Mad Men Note:
Speechless
Do we talk about tonight’s drama, or do we talk about the opportunities that it gave to Jon Hamm, January Jones, and Christina Hendricks to smash a few records — Mr Hamm especially. The only factor that made things easy for Jon Hamm was Don Draper’s very considerable growth since the first season. In a nutshell, Don has stopped worrying about being caught out.
Consciously, he must have calloused the habit of shrugging off its improbability. If he hasn’t been caught by now, why would it happen? (The very same shrug that must have lowered his guard enough to allow him to leave his desk’s keys in his bathrobe, there for Betsy to find.) More deeply, however, Don has become someone who knows that he can handle anything. Confidence is a feedback loop; eventually, you don’t have to whistle happy tunes anymore. If Adam showed up today, Don would know how to handle his need for recognition. He wouldn’t try to throw money at it. But then, he learned the futility of throwing money at problems from Adam’s suicide. There’s no going back for a second try.
It’s clear that Betsy Draper has learned a few things too. If it would be unfair to call her a great dissembler, it can’t be gainsaid that she has mastered the fine art of time-release. It’s as though the men who have tried to tempt her into infedility had taught her instead how to deploy information. And yet it’s clearer than ever that Betsy doesn’t know what she wants out of life — that she can’t quite understand the possibility of asking the question with the serious expectation of genuine answer. The question of what she might want comes up only because Don keeps bruising her with knowledge of what she doesn’t.
As for Joan’s decking her husband with a vase full of flowers, we can only dream that the ladies responsible for this evening’s episode are familiar with Maggie and Jiggs, of Bringing Up Father. It was hoot majeure.
We’re on the slick slope of the season’s final hours, flying downhill toward the big fade-out, which, presumably, will blot out the Draper family home. I, for one, will be asking myself why I care. I’m not ashamed to say that I do care, but is it because the show captures a world that I knew from the cusp of adolescence? Or it is because the story is so well told — in which case the setting could just as well be medieval Toledo?
Watching the episode on DVR late yesterday afternoon, I was moved by the first genuine display of emotion from Don. Bets was only slightly affected by his breakdown, merely offering a cool hand on his shoulder as he wept for his deceased brother.
Like a Patty Duke Show episode, I worried about the schoolteacher in the car while Don’s life crashed down around him. He was gone for hours. What did she do? The near-total collapse of Don’s house of cards came with hardly less dramatic effect than Joan’s astonishing vase-smashing (and which won her, surprisingly, an apology from her lame husband!). Bets is indeed being asked what she wants out of life; I think you’re right. Don knows, and goes for it, for the most part. But Bets has the suburban home, the handsome husband, the two children — boy and girl. She doesn’t seem to want a career; the reservoir crusade didn’t turn her on overly. And she doesn’t want a lover (she only wanted to act out, and that is done now). She is vehemently unhappy, as is Don. His lover pointed it out.
Sally is the clear winner in the show. She’s bright, shrewd, and resilient. And wasn’t it an eye-brow raiser when another relatively well-adapted character, Roger, spurned his old flame’s drunken advances! And resisted temptation to woo his heart’s passion Joan again when she called for job hunting help. Who would have taken him, versus Don, for the keeper of the high road?