Mad Men S7E7 - Waterloo

Napoleon's reign lasted over a decade and through his own will and genius the French emperor expanded his country's footprint, accumulated vast wealth, and made more than his fair share of enemies. Of course, his overthrow, brief return to power, and ultimate defeat at a place that, two centuries later, is now part of our lexicon as a place where you make your last stand, suggested that last night's "mid-season" finale, Waterloo, would result in someone's undoing. The obvious candidate was Don Draper, who, like the little French general, was mercurial, fearless in the face of opposition, reckless, and ultimately undone by his own ego. He was the only one who did not know his indefinite leave over Thanksgiving 1968 [1] was meant to be a graceful exit for committing the high crime of honesty in front of a client, but having (mostly) toed the company line after his return, he became the target of a palace coup by Jim Cutler, who leveraged Don's interruption of a meeting with executives from Phillip Morris [2] into a breach of contract action to terminate Don's partnership with the agency. 

Ultimately, Waterloo was much less about Don than Roger, his on again, off again, partner in crime and whose tortured relationship over the years could fill its own lengthy analysis. Roger Sterling was always the ultimate example of a man "to the manner born" - his father established Sterling Cooper with Bert Cooper way back in 1923 [3] and shortly thereafter, a long and fruitful business relationship [3] with American Tobacco, maker of Lucky Strike cigarettes, basically ensured that Roger would have to do little else besides count his money (and conquests) until he passed to the great beyond. But a funny thing happened on the way to "you know where." [4] Roger took some off-handed advice given to him by Don in a dimly lit bar one boozy night that set off a series of events beginning with Roger's decision to leave Mona for Jane. [5] The resulting financial squeeze made him vulnerable to a pitch to sell the agency to Putnam, Powell, and Lowe. [6] In the merger, he did not rank a box on the updated organizational chart, [7] but that mattered little as long as tobacco money continued to roll in. When the partners hung out their own shingle, it was American Tobacco that provided the ballast to do so.

When that seemingly never-ending stream of revenue dried up, [8] Roger was at sea. For a while, he took to trolling Pete Campbell, going so far as sneaking a peek at his calendar, where a planted 6 AM meeting with a representative from Coca-Cola sent Roger on a wild goose chase. [9] But somewhere between his LSD awakening, [10] seduction of Megan's mother, [11] and letting Don loose with Dow Chemical, [12] Roger got his mojo back. Sure, his bedroom had turned into a low rent 60s version of Caligula [13] and his daughter alit for upstate New York, leaving young Ellery in her family's care, [14] but Roger Sterling was again an account man, if not a leader of men. 

So it was interesting that the fulcrum for Waterloo was a very un-Roger like power play to protect his erstwhile Don Quixote instead of jettisoning him and cruising through to retirement on a wave of Harry Crane's spreadsheets and Jim Cutler's Vitamin B-12 shots. [15] Bert's lecture that Roger was not a leader surely stung, so perhaps in Bert's memory Roger finally decided to act instead of count his money. And sure, Roger's motivations may not have been entirely noble - after all, he was able to recover Joan's million dollars (plus an additional half million!) she thought Don lost when he torpedoed her, Bert and Pete's plan to take the firm public, [16] affirm his position as President of the firm while having the benefit of McCann's deep pocket, put Jim Cutler in deep freeze, avoid having to make Harry Crane a partner and oh yeah, pocket a nice payday for himself - but he still closed the deal. Not bad for the low low price of having taken a shvitz and held an early morning meeting with Jim Hobart. 

Roger's efforts to pull Don's chestnuts out of the fire were met with a surprising resignation from the enigmatic Mr. Draper. Perhaps it was, as the sound in his voice on that long-distance call with Megan indicated, a weariness over the constant battle just to get his job back, or the renewed bond he had with Peggy, but Don was surprisingly non-plussed when Roger presented him with his plan; [17] however, when it came time to sell the idea to the one person who they absolutely needed - the hollowed soul of Ted Chaough - Don poured on his incandescent charm, offering Ted the opportunity to go back to the roots that grounded them both - the purity of the pitch. In the balance, Don also put a lie to Jim Cutler's belief that Don was a charlatan - an all hat and no cattle illusionist whose fragility and weakness was exposed before the executives from Hershey's. [18] 

For Don, a man who once refused to sign a contract [19], to agree to both become part of McCann and sign a five-year contract to do so may seem surprising, but after watching his protégé slay Burger Chef he knows the future is in good hands. The juxtaposition of Peggy's pitch to Don's iconic Kodak speech [20] is interesting. The latter was delivered at a time when the country was looking hopefully to a new tomorrow, but Don's pitch was all about looking toward the past, about going back to a place where we know we are loved. [21] Now, the country had met its future - literally, men had landed on the moon less than 24 hours before the Burger Chef presentation - but Peggy leaned on the same yearning for a simpler time to close the deal. In a present that felt more disconnected than ever, when the communal experience of staring at the television deadened peoples' lives as the mood music of chaos, war, and unrest filled the screen, she offered the exact form of nostalgia Don did so many years ago - a place where we get what we want - a connection with the ones we love. 

That Don was sitting there as Peggy had the executives eating out of her hand was no doubt a point of pride, but, with the new corporate plan in place, may have been a more concrete handing off of the baton as Peggy assumes a greater role and Don a more secondary one. This generational transition was similarly done in 1963 when Roger spoke of both the decades of work he and Bert had put into the company but also identified Don as his partner "for the next 40 years." [22] Now, just six years later, it is Don who has found a mellower place that will surely be tested as it appears Ted will be returning to New York and another ghost is added to the list of those who seem to haunt him. [23] 

And to you, readers, I want to thank you for reading my recaps and sharing your thoughts about Mad Men as we all look forward to next year.

You can also follow me on Twitter - @scarylawyerguy

END NOTES

1. In Care Of, Season 6, Episode 13. 

2. The Runaways, Season 7, Episode 5. 

3. The firm's creation is dated to the 40th anniversary party held in late 1963. The Gypsy and the Hobo, Season 3, Episode 11. 

3. The press release SCDP issues announcing its severance of ties with American Tobacco notes their nearly thirty years of work for the client. Chinese Wall, Season 4, Episode 11. 

4. The Doorway Part I, Season 6, Episode 1. 

5. Six Month Leave, Season 2, Episode 9. 

6. The Mountain King, Season 2, Episode 12. Of course, Don was on a walkabout in California dealing with his own drama and might have been able to head off the whole thing at the pass. 

7. The nascent elevation of Guy MacKendrick was mercilessly snuffed out by Lois and her rogue driving skills. Guy Walks Into An Advertising Agency, Season 3, Episode 6. 

8. Hands and Knees, Season 4, Episode 10. 

9. A Little Kiss Part I, Season 5, Episode 1. 

10. Faraway Places, Season 5, Episode 6. 

11. At the Codfish Ball, Season 5, Episode 7. 

12. Commissions and Fees, Season 5, Episode 11. 

13. Time Zones, Season 7, Episode 1. 

14. The Runaways, Season 7, Episode 4. 

15. The Crash, Season 6, Episode 8. 

16. For Immediate Release, Season 6, Episode 6. 

17. As Don noted, when McCann acquired PPL (and Sterling Cooper) back in 1963, instead of being a cog in that large machine, he, Roger, Bert, and Lane formed their own agency. Now, six years later, they were running into the arms of the suitor they had collectively rejected. Shut The Door, Have A Seat, Season 3, Episode 13, Waterloo, Season 7, Episode 7. 

18. In Care Of, Season 6, Episode 13.

19. Seven Twenty-Three, Season 3, Episode 7. This was the nadir of Don and Roger's relationship, with the former making a condition of his signing a contract that he and Roger have no further contact.  

20. The Wheel, Season 1, Episode 13. 

21. Indeed, instead of going with the obvious pitch of the Kodak Carousel being a "spaceship" Don referred to it as a "time machine." The Wheel, supra. 

22. The Gypsy and the Hobo, supra. 

23. RIP Bertram Cooper, you soup sipping, avant garde art collecting, ball-less wonder. I didn't like your shabby treatment of Don of late, but, like your one-time secretary Ida Blankenship, who you once called an astronaut, you died watching the real ones land on the moon. 

Mad Men S7E6 - The Strategy

"You never say thank you." 

"That's what the money's for."

- The Suitcase Season 4, Episode 7 [1]

On Peggy Olson's 26th birthday, her night was ruined by her lush of a boss who wasn't satisfied with her tag line for Samsonite and so, made her miss a birthday dinner and with it, a boyfriend who couldn't tolerate being second fiddle to her work. Of course, what was happening that night had little to do with a tag line for a suitcase, it was about a man who did not want to hear the news of the passing of the one person in his life who knew and loved him, as flawed as he was. It was about someone not wanting to face the cold reality of life, and so, took out that frustration and fear on the only person he knew could take it. But in the end, after a night of soul baring and emotional intimacy, when Don finally made that fateful call and confirmed what he already knew to be true, he and Peggy shared a tender moment, his hand gently enclosing hers, appearing to cement a bond that had been long in forming. 

It's no surprise that the few glimpses of Don's desk we see include a photo of him and Anna Draper, but four years (and a few weeks) later, he and Peggy re-convene in that same office, but with quite a bit of water under the bridge. Instead of deepening a bond that had been built ever since Don put Peggy on the Belle Jolie account, [2] had deepened when Don visited Peggy in the hospital where she was recuperating from the birth of her child, [3] become more complicated when Peggy came to the rescue after Don crashed Bobbi Barrett's car, [4] and survived the launch of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, [5] The Suitcase was a high water mark after which Peggy and Don's relationship dissolved, slowly at first, but over time, much more quickly. First, Megan supplanted Peggy as Don's emotional nourishment; [6] then, when Megan quit the firm to try her hand at acting, Don blamed Peggy, [7] riding her mercilessly until she quit and took another job. [8]

The merger of SCDP and CGC brought Peggy back into Don's orbit, [9] but by this time, Don's blackened soul and Peggy's unrequited desire for Ted were on a collision course. Peggy has been nursing a rather stiff grudge against Don for "breaking" Ted, for crushing his spirit by dangling the threat of the revelation of their affair to a client [10] and shaming Ted, who Peggy viewed as virtuous, into absconding to California with his wife Nan and two boys in tow. [11] Of course, that was just the cherry on the sundae for years of verbal abuse, dismissiveness and humiliation that Don piled on her, but the tent poles for The Strategy were these two beautifully acted (and written) scenes between Peggy and Don that took place in Don's old office (now occupied by the odious Lou Avery) that buried the hatchet of all of that rancor. There, after Peggy had her tantrum, drunk dialed Don and tried to get pissy with him, each laid bare their fears and insecurities. 

The pitch for Burger Chef was not about mom's battle with fast food any more than Don cared about what was being offered for Samsonite way back in 1965 (a year Peggy and Don ruminate over in one of the scenes). Instead, it stood as a convenient proxy for Peggy's own perception of herself - of being a single woman at 30 unable to relate to being a mother and unsure about what families do, and to give Don an opportunity to be tender and paternal - to be supportive in ways he rarely was when the power dynamic was reversed, to acknowledge that he feared having done nothing and having no one in his life and not wanting Peggy to suffer the same fate. To tell her, because only he can and have it matter to her, that she is doing just fine. Because to both of them, nothing outside the office will ever seem as important as what happens in the office, because Peggy knows Don better than anyone and heard in his floating of the pitch from a child's point of view that he wasn't wild about the agreed upon strategy. But here, instead of being competitive with Peggy, of bickering over her desire to be placed on accounts or dismissing her ideas as kernels that he turns into CLIO award winning material, he is instead charitable and mentoring - walking her through the creative process that goes on inside his head without rubbing her nose in it or feeling the need to save the day. 

The call back to The Suitcase was unmistakable but also distinct. The Don of 1969 is a world-wearier person. For all the attention we draw to his lack of empathy or (self) awareness, he is stung by the slings and arrows of bad fortune. He may blanch at most of the rules placed upon him by the other partners (although it seems he's broken most of them in spirit if not by their letter), but he found an untapped reservoir of good will toward Peggy that was absolutely endearing and afforded him the wherewithal to put himself in service of someone who he obviously values. The two scenes between Don and Peggy are interesting in that the way they were scripted placed Peggy in the power position - she was the boss, but there was almost a Yoda/Luke Skywalker vibe to it - she'd like to underscore the possibility that the pitch could involve the mother coming home from work, but Don knows that is a story that people are not yet ready to hear. He isn't pressing to make his idea the winner, but rather, nurturing and nursing her in the way a teacher might aid a prized pupil who is on the cusp of achieving something great. 

And because of that, she finds her theme - family - whether it's around a kitchen table or strangers sitting in a restaurant, who you are with defines who you are. In so many ways, the entire arc of Mad Men has been about that quest to, as Bob Benson put it, find comfort in an uncertain world. Don long ago noted that he felt as if he was just outside his own life, trying to scratch his way into it, [12] but everyone else has wrestled with those same demons. Joan walked into a marriage with a man who thought nothing of sexually assaulting her in a fit of pique [13] because marriage and appearances mattered, it was not long after Pete married Trudy that he was telling her father he did not love her, [14] Peggy's romantic liaisons sometimes bring her short-term enjoyment, but the one long-term boyfriend she had ended up with a knife buried in his chest [15] and her swoon over Ted ended spectacularly; the marital failings of the Roger Sterlings and Don Drapers of the world are well known and need little comment. 

So it came as no surprise that Pete had no problem bringing his new girlfriend Bonnie east to show her off at the office, but left her cooling her heels when he visited his daughter Tammy in Cos Cob. Sadly, his daughter barely recognizes him and recoils behind her nanny when he arrives (and who can blame her, that sport jacket would frighten young children). When his estranged wife shows up hours later (no doubt knowing he would have to wait until she returned home), Pete does what Pete does best - acts like an asshole - but Trudy was engaged in her own tit-for-tat and when he tried to moralize about her dating habits, buried him with the same caustic tongue that warned him about opening his fly within 50 miles of their home, [16] basically telling him he no longer matters in her (or their daughter's) life. So much for "family." That Bonnie does not like "New York Pete" is unsurprising, but the reality is that "California Pete" is not that different, save for the lengthening side burns and more casual office attire. 

Meanwhile, Joan proves she's learned some lessons the hard way. Having (finally) tossed Greg out on his ear [17] and taken a pass at Roger's occasional flirtations, she was more than happy to have Bob around to give little Kevin presents or take a day trip to the beach, but when Bob pulls an engagement ring out of his (loud) sport jacket, she demurs. She'll wait for love and go solo because although the idea that we all need comfort in our lives, and particularly for those living through the turbulence of the late 1960s, she's unwilling to accept an "arrangement" with Bob, who she subtly "outs." [18]

The mood music, that is, the sturm und drang that propels the narrative, is familiar. A major account dangles in the balance, seats are being re-arranged around the table (Harry sure is getting paid back nicely for leaking word of the firm's pursuit of Phillip Morris to Don), and some reckoning is likely to occur, but beneath that, and where this show has always shined brightest, is in bonding the audience to the characters and the characters to one another. If you've invested seven seasons worth of viewing the trials and tribulations of these people, you couldn't help but swell a little at the sight of Peggy, Don, and Pete sharing burgers and sodas after all these years, all those battles, and all that heartache. The image of Don and Peggy slow dancing to Sinatra's My Way, its lyrics suggesting "the end is near" felt equal parts ominous and poignant. When Peggy softly put her head against Don's chest and he kissed her tenderly on the top of her head, it was hard not to think of a father and daughter sharing a wedding dance, but maybe it was just simply two people who long ago formed a familial bond that each had carelessly threw away and now hoped to get back.  

END NOTES

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2MV-x924KA

2. Babylon, Season 1, Episode 6. 

3. The New Girl, Season 2, Episode 5. 

4. Ibid.

5. Shut the Door, Have a Seat, Season 3, Episode 13. 

6. See generally, A Little Kiss, Season 5, Episode 1 and 2. 

7. Lady Lazarus, Season 5, Episode 8. 

8. The Other Woman, Season 5, Episode 11. 

9. For Immediate Release, Season 6, Episode 6. 

10. The Quality of Mercy, Season 6, Episode 12. 

11. In Care Of, Season 6, Episode 13. 

12. The Mountain King, Season 2, Episode 12. 

13. Ibid.

14. Ibid.

15. The Better Half, Season 6, Episode 9. 

16. The Collaborators, Season 6, Episode 3. 

17. Mystery Date, Season 5, Episode 4. 

18. The return of Bob Benson will surely please some, but this storyline had the feeling of nothing more than a throw away to close the Bob Benson "loop." The loss of Chevy's XP allows him to leave SC&P and go in house General Motors, never to be heard from again. Farewell, Bob. 

Mad Men S7E4 - The Monolith

When the chairman of Madison Square Garden approached Sterling Cooper to spearhead the ad campaign that would result in the destruction of the original Penn Station, Don Draper observed that "change is neither good nor bad, it simply is. It can be greeted with terror or joy, a tantrum that says 'I want it the way it was,' or a dance that says, 'Look, something new!'" [1]

The Monolith, the room-sized computer that those of us in 2014 snicker at while tweeting from smart phones that have more computing capacity than was used to put a man on the moon in 1969, is met with consternation from the creatives whose bullpen is torn down to make room for this latest technology, but as with most things produced on Mad Men, it's a handy metaphor for what is going on inside our fictional advertising agency. Where once there was simple novelty at the appearance of a Xerox copy machine, [2] now copywriters sulk that their hangout is being destroyed and fear that their jobs might be next. 

But Don, as he usually does, has it right - change is agnostic, it is how we react to it that matters. Adults once took for granted that their word would be heeded, unquestioned, and final. But the "grown ups" are discovering that their children were not as clueless as they assumed. Sally's eyes were opened to the seedier side of adulthood long ago, [3] but now as a teen, she is unafraid to challenge her father and call him out on his lies. [4] 

So too is Roger and Mona's daughter Margaret, who has gone full native and shacked up with some hippies in upstate New York, shirking her responsibilities as mother and wife to lead a pastoral existence where there are no rules. When her parents try to bring her back, she cuts down her mother by reminding her that she spent most of Margaret's childhood nursing a bottle of gin. Roger, more simpatico with the live-and-let-live vibe, turns on his daughter when she sneaks off in the middle of the night to shack up with one of men at the commune, [5] only to be dismissed when he tries to forcibly remove Margaret. She calls him out as an absentee father who was never there for her when he tries to underscore her responsibility to her son Ellery. Roger may have a rotating cast of long hairs coming in and out of his suite at The Algonquin, and he's more than happy to dose and stand naked in front of the window, [6] but his conservative view of parenting runs smack dab into the counter culture and the result is a muddy suit. 

Don's problem is quite the opposite. He is the one being treated as a child. He can't even reel in a small-time account without Bert tsk-tsking him and leaning into the fact Don was placed in a dead man's office. His former protégé is now his boss, directing him to turn in tag lines for a new client like he is some sort of junior copywriter and being summoned to her office for meetings. His reaction is predictable - he has a temper tantrum, reflexively reaching for a bottle of alcohol to drown his sorrows and stumbling out of the office in the middle of the day like the swinging dick he once was. It is not until the following morning when Freddy gives him the kick in the ass he needs. "What do you want?" Freddy asks. "I want my job back." Don retorts. And while Freddy's response, "Do the work, Don," may not be what he wants to hear, it is what Don needs to hear, because Freddy basically tells him the world has changed and if you want to get your job back, stop feeling sorry for yourself and go back and get it.

On the other hand, change has given Peggy more power but she is not mature enough to wield it properly. Having Don foisted on her Burger Chef account would lead a more experienced person to tap into Don's deep reservoir of talent and skill and treat him decently and humanely; but instead, Peggy's instinct is to humiliate and belittle him. Perhaps it is just desserts for the years of suffering she experienced, but having been handed an opportunity to take on a new, and high profile client, she is ill-prepared for how to respond - indeed, she views it as a suicide mission handed to her by higher ups waiting for either she or Don to crash, instead of a chance to shine. Lost in all of this conduct is the nuanced and complex relationship she and Don share. Perhaps she has taken to heart Don's long-ago admonition to forget about her childbirth and move on, [7] erased the night of Anna's death, [8] or just simply can't let go of the fact that she thinks Don destroyed Ted, [9] but instead of rising to the occasion, she has a tantrum of her own. 

Of course, age is not determinative of a person's capacity for reacting well to change. Lou is no more mature than Peggy when it comes to Don's return. He feels threatened and is looking for any opportunity to kick Don while he's down. The rest of the agency seems to simply want to move on, with Joan dismissing Don's presence like that of an annoying gal in the steno pool, Bert telling Don the firm worked perfectly well in his absence, and the copywriters Don used to make shudder now conscripting him to move furniture with them. So it is not surprising that Don spent weeks sheltered in his office reading Phillip Roth and hanging that Mets pennant on the wall as a small reminder of Lane. No one likes to be treated like a child, but when Freddy tells Don to snap out of it and stop sulking, he is telling Don to forget the fact that his co-workers are treating him like shit, that Bert Cooper is pretending he didn't build this new agency, that Lou Avery would sooner pour gasoline than water on him if he was on fire, that his former secretary is now his boss, or that Joan, who he once counseled not to sleep with Herb from Jaguar, [10] treats him like a stranger. Do your fucking job. Be an adult. Embrace change. Do not be a monolith. We shall see how long this lasts. 

PS - Pete adapts to change with lightening speed. He went from feeling remorse that his ex-father-in-law had a heart attack to glee over being able to "kill" him by signing Burger Chef, in a nanosecond. 

END NOTES

1. Love Among The Ruins, Season 3, Episode 2. 

2. For Those Who Think Young, Season 2, Episode 1.

3. See, e.g., Mystery Date, Season 5, Episode 4, At The Codfish Ball, Season 5, Episode 7.

4. A Day's Work, Season 7, Episode 2. 

5. The rank hypocrisy regarding infidelity on the show is not limited to Roger. Don would not accept that Megan so much as kissed a man on her soap opera (To Have and To Hold, Season 6, Episode 4) and he shut down Betty's nascent attempt at re-entering the world of modeling (Shoot, Season 1, Episode 9).  

6. The Phantom, Season 5, Episode 13. 

7. The New Girl, Season 2, Episode 5. 

8. The Suitcase, Season 4, Episode 7. 

9. The Quality of Mercy, Season 6, Episode 12. 

10. The Other Woman, Season 5, Episode 11.