This week on Mad Men, various characters gave in, not the least of which was Don. Betty's complex with men who tell her what to do was developed. And Joan was gone. As in, not there. Not even one little peek.
I love how the Mad Men writers are so focused on time, and weave historical events so well into the plot of the show. They are aware of the fact that this show is a soupy mess of stylized-retro-meta-drama, and to combat that, they constantly jolt us into reality. But, they do so using real events that seemed surreal at the time: the self-immolating Vietnamese monk, radio broadcasts of the Cuban missle crisis, invitations for a future wedding to take place on the day after JFK's death. In this episode, the event was the solar eclipse that took place on July 20, 1963. The eerie pall it cast on the whole episode was the perfect palatte cleanser after last week's experiment in dark comedy in which nothing was as it seemed and John Hamm proved himself one of the great living rubber-faced actors. The eclipse, smack dab in the middle of the episode, provided scenes like this:
and this:
only seconds apart from each other. Instant light to dark, a theme the writers on this show also play with on a regular basis. Last week's study on light was perhaps the only pensive element to that episode, unless you count thinking about how the writers approached the script like someone said to them, drunkedly, at a party, "You know what you guys should do? You should make a funny episode with a lotta jokes!"
But I digress. Enough with the past. If ignorance of bygone things is good enough for Don, it's good enough for me. Although, Don was kind of a dick this week, living up to his birth name, of which we were reminded.
The focus of the episode was Don's resistance to sign a contract with Sterling Cooper. This has come up in the past, and Don has succeeded in not signing a contract because he's to valuable to Sterling Cooper. But the tenous deal Sterling Cooper has with Connie Hilton, even though it was Don who set up the relationship, depends on Don signing a contract.
The extreme focus on comparing the signing of the contract to signing a deal with the devil was almost over the top. It's no mistake that Cooper's office is dark and orange when Don enters to be confronted by Cooper, Sterling, and Pryce:
And we are again reminded of this theme when Cooper confronts Don in the pentultimate scene of the episode. It's as if the writers have been plotting this devilish use of his facial hair for three seasons:
Meanwhile, Betty got her flirt on with the silver fox, named Harry Francis, who touched her pregnant belly at Sterling's Kentucky Derby party. Apparently, she has joined the Junior League, and the women, fresh from reading Silent Spring are trying to prevent the construction of a water tower that would destroy their town's natural beauty.
She calls Henry in her kitchen. He's busy. Not expecting him to call right back, she calls the kids in for lunch. But he does call back. Betty heads into the study to take the call. Notice the musical chairs Betty and the kids play while juggling the extensions:
After their phone call, Betty can't help but check Don's locked desk drawer, which contains the secrets of his past. She does so caually, disinterestedly, as if out of habit. She's resigned, fed up.
She meets up with Henry for iced tea and pie, and it is clear that his interest in Betty is more than just civic. She reveals that she was an Anthropology major at Bryn Mawr, saying, "We all have skills we don't use." He tells her duty calls and he must be going, invoking a reference to "His Master's Voice," the famous ad. Betty rolls her eyes at the reference, maybe because it reminds her of Don. But Henry mistakes this for ignorance, "His Master's Voice?" he says, "It's an old ad?" "I know what it is," she replies. They leave the cafe right around the time of the eclipse. Betty looks up, and Henry puts his hand over her eyes:
Betty gets lightheaded and Henry tells her to buy a fainting couch, which she does. With it, she she gives in and cheats on her vibrating washing machine of season one:
Forcing us to look at who and what she is attracted to. In this case, a powerful, mysterious man who thinks she's dumb and whose job is undefinable but important. Remind you of anyone? But even though Henry reminds us of Don, or of a certain daddy-type that Betty is sexually attracted to, he seems to have energized Betty a little bit. The woman who disinterestedly checked the locked drawer containing Don's secrets is able to confront him again. When she learns of his contract, she starts right in on him when he gets home from work that day. The scene is pretty tense, and the dialogue reveals their disgust for what the other stands for in thier lives.
"Let me tell you about business," Don says, "since as usual you're turning this into something about yourself. No contract means I have all the power. They want me but they can't have me." "You're right," she snaps back. "Why would I think that has anything to do with me. It's three years. What's the matter, you don't know where you're going to be in three years?" And then Don does perhaps the most dispicable thing he's done to Betty up to this point. "Good night," he says, calmly, and then strides out the door, whiskey in hand. He's letting her know that she means nothing to him, and, as the well timed wail from the baby points out, the children don't either. Betty's face is priceless:
Don ends up with a couple of hitchhikers at a motel. They ply him with barbiturates and then knock him out and steal his money. He kind of deserved it. He was being pretty creepy, dancing with the 19-year-old girl and sitting in the room when she and the other hitchhiker were getting intimate. The note they left him was great; it was both sweet and evil at the same time:
(Notice the incorrect usage of "Your")
While Don was hanging out with the hitchhikers, Peggy was busy giving in as well, to Duck. He has been pursuing her for weeks now, under the guise of getting her a better-paying job with his new ad agency. He sends her an expensive Hermes scarf:
Duck's persistence gave Peggy the confidence to propose a raise to Don last week, which he denied, and this week, to ask him if she xould be on the Hilton account. Don responds by blowing up and yelling at Peggy. "Keep your nose down, and do your work," he scolds, making Peggy hold back tears. Don was not so harsh when Pete Campbell asked him to be on the account. When Pete did it, it was ambitious. When Peggy did, it was desperate and lame.
But despite all of Don's rejections, she still doesn't want to leave Sterling Cooper. I'm not sure why yet, but it might have something to do with the fact that Duck's agency only wants her because she's a woman. "Grey has Hermes, Macy's, H.J. Heines baby food, and Revlon," he explains when Peggy goes to his hotel room to return the scarf. "You need someone in a skirt," Peggy interprets. "Everybody does," says Duck. "Copy Chief?" Peggy tries to bargain. "Maybe when they get used to you, but definetely more money," Duck's offer isn't due to Peggy's skills, but to her genitalia. Peggy knows this. "I can't," she says. And then Duck breaks out the big guns. "What do you want from me?" Peggy asks him. Duck gets to the point: "I want to take you into that bedroom, lock the door, take your clothes off with my teeth, and give you a go around like you've never had." Peggy gives in to this proposal, but not the one for a job. I thought about why for a while. Sex is empowering, and that it is for Peggy is a theme that has run throughout the show. Maybe this is due to her Catholic upbringing (we were reminded of this earlier in the episode when she mentions Connie Hilton is Catholic when she says she read his book.) A job offer to write copy about lipstick and baby food is not empowering. Peggy has shown no philisophical awareness for the decisions she makes, but there is a pattern that suggests she's figuring out some sort of personal code of operation. Plus, I would have found it pretty hard to reject that offer too.
She and Don show up to work the next day both doing a "walk of shame" of sorts, Peggy in yesterday's clothes, Don wearing the injuries from the hitchhikers on is face. "Fender bender," he explains. He doesn't notice anything unusual about Peggy becasue, as usual, Don is turning this into something about himself.
He enters his office to find Bert Cooper waiting for him. It's Tuesday morning. Bert lays it all out for Don: "We brought you in, we nurtured you like family, and now it's time for you to pay us back. You can't go any further on your own, Don. Would you say I know something about you, Don?" Bert is sure to use his name, "Don," with emphasis, reminding him that it, like Sterling Cooper's position with Hilton, and now Don's positon with Sterling Cooper, is tenuous. "I would," Don replies. "Then sign," Bert instructs him, "After all, when it comes down to it, who's really signing this contract anyway?" Don signs. He gives in. We see the signifigance of the episode's title, "Seven Twenty Three," when the producers show a close-up of the contract:
Again, footing us in reality. This is an unimportant day, historically. But it is a day on which Dick Whitman a.k.a. Don Draper does something he thought he'd never do. It is a surreal day for him.
The episode ends with Don trudging up the stairs in his dark home. He has just come in to Betty doing whatever she's doing on the fainting couch. "I signed it," he barks at her. "Sixteen Tons," sung by Tennessee Ernie Ford starts to play as Don walks up the stairs. The song is a mining tune about never being able to pay of the dept run up at the company store. It's ironic, considering Don doesn't break a sweat for his work, but feels put upon. Put upon Don. He suddenly seems pathetic. That he is, in fact, a phony has never been clearer.
