So here’s how things are going to work for the foreseeable future: I’m blogging about Mad Men over at a new progressive magazine called Imagined, but in less recappy, more thematic way, which forces me to leave out a lot of stuff I still want to discuss about the show (and in a more personal way), so that’s what will go here.
You can read my first foray into Mad Men‘s fourth season here. (Shameless plug: please click on that link. I might actually get some money for this if enough people do.) I’ll have the link to the second episode’s write up as soon as it’s published (I have a feeling they operate on Pacific time) so please check back here. Often. (I don’t get paid for this, so your clicks will only translate to boosting my pageviews numbers and making me feel like I get more traffic than I really do. Please indulge my fantasies.) Or follow me on Twitter, since I’ll surely link to it from there as well.
Enough housekeeping.
My parents divorced when I was five. It was the mid-70s and divorce was still relatively uncommon and still carried a stigma. I started kindergarten that year, and out of 20, 25 kids in my class only one other had divorced parents. I remember feeling the shame of being different just looking at the telephone list for my class, seeing my mom’s name stand alone amidst all the other “Mr. & Mrs. Happy Parents.” There were aspects of my childhood stemming from this situation that I’ve realized only within the last five or so years. All this is to say that I feel deeply for Sally and Bobby Draper. They both broke my heart last week. This week brings Glen Bishop back, and while I can’t say that I’m altogether happy to see him, I appreciate that he’s there for Sally in some sherpa-like capacity.
Of course, how much has Glen really changed over the last couple years? Breaking into Sally’s house and trashing every room except hers — I get that he’s attempting to threaten Betty and Henry into moving out, but it’s as misguided a heroic gesture for Sally as Glen’s previous misguided heroic gestures toward Betty — “rescuing” Sally by making her mother and stepfather as uncomfortable as possible. At least he’s setting his sights on someone his own age. I always thought Sally had a bit of a crush on Glen before, but now I want her to run far away. Which will probably not happen.
(Also, Helen remarried? Why do I find that unsatisfying? Possibly because in the first season I pictured her as the independent pre-second wave feminist, struggling to make it on her own yet, you know, making it on her own.)
It was also great to see Freddy Rumsen back, and 16 months sober. Sobriety in the 1960s advertising industry can’t be easy to maintain, as we’ve already seen with Duck Phillips falling off the wagon. But what at Sterling Cooper was part of Freddy’s charm, his old-fashioned notions about advertising — particularly targeting women — is now hopelessly out of place at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. I mean, really: if young girls use Ponds cold cream maybe they’ll find a husband? Was advertising ever really that myopic?
Actually, yes:
The conflict between Freddy and Peggy served a number of purposes — one, to continue the dichotomy between old and young, traditional and innovative; two, to demonstrate Peggy’s evolution as a copywriter, far more confident now than she was before Freddy championed her ideas (and it’s important to remember that for all Freddy’s sexist faults, he was the one that first noticed Peggy’s potential) yet still lacking tact (though not as much as Pete); and three, to underscore the tensions and relationships between women, men, sex, and advertising. Peggy’s boyfriend (Karl from LOST!) thinks she’s a virgin and she doesn’t disabuse him of the assumption, implying that he wouldn’t be as intent on “being her first” if he knew her sexual history. Love for Peggy hasn’t ever entered into the equation; she was never given the chance with Pete, and her affair with Duck (as gross as that was) seemed to satisfy her sexual needs without requiring much more of her (although she was subject to repeated booty calls interrupting her work schedule). But she might love Mark — can she know for sure without sleeping with him? Is Freddy right, that Mark won’t respect her if she sleeps with him before marriage? Does it matter if she doesn’t love him in the first place, and really all she wants is to not be alone on New Years?
And somehow all these questions are tied up in the image — fleeting on the show, yet ever-present in real life — of the “carefree gal in white pants.” I wrote a little about this for Imagined, but I’ll say here only that this image? Doesn’t exist in real life, and both Peggy and Joan know it. So Peggy sleeps with Mark, and no, she doesn’t feel any different, other than she feels as though she may have compromised her principles in order to have someone to kiss at midnight on December 31.
And speaking of compromising one’s principles — the main shock of the episode wasn’t that Don slept with Allison (or that Allison slept with Don), but that the next morning he treated her like a prostitute. I don’t think cruelly, I don’t think intentionally, and I don’t think he intended to sleep with her in the first place. But he was drunk, and lonely, and sad, and she smelled good. And it would all have been OK with Allison, I think, had he owned up to the mistake in the morning, but instead he stumbles and bumbles and can’t bring himself to say even, “That never happened.” No, he gives her money. Granted, he’d said something about the bonus before, but still. I do not like this Don Draper, and I’m afraid what the bottom he’s going to hit sooner rather than later is going to look like.
Other stuff:
I chuckled when Don tells Allison to get Bobby a drum set for Christmas. Betty’s gonna haaaaaaaaaate that.
Nurse Phoebe is played by Nora Zehetner, who will always be Laynie from Everwood for me. What was up with her decorating the entire hallway for Christmas? Boundaries, woman! I did like the scene when she puts Don to bed and laughs off his sloppy advances. But when Don forgets his keys, he goes to Phoebe’s apartment first, so he sleeps with Allison out of convenience. Again, ouch. Also, dick.
Favorite line of the episode goes to Peggy: “You’re never going to get me to do anything Swedish people do.” Followed closely by Lane Pryce’s “It’s a Polaroid!” There’s nothing obviously funny about that, except that it comes after Lee Garner, Jr., has seen the box with POLAROID and presumably a picture of the camera on it. And it’s funny because as SCDP’s financial officer, Pryce knows exactly how much that camera set them back and no doubt wants a bigger reaction. And also I simply enjoy Jared Harris’s delivery. I could watch him say, “Very good! Happy Christmas!” over and over and find it funny every time.
Harry covering his consumer research survey like it’s a test — Harry cracks me up.
I can’t decide whether the “glass of gin and a box of Velveeta” Christmas party would’ve been better or more depressing than the spectacle of a party they were forced to put on for Lucky Strike. I did notice that Joan winds up wearing that red dress with the bow that Roger suggested she put on. But the sooner the company gets out from under the oppressive thumb of Big Tobacco, the better.
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