there, mentally or physically. Don's secretary is also absent. Don repeatedly looks for her. When Peggy says that she spoke to Dawn on the telephone, Ted says "which one? Black or white?."

Other absentee players: Pete and Pete's father who is a ghost in his mother's memory. We learn from his mother, who appears to have Alzheimer's, that he, like Pete, was a womanizer and also had an apartment in the city. We realize how detached Pete is from family and not just with Trudy: he didn't offer his brother the chance to take SCDP public and lies to his mother repeatedly about dates and events. He has become her caretaker because he could not admit that he is separated from his wife due to adultery. He also lost his accounts due to adultery. He sees his position at the firm as tenuous and missed the Mohawk meeting because of his mother. Pete is caught in a hell of his own making.

The Man with a Plan, has many guises: Pete's swinging bachelor pad has become a small cramped apartment that he shares with his senile mother. The plan to go public fell apart and the partners will not become millionaires. Arnie's plan to become the first American heart transplant surgeon doesn't pan out and he wants to move to Minnesota. Don's plan for the company merger is realized, but Don didn't realize the affect it would have on him or others.

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*John Steinbeck, in 1937, named his book "Of Mice and Men" from this stanza. The book was about unfulfilled dreams and plans that go horribly wrong.

** The chaise longue is a LC4 Villa Church and designed in 1928. For years Le Corbusier claimed exclusive credit for it. However, Charlotte Perriand, who worked with Le Corbusier in his architectural practice was the actual designer. It has only been in the last few years that she is being given proper credit for many of his iconic pieces. This piece of furniture, like the women of the time and shown in the series, are mostly uncredited or invisible. For more information on her please visit:

http://designmuseum.org/design/charlotte-perriand

*** The book is about loveless sexual alliances in a small dying town.

****Don's death is also alluded to by the dying Gleason when he speaks to Ted from his hospital bed. He quotes Sun Tzu (The Art of War) "if I wait patiently by the river, the body of my enemy will float by". 

Season 6 Episode 6: For Immediate Release

"I wanted it to be a day of sentiment, not profit."
- Anna Jarvis

The episode opens on a Saturday with Joan, Burt and Pete talking with a banker about the value of the company. If the stock of SCDP is offered on the stock exchange, the partners will become rich. The underwriter says to Joan, "your papers are spotless, my compliments to the chef." After he leaves and while sharing a drink together, Pete says to Joan, "everybody wants you" and hints that they should sleep together. She rebuffs him but says when she is leaving, "don't forget, it's Mother's Day tomorrow." 

The roots of Mother's day began as a pacifist movement and goes back to post Civil War. It was an effort to reunite families that had been divided by the warring sides. But it wasn't until 1914 that Congress made it a holiday due to the efforts of Anna Jarvis. Jarvis, however, when she died in 1948, regretted that it became a holiday due to it's crass commercialization. 

Except for Megan, there are no children shown in this episode. And all the women shown who are mothers, Joan, Trude, and Marie, are not seen as "mothers". The women want to be seen as professional (Joan) or as sexy and desirable (Daisy, Megan, Maire, Peggy, Trude). Marie tells us that she hates it when her grandchildren call her to wish her a happy Mother's Day. She also offers her the flowers that she received from Megan to Dr. Rosen as a gift to his wife. The only woman who played the traditional role of mother wasn't even shown: it was Hazel, the TV sitcom that Ted wanted to watch, but "couldn't get the reception." Motherhood had left the building.

Peaches' story about the dog who had a litter in an oil stain in their garage, where each puppy "had a nipple" had Don rejoin, "I love puppies". Motherhood is sexualized by the men. Roger tells Daisy that his mother died so she will have sex with him. Pete tells Trude, "we'll maintain every other aspect of our marriage, except what matters" when Trude denies Pete sex. Marie tells Roger to "forget my name" when he's a no show for the dinner with Herb and Peaches. She thinks it's because she's not attractive because she is a mother / grandmother. 

Fathers take it on the chin here: Don is oblivious; Dr. Rosen borrows wrapping paper from Megan as he is putting something together at the last minute; Dr. Rosen's son is going to take Sylvia for a walk in the park; worst of all Pete and Pete's father-in-law, Tom, meet at a brothel (party house). Tom becomes incensed with this (guilt?) and pulls his advertising business from SCDP. He tells Pete that Trude, "is his Princess" and Pete "is not fit to be a father". Tom is so wrapped up envisioning his daughter in the traditional mother role that he can't identify with the fact that he and Pete share a common interest in having sex with prostitutes. 

Relationships are juxtaposed and compared: Pete and Trude / Roger and Daisy. Don and Megan / Peggy and Abe. Peggy is back down in a windowless apartment building which she shares with a junkie who defecates in the hallway and street kids who hang out on the stoop throwing firecrackers. She fantasizes about Ted* when she kisses Abe. She wants out of there. She's told us in this episode that she doesn't like change and it is a shock to her when the two firms merge. Peggy and Pete's trajectory are going down while Don and Roger are seen going back up. The two advertising firms merged by necessity. It was a successful "Hail Mary" pass that worked at the last minute: they landed the XP 887 (Chevy Vega) account, a car that was later to be shown to have a history of design problems that resulted in numerous product recalls. 

* A literary joke: Ted is reading "Something" by Ralph Waldo Emerson. It could have been called "Anything" as Emerson never wrote such a work.

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. 

---

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 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.

Season 6 Episode 1-2: The Doorway

As for me, the silence and the emptiness is so great that I look and do not see, listen and do not hear.

- Mother Teresa to the Rev. Michael Van Der Peet, September 1979 

I can not remember having seen a film or photoplay* that has more in common with James Joyce's novel Ulysses, than Matthew Weiner's season premiere of "The Doorway". Joyce used Homer's tale of the Odyssey to provide a structure for his novel of a wandering salesmen in Dublin, 1904. In a similar way, Mr. Weiner uses Dante's poem of the Inferno for the general structure set in New York and Hawaii, between Christmas and New Year's Eve, 1967. Joyce's Leopold Bloom, as well as Don Draper, are both advertising men. Both authors use sex, mythology, the human anatomy, religion and multiple levels of meaning to create a portrait of contemporary life and the human condition. 

This is a bleak portrayal of a world where the old gods have fallen (Hawaiian / Christian) and characters suffer a crisis of identity and faith as a result. What was shocking was the portrayal of Christmas. It was a Christmas without Christ, empty of religion with forlorn illuminated trees used as room decorations; where the performance of a ballet replaces attending church and the business of selling product is non stop. When was Christmas? Was it before or during the events we just saw? Did we miss it? Did anybody? It doesn't matter, it's just another day at the office. Roger complains to his psychiatrist about New Years day as a holiday**. And at his mother's funeral, what is missing is that there is no person of faith there, figuratively or literally. The upcoming Super Bowl spectacle is the next focus of attention for the masses. Peggy is to "introduce…earphones to a huge drunk male audience". When Peggy speaks on the phone to Ted's pastor, she stumbles over her family's religion as she explains that her mother was a Catholic and her father was a Lutheran. By implication, she is somewhere or nowhere in between. But with football, she and the pastor agree with each other.

The old gods have fallen: what has replaced them? Movie stars: Megan is recognized as an actress from her soap opera "To Have and to Hold" and is asked for her autograph. Betty dyes her hair black and her husband calls her Elizabeth Taylor. Astronauts: Pfc Dinkins asks Don if he is one when they are sitting at the bar. Surgeons: Christian Barnard, who pioneered the first heart transplant in South Africa, and by extension, Dr. Rosen, who saves Jonesy, the doorman, when he has a heart attack in the building lobby. Musicians: in Hawaii, a performer calls himself the Hawaiian Elvis; Roger calls Don, Don Ho (the Hawaiian singer). Sandy says she is too old at 15 to be a child musical prodigy and gives up her violin. These are the new idols and gods, the fascination with celebrity, the new religion.

The episode opens with a black screen and Megan yelling, "Oh, my god. Oh, my god". With a fade in to show the face of Dr. Rosen, providing CPR to Jonesy, the "doorman" (the door to the episode; the door to the underworld). This beginning is the first brush with death that permeates this story. Other death references: Sandy's mother, Betty's mother, Bobby liking Sandy's violin case because it looks like a little coffin. The best man passed out at the bar at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel "you are either dead or you got great balance"; PFC Dinkins monologue of what a 50 caliber machine gun could do to a water buffalo; Betty getting a ticket and told by the police officer that he doesn't want to shovel her off the road; Jonesy's heart attack; American soldiers cutting the ears off Viet Cong soldiers; Burt Petersen, widower; the picture of President Kennedy in Peggy's apartment; Roger references the movie "From Here to Eternity" (set in Hawaii; the scene he mentions is where Prewitt kills Judson with a switchblade); Roger's mother's funeral; Roger proclaiming that his mother's funeral is his; Don's discussion of Hawaiian legend where the human soul leaves the body; the death of Georgio the shoe shine man; the reference to James Mason committing suicide in the movie "A Star is Born"; Don's Royal Hawaiian campaign that everyone but Don thinks it looks like a man committed suicide.

In Dante's Inferno, Dante himself journeys through the nine circles of hell which are: limbo, lust, gluttony, greed, anger, heresy, violence, fraud, and treachery. Mr. Weiner illustrates them all. Here are just a few: Hawaii becomes limbo, where the air and water temperature are the same, Don's watch stops working, and in a photograph, Don and Megan float upside down (when slides are shown of them on vacation). Lust is shown with Megan and Don having sex under the influence of marijuana; Betty's offer of helping her husband rape the 15 year old Sandy; Stan Rizzo lusting after Megan in a bikini and mental fantasy pictures of Joan in his head. Gluttony: Megan wanting more dialog lines from her show; Betty, Betty's mother-in-law, and Sally eating during the performance of the Nutcracker; the creative team smoking marijuana at work; the Hawaiian luau; Don drinking to excess and vomiting. Greed: Dr. Rosen accepting a camera; Don accepting a vacation in Hawaii; Roger accepting food from Bob Benson; Jane Sterling accepting a ring from Roger's mother; the copy writers accepting food from Peggy. Anger: Betty's anger at Henry Francis for sexually fantasizing about Sandy; Roger's anger at his mother's funeral. Heresy: Margaret's rejection of the baptismal water from the river Jordan; the young hippie squatters next to St. Mark's church and their rejection of society. Violence: the suggested rape of Sandy; Pfc Dinkins "I could paint this place red"; the cut off ears of the Viet Cong; Betty tearing her coat on a door; the headline in the paper when Don is about to return back to his apartment: World bids Adieu to a Violent Year. Treachery: when we find Don in bed with Sylvia, Dr. Rosen's wife.

What are we to think of some of the connections that the writer raises, such as the 50 caliber machine gun, Model M2 and the Leica rangefinder camera M2? Is it a coincidence? Or is it that in photography you metaphorically shoot someone? Or is it more subtle, such as the connection of a gun and German engineering, using products to remind us of another war (WW2)? What do we think when Don gave Dr. Rosen***, a German camera as a gift? Should Dr. Rosen be repulsed, since many Jews boycotted (and still boycott) German made products because of the Holocaust? When Dr. Rosen visits Don to get the camera, he says to the effect, that he had hoped that Don wasn't intelligent as well as being handsome. When we find out that Don is sleeping with Dr. Rosen's wife, was Dr. Rosen aware of the affair? Did he willingly accept the gift from Don as payment or tribute for his wife?

Dr. Rosen is an interesting character. He says that it is an "honor and a privilege" to heal people, yet he treats Jonesy with disdain and disrespect after saving him. Dr. Rosen's character is mouthing words that he does not feel or believe. Dr. Rosen's emotional detachment "I've never had a problem with life and death" is symbolized in his bedroom where, when we view Don and Sylvia in bed, there is a physician's model of a heart mounted on display as though it was a shish kabob. 

Sandy is the most tragic character: her mother is recently deceased and she is not accepted (into Juilliard) because she is not good enough. What does it mean, if anything, that she plays a Chopin composition for piano but on a violin? Is it to show us that her playing is not quite right? Not quite good enough? And, where is the father? How can she just run away and no one notice her absence but Betty? Is the missing father a symbol for a missing God? And why doesn't Betty tell anyone, even the police, that Sandy has run away? How can Betty go home, lie to her husband and later, change the color of her hair as though nothing has happened?

Indifference, to me, is the epitome of evil. 

- Elie Wiesel

At the Royal Hawaiian, Don gets up in the middle of the night and goes downstairs to the bar. The painting behind the bar shows a Hawaiian ruler, Kamehameha, sitting on a throne with adoring women dancers and other societal figures, including a child at his knee. During the photo shoot for the partners, Pete asks Don if was treated like Kamehameha. In the lower right hand corner of the painting is a tiki figure of Milu, the Hawaiian god of the underworld. 

Throughout this episode, we have many scenes of Don sleeping. Sleep is, according to Hawaiian mythology, when the soul can leave and return to the body. When Don is being photographed and is told to "be yourself" he looks puzzled because he doesn't know how to act as he doesn't know who he is. When he asks Jonesy what it's like to die, he asks if it's like Hawaii. Don, like the others, believes in a heaven, but not in a God who created it. Don's new fear is that he will become the James Mason character in A Star is Born, where the actress / spouse usurps the status of the male partner. Don's fantasy way out is "the jumping off point", where you swim out to sea so far, you can't swim back.

Motherhood gets bruised too: Sandy's mother dies; same with Roger's mother, but Roger's mother suffered the indignity of not being loved back. Sally disdainfully calls her mother by her first name. Betty, who expressed motherly concern for Sandy, abandons her. When asked about his mother, who was a prostitute, Don does not answer, but throws up soon after. Margaret, Roger's daughter, tells Roger with a small laugh, that her son came home from school with a bloody nose and couldn't remember how it happened, as if the child was forgetful. Peggy, who gave away her baby, makes the copy writers work on New Years Eve, but doesn't remember to feed them or to tell them to go home. She doesn't realize that she's a mother figure to them and responsible for their welfare. 

Food, the heart, the stomach, the bowels and private parts are well represented here: Sandy says that her mother would get a stomach ache from wearing a girdle to make herself look good for her father. Peggy and Abe come in from a restaurant and Abe runs to bathroom due to food poisoning. The goulash that Betty helps make with the young hippies looks like vomit. Don vomits at the funeral and later claims it's due to a stomach bug. The character Prewitt in "From Here to Eternity" suffers a serious wound to the stomach in a knife fight. A man is seen urinating into a pail. A regional store manager is caught in the men's restroom at Gimbels department store seeking a gay tryst. Sally complains that Sandy thinks she's older because she can use a tampon. "Love is in the Air" with Dow Chemical Oven Cleaner and the heart is shown to be replaceable. Don mentions that love is 10,000 volts. But, he doesn't say if it's 10,000 volts for the married man with his wife or the single sailor with a prostitute. Megan asks Don if he minds that she will play a "lying, cheating, whore". "As long as you don't push me down the stairs" he answers. 

God is dead. Long live Madison Avenue.

* the name of a magazine from early 20th c. to describe the plots and characters of films

** the term "holiday" is a contraction of the words, holy day

 *** in the elevator, Don says to Dr. Rosen, "I guess I can't wish you a Merry Christmas." He replies, "No, but you can to Sylvia."

Season 5 Episode 13: The Phantom

"April is the cruelest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain."

T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land

The season finale was both dense and satisfying. It did what great fiction is suppose to do: create mirrors of our humanity and inhumanity; layer meanings for depth; excite our senses to want more.

We learn from Marie, Megan's mother, that the setting is in April, when she has come to visit her daughter during Easter, a holiday her husband doesn't celebrate because he's an atheist. Easter, the holy day celebrating the raising of the dead, shows Don in the embryonic stage of becoming reborn, and perhaps not in a good way. We see him helping Megan get a job as an actress in a commercial, playing Beauty in a theme of Beauty and the Beast. Will Don become her Beast? By helping her succeed he may have knowingly helped her to leave to pursue her career, just as he helped Peggy and she left him. We are left with uncertainty when a young woman expresses her interest in him at a bar. He doesn't say he's married. He doesn't say anything. We are left to find out next season.

Phantoms are illusions, transparancies of ideas and ideals but also of the living and the dead. In this episode, Don's waking spirit is not the only apparation we see. Adam, Don's younger brother who also committed suicide by hanging, is seen at SCDP and at the dental office. Adam tells him that his tooth is not the only thing rotten to the core. But this is not Adam speaking: it's Don's conscience.

We also see the specter of Peggy by her absence. When the Topaz client complains about using the word "cheap" in a commercial with a young woman, he mentions that "you should get a girl's opinion. I used to take that as a given here." When Don does see Peggy, it is in a movie theater, home of the shadow world where illusions of human existence are projected in an empty room.

Megan is also shown in this other world light when Don watches her audition reel alone in an ethereal black and white silence: it's as though she is already dead.

Lane's spirit hovers at the company when Harry doesn't want to move into Lane's office and at the partnership meeting when his death benefit to the company makes SCDP profitable for the quarter. Joan also feels guilt over Lane's death, as she thinks that if she had slept with him perhaps he wouldn't have committed suicide. When Don visits Rebecca to offer her $50,000 as reimbursement for Lane's capital investment in the partnership, she accuses him of having "no right to fill that man with ambition." She thinks Don had a corrupting influence on Lane, when she finds the picture of the young woman in his wallet and also the visit to the brothel with the Jaguar client. She believes that ambition was the cause of his suicide, the pursuit of personal achievement which Don embodies.

Pete becomes a ghost before our eyes after Beth's electro-shock treatment erases her memory of him. She further describes his (their) affair as "a temporary bandage on a permanent wound." His physical fight on the train again reminds us of his false pride and self importance. But most importantly, that he is just like Howard but does not have the self awareness to realize it. When the episode ends, Pete is listening to headphones cut off from the world and his family. We don't know what he is listening to as he is no longer there. We can not follow him.

Roger also becomes spirit through his use of LSD again, but this time alone, standing naked, arms open to the world from the heights of a hotel room.

Don's guilt is from his manufactured persona, Lane's and Adam's deaths, his damaged familial relationships. His hard scrabble early life and his own accumulation of bad decisions has been glossed over by a successful career and wrapped in a handsome guy package. His guilt manifests itself in a painful tooth which is infected and needs to be removed. The tooth is a molar. Was it his wisdom tooth that was removed?

Season 5 Episode 11 The Other Woman

"That place is my baby and I would prostitute myself for it" Walt Disney

Advertising and prostitution have been synonymous since J. Walter Thompson created the first "sexual sell" for the Woodbury Soap Company in 1911 ("The skin you love to touch"). The metaphor becomes real in this episode with Pete, the skilled salesman with no moral compass, metamorphoses into a panderer for an influential car distributor who will help decide on which agency lands the Jaguar account. The episode also explores the multiple roles that women have in society: wife, mother, co-worker, partner, prostitute and actress. It is also about the women close to Don who are and may be leaving him.

In the opening scene, the Jaguar creative team comes up with the brand idea that it's a "mistress that will do what your wife doesn't". During lunch with the married car dealer, Herb Rennet, Herb mentions to Ken and Pete of his desire for Joan. Ken's initial reaction is to reject it outright. Pete's is to run with it. In fact, it is Pete that makes the fantasy come true. Without him promoting and pushing the idea forward, what might have been considered guy talk during lunch becomes real. This display of raw male power, of trading women and sexual favors for business advancement, ultimately spoils the pleasure of winning for Don. For a brief moment, Don was becoming re-invigorated in his job. Yet the interference by Pete made him doubt if they won the account on merit or because of Joan's sexual favors. Pete has also destroyed one of Don's few core beliefs, which is motherhood. Pete prostitutes motherhood in this episode, which is symbolized by Joan.

Joan's ascension to partnership by sex instead of by her work ethic, job performance or loyalty also shows the moral corruption of the firm. Lane's advice on asking for partnership instead of cash is her way to be equal among the men. It also buys time for Lane to further hide his embezzlement from the firm. Joan is already perceived by the super's wife to be a "loose" woman as she doesn't have a husband any more. As a result the super's wife won't let her husband come over to fix the refrigerator. Peggy's pitch to Chevalier Blanc includes Lady Godiva, the legendary noblewoman who rode through Coventry naked on a horse to shame her husband and to save the populace. But Joan is not altruistic. Joan shames her husband (revenge) and saves the firm on the alter of consumerism for a percentage piece of the business. She becomes a partner where Peggy does not.

Megan's rejects Don's "mistress" theme for Jaguar when Don discusses it with her at home. But her visit to Don at the office where they have sex, is more in keeping with a mistress than a wife. Her friend Julia's performance on the conference table in her short dress and exposed underwear doing a sexy tiger dance also reinforces the perception that actresses are prostitutes. When Megan gets a call back to the producers of the play everything has to do with looks. We never hear her try out her lines. She is simply told to "turn around, honey".

In contrast to Joan, we have Peggy who did not use sex for advancement. Her prior relationship with Pete did not result in any favoritism or promotion. When she talks to Freddie, he treats her like a friend and equal. The same with her meeting with Ted. He treats her with respect for her work and offers her a job at a higher salary than she has asked for. He makes her feel better about herself. In her relationship with Don, Don has given her power, but not respect, especially in this episode when he throws money in her face.

From the male perspective, we have Herb who thinks he is a sultan in a harem when Joan comes for sex. In a Norman Rockwell tableau, Pete is a doting father reading to his daughter with no remorse for pimping Joan to a stranger. Pete, who wants to be sexually free, lies to his wife by suggesting he get an apartment in the city. Even the partners show no little thought for the consequences of their decision. Don is the lone outcast. Joan calls him the "good one" for being the only partner to not want her to prostitute herself. But Don is the embattled monarch trying to understand the changing roles of women. Don is the former used car salesman who has risen to the heights Madison Avenue but with old fashioned values. When Peggy gives notice to Don, he is the supplicant kissing her hand showing respect like a son or a servant to a monarch. It is at the same time quaint and vulnerable.

1. The car dealers name is Herb Rennet. One of the properties of rennet is that is coagulates milk, causing it to separate into solids (curds) and liquid (whey). Perhaps Herb is a metaphor for being the catalyst for the break up of the agency?

Season 5 Episode 10: Christmas Waltz

“Man is not what he thinks he is, he is what he hides.” Andre Malraux

Lying and deception are the hallmarks of advertising and also of this episode. A sub theme of unfulfilled longing also rises and ebbs throughout. The episode begins with Lane being notified early in the morning by his solicitor in England that payment for taxes are due or prison will result. By that same evening, Lane resolves his tax problems by counterfeiting a check with the forged signature of a counterfeit man, Don. This sets up the possibility of Don's true identity coming to light and / or to compromise Joan's relationship with Lane, who is also privy to the books. Lane's malfeasance takes place on Pearl Harbor Day, proclaimed by President Johnson on December 7, 1966, to commemorate the day in 1941, when the Japanese attacked the American Navy in Hawaii, which led to America's entry into World War II. Lane's deception to Walt, the banker, to increase the credit line by $50,000 will enable to pay for bonuses to the partners, which will solve Lane's debt, but may also be the first blow against the new and struggling agency in a "war" on Madison Avenue either from within or from without. That this came from a trusted employee, although a foreign one, and not a competitor or client, will hurt not only the firm, but those who trusted him.

An attack on advertising is also shown in the play that Don and Megan attend, American Hurrah, where a character is lying on the stage, ill from watching tv advertisements.

It is again brought up by Paul's adoption of the Hare Krishna Movement and rejection of materialism. Materialism is the sole reason why Madison Avenue exists, which is to peddle soap (product) to the masses. Paul's failure to find solace in religion fuels his desire to write science fiction (a Star Trek script) which he sees as his financial escape to an idyllic rustic retreat with Lakshmi. Lakshmi uses sex to keep Harry away from Paul is for the Movement, because Paul is so good at recruiting new disciples to it. Who better to sell religion, which is also a product, than a former ad man? Lakshmi's devotion is to her religion, not to an individual or to herself. Paul and Harry are still too caught up in their own skin in order to sacrifice themselves to another person, a religion or to a company.

Lakshmi and Peggy are also mirrors to Harry: they each give him the same advice, "tell him the truth" about how bad the Star Trek script is. Both are liberated females and have carved out their own strong identities in regards to sex and their roles in the world. This is in contrast to Joan and Megan, who mirror each other in their traditional relationships with men and those problems that can arise from those relationships. Both Joan and Megan resort to violence: Megan by throwing her plate of food against the wall when Don comes home drunk; Joan by breaking a Mohawk model airplane in the lobby of the agency when she is served with her divorce papers.

Harry practices deception with Paul, when he tells him the script is good and that the producers really liked it, but can't use it. Don does the same with Joan in the bar when he hits on her, to make her feel better and says resignedly when he fails, "poor me, I struck out." Both deceive because they care for the people they are lying to. It is not to hurt and but to help. To them, the end justifies the means.

Paul and Don both share a sense of ennui and of unfulfilled desire. Megan notices it and says "you use to enjoy your job before you met me." Don is also shown on the couch at work lounging and not working just before Pete comes in. When Pete tells him about the possibility of pitching the Jaguar account, he expresses no interest and Pete proclaims that in the past "you would kiss me on the mouth" if he had brought in a prospect like that before. Don feels that he is slowly losing his wife, as she is rejecting his way of life. Paul can't obtain his chosen wife, Lakshmi, because she is married to the movement. Both men are feeling disconnected.

Lane Pryce (a "priceless" name for an accountant) when he lies to his wife, it doesn't ring true because it is for personal gain, which is to make him look better in her eyes or to keep her from finding out the truth about his financial difficulties. It is not for her personal benefit and does not make her feel better; it makes him feel better.

At the end of the episode, Lane gives a speech to the staff about bonuses which no one understands and Cooper (the barrel shaped Robert Morse) has to explain to them in plain English (as opposed to proper English). When Pete mentions that the firm will be losing ad revenue from the Mohawk machinists strike because advertising will be cut back, but that they may land the Jaguar account, there is also befuddlement and more silence. Only when Don speaks does the staff respond and they rally by his clear and concise words to them about hard work to win an important account. It is only Don who can lead the firm through the tribulations ahead.

Season 5 Episode 8 Lady Lazarus

A disappointing episode with too many rapid cuts between characters which did not allow the viewer to immerse with the development of the story lines. While I enjoyed the contrast between Megan's quitting the business and pursuing her acting career with Pete's personal family crisis of wanting to be single, neither story really mattered to me, which I attribute more to the editing / directing than the story telling. What I did enjoy is Peggy's growing self assurance (yelling at Ginsberg and Stan to let them know that Megan is talking, and the two of them responding like two cocker spaniels by snapping to attention; getting into an argument with Don (like a married couple) after the failed Cool Whip repartee goes south in the test kitchen). Peggy can hold her own. She enjoys her work and career and she thinks Megan is brave because she is pursuing her acting dream. What is touching is that Peggy is by far the braver woman with her personal work achievements and independence but is not aware of it. Megan, moves from the support of one father figure to another with her marriage to Don and is one of the least brave and the most girlish of all the women represented on the show. As for the men, I'm enjoying the metamorphosis of Roger who is leaving behind the pettiness and competitiveness of the firm and becoming an ethereal and spiritual guru like Bertham Cooper. This is in contrast to Don, who is becoming more staid, conservative and fossilized.

Howard, the life insurance salesman from the commuter train (and the reminder of Death), has started a hidden and double life with an apartment and young girlfriend in the city, leaving his wife alone at home (with an off screen child). When Howard's wife Beth (played by the doll eyed Alexis Bledel) locks her keys in the car, Pete gives her a ride home. She mentioned that she doesn't like the city as it is dirty and there are homeless people. Pete's response is that "you are not suppose to see them".  When Howard's wife and Pete have sex, they share a post coital tristesse and in their sad conversation she compares his eyes to pictures of the earth "blue and round and surrounded by darkness" and the earth as "tiny and unprotected". Her melancholy echos later when Pete talks to Stan and says the same thing. But his melancholy is not the same as hers. Hers is based on rejection by her spouse, the resulting loneliness and the meaning (or lack of it) of life. Pete's is lonely too, but his loneliness is because he is not honest. His life is composed of social maneuvering, mis-truths, false advertising, pitches to men for sales and for women for sex. Pete's isolation is self inflicted where Beth's is not. While Pete wants to have an honest relationship, he looks everywhere but home, to his wife who has been the most supportive and instrumental in the development of his career.

Megan wakes Don up at night and tells him she is not interested in advertising. She rejects Don's world forcefully. He is visibly hurt and later as he escorts her to the elevator, he forgets to get in with her as he says goodbye. As he waits for another elevator, the doors open and he looks down an empty shaft into the void. Is he looking at the emptiness of his life? His work? That Megan has left?

Don is also getting out of touch with the times and with youth "when did music get so important anyway?" he asks. Later, Megan gives him the album Revolver by the Beatles to listen to. And the episode starts to close with Don listening to the Beatles song, Tomorrow Never Knows. In closing, Don turns off the song before finishing, learning nothing from the experience.

1: The song lyrics to Tomorrow Never Knows, was based on the book, The Psychedelic Experience, by Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert. Their book, in turn, was based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead.

2: Maybe it was the skis that Roger gave Pete, but all of a sudden I got the impression that Megan's character was based (ever so slightly) on Claudine Longet.

Season 5 Episode 5 Signal 30

This was a very interesting exploration about friendships. Don, in his new role as "family comes first" transformation, vehemently does not want to be friends with partners or subordinates. When he is talked into going to the "country" for the dinner party, the "rules" set by Trudy are "no talk about business or clients". As a result, the awkward socializing (visually expressed by the clashing coats worn by the men) is magnified at the dinner table, when it comes out that Ken is a sci-fi writer, no one cares nor understands nor is supportive of his efforts because there is no connection between them save business.

There is also the false friendship that Lane tries to have with the British Jaguar client, with pointers by Roger and Pete on how to pretend to be friends in order to win the business.

There is the failed seduction between Pete and the high school girl, as he tries to seduce her through a false friendship, but she is uninterested and eventually spurns him for Mr. Handsome who is younger and more direct.

The violation of trust between friends is broken when Ken doesn't invite Peggy to lunch and to tell him about meeting with a publisher and about his writing "the vow". 

The violation of trust is broken between spouses with the visit to the brothel. 

The outward surface of business friendship and civility is broken between the partners when the fist fight breaks out between Lane and Pete (perhaps the funniest scene for me since the Managing Director loses his foot in the tractor episode and gets fired because he can't play tennis anymore {or was it golf?}). 

The platonic friendship morphs towards the beginnings of a sexual relationship between Lane and Joan. Joan's response is get up to open the door for propriety, but it is also a visual metaphor for leaving the door open for a relationship between them.

There is also the complete humiliation of Pete in this episode. He can't score with a girl unless he pays for it; he can't fix the sink; and he can't fight. He is completely emasculated and as he says in the elevator, crying, he is nothing.

In contrast to the broken and damaged relationships above, the relationship between Don and Megan shows her to be a wife but not a mother. (I don't even remember her being in the same room as the kids this season). In the car, Don asks her to have a baby. She says impossible. As Don becomes family centric, my guess is that she will become more independent and either have an affair or leave him.

On a technical level, I really didn't like the editing. Good editing is not noticeable. I haven't looked, so I don't know if the editor is new or if it was done on purpose, but there were a lot of jump cuts that were jarring and reminded me that I was watching a costume drama. There was only one interesting edit that had Ken reaching for the doorknob to leave his office and cut to Lane in the same position opening the door to his office. There were also some tracking shots that I found gratuitous and unnecessary. 

As an aside: I'm 99% sure that the exterior shot that was used as Betty's home with her new husband (a large 3 story brownstone), is located on So. Figueroa down by USC in Los Angeles. Can someone confirm? I use to live down there years ago, and that's my memory. 

Great viewing!

Season 5 Episode 6 Far Away Places

At first, I thought this episode was pretty depressing. But upon reflection, it really was a powerful look at women and their multifaceted roles and relationships with men.

Peggy's relationship with her boyfriend starts the episode with him stating (indirectly) that she is the alpha male and he complains about this, as it violates the traditional roles of the sexes. When the pitch to Heinz goes awry, she leaves work to go to a movie, gets high with a stranger and has anonymous sex with him. But the sex act is her way of re-gaining her dominance in her world with men and she becomes the sexual aggressor by refusing to be submissive.

During the pitch to Heinz ("Home is where the Heinz Is" (where product replaces the human heart), Peggy tells the executive the "truth" that they don't know what he wants, that he knows but won't tell them, and just wants to complain. The executive in response, compares her to a daughter figure, that he dismisses by having her fired from the account. Peggy is not treated as a associate or on equal status as the men, which is echoed by Sally's phone call to Don to complain that she is treated like a second class citizen.

There is also the powerful underlying theme of motherhood that runs through this episode. Ginsburg was born in a concentration camp and reared in an orphanage. This is told to Peggy, the unwed mother, who gave up her baby at birth.

Roger goes to the dinner party with his wife and takes LSD with Prof Tim Leary. This sequence is about "truth and lies". What better person than Roger, who works on Madison Ave and deals with illusion, to appreciate the effects of the drug and welcome the ability to talk truthfully with his wife about their failed relationship. Roger sees himself both young and old and his relationship with his wife more father / daughter. When they finally break up, she says "you never liked me." His response, "I use to." Love was never part of the marriage.

There is also a reference to the 1919 World Series, which was the famous baseball gambling scandal that showed the frailty of men and broke the illusion of baseball as a "pure" sport. The mother theme is also echoed with the woman therapist, who advises the wife/ daughter in her relationship with Roger.

Don and Megan's road trip, dominated by the color orange (sherbet, her dress, Howard Johnson) is a disaster, echoing Peggy's pitch to Heinz. Megan tells Don what he doesn't want to hear: that she has multiple roles: a job with responsibilities to her co-workers, to him as a husband. However, he only lets her have these roles at his convenience. She chafes at being the submissive partner and wants to be an equal, which he doesn't allow her to be. The trigger is when she tells Don to call his mother (last episode we find that he was reared in a brothel and his mother a whore), which sets him off and he leaves her stranded at the motel. Don, being the petulant child, regret his decision to leave his wife (mother), and tries to find her without success, even calling Megan's mother. Driving home, he remembers a prior trip in the car with Sally and the kids in the back seat, and he tells Sally that they are going to their new home. When Don reaches home his finds Megan, they fight, and Don ends on his knees with his head on her womb, declares that he thought that he had lost her. She, reluctantly, assumes the mother role and comforts him.

The episode ends with Sterling, with a drawing of a woman in lingerie crossed out that has written on it "Do Over", tells Don that the firm is having problems because he's been on a love leave. Don by himself in the empty conference room, contemplates the future.

Rich and dense stuff.