Mad Men Season Six - A Monster

Mercy is something that can be sought or offered. For those who seek it, mercy is often asked for at some tipping point where vulnerability has been exposed or the order of things simply cannot be sustained and change is required. For those who offer it, mercy is a powerful weapon. It can be denied, resulting in total submission and capitulation by the weaker party, or it can be wielded with grace, releasing the person seeking it from further damage. 

Unlike other seasons, where the penultimate episode had major plot development [1], The Quality of Grace pulled its shock value punch. Oh my god, they DID NOT kill Kenny, the yahoos at General Motors only clipped him, but a man on the verge of being a father for the first time cannot risk that the next time a drunken client discharges his weapon, all Ken will get is a face full of buckshot and an eye patch. An account man who cries uncle may have reduced his chances of landing a corner office, but Ken's request for mercy is granted, in part because Pete, whose dorsal fin is far higher (and sharper) than Ken's, has little to live for - he is separated from his wife and his daughter is practically a stranger. and thus, can handle the predations of a client as prominent as GM. 

The hand off to Pete is also okayed because the partners have grown comfortable with up and comer Bob Benson. But any question that Pete was repulsed by Bob's advance is quickly removed as he employs Duck Phillips to get Bob out of his (thinning) hair. When Duck does some digging into Bob's past, he discovers Bob's deeper secret, not his homosexuality, but rather, that his entire CV is bogus - the schools he went to, the places he worked, the jobs he held, all made up out of whole cloth. The mirroring that has been so prevalent throughout this season again came through here, both between Pete and Duck [2] and Pete's decision to keep Bob's secret. [3] Pete's show of mercy was not without cost to Bob, who was told the lone condition of Pete's decision to not betray Bob's confidence was that Bob had to cease his romantic interest in Pete. 

Bob having a secret life naturally draws comparisons to Don's checkered past, but I think this interpretation is a bit too facile. Don's reinvention was the direct result of a need to walk away from a prior life. We simply don't know enough about Bob's backstory to say the same. Whereas Don might have been underhanded in the way in which he secured his job at Sterling Cooper [4], he was actually a copywriter (albeit one "in house" at a fur company). Bob, on the other hand, is more like Cosmo Kramer, who famously showed up to Brant Leland and ingratiated himself to his co-workers but without having any skills appropriate to the office. [5]

Meanwhile, when the first and last image we see of you is your being curled in the fetal position, things clearly are not well. Don is now being shut out by Sally and he has blocked Megan out as he stares blankly at the television screen. His morning starts with a vodka-fortified glass of orange juice and he reflexively reaches for his trusty Canadian Club throughout the day. Don tipped his hand that it is emotional intimacy he craves more than physical closeness [6] and the only people he has gotten that from are now dead (Anna), won't speak to him (Sally) and have fallen for another man in the office (Peggy). 

Don's visceral, and highly negative reaction to Peggy and Ted's flirtation was that of a jilted lover, that her transference of platonic affection toward Don to romantic affection for Ted is a betrayal far deeper than casual infidelity. The eye is constantly drawn to any scene involving Peggy, Don and the intimate space they share. Pregnant in any interaction between mentor and student is that Don and Peggy forged a bond years ago that ties them together in ways that are deeply personal, almost co-dependent. Don has spent much of their "reunion" time trying to steer Peggy away from her infatuation with Ted by explaining to her that he is not all she has him cracked up to be, while Ted acts like a lovesick puppy dog, jeopardizing an account by tripling the budget for a commercial simply to please the object of his affection. Of course, he also dangles his own affection just out of reach, dipping his toe in the water, but refusing to jump in with both feet. 

Even in his addled state, Don recognizes the risk Ted and Peggy have taken with St. Joseph's, but instead of hanging the two out to dry, Don pulls a vintage "Don Draper," explaining to the client that their desire to run the commercial was an homage to the last advertising pitch made by the now-deceased Frank Gleason. And while Don may have also had ulterior motives in pulling Ted and Peggy's chestnuts out of the fire, Peggy slips the dagger between Don's ribs after the meeting, calling him a "monster" and storming out of his office, his attempt at explaining himself (and warning her off of Ted) having fallen on deaf ears. And of course, Peggy is right, Don *is* a monster. Much of this season has been about Don cruelly snuffing out any happiness that others might experience - either subversively (emasculating the good hearted Dr. Rosen by shtupping his wife) or directly (essentially calling his wife a prostitute for acting in "love" scenes on TV), but a whole episode since he promised to "lower his weapons" at Ted, he gutted the poor man like a fish in front of a client and crushed the spirit of his once promising protege. That Don immediately curls into the fetal position after Peggy insults him suggests he knows just how far he has fallen too.

Finally, Sally, although a young teen, wisely sidesteps seeking mercy, and instead crafts an exit strategy for herself from her overbearing mother and her now estranged father. Life at boarding school may simply be a "Total Draper Move" of beating a strategic retreat while more favorable options present themselves, but Sally has seen enough of the adults in her life to know that whatever trials and tribulations she may experience with the "mean girls" at Miss Porter's School, they cannot be worse than the monsters she lives with. Mercy is asked for when you are ready to give up; Sally decides to forge her own destiny. 

And so we are left to await a finale in which the TV Guide preview only says, "Don has a problem." You don't say. 

END NOTES

1.  Lane Pryce's suicide (Commissions and Fees, Season 5, Episode 12), SCDP teeters on the brink of failure after Lucky Strike pulls its business (Blowing Smoke, Season 4, Episode 12), JFK is assassinated and Betty tells Don to move out (The Grown-Ups, Season 3, Episode 12), Don confesses his sins to Anna, Duck negotiates the sale of Sterling Cooper to PPL (The Mountain King, Season 2, Episode 12), Pete tells Bert about Don's stolen identity (Nixon v. Kennedy, Season 1, Episode 12). 

2.  When Duck negotiated the sale of Sterling Cooper to PPL, he offered to make Pete Head of Accounts. Pete stabbed Duck in the back and warned Don about Duck's power play, allowing Don to trump Duck and have him removed. Meditations in an Emergency, Season 2, Episode 13. 

3.  Faced with a similar choice in Season 1, Pete tried to leverage his knowledge into a promotion. When Don called his bluff, and Pete told Bert Don's secret, Bert gave Don permission to fire Pete. Don chose not to. Nixon v. Kennedy, Season 1, Episode 12. 

4.  After getting Roger drunk at a pre-lunch cocktail hour, Don simply shows up to the office the next day, claiming Roger had offered him a job. Waldorf Stories, Season 4, Episode 6. 

5.  The Bizarro Jerry, Season 8, Episode 3.

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

Mad Men Season Six - A Family Affair

"If your home life is crap, your racing life is crap." - Richard Petty

Don's home life is invariably crap, but his combination of incredible eloquence [1] and casual infidelity has sustained him for years on end. While his paramours rarely get the chance to engage in after action reporting on his behavior, the one person who can, his ex-wife Betty, is given the opportunity to do so in this week's episode, The Better Half, an hour that considered intimate relations - between Don and Betty, Abe and Peggy, Pete and well, the world, and the odd ménage of Roger, Bob and Joan. 

Betty, resembling her former self, is back to being a woman who men desire, and a chance encounter as she and Don separately travel to Bobby's sleep away camp results in a boozy night of flirtation and frolic with her ex-husband. Of course, the last time Betty and Don had "desperation sex" they created little Gene [2] but their one off is more interesting for the pillow talk they engage in afterwards than their coitus. Don admits his ambivalence about the act of sex while desiring an emotional connection. His meditation is an interesting window into his psyche - he asks why intimacy and closeness have to be equated with sex, lamenting that the closeness he experiences just holding Betty in his arms is what is meaningful, while "the rest of it" (i.e., the act of sex) is not that important to him. 

But Betty is too aware of Don's wandering eye to let him off the hook for being unable (or unwilling) to connect with women intimately - she pinpoints his shortcomings in ways only a spouse can do - that his gaze, penetrating and consuming, ebbs quickly (another way of observing that he only likes "the beginnings of things" [3]) and that his distance from Megan stems from her committing the offense of attempting to love him. That Betty is able to diagnose Don's dysfunction so crisply is a testament to the fact that although Don bends over backwards to lead dual (and sometimes multiple) lives, all of that misdirection does not fool the people who are purportedly closest to him. The following morning, Betty, satisfied simply with being the target of Don's passion for just one night, happily banters with Henry like the prior evening never happened. 

And while Don is getting into hanky panky with Betty, Megan is pouring her heart out to Arlene, her co-star on To Have and To Hold about the emptiness of her marriage. Megan's lonely, having gone from shiny object of Don's affection to just another ship passing him in the night. Like Betty, Megan is attuned to Don's alienation and distance, but is at sixes and sevens as to how to solve that particular problem. Arlene misinterprets Megan's vulnerability as an opportunity to make a move on her, but Megan refuses. Megan, having taken Don's assistance in getting her career started, wants what we now call "work/life" balance in her marriage. When Don returns from his time at Bobby's camp, and having seen Betty and Henry chatting amiably in the camp cafeteria, he admits that he has been absent from their marriage, promising that he will attempt to reconnect with her. 

Meanwhile, Duck Phillips has reappeared, not as a competitor, but as a head hunter providing sage advice to one-time protege Pete Campbell. [4] Duck, now sober, counsels Pete to spend less time in his gloomy pied à tierre and more time at home; that confidence does not stem from alcohol but from the love of his family. But Pete is non-plussed, calling his family an irritation, not a source of confidence. Here, Duck demurs, advising Pete that failing to manage those relations will stop him from managing anything else. [5] But Pete is across the rubicon with Trudy, having "pushed the button" about his father-in-law's whoring, resulting in a final "we're through" declaration from Trudy. [6] And his mother, never a source of support, is now in a dementia haze, just another problem that belies a solution for Pete, who can never seem to figure things out. Perhaps, in an effort to start over, Pete makes a ham-handed pass at Joan, but, as we will learn later, Joan is otherwise engaged. 

Duck's advice contains a hint of irony. After all, he was once Peggy Olson's lover [7] but now Peggy is in over her head as the owner of a brownstone in a not-yet-gentrified part of New York City. After Abe is attacked near their home and rocks are thrown through their bedroom window, she is on guard for burglars and wielding a makeshift spear, which she buries in Abe's gut by accident when she mistakes him for a robber. Not since Lois ran over Guy Mackendrick's foot with a ride-on lawn mower [8] has such an unintentionally hilarious scene unfold, as Abe, a knife buried in his chest, castigates Peggy over her job in advertising and breaks up with her - IN AN AMBULANCE. But when Peggy tells secret crush Ted that she is now a single lady, he coldly rebuffs her. 

Finally, the familial heart strings tug at Roger - who feels so comfortable being Pop Pop to his grandson Ellery, but fails miserably when the lad is haunted by nightmares after Roger takes him to see Planet of the Apes. And while his daughter Margaret bemoans "a four year old taking care of a four year old," Roger re-directs his attention to his son Kevin, but discovers, upon popping in on Joan unannounced, that she is now dating Bob Benson. [9] Roger's lame attempt at trying to shoe horn his way into Joan's (and Kevin's) life falls flat, and Joan dismisses him as unreliable and an unwise person for Kevin to think of as his father. 

That sour note notwithstanding, The Better Half was an oddly optimistic hour of television. Family, marriage and children are almost always used as devices on the show to express limitation, claustrophobia and unhappiness, but here, they were utilized to suggest stability, comfort and support. In this way, Weiner tipped his hand at the little "c" conservative undercurrent of Mad Men, that even as times change, lapels widen and drugs become more ubiquitous, love, faith and affection are still the bedrock emotional needs we seek, even if do not always get them. 

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END NOTES

1.  Man With A Plan, Season 6, Episode 7. 

2.  The Inheritance, Season 2, Episode 10. 

3.  Noted by Dr. Faye Miller. Tomorrowland, Season 4, Episode 13. 

4.  When Duck was putting together the deal that would result in PPL buying Sterling Cooper, he was going to make Pete Head of Accounts. The Mountain King, Season 2, Episode 12. 

5.  And Duck should know. His ex-wife re-married and dumped the family dog on him. Duck couldn't stomach being poor Chauncey's master and abandons him outside the Sterling Cooper building. Maidenform, Season 2, Episode 8. From there, things went south quickly - Duck fell off the wagon, got muscled out of the PPL/SC merger (Meditations In An Emergency, Season 2, Episode 13), was dragged out of the CLIO awards drunk (Waldorf Stories, Season 4, Episode 6) and was caught trying to defecate in Roger's office before getting into a fight with Don (The Suitcase, Season 4, Episode 7).

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

7.  Seven Twenty-Three, Season 3, Episode 7. 

8.  Guy Walks Into An Advertising Agency, Season 3, Episode 6. 

9.  Roger's "who are you" to Bob was laugh out loud funny. He's only your employee, Roger. No big deal!

Mad Men Season Six - Sinners and Saints

In an hour that plunged both feet into the counter-culture, To Have and To Hold trafficked in the oldest of sins - betrayal, envy and greed. In its way, the fourth episode of Mad Men's Sixth Season condensed much of what we consider the seven deadly sins in one tidy hour. Don, carrying on a passionate affair with Sylvia, cannot stomach the idea that Megan's soap opera character has a love scene. Stan, whose casual gossip tip about Heinz led to Peggy's betrayal of his confidence, expresses his distaste for her conduct in no uncertain terms. And the agency engages in its own betrayal, having promised not to go after the business, it does so - resulting in the loss of their actual Heinz account. Meanwhile, Don's secretary Dawn does a favor for Harry's secretary Scarlett by punching her out of the office at the end of the day when she leaves early and is caught in her lie. Joan's friend Kate visits from out of town and cheats on her husband. Harry, frustrated at not getting the respect he thinks he is owed, envious of Joan and desiring more power (not to mention money) has a temper tantrum in front of the partners, dissing Joan and the manner in which she attained her partnership. In fact, the only two people living honestly are soap opera scribe Mel and his wife Arlene, who attempt to solicit Don and Megan into a night of spouse swapping, only to be rebuffed. And everywhere, marijuana was in the air, psychedelic colors bloomed and the relentless drumbeat of Vietnam grew ever closer. 

Don's disapproval of Megan's love scene is unsurprising. Where once he chided Betty for purchasing a bikini at a country club 4th of July celebration [1], he now reprimands Megan for kissing another actor as part of a chaste love scene. The screaming hypocrisy of Don's incessant philandering is obviously what makes his behavior the more egregious, but with Megan, it seems like he resents her (modest) success and mindlessly continues his cheating ways. Bad pennies have a way of turning up, but casting "Corinne" as a scheming maid is a curious choice. Megan, innocent but alluring in her cleaning outfit, is not unfamiliar with scrubbing carpets on her hands and knees [2]; however, the Draper marriage, like that white carpet she scrubbed some time ago, has quickly soiled and Megan has seen her role in Don's life devolve ever since he left her high and dry at an upstate Howard Johnson's [3]. When Don stings Megan by observing that she "kisses people for money" we might as well be back in the whorehouse where Don was conceived [4] or the brothel he grew up in. [5]

But Don's casual use of a double standard in his marital life is just one way that the Pleasantville effect [6] was shown in a way more glaring than even Roger's LSD trip last season. [7] Indeed, To Have And To Hold featured the full range of the burgeoning counter culture. Consider Dawn, Don's secretary. For the past season plus, she's been a peripheral character with a steady Eddie demeanor and competent manner rarely seen in Don's assistant. Now, we know Dawn is deeply unhappy with her job, the incessant drinking that goes on in the office, and the sense of everyday terror that the secretaries (crying at their desks) and ad men (crying in the elevator) endure. Overlaying her sense of dread is the fact that she finds it hard to meet men, it going without saying that there are few (no?) other black employees at SCDP. 

Here, the writers handled race relations with a defter hand than last season's water balloon incident [8] and allowed the scenery and dialogue to speak for itself. When Dawn does a favor for Harry's secretary Scarlett, punching her time card at the end of the evening even though Scarlett left early to shop for fellow assistant Clara's gift, the two women react far differently when their ruse is exposed. Scarlett is fired but gets Harry to champion her, leading to her reinstatement. Dawn, mindful of losing a job, even one she does not like, is apologetic, offering to have her pay docked for the time Scarlett took. Scarlett strutted through the halls of SCDP after Harry got her job back; Dawn humbly took responsibility for the violation and was rewarded by Joan with greater responsibility (about more shortly). 

And who is this Harry Crane we see in the late winter of 1968? Aside from his ridiculous side burns and lecherous mien, we could not have seen his volcanic explosion at the partners coming. When Ken disturbs Harry's monday morning coffee and danish with complaints from his father-in-law that people don't like Dow Chemical Harry springs into action. He swoops in with what the reactionaries at the company think is a swell idea - a variety show with Broadway Joe Namath (not a Don Draper favorite [9]) and Joey Heatherton. For co-opting an icon of the counter-culture for establishment needs Dow ponies up $150,000, but the idea itself is absurd. Here, as in Don's Great Depression era attitude toward female chastity, the "adults" are completely out of step with the reality of youth culture. A football player will no more make the American people forget about napalm being used in Vietnam than a couple of commercial spots featuring Dow's "family friendly" products. 

When Harry returns triumphant to the office, Scarlett is decamping with her things. When he sees Joan in the partners' meeting, he directs a tart dressing down of her in front of the assembled group, blatantly calling out the method in which she received her promotion and questioning why his value to the company is not recognized. As a power play, his timing was good, but his personality, noxious and oily, causes Bert to observe that he (Bert) and Harry are nothing alike, even though Bert once did an earlier generation's version of Harry's job. Instead of a partnership, Harry nets a year's worth of salary in the form of a full commission on the pitch. 

Joan mostly took Harry's barbs without cracking, but in one episode, her conflicted experience as SCDP's newest partner was brought into sharp relief. Her social skills are as deft as ever, guiding an out-of-town friend toward a one-night stand at an otherwise vanilla restaurant straight out of 1950s Americana that dissolves into a psychedelia infused after hours club where casual hook ups set to dizzying lights could not have been more with the times.  Joan's mother boasts of her daughter's status as "a partner at a Madison Avenue advertising firm," but Harry's diatribe affirms something Joan has always felt - under (and de) valued [10]. 

But it is Joan's friend who makes Joan realize the choices are not binary, that she does not either have to feel like a secretary or an all powerful master of the universe, but as someone whose seat at the table speaks for itself and to act accordingly. It is a keen observation and one Joan takes to heart. Instead of stewing over Scarlett's imperious strut, she makes a much bolder, albeit more subtle decision - handing the keys to the storage closet and time card machine to Dawn - entrusting the woman with considerable responsibility that the latter takes as a thank you but Joan argues is a punishment. Joan's climb up the corporate ladder was one that stemmed from a place of need, but now that she's there, maneuvering in that rarefied air will be a challenge, but by opening the door to Dawn, she echoes something that was spoken about less than a year ago by our First Lady - that if you get through a door, you reach back and extend your hand to others. 

To Have and To Hold also offered our first image of mentor and protégée, as Don and Peggy went head-to-head pitching Timmy, the Heinz Ketchup Guy. The CGC pitch was itself the result of skullduggery, but Peggy's blatant cribbing of Don's observation that if "you do not like the conversation, change the subject" [11] was what seemed to devastate him more than her pitch, which Don could not help but eavesdrop on while it was being delivered. These were rich scenes, underplayed by the actors involved, which only served to heighten the awkwardness of the encounter. When the two groups run into each other at a bar afterwards, Ken bursts in to inform the group that Raymond has canceled the baked beans account, and before anyone could get to Twitter with a Ted Chaough thought bubble of stealing the business, Pete makes the same observation. Ken's not-so subtle reference to loyalty was aimed at Don and Pete, but the shrapnel nailed his former partner in crime Peggy, whose underhandedness is what landed CGC the pitch opportunity in the first place. 

This was an hour of television practically marinating in deceit - it was unpleasant to watch. From Timmy, licking his finger to wedge his wedding ring off before a night on the town to Pete's offering of his shag pad to Don, you almost needed a Silkwood shower to wipe the grime off. Joan was unapologetic about her assignation, but her married friend felt deep regret. Harry was contemptuous and churlish toward one and all and his secretary thought nothing of accepting his influence to help her remain employed. Megan's big career leap may have been a simple ruse by a couple in an open marriage to spice up their own sex life, but Don would no sooner accept the couple's invitation to some after hours wife swapping than his wife's pretend behavior on a TV show. Sylvia may pray for Don to find peace, but To Have and To Hold suggests that neither he nor anyone else is likely to find any soon. 

END NOTES

1. Maidenform, Season 2, Episode 6. 

2. A Little Kiss, Part 2, Season 5, Episode 2.

3. Far Away Places, Season 5, Episode 6. 

4. Out of Town, Season 3, Episode 1.

5. The Collaborators, Season 6, Episode 3.

6. A 1998 movie featuring a small town's transformation from 1950s black and white to 1960s technicolor and the use of that device as an allegory for societal change. 

7. Far Away Places, supra. 

8.  A Little Kiss, Part 1 and Part 2, Season 5, Episodes 1 & 2.

9. The Suitcase, Season 4, Episode 7. 

10. Tomorrowland, Season 4, Episode 13.

11. Blowing Smoke, Season 4, Episode 12.  

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