Mad About the Men: Shut The Door, Have A Seat.

Spoiler Alert. Season 3, Episode 13:

So much of this season has felt like the prelude to a disaster. Last week we passed through the eye of the storm and last night, for the first time in such a long time, Mr. Weiner allowed us to let go of our breath, sink back into our chairs and finally, enjoy it all a little.

For now, at least, the worst is over. So let’s all eat Trudy’s cakes and sandwiches and remember why it was we wanted to get into this business in the first place.

Much criticism has been leveled at this third season for walking away from the office dynamics in favour of the crisis on the home front. Last night it struck me that this was most probably all part of the masterplan (duh). As Don lost his way, so did we, as he became increasingly disinterested in work and arrogant in his approach to it - alienating Peggy, Roger and feeling Cooper’s bared teeth - the day-to-day business of Sterling Cooper receded into the background. It just didn’t seem to matter as much any more. But last night Don was forced to make a decision, to stake his future on a job he’s shown brilliance at performing, but an inability to commit to. Last night, Don wasn’t too good for advertising any more.

As that song most eloquently puts it, ‘When there’s nothing left to burn, you have to set yourself on fire.’

Last night was about letting-go and starting again, with his family falling apart, Don grappled to put, ‘everything back the way it was,’ at Sterling Cooper, but learned that sometimes the best you can do is start from scratch. Thus, Sterling, Cooper, Draper & Price was born. Roger and Don were re-united once again, Peggy and Don reconnected and Joan, oh Joan! was back to save the files and the day! Sweet sweet release!

The building of this new dream team had all the cinematic excitement of the training montage in Rocky IV (and I mean that as a compliment). First the four key players aligned on their dastardly scheme, then Peggy threw a curve ball in Don’s arrogant face, and we got another dose of comedy genius in the form of a Pete Campbell all tousled (and dare I say it looking damn fine) in a bath-robe and suit pants with Trudy listening in from the bedroom. The emotional denouement was delivered via Peggy and Don, with Don making the kind of heartbreaking plea to Peggy he was ultimately unable to make to his wife. The entire arc was littered with comedy gold, from Pete forcing Don to articulate his ‘talents’ to his face, to the look on Campbell’s face when Peggy walked through the door on Sunday afternoon and her subsequent refusal to get Roger coffee. I am Peggy, hear me roar… then go f**k a duck (god, I can’t believe I only just thought of that now.)Seeing Don finally let go of Betty was the thing we didn’t realize we’d secretly been wishing for until it actually happened. Thank. God. While I still seriously question the motives and integrity of Henry, seeing Don and Betty finally give into the inevitability of the ridiculousness of their match, was like being released from a set of handcuffs. Again, the woman was icy and immovable, letting Don call her a whore without uttering a word to him of his own frequent indiscretions, but their final phonecall, filled with weary resignation said it all. ‘I hope you get what you always wanted,’ Don said to Betty – because all she ever wanted was certainly not Dick Whitman. Don is a broken man - in the same way Peggy is a broken woman – he will save his fight to rescue someone equally damaged, or damaged in the same way as he is.

And so it all came full-circle; the death of Don’s father, Betty on a plane to Reno, Don moving into his new apartment and his new life, Sterling Cooper half-empty of talent and a new little family born in a suite at The Pierre… all to the lilting tones of the incomparable Roy Orbison …

“Shahdaroba, Shahdaroba, means the future is much better than the past,
Shahdaroba, Shahdaroba in the future you will find a love at last.”

That means you Roger and Joan.

Until next time. This has been, Mad About The Men.
Line of the week: Roger on Jane: “Most interest that girl’s ever had in a book depository.”

Diligently construed by E. Nolan
Photos by Carin Baer

Mad About the Men: The Grown-Ups

Spoiler Alert. Season 3, Episode 13:

Let’s start at the end shall we. It seems appropriate somehow.

This week’s episode closed with an old time fave of mine, Skeeter Davis’ 1963 classic ‘The End of the World’. And so it seemed, the world did indeed, if not end, at least stutter to a halt as JFK lost his life in the motorcade and Betty told Don she doesn’t love him any more.

Metaphor and double entendre plaited around each other like the braids in Sally Draper’s hair, as every time Don and Betty spoke they were talking about the death of a president, and about themselves.

I lost track of the number of times someone said ‘it’ll be OK’, ‘everything’s going to be fine’ or some other cold, useless platitude. I kept thinking of that line by Joan Didion when she says, ‘we tell ourselves stories in order to survive.’ Don Draper tells stories for a living, but for a while now, and especially this week, he lacked the smooth phrases to convince or reassure. He was the man who gave us the Kodak ‘carousel’ back in those heady early days when we were still drunk on our love for him, now he’s almost monosyllabic, unable to find the right words, or any words at all.

As we watched the shockwaves ricochet through the lives of the characters, who among us did not think of September 11th 2001? All of use glued to our TV screens, watching it play and replay over and over; the same shocked faces, the same talking-heads stuttering out statements of disbelief, the same phones that stopped ringing…

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.*

And as the centre collapses, doors start to open, exits we have been looking for become available and catastrophe itself becomes the reason, the motive, the justification for doing that thing we’ve been too afraid to do before the world turned on it’s head and nothing mattered anymore.

So, personal agendas were quick to bubble to the surface. Betty had the permission she needed to flee into Henry’s arms and give a voice to her true feelings towards Don; for Pete and Trudi it was grist to the mill of their bitter ambitions and petty dissatisfactions – Pete’s manipulation of Trudi, convincing her to skip the Sterling wedding was masterful as was how he railed about a lack of ‘justice’ for Lee Harvey Oswald, quite clearly talking about himself and his own situation at the office with Ken Cosgrove. Dastardly Duck’s priorities were also all too clear and watching him quickly unplug the TV when Peggy arrived for their ‘nooner’ so she wouldn’t be distracted by the news, was utterly repellent.

So leave it to Joan and Roger to provide what was, for me, the one true emotional moment of the episode. There was more warmth and love in that phone conversation than in any of the physical interactions we observed all episode – hey, maybe all season - especially Betty and Henry’s dead-fish kiss in the car. Just as Don’s stories failed him, so too did Roger’s humour. He’s a man who was born to give a father-of-the-bride speech, caught in a situation where a joke wasn’t going to cut it. As Joan said to him, ‘there’s nothing funny about this.’ And when there’s nothing funny to say, where does that leave Roger? With tears in his eyes on the phone to the woman he loves while his silly drunk wife is passed out on the bed beside him. The people we choose to reach out to in times of crisis, say a lot about where our hearts really lie.

Mad Men is as good as it is because the past never feel like a curio or a museum piece, these people aren’t aspic-pickled day-players in a Masterpiece Theatre special, they are viscerally relevant to us. Their struggles are our struggles, at work and at home. Their costumes are not costumes they are clothes. They don’t speak lines from a script, they have conversations. The past of the characters and the present in which we watch them are inextricably linked, the weight of history, the manner in which we are seemingly doomed to repeat ourselves, JFK, 9/11, the death of love, the death of a president, the death of idealism, none of that has gone out of fashion, and ‘I don’t love you,’ will always mean the same, devastating thing.

Line of the week:
Trudi: Have you been drinking?
Pete: The whole country’s drinking.

Next week: The end. Say it ain’t so!

*W.B.Yeats ‘The Second Coming’

Diligently construed by E. Nolan
Photo by Carin Baer

Mad About the Men: The Gypsy and The Hobo

Spoiler Alert. Season 3, Episode 11:
In a season – as in an era - that’s been all about the first awkward movements of grappling female ascendancy, last night’s episode left us with a simple message - for now at least – wifey always wins.

Now, don’t get me wrong, these may be short-lived, or in Joan’s case, hollow victories, but in each of the three storylines last night, it was the matriarch that won out. Roger shunned the drunken advances of his horse-pulverizing Annabelle Mathis, because hey, he actually seems to love his wife; Joan smashed a vase over her stupid undeserving-of-her-greatness husband’s head and he finally realized she’s a pretty good catch; and Don left Miss F sitting in the car, putting an end to their strange little Alice in Wonderland affair. (Is she the gypsy and he the hobo of the title?).
Joan, Betty and Mrs. Silver Fox, all had their day, but as with everything in the world of Mad Men, we were left with a sour taste in our mouths, because frankly, we just don’t believe it.

Joan became a fresh re-imagining of Annabelle Mathis - already on the plane with the wrong man (who up and joined the Army without even asking her) in her version of Casablanca. Betty saw the true narrowness of her options when the family lawyer laid out cold what divorcing Don would really mean, and though Roger may no longer have eyes for Annabelle, surely it’s only a matter of time before he finds himself snuggling in Joan’s ample bosom once again? Could those two really be meant for each other?

Hollow victories.

The mythical shoebox finally yielded its secrets after almost three seasons. The scene between Betty and Don was masterful, and it was utterly satisfying to see him shaken, fumbling, dropping his cigarette on the kitchen floor and finally reduced to tears. Betty was able to thrown out some killer lines, in particular when Don told her he could explain, she came back with the zinger, ‘you’re a very very gifted storyteller.’ Ten points Betty.

If Miss F represented the light to which Don was drawn then Betty, here, was very much about the darkness. Or, to put it a better way, Miss F was fantasy, Betty is reality. In a nice little moment of symbolism Miss F left the lights on in her apartment to greet Don when she went out to buy groceries and Don later came back to the Draper household shrouded in darkness, even though Betty was already home, lurking in the shadows. Surprise honey!

I think I felt genuine sympathy for Don last night, I think… it’s hard to tell. That great back shot of him hunched at the sink in his pajamas was, to me, the clearest representation of the broken man. He was haggard, bleary-eyed and undone, with nowhere else to go. It was also particularly interesting that when he called Miss Farrell to end the affair, he finally called her by her first name, Suzanne, thus cementing her in adult reality at last. The end of escapism.

But more than anything what was clearest last night is that Don will, forever and always, return to Betty. She is his centre, his weight, his home
Finally Weiner couldn’t resist leaving us his trademark closing nudge nudge wink wink last night, when the kids went trick or treating and the man who answered turned to Don and Betty and asked, ‘and who are you supposed to be?’

Wonderful stuff.

Line of the week: Betty to Don: ‘You don’t get to ask any questions.’
Next week: Mrs. Silver Fox gets mad about Joan.

Diligently construed by E. Nolan
Photo by Carin Baer

Mad About the Men: The Color Blue

Spoiler Alert. Season 3, Episode 10:

‘…My mind misgives, Some consequence yet hanging in the stars.’

For ten episodes now we’ve been dragged inch by agonizing inch to the top of the rollercoaster and last night’s episode has us teetering on the precipice, white knuckles gripping our seats, just waiting for that stomach-shattering plunge into oblivion. Tragedy, revenge, the disintegration of the family – if I keep returning to Shakespeare in my head when I write about this show, it’s no coincidence.

The Color blue? The color is black – deep deep black, make no mistake.

An award to honor Don’s humanity? Tish tish boom! Mr. Weiner. The oxymoron is so blatant it hurts a little. It’s actually difficult to watch him with Miss F, so eager as he is to project some kind of innocent nymph-like fantasy upon her persona, quite literally turning her into the prancing May fairy she first appeared to him as – hippie star on her cheek and all. Blurgh.

His discomfort with her coming out of the shadows and into reality – the arrival of her epileptic brother and her subsequent stalkerish move on the train – displayed the extent to which Don wishes to preserve the theatrical fantasy. The brother got it right, ‘he’s arrogant, his plans were interrupted,’ and woe betide anyone who deems to interrupt Don’s plans. Something tells me things aren’t going to end so well with Don and little Miss, and for once, it might actually be her that gains the upper hand.

Listening to Don wax lyrical about the emotional power of the telegram in his trademark honey tones was equally hard to swallow. ‘You can’t frame a phonecall,’ he proclaimed, which is quite handy for you Don, quite handy indeed. Paul and Peggy’s subplot this week was fine, but reinforces the issue I’ve had with her this entire season, where the business at the office has become a prop for the greater domestic drama that’s unfolding. Also, anyone notice how every meeting at Sterling Cooper lasts approximately 3 minutes? I wish I had had creative reviews like that.

Betty’s patience was rewarded - in a fashion - this week, as that locked drawer finally yielded its secrets, and wouldn’t you know it was the housewife’s friend, the washing machine, that handed her the key to the forbidden fruit. Personally I want to see Betty rain down the fires of hell upon Don’s head.

The final scene at The Waldorf was majestic, with Roger spewing niceties about a man he’s come to despise, praising Don’s ‘loyalty.’ Thanking Betty for ‘sharing him,’ oh god the irony, even Don looked like he had a hard time swallowing it as he stood up.
 Brace yourselves, it’s going to get bumpy.
Quote of the week: Miss F to Don: “Do you feel bad about what you do?”
Next week: Apocalypse.

Diligently construed by E. Nolan
Photo by Carin Baer

Mad About the Men: Wee Small Hours

Spoiler Alert. Season 3, Episode 9:

“And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.”
- MLK Jr.


The American Dream was front and center of this ninth installment of the season, the most fractured and in many ways most frustrating episode so far.

The grainy radio broadcast of Martin Luther King Jr’s ‘I have a Dream’ speech (dating us on or around August 28 1963 - three months away from Roger’s daughter’s wedding and the assassination of JFK) hissed through Don’s car as he took a drive in those wee small hours and once again (yawn) sought to exert his influence over Miss Farrell. He loves her because she’s different! But really, she’s not that different at all. Watching Don move in the same tired old circles is becoming somewhat tedious and I can only hope that the writers will take us somewhere unexpected with this storyline.

But yes, the American Dream – free spirited Miss Farrell running (sans sports bra) through the pre-dawn streets; dreamy, lonely Conrad Hilton musing on the greatness of a hotel chain that will literally allow you to be BE IN AMERICA wherever in the world you happen to be, and lovely Sal, working his way up from Art Director to commercial director, directing a burly man with a knapsack on his back, a Lucky Strike in his mouth and a faraway look in his eye. The symbolism is almost too much to bear.

America.

I wish I’d been counting the number of times they said the word throughout the episode. It was a lot.

But this is a dream curdling like a bottle of milk on Don and Betty’s breakfast table - think of the sheer number of dream sequences we’ve seen this season. Connie Hilton is alone and unsatisfied, rightfully so - his grand-daughter will turn out to be Paris Hilton. Miss Farrell may be either ‘Pure or dumb,’ but she’s still just another woman who falls for Don’s charms. And Sal, with all the undertones of racial discrimination permeating the episode, Sal was the greatest victim of all. Don’s almost-whispered line of ‘You people,’ was cruel, cold and unexpected, much more shocking than Betty’s admission that the nation may just not be ready for a civil rights movement. We expect that from Betty – trapped so helplessly as she is by her desire for revolution and her paralyzing fear of change. We expect more from Don whose god-like patina continues to slowly tarnish as the season proceeds.

Betty’s stalled attempts at an affair showed the paradox that exists between what we dream of (the opening dream sequence of Henry seducing her on that damned fainting couch) and what we get in reality – thrown cash boxes, broken promises and ‘tawdry’ liaisons in locked, messy offices. Her dream was born and crushed by reality, just as her dream ended so rapidly last week when she returned home from Rome.

The overbearing and increasingly stifling feeling that something terrible is about to happen continues to haunt me as the season persists. Thank God for last night’s brief moment of comic relief – coming as always from Pete Campbell trying a cigarette and enduring a five minute coughing fit. It was a great piece of physical comedy, as was his flapping run out of the door after the vile Lucky Strike client. A thing like that.

Quote of the week: Don to the Art Director: “Now that I can finally understand you, I’m less impressed with what you have to say.”
Next Week: A party for Cooper

Diligently construed by E. Nolan
Photo by Carin Baer

Mad About the Men: Souvenir

Spoiler Alert. Season 3, Episode 8:


Ahh there’s nothing like those hazy, lazy, crazy dog days of summer to give one permission to, well, act like a dog… but more of Pete Campbell later.


Again, Betty was very much the focus of this episode, in a season that continues to elevate her to new heights of significance (it reminds me a lot of what happened with the character of Claire Fisher in Six Feet Under). Yes, she kissed Henry Francis in a move so predictable as to be almost unworthy of mention. Whatever. I don’t really care. What I DO care about is her little Roman holiday.


I’m not sure how I feel about the repressed female experience of the era becoming so central to the show – at the cost of the actual business of making ads - I haven’t made my decision yet. But throughout this season we continue to learn more about Betty’s untapped, festering accomplishments. Yes she was an anthropology major and yes, she can speak pretty damn good Italian. I loved that line in the kitchen last night, ‘When you don’t have any power, you have to delay things.’ Ouch.


Betty and Don’s trip was a fantastic little device, reminiscent of his trippy sojourn to California last season, it liberated them both from reality, hey there was even a fabulous bit of role-playing in the restaurant scene (let’s take a minute to give thanks for the marvel that was Betty’s hairstyle) It was a literal and metaphorical re-lighting of the flame – note the repeated images of cigarettes being lit this episode.


But God it was sad and for once I actually felt genuine sympathy for Betty, who knew as soon as she stepped foot back in that house, reality would came crashing back down. Her last line of the show was utterly devastating, when Don gave her the Hilton gift shop trinket and she said to him, ‘Then you can have something to look at when I tell the story about the time we went to Rome.’ It was a tear-your-heart-out moment. For Betty it was back to life, back to the kids, back to being partially ignored by her husband, back to motherhood. Glitzy, pointless souvenirs are all that remain when the fun is over. Her speech to Sally about the first kiss only served to reinforce this pathos, ‘it’s where you go from being a stranger to knowing someone.’ And you can’t help but self-complete that thought with something along the lines of, ‘and after that it’s all downhill from there.’


Pete Campbell had himself a little European adventure of his own this week, treading that well worn path to the bedroom of the au pair. I don’t know about you but there is always something so profoundly creepy about Pete Campbell putting on the moves with a woman, slithering through the bedroom door like Gollum.


He gets several bonus points this week though, first for the way he took his shirt off like a four year old when he got home, second for watching cartoons alone, third for offering the au pair a selection of choice German beverages such as ‘Beer, Riesling and Schnapps’ and finally for dropping what is becoming his catchphrase, ‘A thing like that!’ LOVE it. I want to make it into a t-shirt.


But wow, I was blindsided by the way that story arc turned out, Pete in what appeared to be genuine tears on Trudie’s return, begging her not to go away without him again. I’ve always been a strong supporter of Pete, I want to see his character redeemed, and this week he was like a little boy lost begging his mother not to leave him again.


I’ll sign off with a nod to the delightful appearance of Joan. Ah Joan, how we miss thee already. Points also to Pete for not making her feel bad about being in another job as the ‘manager of the republic of dresses,’ he equipped himself well. Joan’s new hairstyle was almost worth tuning in for all by itself.


Line of the week: (mentioned already but worth reiterating) Betty to Don: “Then you can have something to look at when I tell the story about the time we went to Rome.”
Next Week: Let’s get back to the office for some ad fun.


Diligently construed by E. Nolan
Photo by Carin Baer

Mad About the Men: Seven Twenty Three

Spoiler Alert. Season3, Episode 7:

Teacher knows best.

And it was quite enjoyable to watch ‘Miss’ take Don Draper over her knee last night and give him a good tongue lashing. In fact, this entire episode was really about Don getting shown his arse, and I have to say I rather enjoyed it.

He was on splendidly grouchy form and all the more handsome for it: late to the office and dressed-down by Conrad Hilton, shouting at Peggy (even though we kind of agreed with him), shouting at Betty, getting told by Sally’s teacher that he’s just like all the other guys and finally, taking a joyride, drink in hand, picking up a couple of hitchhikers and finding himself face down and bloody on the shag pile of a cheap hotel room. The New York Hilton, this was not.

But perhaps his greatest loss, his most profound reduction came in the unlikeliest form of a tete a tete with Burt Cooper. The mild-mannered, sock-footed eccentric showed his teeth and essentially blackmailed Don into signing a three-year contract because after all, ‘who’s really signing this contract anyway.’ It was all done so quietly, so disturbingly. Suddenly you understood how this man had built his empire, and it wasn’t by serving drinks in a room full of Rothko.

Like a phoenix from the ashes though, we are certain Don will rise again. Probably next week.

Peggy and Pete had a nice little scene together about the Hermes scarf and for once Pete actually flexed some fairly admirable moral muscles. Peggy just wanted the pretty thing in the box and hey, who can blame the girl. As usual though, Pete’s best intentions sent Peggy down the road to ruin as she ended up in bed with Duck, whose wooing speech will traumatize my memory for weeks to come. Duck, apparently, likes it in the morning. Gag.

In other news of not-so-dangerous liaisons Betty met with Henry Francis as the ghost of her Kentuky-Derby-party-past came back to haunt her too. She was clearly expecting him to make an advance and was obviously miffed when he didn’t. But patience, dear Betty, patience. It will come. Her random and amusing moment of the week was buying that fainting couch on a whim, oh and that fabulous little beat when she hung up the phone in Don’s office and checked the locked drawer in his desk without even thinking. It’s these tiny glimpses that make these characters so fantastically real. Keep checking Betty, one day you might find it open.

Imagery of sleep, unconsciousness, sunrises, eclipses and so on were abound. The meaning of these could be stretched into a PhD thesis at this point. I’ll leave you to dwell on that.


Line (s) of the week:
Duck on the ad agency Grey: “It’s a Penn Station toilet with venetian blinds.”
Peggy to Pete: “Stop barging in here and infecting me with your anxiety.”
Next Week: More Pete Campbell. Finally!

Diligently construed by E. Nolan
Photo by Carin Baer

Mad About the Men: Guy Walks Into an Advertising Agency

Spoiler Alert. Season 3, Episode 6:


"It will have blood; they say, blood will have blood."
Macbeth, Act 3, sc. IV


And so it goes with this season of Mad Men. Blood begets more blood. American Gothic anyone? Last week it was Gene mopping up the foetal blood in Betty’s dream, this week it was gobs of the stuff dousing the employees and ruining Joan’s green dress as Guy McKendrick’s foot was unceremoniously sawn off by a runaway John Deere tractor.


Guy walks into an advertising agency…. And has to be carried out on a stretcher. Boom boom.


The Yanks quite literally, took down the Brit. Happy 4th of July Sterling Cooper.


‘The British are coming’ indeed. We blundered in with our plum-in-mouth accents, said lots of things like, ‘quite,’ and ‘rather,’ only to lose one of our finest men! He went to Cambridge don’t you know and will now, ‘never golf again.’ Thus this brightest of corporate lights was extinguished. An account manager without a golf game, is like Don Draper without a mistress.


Themes of transatlanticism were writ large and in big bloody letters across the entire episode and though they provided general comic relief it was a touch heavy-handed for my liking. But hey, I’m biased. The subject of the re-organisation was amusing, as was seeing Sterling’s name left off the chart entirely, “I’m being punished for making my job look too easy,’ he said. Another golden nugget from the Silver Fox.


It was also Independence Day for Joan, facing down the barrel of her last day at Sterling Cooper, to be saddled with a husband who is half the man that she is. In case we needed any reminder of her prowess, we watched her deftly wrangle the tourniquet around McKendrick’s ankle, so much more the doctor, so much more the one with ‘brains in her fingers,’ than her husband will ever be. Ah Joan… let me count the ways.


There was a legitimate ghost story underplaying all this, with Sally Draper convinced that her new baby brother was the re-incarnation of her dead grandfather. This equated to Don’s worst nightmare: a man in his house just like his dead father-in-law! Horror. As usual Betty’s questionable mothering techniques managed to exacerbate the situation when she claimed the fairies baby Gene is in contact with had left Sally the creepy Barbie doll under her pillow. Brilliant. Cue: the Betty Draper Guide to Good Mothering.


Curve-ball of the episode was the re-introduction of ‘friendly-man-at-country-club-bar’ as Conrad Hilton. And so, Draper falls on his feet again. I had an inkling it wasn’t to be the last we saw of that man’s face. Few people get that amount of face-time with Don, unless he’s sleeping with them.


All in all a bitty episode, more humorous than of late, but I think with a lot of seeds planted for some pretty messed-up stuff to come. Here’s hoping we haven’t seen the last of Joan’s ample bosom.


Line of the episode: Betty to Sally: ‘Go bang your head against a wall.’
Next week: Glimpses of man looking just like Don Draper collapsed on the bedroom floor??


Diligently construed by E. Nolan
Photo by Carin Baer

Mad About the Men: The Fog

Spoiler alert. Season 3, Episode 5:

Out of the darkness and into… the pitch black fog.

Sunday’s episode was probably the darkest of the season so far, and that’s superlative indeed to bestow on a show that astounds in its ability to constantly make us feel like something terrible is about to happen.

Last night it started with that spliced shot of Sally Draper wiping Betty Pearson’s blood on her cheek –wtf? - and it dove down into the depths from there on in.

The entire sequence when Don was in the hospital solarium waiting for Betty was infused with a strange, dream-like quality. Don’s watch stopped, and so did time, as it slid by in the same blissed-out drugged state that Betty was in as she wandered through forests and hallways, chatting with her dead parents. (note that this was the second reference to a watch this episode – Ken Cosgrove was very proud of his Birds Eye watch too…)

This episode was really about Betty’s isolation and frailty, stripped of make-up, her face like a child’s, her hair plastered to her head with sweat, she was a long way from the petulant woman-child we have seen in recent weeks. All of this was starkly reinforced when Don reminded Dennis – the other expectant father in the solarium – that ‘your wife’s in the boat, you’re on the shore.’

That pretty much sums up the experience of most of the women in the show if you ask me. Even Peggy found herself in the boat this week, begging Don for a raise, sadly reminded of her past by the baby gifts in Don’s office and desperate for equality. ‘You have everything,’ she says to Don, ‘and so much of it.’

Oh yes he does, and is he about to have the hots for teacher?? Please. No. The weight of Dennis’s comments in the solarium about a baby being a chance to ‘be a better man,’ were too explicit to be lost on Don. Please Don. Be a better man, or at least if you’re going to be a bad man, pick a better woman to be bad with (Rachel Menken, where are you??)

Back at the office, we got a nice chunk of Pete Campbell time this week, sulking again about the state of his accounts. He actually came up with a pretty good idea about marketing Admiral TV’s to ethnic minorities, but as usual handled it with his trademark incompetence and pissed everybody off. The scene in the elevator with Hollis was painful and classic Campbell, as was him storming out of lunch with Duck when he returned to poach some talent (did you spot the line of flying ducks, behind Duck, in his office at Grey? Ha)

Line (s) of the week:
Don: “They waste paper because they throw out bad ideas.”
Betty on Don “He’s never where you expect him to be.”
Next week: the big boss from England is visiting Sterling Cooper.

p.s. why did Dennis ignore Don in the hospital when he saw him later? Any thoughts?

Diligently construed by E. Nolan
Photo by Carin Baer

Mad About the Men: The Arrangements

Spoiler Alert. Season 3, Episode 4:

Several carefully planned story arcs came to fruition this week and still the paternal theme that’s hung like a shadow over the season so far, reigned supreme.

In the Draper household Grandpa Gene continued to show Sally the only bit of attention and affection she ever seems to get, though when he started putting salt on his ice cream we knew the time bomb in his head must surely be ticking. He started the episode by sharing his last wishes with a sulky and vitriolic Betty, and ended it dead – leaving poor little Sally once again, alone. In the meantime he taught Sally to drive and had little Bobby wielding knives and playing dress-up in his war trophies. Nice.

At the office, the ludicrous aspirations of the client looking to make Jai-Alai, “as big as baseball,” gave Don an opportunity to flex his philosophers muscles once again, giving the son of a cold, disappointed father a chance to salvage his money and run before embarking on what everyone knew would be a fool’s mission. But Don is a man who once scorned, doesn’t give you a second chance. He warned the upstart, the upstart didn’t listen and so Draper happily took the three million dollars with his conscience clear. (Great little moment when he sent the ball through the ant farm and later we saw Joan killing all the ants – metaphor? Maybe, maybe not)

In Betty news… she’s still a cold, heartless bitch. She continues to drink and smoke her way through pregnancy and ignore her children. We learnt, from Grandpa Gene, that she was a fat child – no surprises there (remember in the first episode this season when Don tells her to eat something?) and she stamped her feet like a bratty kid when her father tried to share his funeral plans with her, protesting “I’m your little girl!” The Betty Draper Snow Queen Award for this episode, however, went to the moment when she left Sally on the steps in her tutu, distraught after the death of Grandpa Gene.

The rise and rise of Peggy “I am one of those girls” Olsen continues as the Patio pitch came full-circle and everyone realized the Bye Bye Birdie ad was a pile of shite. Best moment of the episode was Peggy’s smug little grin in the conference room when the clients said they hated it – that’s right, you told ‘em so Peggy. She knows it, and most importantly Don knows it, you can bet some reference to that maypole dancing woman from episode 2 is going to be brought back into play soon enough.

There was also some general Joan frivolity - which I always enjoy - when she out-copy-writer-ed Peggy and told her how to craft a roommate ad that would really get noticed. Though those two are like two cats prowling round each other, Peggy knows a good thing when she hears it. This little scenario also gave Joan the best line of the episode, when she read Peggy’s original ad and said, “It reads like the stage directions from an Ibsen play.”

Finally, it would be wrong to overlook the slow, painful penny dropping in Sal’s wife’s head as he gave that thoroughly convincing rendition of the Bye Bye Birdie number in their bedroom – far more excited by that than any potential action with her between the sheets. It was all pretty tragic.

Line of the week: (second to Joan) Don to Bobby: “Bobby, it’s a dead man’s hat. Take it off.”
Next week: Looks like Sally Draper’s about to go off the rails and someone at SC has been cooking the books.

Diligently construed by E. Nolan
Photo by Carin Baer

Mad About the Men: My Old Kentucky Home

Spoiler Alert. Season 3, Episode 3:

Supposedly Stephen Foster's original title for “My Old Kentucky Home” was “Poor Uncle Tom, Good Night!” Need we comment on ol’ Roger serenading his young wife in blackface? Others say the song’s inspired by Foster’s visit to the opulent mansion of his bluegrass state cousins. Opulent garden parties don’t stray far from spectacle either, and last night’s episode was all about the new separating from (or clinging to) the old- that is, old guard. Roger shows off his wealth and rank with a lavish garden party dripping with yore, while Paul (who also tries to prove his worth with his throwback to Hello, My Baby), Peggy and Smitty- left to grind their noses at the office- instead focus on their own devices. As always Don observes the spectacle for what it is- the Old's denial to its demise- as he attempts to exit during Roger’s Al Jolson moment of horror. When Betty, dressed in updated old lace, insists on staying he escapes to the bar for some “old-fashioneds” (touché). Meanwhile Harry and his wife are uncomfortably caught between the disparity of old power and young up-and-comers struggling to gain a foothold. They’re forced to step off the “dance floor” to make room for Pete and his wife, who flaunt their desperate desire for approval. Their approach- to translate the old with their rehearsed-to-perfection Charleston, exaggerated to the point of camp. Will Pete never disappoint?!

At last, how satisfying to hear Don speaking his mind to Roger: “No one thinks you’re happy; they think you’re foolish.”

Meanwhile, Betty clues in she’s an objet du desir (even in her most pregnant state) to men in power no less. What she’s capable of, we shall soon watch…

Ah, multi-talented Joan. Young meets Old again as Joan plays hostess to her fiancee’s colleagues and wives. She runs her home as efficiently as the office, solving problems while carrying a big stick. His older boss’ wife looks longingly at Joan or at what once was, projecting her own regrets while blissfully reminiscing about “the olden days” as Joan’s pressured to provide an obsolete form of parlor entertainment.

Youth and age meet again in the Grandpa Gene and Sally story. They’ve an understanding and God knows poor Sally needs some. No-nonsense Carla, reminding us she’s not another Viola, stands up to Grandpa in one of her infrequent appearances as witness to the Drapers’ crumbling reality. While everyone tiptoes around, her voice is fearlessly direct.

If last week showed us Peggy’s sexual awakening this week shows her spiritual rebirth. When trying to prove to the guys there’s more beneath that surface, and it’s not square-shaped, something turns on inside her. She floats proverbially (“I am so high.”), inches above the carpet, on which Paul lies and reflects on the uncertainty of life amid the recent events (“I’m thinking of Cuba”), while she looks straight ahead and expresses the brink of her potential. She exits the “smoke-cloud” and into lucidity. Just as she’s at the threshold her new secretary Olive acts the judging old biddy, having only come into the office to support her like some bizarre guardian angel of morality (oh Father Gill, you have many evangelists doing your work, don’t you?). Olive implores her on her future (“I know what goes on in there.”). But Peggy, as if possessed by Don, looks her squarely in the eye and articulates the tangibility of her power before moving past. She knows who she is and where she’s going- practically surpassing Don’s own self-worth (or is it self-prophesy?) in her moment of clarity.

Side note: what’s up with the Tom Cruise look-alike?

LINE OF THE WEEK: “You can come here and be happy and you get to choose your guests.” Roger to Don.
NEXT WEEK: ???
Usually construed by E. Nolan, but this week substituted with humble analysis by Val.

Photo by Carin Baer

Mad About the Men: Weekly Review

Today we pull the trigger on a weekly review of one of the most compelling, provocative (not to mention stylish) shows currently capturing our undivided attention every Sunday night. Sharing in our weekly habit is E. Nolan, whose careful examinations on the Mad Men series we'll begin posting shortly.
Disclaimer: the postings contain spoilers so if you're savoring these episodes for a later date or still haven't embarked on Season 1 let alone 3, then you may want to skip and return tomorrow.

Photo by Frank Ockenfels 3

Mad About the Men: Love Among the Ruins

Spoiler Alert. Season 3, Episode 2:

Let's start with the themes at play in last night's episode, clearly this one was all about family and patriarchy. We had Roger Sterling (the ultimate Silver Fox) getting told by his daughter she doesn't want him and his new dollybird wife at her wedding. Then there was the patriarchal theme as played out by the Drapers and Betty's father who is clearly in the grip of Alzheimer's or something similar.

Ah Don.... just as I think I've gathered the strength to leave you, you pull me back in, like the beaten wife I am. Last week I screamed at the TV as he once again cheated on Betty with that dopey Air Stewardess. This week I cheered for him as he put Betty's weasel of a brother in his place.

Don was the king of the lion pack this week, stronger than Sterling and so much better than Betty's brother - the ultimate man of the house.

Underpinning all of this was the impending demolition of Penn Station, the metaphorical "father figure" of old New York. There were a lot of sidelines about public transport last night - Joan's flirtatious subway joke, Peggy emerging from the filthy subway in Brooklyn, Draper telling his brother-in-law which train to bugger off on out of his house (that too was leaving from Penn Station). These were glimpses of a grimy city we don't often see outside the gleaming offices of Sterling Cooper. I also enjoyed Embeth Davidtz's cameo as the wife of new Brit boss (his name escapes me) when she made that snipe about the insects. This is New York pre-gentrification.

This all brings me back to the title of the episode 'Love Among the Ruins' Love among the ruins of a family, among the literal ruins of a soon-to-be brutalised landmark, among the ruins of a city. This is a show full of ruins after all... ruined people and now ruined places.

The secondary story was Peggy's sexual re-awakening. Her little parody of Bye Bye Birdie was thoroughly creepy but by God! It worked!! We saw Peggy go to a bar alone, simper, get bought a drink by a burger-eating cretin and then, get laid (kinda - she's not making that mistake twice).

Most telling was the fact she lied about her job and let her new beau believe she was "just a secretary".... women of New York sighed a knowing sigh of understanding at this point. Penn Station may be gone, but some things haven't changed so much after all.

Peggy's sexual re-awakening was thematically tied-together with the "Patio" pitch and it brought us the most enigmatic moment of the episode. Peggy complained to Don that simply parodying Bye Bye Birdie in a diet soda commercial was making an ad for women from a man's point of view.

Don shot her down with a line that cut to the quick of any of us who have worked in advertising: "You're not an artist Peggy, you solve problems. Leave some tools in your toolbox."

DAMN! that hurt.

BUT. Then he went to that May Dance and became transfixed by the female teacher (?) dancing around the maypole, so joyful, so pure, so energetic. He leaned over and let his fingers run through the grass.......

Cut to Don returning to the office and staring at Peggy through her office door. he sees her, we wanted him to go in, but he didn't. In that moment by the maypole, Don realised Peggy was right, Bye Bye Birdie was wrong. Pretty soon we're going to see a pitch for a diet soda brand with a woman dancing barefoot on the grass around a maypole.. you mark my words.

Also I do want to give a brief mention to the vitriolic wonder of Betty this week, from the missing melba toasts to her shouting at the kids and sulking about the soot-covered coat (more city grime there), she was great.

LINE OF THE WEEK: "You're not fat anymore." - Paul Kinsey to Peggy.
Closely followed by Sterling asking the Brit guy if he ever got drunk and wore his suit of armour.
NEXT WEEK: The preview suggests we will finally see a bit more of Joan and her horrid husband. Hurrah!

Diligently construed by E. Nolan
Photo by Carin Baer

Mad About the Men: Out of Town

Spoiler Alert. Season 3, Episode 1:

The doors of Sterling Cooper are open for business once again, and oh Aunty ‘Em how good it felt to be back, nestled in the ample warmth of Joan’s bosom once more. Unlike the two year leap from Season 1 to 2, here a matter of six or seven months have gone by (essentially real time) and Betty is now 8 months pregnant.

Appropriately for the first episode of a new season, images were abound of birth and motherhood. Our first sight of Don was of him warming milk for Betty late at night, intercut with flashbacks, in which we learned the genealogy of the name "Dick" Whitman. These were actually a little disappointingly handled to me, reminiscent of slightly dubious amateur dramatics but also evocative of the final scenes of Our Town.

However, we did finally learn the full story about Don’s/Dick’s less than auspicious beginnings. He is quite literally the son of a whore, named "Dick" as an angry testament to his father’s appendage. Was this Don’s own paranoia at work? A story created from his imagination? Or was it true? Perhaps the overt theatricality of it all was a clue that we were meant to read this as Don’s own internal fiction? Time, I’m sure, will tell.

This maternal theme was fully rounded-out in the closing moments when scary Sally Draper (who is going to be such an effed-up adult thanks to Betty’s Valley of the Dolls routine), discovered the Air Stewardesses wings then asked about the night she was born. Don was unable to get the story out, drifting off into a dark reverie.

The other big storyline was the outing of Sal. To me, the strength of Mad Men has always been the way they weave the metaphors of advertising together with the broader emotional and social issues of the show – The Kodak Carousel moment is one of the most memorable from Season 1. This was once again done superbly in this episode with the London Fog business.

London Fog became the presence of the Brits in the office, it became a metaphor for Sal’s closeted existence and ultimately a "fog" was what Don encouraged Sal to bring down around himself. His "Limit your exposure" speech to Sal was so absolutely pitch perfect as to cause me to catch my breath. Here he is, a man who knows ALL about what it means to lead a double life, telling Sal to keep the proverbial raincoat on. Limit your exposure. Protect yourself. Once again we caught a glimpse of Don’s humanity, the thing that keeps us hanging on when we’re screaming at the TV after he once again bangs some dumb girl. Oh Rachel Menken, how I yearn for you! You were his only equal.

It would be rude to ignore Pete Campbell in this episode, his creepy Mr. Burns-esque post-promotion victory dance was so macabre, so ghoulish! I loved it. His subsequent descent into foot-stamping and brattiness was equally enjoyable. He remains my favourite character on the show.

LINE OF THE WEEK: "Limit your exposure" – Don to Sal.
NEXT WEEK: Is Peggy going to get laid?

Diligently construed by E. Nolan

Photo by Carin Baer