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!