"Mad Men:" "I told you to stop talking"
"Why can't Daddy have salt?"
"Because we love him."
Thus ended last week's episode of "Mad Men," which was more interesting than that closing ceremony of the Olympics that you probably sat through. (Never fear; AMC's allowing you to catch up on Sunday with a "Mad Men" season-two marathon, featuring every episode so far, beginning at 5 p.m. and concluding, at 10 p.m., with the latest episode.)
It was a moment that was fraught with more tension and less affection than it sounds. Of course, were it my house, the exchange might have gone more along the lines of:
"Why can't The Mayor have his EpiPen?"
"Because we want to see how big he'll swell up before he can't breathe."
And now, Sunday's installment, and I've become convinced that AMC just enjoys goofing on its fans with its advance episode log lines. Here's the latest:
"Don and Duck take a stab at making peace. Peggy tries to insinuate herself into the execs' after-hours meetings. Duck deals with a family visit at the office."
Which is a hilariously benign way to describe what I like to call "the raunchy episode." Playtex, a Sterling Cooper client, asks for a new campaign to compete with Maidenform's saucy bra ads, which, of course, leads to no end of japery about boobs from boobs: "I find they both open easily," "quips" Cosgrove (Aaron Staton) of both Playtex's and Maidenform's products.
Peggy (Elisabeth Moss), who has to endure all the guys' bra gags, discovers a new way to call attention to herself. But pity Betty (January Jones), who can't win for losing in this episode.
And Pete (Vincent Kartheiser) will do something that will vaguely sadden you, and Duck (Mark Moses) will do something that will profoundly sadden you, and Don (Jon Hamm) - well, Don proceeds further down that path he's pursued, fairly disturbingly, for the past couple of episodes. "I told you to stop talking," he says by way of explanation.
Has there ever been a show about abject sadness and anomie that also managed to be this witty and compelling? Can abject sadness and anomie be this witty and compelling?
- "Mad Men:" 10 p.m. Sunday, AMC.
3 Comments
Leave a comment
About this blog
David Kronke was appointed Mayor of Television after a bloodless coup in 2000. Since then, he has improved infrastructure, championed greater educational opportunities and fought for reforms that have utterly erased corruption and incompetence from the television industry. Since Mr. Kronke has ascended to power, Television is a far better place.
I don't quite understand the animosity between Don and Duck. Don hired Duck, so what's their beef? What have I missed?
Duck made Don drop the Mohawk Air account so they could pursue American Airlines in the wake of the plane crash (Don has some standards), which they didn't get anyway and so Sterling Cooper was down one account.
In a flashback Don Draper is visiting Peggy in the hospital after she has had her illegitimate baby and Don tells her something like, "You will be surprised how easy it will be for this to not have happened."
In the most recent episode he tells Bobbie Barret that he never thinks about the car accident they were in. Don's sociopathic tendencies presents itself in his ability to not just forget but to erase. This is strong stuff anytime, but during this election year it is even more potent. Recently, for example, someone quoted a candidate for President as having said (to wide spread approval - as he went on to win) "I want everyone to have the same freedoms that I had when I was a child." That no one, then, mentioned that when Ronald Reagan was a child women were denied the right to vote shows just how firmly Americans keep their finger on the erase button.
This is Don Draper's world. Don Draper's borrowed life living as someone else working in the business of illusion as he slowly unravels. He is the standard bearer of the various illusory realities of everyone around him. He is a strange sort of father figure to them in that who knows more about the art of the lie than Don does?
Don Draper is the central point of this shows enigmatic appeal. Examinations of just who we Americans think we are or who we may have wanted to be or be like always include, as you have Mr. Mayor, on this page, vintage advertising art. Draper is a perfect name for Don in that Americans "drape" themselves with illusion and kitsch using the images Madison Avenue creates as role models for who we want to be - this season, this year, that decade or this one.
Never has this discussion, this slow discarding of the drapery that artfully conceals our true cultural realities, of our truer more base selves ever been so slyly presented to us. Never have the questions of true selves and motivations been so wryly proffered up to us quite the way it is on Mad Men. Mad Men is compelling because it isn't about the characters half as much as it is about us.
We watch always wondering for how much longer "the center" can, if it can at all, hold.
In the most recent episode Don starts to "play rough" with Bobbie. He starts to tie her up as he gets ready to introduce her (he thinks) to a little B & D. Otherwise known as "role playing". He gets just as mad as anyone does when this game is not played full on (either in the bedroom or in daily life...). Breaking character breaks the mood, spoils the fun. And how does that happen? Just like Don tells Bobbie, "I told you to stop talking."
Shhh. Let's just watch.