Mad Men Season 6, Episode 2 Recap: The Collaborators

The title of this episode, "The Collaborators," can refer to those who work together on a project or for a common end. Or it can have the more malignant meaning of ones who work with the enemy, usually surreptitiously. There is much talk this episode about faithfulness but most of the action centers around betrayal.  Don and Pete each betray their wives by cheating, their paramours betray their own spouses and friends, Megan betrays Don with her silence, Peggy (albeit innocently) betrays Stan's confidence, a Heinz exec betrays a rival, and Don betrays a client.

And still the show has the audacity to have Don extolling the virtues of loyalty.

We've known that Don Draper was a serial cheater, who has little trouble living a dual life, since the start.  And yet it is still jarring to see him exchange pleasantries with his new good friend Dr. Arnold Rosen while planning on going back to Arnie's place and having sex with Arnie's wife.  Sylvia, with no shame, questions how easy it is for Don to switch back and forth from Arnold's friend to his betrayer.  That's the difference between Don and the other unfaithful on the show.  He acts without guilt, segmenting his actions and his thoughts into discreet areas that never commingle, enabling him to cheat without suffering any internal conflict.  The others wring their hands and feel shame yet continue to cheat.

And speaking of cheating, Pete Campbell continues to try and emulate Don by using his Manhattan apartment to entertain one of Trudy's friends.  She is smitten and tries in various ways to express to Pete that this is not just a casual affair.  But Pete just brushes her aside callously.  This is not a relationship to him, it's just a perk of his station of life.  The house in the country, the partnership, the beautiful wife, and the mistress in the city.  He's got it all.  That is until the woman is beat up by her husband who learns about the affair and she eventually tells Trudy.  It's sad that all Trudy wanted was the resemblance of a faithful marriage.  With Pete in the City and her at home she could pretend that all was well.   What she didn't know couldn't hurt her.  But Pete didn't have the discretion to find someone on his own to have an affair with, he had to choose her friend from down the street.

Sylvia walks in on Megan berating her housekeeper and later discovers that Megan is on edge because she's been keeping a secret from Don.  Two weeks before she had a miscarriage and she still hasn't told Don.  It could be because her Catholic guilt that makes her feel somehow responsible for the unborn life but more likely it's because she realizes that she was relieved not to be pregnant.  Her career is starting to take off and this would be the wrong time to have a baby.  And so she's kept this news to herself to not have that conversation with Don.  Meanwhile, Sylvia, with whom Don is cheating, is being a comforting and nonjudgmental presence for Megan in her time of need.  Not at all awkward.

Also not awkward, when Don comes home to find his wife in tears and his mistress looking uncomfortable and eager to leave. As Sylvia leaves, Don says, "See you tomorrow," and Sylvia looks like she's going to pass out until Don reminds her that the four of them have plans for dinner tomorrow night.  So he wasn't making plans for their next dalliance in front of the wife.  The next night, Megan is not feeling well (and as of yet still not telling Don why) and so he joins the Rosens for dinner.  Until Dr. Rosen is pulled away for a medical emergency and Don and Sylvia are left to dine alone.  They rush through their meal to get to what they really want and then each go home to their respective spouses as if nothing happened,

Peggy Olson is having the problem women have had from the first time they even approach cracking the glass ceiling at work.  If you're too nice, you're not strong enough or tough enough to be in charge.  If you're too hard, you're a bitch.  And thus her male underlings prank her with a faux product: Quest Feminine Hygiene Powder. "Proof points--has baking soda, makes you nicer if you're stinky, kills overly critical bacteria.  Target--professional women and other Olsons."  She later complains to Stan about her problems at work and he wasn't at all surprised.  They share stories from work and it's a great relationship they have where they can safely go and complain.  Except with Ted Chaough decides to use some of the information from the call to his firm's advantage.

Heinz ketchup, one of the bigger ad gets, is displeased with its current sales and wants a little of whatever has been helping the Heinz beans sector take off.  One of Sterling Cooper's first clients was Heinz beans and the work they did for that department has resulted in a spike in sales, while the ketchup branch's sales have remained flat.  So the young hot shot from ketchup asks for an introduction and to get some of that magic working for him.  Don takes the meeting and all goes well until it becomes painfully clear that the beans guy does NOT want Don helping the smug pompous ketchup guy succeed and you get a perfect picture of the pettiness inside corporate America.  So the question is, do you stick with the guy who supported you, gave you his business when no one else did, or do you dump him for the bigger, better part of the company.  While Don and his group decide, Ted is working to steal the client out from under them thanks to the tip from Peggy. Peggy resists at first, not wanting to betray the trust of her old friend Stan.  But Ted convinces her there are no friends in business and that you take whatever advantage happens to come your way.

There are other clients causing problems for Don.  Herb Rennet, the pig who demanded a night with Joan in exchange for his vote on hiring the firm to represent Jaguar, is back.  He wants Don and company convince the Jaguar team that more ad money should be directed at the local market, bringing in buyers, rather than in a national ad on the luxury and exclusiveness of the car.  Don probably wouldn't like the redirection of his ad campaign if it came from any other client, but he has a particular disgust for Herb.  And so he devises an ingenious plan of backstabbing Herb while pretending to do exactly what he asked for.  In a sea of betrayals, it's one we can all rally behind.

The episode leaves some issues still to be resolved.  Will Peggy put together a great pitch for Heinz that Stan learns about and will it harm their friendship? Will Herb find a way to punish Don et al. for sabotaging him? Will Pete ever stop chasing dreams of being Don Draper 2.0 and realize he had the good life and is throwing it away?  And how long before Don slips up and puts Sylvia's marriage at risk?  He's playing with fire--coming to her back door unannounced, leaving her money (no tie-in to his youth in a brothel there!), sneaking into the apartment when Arnold is away--and it is hard to imagine they won't both get burned.  And all the while Bob Benson is just there, big puppy dog smile and eager to help.  Nobody is that nice; what's his story?


Quotes:

Sylvia: You don't mind sitting across the table from your wife and my husband?
Don: I don't think about it.

Don:  I have to go.
Sylvia:  You love to go.

Don: This didn't happen.

Herb: I know there's a part of you that's glad to see me.
Joan: [looking at his gut] And I know there's a part of you that you haven't seen in years.

Peggy: Everyone hates me here.
Stan:  Well, that was bound to happen.

Trudy: I refuse to be a failure. I don't care what you want anymore. This is how it's going to work: You will be here only when I tell you you can be here. I'm drawing a 50-mile radius around this house, and if you so much as open your fly to urinate I will destroy you. Do you understand?
Pete: You know what? You're going to go to bed alone tonight, and you're going to realize that you don't know anything for sure.

Sylvia:  You enjoy how foolish they both look.
Don:  Now I understand.  You want to feel shitty right up until the point where I take your dress off.

Roger: As my mother used to say, your options were dishonor or war.  You chose dishonor, you might still get war.
Don:  That was Churchill.


Observations:

Don's statement to Sylvia that "this didn't happen" (referring to their affair) harkens back to his quote to Peggy back in Season 2, Episode 5 , "It'll shock you how much this didn't happen." It is one of Don's greatest gifts--his ability to compartmentalize his life and ignore harsh truths as if they don't exist.  It's his self-absorption that leads him to believe that this is as easy for everyone else to do as it is for him.

We can time stamp this episode as after October 17, 1967, the Broadway debut of "Hair." This hippie, counter-culture, free love and stop-the-war musical was shocking to some, with its nudity, raw language and depiction of drug usage.  If you were to watch the watered-down film version, you might not get what all the fuss was about. But it was revolutionary at the time giving voice to a movement and to the fears and dreams of young people in the Vietnam era.  I know that I listened to that cast album about an infinity amount of times as a youngster living in the boring San Fernando Valley, dreaming of going to Haight-Ashbury or even New York City to be cool and hip and free.  You can watch a 50th anniversary performance here.

Another time marker is the reference to the North Koreans taking a US spy ship in January of 1968.  The USS Pueblo was the only U.S. Navy ship held by a foreign government and its men were held and tortured for almost a year before finally being released.  The ship is still in North Korea. For more information, you can start here. Around the same time, the North Vietnamese launched what is now known as the Tet Offensive, a surprise attack on South Vietnamese sites during the Tet holiday. You can start your reading on this attack here.

We also get another Dick Whitman flashback, this one showing how growing up with an unattractive bowl cut could scar one for life.  And also how living in a whorehouse where you watch your evil stepmother get sexually assaulted while pregnant may negatively affect your relationship with women in the future.  Who'd have thought?  The whole flashback is unnecessary and too on the nose.  Living around prostitution makes you a repeat philanderer? We didn't need it--it didn't make Don a sympathetic character and didn't explain his behavior, it just gave an easy out rather than holding him accountable for his actions.

Pete tells Bob that "his wife" asked him to get more toilet paper.  In reality, it was his girlfriend who mentioned they were out last time she was at is apartment.  Pete is keeping up appearances that he's still a happily married man with errands to run for the wife.


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Spoiler-y Observations: DON'T READ UNTIL YOU'RE ALL CAUGHT UP

The fact that Peggy regrets breaching Stan's confidence and is loathe to take advantage of his inside information could be because she harbors some feelings for Stan (as will come to light next season) or because she still feels some loyalty to Don and her old firm.  They did give her the opportunities to learn and develop her talents and become the bad ass ad exec.  In the end, she can't abandon Don or the firm forever.  She just needed to be appreciated and not taken for granted.

This episode makes it clear that Megan's number one goal is to become a successful actress and she won't let anything stand in the way of her dream.  Not Don, not motherhood.  She gave up her dream for a while, she won't make that mistake again as she ultimately moves to Hollywood, sans Don, to pursue her dream.

We ultimately learn that Bob Benson, who references his preppy, blue-blood background, was in fact an invention (much like Don Draper).  A creation built to replace the boring West Virginia boy he wanted to leave behind.

Mad Men Season 6, Episode 1 Recap: The Doorway

"I want you to be yourself."

Hasn't that been the whole quest of Donald Draper, nee Dick Whitman, for lo these past five seasons?  Be himself, whoever that is, whatever that means.  He has donned many identities--scrappy salesman, successful ad man, suburban husband and father, cheater, divorcé, modern married Manhattanite, partner--yet none seem to satisfy him.  He's in a constant state of wanting something else or discovering that what he has will never be enough.  But when your whole identity is built upon a lie, can you ever find your truth?

Don's search for answers takes him from Dante's trip through the nine circles of Hell to the arms of another in his seemingly endless list of paramours. Along the way he questions life's meaning and leans on alcohol to quiet the noises in his head. Like Roger, he seems consumed by the ultimate of life's question--what's it all about?  His drunken questions to Jonesy the doorman about what happens after you die come on the heels of his embarrassing performance at the wake for Roger's mother.  Why can't he be happy seems tied up in what does this all mean anyhow?

Both Don and Roger take stock of their lives this episode.  Don has it all--his beautiful wife is now happily employed as a daytime TV actress, his business is booming, he jets to Waikiki Beach for work--while Roger is feeling the nagging absence of anyone significant in his life.  His mother's death is a reminder of the relationships he's ignored (not just his mother, but his daughter and grandson) in search of that magic pill that will make him feel complete.

Roger can't help but notice that his only family connections have purse strings attached and that "I love you" means, thanks for the money.  He was loved unconditionally and, in his mind, undeservedly by one woman his whole life and now she's gone.  He pushed away the other women who tried to love him and they've moved on with there lives.  What else is there for him?

Roger and Don's quest for answers is at least more plausible than Betty's quest to find Sally's friend Sandy.  The whole storyline is silly and just an excuse to remind viewers of the counter-culture the show mostly ignores.  The show skipped over the summer of love and went straight through to disengaged youth thumbing their collective noses at the war-waging capitalist hegemony.  What I think we're supposed to take away in Betty's journey through one circle of Hell's Kitchen is that she, like Roger and Don, is dissatisfied and unfulfilled and part of her envies the wanderlust and freedom of youth while another part is worried about what happens to a young girl who has her dream destroyed.  Any question of whether Betty's slumming was for the girl's sake or hers was answered when she comes back out of the rabbit hole with dark hair.  She can't or won't do the work of finding out what is really troubling her or what she needs. She can't fix herself, so a new can of paint will do the trick.

At the very beginning of the episode we are introduced to a new character Dr. Arnold Rosen saving the life of doorman "Jonesy." Dr. Rosen and his lovely wife Sylvia live in the same downtown high-rise as the Drapers.  He is a short nebbishy guy who saves lives who looks up to (literally and figuratively) the suave and distinguished guy who makes people want to buy things.  The world was and continues to be a strange place where how hot you are is more important that what you do.  He and his wife have become close enough friends to spend New Year's Eve together and this may be the first time we've seen Don happily interacting with another couple.

The war in Vietnam is becoming more at the forefront of everyone's life, in small ways and large.  While in Hawaii, Don meets a soldier on leave for his wedding and carries the memory with him throughout the episode in the form of a lighter.  The soldier talks about having eight more months and it's impossible not to wonder if he'll be as lucky as Don to make it out of the war alive.  Horrific war stories are turned into sick jokes on late night television and, along with the nightly news, starts to rouse the sleepy public about what is going on "over there."  And kids become cynical at a much younger age now that they are forced to face their own mortality earlier than ever before.

Bob Benson.  Suddenly he appears and no one knows his story.  He "bumps into" Don in the elevator with a cup of coffee and a pitch to get some time with him.  He puts his name onto a gift basket for a funeral he wasn't invited to.  He hangs out in the middle of the office, striking up conversations with whomever walks by.  Ken is suspicious, possibly because Ken is a writer and spends time thinking about people and their motivations and it less likely to take things at face value.  And there's something suspicious about his eagerness, his puppy dog enthusiasm, his habit of placing himself in the right place at the right time  Who is Bob Benson?

Peggy is finishing 1967 with a job that she does very well and a boyfriend who brings her cold sandwiches to work.  She still remembers the work-related advice Don gave her and she still continues to shine.  She has to quickly rework a TV ad and her crisis management skills are on fire.  She also manages to keep up her friendship with Stan and they keep each other company on New Year's Eve as they work from their respective offices.  Ted, who Peggy had frantically been searching for all episode, shows up after she's solved the problem and proudly feeds her some Wizard of Oz line of the power being with her all along.  But even over the phone Stan can hear that Ted really likes Peggy more than as just a proud boss.

Don and Megan's trip to Hawaii was to get acquainted with the Royal Hawaiian hotel on Waikiki Beach, ahead of a new marketing pitch.  So after a few days in paradise--endless sun, sandy beaches, warm tropical breezes--what is Don's takeaway?  Hawaii, a great place to kill yourself.  He is shocked when the clients look at the print ad and see visions of a man walking alone into the Pacific to end it all.  Don thought he was conveying freedom and peacefulness. But even Stan saw the image as suicidal.  Don could still be haunted by the two suicides he's been touched by (notice how the still tied tie in the picture could refer to how those men killed themselves) or he just has a strong fatalistic streak that sees paradise as something you have to die for to earn.  The clients want to see their hotel, the famous outline of Diamond Head, not a man's footprints into oblivion.

Oh, so that's why Don was reading Dante on vacation.  It was a gift from his new mistress, Mrs. Arnold Rosen.  The surprise scene of their affair hearkens back to the stunner in the pilot when Don left his girlfriend to come home to his then wife and kids.  But, Don's infidelity has never gone this far before.  He's cheated on his wives, he's even cheated on girlfriends, but to cheat with the wife of a friend.  That is low, even for Don.  How can he live with himself knowing he's betraying not just his wife but Sylvia's husband?  His guilt is not enough, he claims he wants to stop but the power is his.  He hasn't.

So what are the doorways of this episode?  There's the one that leads to the scuzzy rat's nest that Sandy escaped to when the other one--the one to her dream of studying at Julliard--was shut.  There's the doorway that leads from the hallway to Sylvia's apartment, where Don escapes his marriage to break the sanctity of another's.  There are the endless doorways that Roger spoke of that lead ultimately to nowhere. The largest doorway of course is the one through which we exit this world, and it is the doorway the show is focusing ever more on. The gang is getting older and they're all starting to lose things and they're all facing that reality.  If you're lucky you can ignore this while at a luau in Honolulu, or smoking weed and having sex overlooking the ocean, or over a late night chat with an old friend.  If you're unlucky, you cry alone in your office and wonder what it's all for.

Quotes:

Sandy: You go to college. Meet a boy. You drop out. You get married. Struggle for a year in New York while he learns to tie and tie, and then move to the country and just start the whole disaster over.

Therapist:  I can't laugh at everything you say.
Roger:  Either it's funny or it's not.  I don't know how you can control yourself.
Therapist:  It's hard sometimes.

Roger:  What are the events in life? It's like you see a door.  The first time you come to it you say, "Oh, what's on the other side of the door?" Then you open a few doors.  Then you say, "I think I want to go over that bridge this time.  I'm tired of doors." Finally you go through one of these things and you come out the other side and you realize that's all there are-- doors and windows and bridges and gates.  And they all open the same way and they all close behind you.
Look, life is supposed to be a path and you go along and these things happen to you and they're supposed to change you.  Change your direction.  But it turns out that's not true.  It turns out the experiences are nothing.  They're just some pennies you pick up off the floor, stick in your pocket, and you're just going in a straight line to you-know-where.

The inscription on the lighter: In life we often have to do things that just are not our bag.

Roger:  You know, I used to jump off mountains.  It never occurred to me I had this invisible parachute.


Observations:

Don is reading Dante's Inferno because of course he is.  It's such an easy breezy beach read.  The first of the three part epic poem The Divine Comedy it depicts Dante's journey through the nine circles of Hell, aided by his guide, the poet Virgil.  In each circle, those in the afterlife are punished for their misdeeds while on earth.  Is Don wondering what will await him in the great beyond? Is he looking to understand himself better? Or did he think he'd look really cool delving into such deep material? Or was it his way of cheating on Megan without his girlfriend around.  Reading the book your lover gave to you while lying next to your wife is next generation tackiness.

Roger insists to his therapist that he doesn't feel anything.  He doesn't crack when he hears of his mother's death, nor at her memorial.  But alone in his office after he's been given the shoeshine box from the shoeshine guy who just pass, all those feelings he swore he didn't have come rushing to the surface.  Roger is always fast with the quips to keep everyone at arm's length, but he finally is facing the feelings of loss and loneliness he's been ignoring.  He tells Don later that their job is to ignore the bad things, like the fact that the cigarettes they advertise will kill you.  He had become very astute at doing that, not just at work, but in his home life as well.

It's hard to realize now, but there was a time when air travel was not so commonplace.  Long trips (coast-to-coast in a zippy 20 hours) and high cost kept commercial aviation from, if you pardon the pun, taking off until the 1950s.  But by 1967, where we start this season, both the length of trips and their cost was starting to come down and flying was more available to everyone. 

Five years later, Cat Stevens will record a song that Roger will relate to.  In "Sitting," he writes: "Life is like a maze of doors, and they all open from the side you're on. Just keep on pushing hard boy, try as you may, You're going to wind up where you started from..."  This parallels Roger's therapeutic rant about doors.  "You go through one of these things and you come out the other side and you realize that's all there are-- doors and windows and bridges and gates. And they all open the same way and they all close behind you."  It's depressing and nihilistic and emblematic of man's search for meaning in life.  Some call it a midlife crisis, but it can happen to anyone at anytime if they feel empty, directionless, unfulfilled.  What am I doing, what am I doing it for, does any of it matter.  In 1967 you had to face these deep issues.  Now, you can go on Instagram and search "Cute puppies" and make the bad thoughts go away for awhile.

Speaking of doorways, and paths that lead to nowhere new, in Episode 3.01, Don said:  I keep going places and ending up somewhere I’ve already been.

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Spoilery--DON'T READ UNTIL YOU'RE ALL CAUGHT UP!!!


It warms my heart seeing Stan and Peggy on the phone, both working deep into the night, chattering about work gossip and making each other laugh.  A small moment like this is paid off big time when they finally realize that they belong together!

Bob Benson was an enigma from the beginning.  Other than terminally delightful receptionist Meredith, no one is that chipper all the time.  It took some time, but we finally had our answer to who was Bob Benson and what was his deal.  Bob was Don Draper 2.0.  He didn't steal anyone's identity or do anything quite that extreme, but he did weasel his way into the job he wanted by being whatever anyone wanted him to be.  He created a person and then acted as if he were that person and for a while it worked.  But in the Season 6 finale, Bob gave us the greatest gif(t) of all time, the "Not great, Bob" elevator scene.

They dropped a nice hint in this episode that the war would become front and center for the Rosens, when mentioning their son was in college.  This was the height of the Vietnam War draft but college deferments kept certain men from serving, This issue came up later when their son is selected as 1A for the draft.

While Roger is indeed lost and sad this episode, we only have to wait one more season for him to find true happiness.  It's worth the wait!

Mad Men Season 5 Episode 13 Recap: The Phantom

Life goes on, as painful, disappointing, and awkward as ever.  Don is dealing with a literal pain in his mouth from a bum tooth, Megan is dealing with the double disappointment of both failing as an actress and having her artistic dreams belittled by her mother, and Pete is dealing with awkwardly engaging with the wife and the husband whose marital union he has--um--intruded upon.  Poor Harry would rather complain about his lack of a window than take Lane's office and Don is seeing things.  His deceased half-brother to be exact.  Is he the phantom to which the title refers?

Or is it Lane?  He is gone but still there, his empty chair a stark reminder of his presence and his absence.  Joan takes up the talking points Lane would have raised at the partner's meeting but all she accomplishes is moving the discussion to a later date.  Things are going great at the firm, at least money-wise, the only-wise that they used to all care about.  Yet, no one seems that excited by the success.  When you get what you want--at least what you told yourself you wanted--it's never really enough is it?

It makes sense that Don would start imagining his late brother hanging around.  He was, at least in his mind, somewhat responsible for Adam's suicide.  He wasn't there for his brother when he needed him.  Adam asked for help and received a chilly response and an offer of money.  Lane too had asked Don for help and Don was cool and unemotional in response.  He didn't register either man's desperation nor their need for something more from him than detached advise.  And now both are dead at their own hands.

Joan feels the guilt about not being there for Lane and while Don claims he feels no responsibility, his hallucinations and dental pain tell a different story.  When later he goes to Lane's widow with a check and an apology, he's doing it for himself.  To ease his pain and guilt.  But she doesn't allow him to use the gesture to make himself feel better and calls out the hypocrisy and selfishness in his visit.

Disappointing people is what Don is good at.  Especially when he thinks he is being helpful.  He doesn't see how his lack of support of Megan's acting is hurting her, once again thinking the calm, rational advice he gives is sufficient to deal with someone's heartache.  But Megan is more the "suffer in silence and keep up a good appearance" type, crying alone in the bathroom, wallowing alone in the bed, but not letting on to Don just how much he's hurt her.

But her mother, of course, as mothers do, will be there for Megan.  Comfort and support her and help her find her way.  Give her words of encouragement, shower her with love and understanding.  Or...she will tell her daughter that she's a petulant needy child who pouts when she doesn't get her way and that it's time she grows up and puts away her ridiculous acting fantasy.  The phantom, according to Marie, is the unattainable, unrealistic dream.  She gave up hers, as all little girls must, and now she expects her daughter to do the same.

Megan does not take this well and punishes herself and Don, pretending to be "the little woman" staying at home waiting for her man to come home.  It's not what she wants, it's not what Don wants.  But he was happy when she was at work with him and she won't be happy until she captures her phantom career.  So Don has a choice.  Help her with her dream or continue to fail to be there for anyone who needs him.

The one bright spot for Don after one failed interaction after another is bumping into Peggy at the movies.  Her is someone he helped and guided and who is now living her best life.  Perhaps that is what gets him to actually look at Megan's reel and finally involve himself in her dreams.  He couldn't help Adam, he couldn't help Lane--his widow made that extra plain in their brief meeting--but he could be a supportive husband.

The phantom Pete chases in this episode is the dream of being suave and sophisticated and handsome and desirable.  Basically, to not be Pete Campbell.  Anyone else looking at his life--successful career, beautiful loving wife, adorable child, house out in the country--would think he has it all.  But he is restless and unsatisfied and he searches for a more exotic, exciting life with his train buddy's wife, Beth.  But Beth has her own demons and no amount of attention from Pete will keep the depression at bay.  So, she goes in for electroshock therapy to quiet the noises in her head.  Unfortunately for Pete, the cure not only cuts the dark thoughts from her brain, but any memory of their time together.  He is scrubbed from her mind and is just some nice man who comes into her room to talk with her a bit.  Pete is angry and frustrated that he can't have his dream life with Beth and instead is stuck in his suburban rut.  But perhaps help is on the way.  Trudy says he can have an apartment in the city, giving him carte blanhe now to live that life he thinks he deserves.

We see Peggy at work, going after a potential new client, and later at the movies trying to clear her head.  Don happens to be there too and it's a melancholy reunion between mentor and mentee.  Don is the man who helped Peggy get her wings then grew angry when she wanted to fly.  He taught her a lot and he is in large part responsible for her career, yet he held her back and she had no choice but to leave him to get the career she wanted.  Does Don see how he this parallels his relationship with Megan? How he was only happy when she was under his roof, not when she wanted to be her own person?  How afraid he is of being left that he holds on to the point of smothering?

Elsewhere there is a new and improved Roger Sterling.  His mind recently expanded, he has more clarity about what he wants in life. And it's a real relationship with his emotional and intellectual equal.  No longer is he chasing his youth or fearing growing old.  He is willing to embrace a challenging woman, someone who is independent and strong.  And Marie, for her part, is putting herself first.  Megan called her out for giving up on her dreams, now it's time for her to consider what she wants.  No longer is she sacrificing for her children or her husband.  She is seeking her own happiness.

As we wrap up this season, the partners at Sterling Cooper are looking forward.  They are moving on and up, the success they've chased for years is finally at hand.  So what does the future hold?  As they stare into the Manhattan skyline, no one knows.   But a beautiful woman comes up to Don and asks if he's alone and not one of us thinks the answer is no.

Quotes:

Don:   lt'll go away.  lt always does.

Marie:  Not every little girl gets to do what they want.  The world could not support that many ballerinas

Pete:  And then he realized everything he already had was not right either and that was why it had happened at all.  And that his life with his family was some temporary bandage on a permanent wound

Marie: This is what happens when you have the artistic temperament but you are not an artist.
Take my advice, nurse her through this defeat and you shall have the life you desire.

Conductor: I am an officer of a New Haven line!
Pete: Well! I'm the president of the Howdy Doody Circus Army!


Observations:

The first "cigarette for women" that I remember growing up was Virginia Slims.  They advertised on TV with the nascent women's lib-y: "you've come a long way, baby." In retrospect, now that we all know of the dangers of cigarettes, it doesn't look all that empowering for women to have a "cancer stick" designed just for them.  But this was the sixties and women were suddenly on advertisers' radar for more than cleaning and beauty products thanks to the women's liberation movement.  This is not to say that cigarette companies overlooked women before this.  As far back as the 20s, shortly after women were finally given the vote, Philip Morris aimed their print ads at these newly enfranchised women.  But this was the first time they were tailoring the design of their product exclusively for just one segment of the population.

Electroshock therapy was used since its discovery in the 1930s to treat depression and other mental disorders.  A small electric signal was sent into the brain, stimulating a mild seizure.  While effective for many patients, it fell out of favor as being too "brutal" and dangerous.  The book, and later movie, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, brought both the practice and its risks (including some memory loss and other side effects) to the public's attention and stigmatize the name and the therapy.  Electroshock therapy was replaced with medication (the birth of the Prozac nation) and talk therapy.  Now renamed Electroconvulsive therapy, it is still in use today as an alternative when traditional approaches are not successful.

We can all assume that Megan's friendship with that actress ended the first time the commercial ran on TV. Unlike today with 500+ channels and dozens of streaming services, if you were on a national TV commercial campaign in the 1960s, EVERYONE would see it.

The theme of this episode was a little too on the nose.  Don has something rotten inside him and he needs to get it removed.  Whether it's guilt or shame, Don needs to confront his past and make better choices in the future.  He took a good step with Megan, let's see next season if he can continue and become a better person.  Or is that a fool's errand?

Not enough Ginsberg.  We only saw him for a brief moment pitching "reasonably priced" pantyhose.  But his confidence--shown in his unwillingness to consider the client didn't like his pitch--was a delight.  Not so delightful, the stains all over his shirt.

I absolutely loved Joan hiding the fact that the firm was considering space on the 48th floor from Harry.  She's a partner and he's not and she is not going to forget that.

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Spoiler-y Observations: DON'T READ UNTIL YOU'RE ALL CAUGHT UP

One of the most iconic moments of Mad Men was Peggy Olson, cigarette dangling from her lips, striding down the halls of McCann Erickson in Season 7, Episode 12, ready for her next chapter.  To think it wouldn't have been possible without Ted Chaough encouraging to take up smoking for their new client.  And therein lies the problem.  Would that scene be as memorable without the cigarette? Does it not add to Peggy's bad ass-ness? And then we wonder why people continue to smoke even in the fact of the medical data.

Pete asks Beth to run away to California with him.  Trudy mentions getting a pool and how Pete is better when he gets some sun.  So it won't be a tremendous surprise when Pete ends up in California, soaking up the sun.  What will be a surprise is when he comes to his senses, realize he too has been chasing a phantom--the idea of being the suave, complicated, cheating Don Draper--and finds happiness just being boring old happily-married Pete Campbell.

When we first saw Roger and Marie together there were two thoughts.  One, how odd it was to see Roger with someone so age-appropriate.  Two, that this was just a fling that would end badly.  Not so fast.  Roger and Marie turned out to be just what the other needed and seeing them grow up and meld their two lives was a high point of the last season.

Peggy will realize that her career success has come at a price and that she should aspire to have it all.  She's always seemed almost embarrassed by being good at her job and unworthy of wanting it all.  But she continues to grow, in strength and in confidence, and may find the love she's been looking for was not that far away after all.

Mad Men Season 5 Episode 12 Recap: Commissions and Fees

This was Mad Men's Game of Thrones penultimate episode shocker, the one with a death that hit us all hard.  Lane may not have been handsome, or suave, or charismatic, but he was the stolid presence, the glue that held the various raveling threads together.  For the facade to finally crack, for the hopeless person underneath the crisp accent to bare himself, was disturbing and sad.  We may have laughed at his failed attempts to woo Joan, we may have cringed at his desperate attempts to get his father's approval, but we thought he'd soldier on, stiff upper lip and all that. We did not expect to see him take such a brutal final act.  But should we have? Weren't the signs there all along; wasn't there a thick cloud of dread hovering over Lane for some time now?  It's so easy to ignore the signs at the time, so easy to see them after the fact.

As we begin, all is very well at SCDP now that they have entered the Jaguar-era.  Other agencies are licking their wounds and enviously chatting about SCDP's automotive coup.  Pete is beaming as the wunderkind who landed the big one, bringing the company from the brink to its new-found car-filled success.  Lane is being lauded as the genius responsible for the company's financial turnaround.  Joan is settling comfortably into her new place at the partner's table.  And only Don seems bothered by how all this good fortune was brought about.

At Casa de Francis, Betty and Sally are butting heads as per usual.  Sally is outraged her mother would have the audacity to make her go on a ski vacation (the witch!), Betty is over her daughter's adolescent moodiness.  So, in one of the more entertaining exchanges between the exes, she calls Don and lets him know that her problem will soon be his.  She's not asking, she's telling.

But Don has bigger problems that an irate ex-wife and a temperamental daughter.  Bert brings by a canceled check that Don appears to have signed, giving Lane his Christmas bonus.  Now, everyone had agreed to forgo bonuses this year, but Lane is in a big of a sticky wicket having misappropriated some of the firms funds.  He had to find some money from somewhere to cover up his misdeed and so he forged Don's signature.  As the chief financial officer for the company, he assumed this would go unnoticed. But with all the talk at the partner's meeting about changing the billing practices, unfortunately for him, Bert decided to check out the books.

Presented with the evidence, Lane at first tries to gaslight Don. We all sign so many things during the day, we can't possibly remember all of them.  And a check for a substantial sum of money, for a bonus that no one else had agreed to, would easily slip one's mind.  But the facade quickly crumbles and the truth pours out.  While Don and the partners have been living the high life, Lane has not benefited from the company's success.  He owed taxes and simply didn't have the money to pay them.  Too proud to ask for a loan, too embarrassed to let Don know of his financial problems, he tried to make the problem go away.  He "advanced" himself his bonus, expecting to cover it up when the bonus came.  But it didn't come.

Lane is devastated, to say the least.  He has always wanted to be seen as an equal partner, to be respected and esteemed.  But that never happened, he has always been second class.  Just as his father never valued him, just as his wife took him for granted, he has never felt appreciated or "one of the boys" at the firm.  And now he is desperate and at Don's mercy.  Don sees no choice in the matter.  The chief financial officer for the company embezzled funds and forged a partner's name on a check to do so. This is not a mistake, this is a crime.  He could fire Lane, have him arrested.  Instead, he believes he's giving Lane the fairest shot - resign, I'll cover the money, and no one has to know.  But that only makes Lane more upset.

And look at this from Lane's perspective.  It was his idea to leave PPL and help start up the new firm, he was the one who put up his own money and did not ask to be compensated while building the company.  He did the nitty gritty work while the other partners basked in the glow of the firm's ultimate success.  But his stubbornness and his pride kept him from asking for help when he needed it. Now it was too late to ask for that help.

Don thinks he knows how Lane feels.  Don has lived with lies, lived in fear of being found out.  But Don has also lived a charmed adulthood and none of his sins ever came back to destroy him.  When the real Mrs. Draper demanded to know why he stole her husband's name and identity, instead of exposure and ruination, Don was given the gift of a lifelong friend.  When Pete tried to undermine Don with the truth of his identity, Bert brushed if off with a "who cares?"  Don has never had to pay the ultimate price for any of the bad things he had done, for any of the lies he told.  He doesn't see that Lane may not see a better future arising from the ashes.   He doesn't see how Lane's entire identity was rolled up in being a successful, American ad agency exec.  Losing that was losing everything.

If anything, the greeting he gets from his wife has to make this all even worse for Lane.  She's proud of him, she wants to go and celebrate his good news.  This is all he's wanted and now it's all a sham.  To make matters far worse, his wife surprises him with a new Jaguar to commemorate all his recent successes.  Lane can't tell her that it's all a lie, that he can't afford the car, that he has lost his job.  He is overcome with dread.  That night, he tries to end it all in the garage.  But the vaunted car is such a lemon it can't even start up.  Lane the lackless loser can't even succeed at killing himself.

But while Lane deals with the lowest point of his life, everyone else goes about theirs completely unaware.  Joan plans an Easter holiday, after rebuking Lane's untoward comments.  Don talks to Roger about landing a bigger fish, like Ken's father-in-law's company, Dow Chemicals.  Roger gets Ken to go along with the plan, accepting his demand that Pete be left off the account should they land it.  Sally appears unannounced on Megan's doorstep and Megan is furious that Don couldn't spare a moment to let her know ahead of time that she'd be spending the weekend.  Sally goes out with Megan and her actress friend and wants to feel grown up like they are.  So she arranges for her friend Glen to come visit her.

Don takes the Lane news as a kick in the ass.  The firm needs to stop wallowing in mediocrity, grasping for one small client after another.  They need to land the big one.  And there is a big one right under their noses.  So, despite being told repeatedly that the Lucky Strike letter he wrote has killed him and marked him as an ungrateful backstabber, he tries again to make a pitch for Dow.  He is passionate and prepared and makes a great presentation, as Don always does.  But will it be enough?

While Don does his Don thing at the Dow meeting, Sally is having an awkward time with Glen at the American Museum of Natural History, culminated by the young girl "becoming a woman" that day.  Scared, she flees back to her terrible, horrible, awful mother's loving embrace.  They may be mortal enemies at times, but Betty and Sally are inextricable.  Betty relishes in the victory as she tells Megan that Sally came home to her, because "l think she just needed her mother."

But while everyone else was living their lives, Lane finally took the last act in his.  He went to the offices he had helped build, sat at his desk and typed up his resignation letter.  I'm not one for pointing out the derivation of words, but resignation is the appropriate word here, meaning not just to retire or give up one's position, but two other more poignant meanings:  an act of ending a game by conceding defeat without being checkmated or the acceptance of something undesirable but inevitable. Lane has been defeated all his life, not living up to others' expectations of him, nor his own expectations of himself. The sad sack who never reaches the pinnacle of those around him.  He accepts his fate; he's never going to be a winner.  He accepts as undeniable that his life will never get better from here.  Don can talk all he wants about the future and bouncing back and picking oneself up, but Lane is not that person.  He's tried, but he's been knocked back down every time. So it goes.

At SCDP, Lane's secretary can't get into his office.  Joan tries to enter with a key, to no avail.  So she goes to the office next door to find out what's wrong.  Pete, then Ken and Harry, look over into Lane's office and are met with a horrific sight.  Don and Roger come back from their meeting, feeling pretty good, only to find the office abandoned save for the partners huddled around a desk.  They are told that Lane hanged himself. When Don hears this, he is overcome.  All he wants at that moment is to save Lane from any further indignity, to cut him down and put him to rest.  Memories of his own half-brother's suicide must be flooding back to Don, along with the feelings of guilt of how he should have seen this coming or should have done something to stop it.  The secret of why Lane killed himself will be buried with him as Don will not let his name or image be sullied by revealing the truth.

Quotes:

Scarlet: Shouldn't we have a vote on the fee versus commission question?
Don: l already said no.  Or should l leave so you all can do whatever you want?

Betty:  Hello? l wanted to know if you would have any problem with me strangling Sally.
Don:  Should we be having this conversation on the phone?

Joan: I'm thinking about taking a vacation this Easter.
Lane: Oh. Where are we going?
Joan: Do you think there's a difference between Bermuda and Hawaii?
Lane: Well, neither are suitable for commemorating the death and resurrection of Our Lord.

Don:  lf you needed it so badly, why didn't you ask?

Don: But what is happiness? lt's a moment before you need more happiness.

Glen: Why does everything turn out crappy?
Don: What do you mean?
Glen: l don't know.  Everything you wanna do, everything you think is gonna make you happy just turns to crap.
Don: You're too young to talk that way.
Glen: But it's true.


Observations:

The Sally story-line seems shoehorned in this episode. I'm not sure what was the point. Sure, it gives Megan more opportunities to be irritated with Don and to feel that he doesn't appreciate her or her dreams and aspirations.  It gives Betty the chance to get one up on Megan when Sally runs back to her maternal arms.  And it gives the creator's son another chance to show that talent skips a generation.  But it doesn't really say anything other than adolescence is hard.

For a show that's very quotable, this episode had a dearth of great quotes.  But the best is one of the show's most memorable--"What is happiness? lt's a moment before you need more happiness."  If anything summarizes the consumer culture of the 1960s and beyond, it's this.  It's what advertising and our economy runs on--the insistence that what you have isn't enough, you can never be satisfied, you always need more. It's also a luxury that our modern life has given us.  We don't have real needs, so we create needs.  I have to have that new car, even though my current car is perfectly fine and gets me from point A to point B.  If there's always something better down the line, then how can we be happy with what we have? Isn't that just settling?

The black humor award goes to whoever thought of the famed unreliability of the first wave of Jags in the US being the punch line for a failed suicide attempt. And the touch of Lane snapping his glasses in two only to have to tape them back together in the aftermath.

Did you notice that Sally was able to take the go-go boots she wasn't allowed to wear at the Codfish Ball to her non-date with Glenn at the museum.

Five years after Don's callousness indirectly led to his half-brother's suicide, it was sad to see that he had not developed any more empathy.  Don is still too self-absorbed to notice how what he says and does affects other people. He didn't see it with Lane and he doesn't with Megan either.  To him facts are facts and people should just brush themselves off and deal with reality.  He doesn't understand that other people might feel hopelessness and despair and can't simple reinvent themselves to "get over it."

Ken Cosgrove, who never really seemed to want to be in the advertising business, certainly showed a new cunning and cut-throat side of himself as he allowed Don and Roger to court his father-in-law's business on his terms.  Does this mean he has forgotten about being a writer, or is potentially sticking it to Pete Campbell just too attractive to pass up?

If you were curious, as I was, the 4A's is a real organization.  Established in 1917, when one would have thought people would have been busy with that first war to end all wars, a bunch of advertising execs got together and formed a trade association "to promote, advance and defend the interests of our member agencies, their employees and the industry at large." Last year as this is written, they celebrated their 100th year.