'Mad Men' Cast Throws in Their Two Cents on The Summer Man

It was interesting to see what Elisabeth Moss and Christina Hendricks had to say about how their storylines played out in "The Summer Man" as they had very different perspectives than I did on it.

They actresses believe Peggy was proven to have made the wrong move in firing Joey, which they said established Joan as "just" a powerless secretary and Peggy as a "humorless bitch." I, however, think Peggy was seizing power and respect, as Don advised her to do, and showed that the boorishness has consequences. She also showed that she could directly wield power, not just indirectly manipulate people to get what she wants like Joan was trying to do, but failed.

While watching the AMC video recap of the episode, I also noticed for the first time that Don's gift to Gene was a big stuffed elephant. He brought an elephant into the room. Into his former house (is it still the one that the Francis family was supposed to have already vacated according to the divorce decree?) Hmm.

'Mad Men:' The Summer Man (Otherwise Known as Don's Turning a Corner)

*Warning: Spoilers ahead from the recent episode of Mad Men.*

“People tell you who they are but we ignore it because we want them to be who we want them to be.”

“When a man walks into a room, he brings his whole life with him . . . If you listen, he’ll tell you how he got there.”

– Don Draper writing in his journal

Did you hear that? That was the sound of Don Draper bouncing off of rock bottom and starting to rebuild his shattered life. He’s finally coming up for air.

In “The Summer Man,” Don started to cut back on the drinking, began swimming (though he wheezes with smoker’s cough) and is dating as opposed to sleeping with escorts for whose sexual services he paid. He actually sent his secretary BACK to the store to RETURN liquor. When he was in a moment of stress, instead of reaching for the bottle as his instincts told him to do, he asked for coffee. He’s trying in earnest to, as he put it, “gain a modicum of control over the way I feel. I want to wake up. I don’t want to be that man.”

And Don is keeping a diary, something that requires him to have to examine his days, his thoughts, and actually survey what’s become of his life. He knows it’s not pretty. Through the beautifully lyrical voice-overs of Don reading aloud his journal entries – where we learned that Don didn’t finish high school and said if he had “everything could’ve been different” – we hear Don’s inner monologue for the first time, getting a glimpse into not just what he’s doing in his private moments, but what he’s thinking and feeling, something I think he never even really wanted to do before this because those feelings were just too scary.

As Don sat down to watch the news while eating Dinty Moore beef stew and drinking a can of Bud (NOT his preferred amber colored liquid), Don didn’t look like the sad sack who, in previous episodes this season, would come home from work, pointedly refuse to eat anything, grab a glass filled with liquor and eventually pass out on the couch. To see Don sitting at a table and eating is a sign that he cares about his physical health. While he chronicles his thoughts, he’s dealing with his mental and emotional health by working through issues like this one: “Sunday is Gene’s birthday party. I know I can’t go. I keep thinking about him. He was conceived in a moment of desperation and born into a mess.”

While Don obviously still aches to be part of his family again, I was pleased to see in this episode that though he had another date with Bethany, he realized she’s not a good match for him. (That crack from her about being in “different generations” and that she needed more from Don, and his response, “We are from different generations because I don’t remember women pushing this hard,” was a gigantic red flag.)

Bethany is simply a younger, naïve Betty, a replacement Betty, Don repeating past mistakes. Nothing made that clearer than to have the two of them, Betty and Bethany, in the same restaurant, wearing similarly colored dresses and blond hair in an updo, and to watch Don squirm as he was put into a corner about why he hasn’t called Bethany more often and about why he seems unknowable to Bethany, something Betty also complained about. “Don’t you want to be close with anyone?” Bethany asked, while desperately asking for more “intense, prolonged contact” with Don.

By contrast, Don’s behavior with Faye when they went on their date – after which he declined to physically go further than necking in the cab, unlike what he allowed Bethany to do to him in the cab – was starkly different. Faye reminds me of Rachel Mencken, a smart, educated businesswoman who exudes confidence and who is in control of her own life. With Rachel, Don opened up a bit, revealed himself to her, like sharing a story about his mother in a way he’d never done with Betty, at least not willingly. While speaking with Faye, he voluntarily “took off” his emotional coat and gave it to her by mentioning how he wasn’t welcome at Gene’s party, how Gene thinks Henry’s his father, again, something he would've never done with Bethany who remarked that every date with Don seemed like a first one because she didn’t know him at all.

The Joan-Joey-Peggy storyline was challenging to watch as Joan was mercilessly sexually harassed by Joey, aided and abetted by mooner Stan, as the impudent Joey reeled off these lines to and about Joan:

“The big Ragu . . . she’s an overblown secretary.” (Said to Peggy.)

“What do you do around here besides walking around like you’re trying to get raped?” (Said to Joan after she said his behavior won’t be “tolerated here.”)

“You’re not some young girl off the bus. I don’t need some madam from a Shanghai whorehouse to show me the ropes.” (To Joan.)

Joey targeting Joan for his barrage of insults and ongoing, unrepentant, sexually hostile disrespect, and Joan’s angry response toward Peggy served to illustrate the different places Joan and Peggy are in.

Joan is of old school thinking. She went to Don, then to Lane, hoping they'd just take care of the problem for her. She didn't say directly what happened to her and she veiled her issues under the weak heading of “there have been complaints” so that it didn’t appear as though she was the only one having problems with Joey. She thought her indirect methods were best, however they’re not getting the job done, not anymore.

Peggy’s way -- directness, no BS, taking on Stan’s baloney – is the one that is commanding respect in the workplace. With Don urging Peggy to seize the power (“I wouldn’t tolerate that if I were you . . . You want some respect, go out there and get it for yourself.”), Peggy did just that by firing the little pissant who posted the obscene cartoon of Joan on her office window and idiotically wised off to Peggy when she called him on it. To Joan -- who only feels empowered and comfortable in taking on other women and who clearly wanted Don to swoop in and rescue her from Joey’s nonsense -- found Peggy’s decisiveness extremely threatening, which is why I think she was so nasty to Peggy in the elevator, because Joan had lost her power while Peggy had gained it.

Oh . . . on the scenes of Betty -- who mistakenly believes Don is “living the life” -- where she fled to the restaurant bathroom after seeing Don on a date with her younger doppelganger and became very, very upset (smoking up a storm, sweating, dropping her purse), coupled with the longing gaze she directed at Don when he appeared at Gene’s birthday party (to which he was not invited courtesy of the increasingly angry Henry Francis, who intentionally crushed Don’s boxes in the garage and suggested to Betty that they’d rushed into their marriage . . . ya think?!), those were also big, stinkin’ red flags.

And hearing the Rolling Stones on Mad Men -- the show I associate with fedoras and women in big skirts – was jarring. But obviously, the times, styles and social mores were in a state of flux and folks could either get on board or let them, like that younger swimmer in the pool whom Don wanted to beat to the wall, pass people by.

What did you think of “The Summer Man?” Of Don’s dealings with Bethany and Faye? Of the Joan-Peggy-Joey situation? The “we have everything including pent-up anger” Francis family? Anyone hear echoes from the "Marriage of Figaro" episode in season one?

Image credit: Michael Yarish/AMC.

'Mad Men:' Waldorf Stories

*Warning: Spoilers ahead from the recent episode of Mad Men.*

We learned, quite early on, that this was one of those what-comes-around-goes-around episodes. We got to see Don as an eager fur salesman who'd hounded Roger Sterling for a job, tried to impress and ingratiate himself to Roger, even showed up in the lobby of Sterling Cooper in order to "accidentally" run into him. Then, many years later, as Don’s been nominated for a coveted advertising award, Roger felt as though he’d found Don and, therefore, deserved credit when Don succeeded.

We recall that Peggy was once Don’s eager secretary who was “found” by Don (actually found by Freddy but it was Don who promoted Peggy) to have talent, whose talent Don uses, without providing proper, public credit, to accept an award for work to which Peggy contributed. And Peggy, justifiably, feels jealous.

Then there’s Danny Siegel (Doyle from Gilmore Girls) who’s like a hybrid version of those characters: He’s an eager wanna-be ad man – but he’s got connections to Roger’s wife’s cousin – who tried to impress Don and who pressed too hard. Drunk Don (!) then proceeded to steal “Roger’s idiot’s” idea and pitched it to a clients -- without providing credit -- after Don’s own advertising campaign idea fell flat.

There were a lot of hurt feelings during this episode. Peggy was hurt by Don's apparent blindness to her contributions which led to his Clio. Roger was hurt that Don didn’t credit him with plucking him out of the fur salesman business and hiring him, though the hungover Roger forgot/wasn’t sure that he even hired Don during his booze haze, kind of like how the drunken Don forgot that he used Danny’s “cure for the common [cereal]” line with the Life cereal people and was then guilted into hiring Danny, though he did try to slime his way out of it.

I loved seeing the early scenes between Don and Roger when Don was making the hard sell, slipping his portfolio of advertising ideas into the box containing the fur Roger had bought for Joan. (Ever notice how Don’s eyes seemed wider – literally – and he smiled a whole lot more in the flashbacks, like he did when he was in the flashbacks with Anna telling her that he was going to marry Betty?)

We saw the reappearance of the sad, drunk Don, who’s well on his way to becoming either a brooding Roger or an embarrassing Duck Phillips, who’s also divorced and whose kids are distant with him, largely because of his alcohol problem.

What was awful to watch was Don, fumbling his way through the Life cereal pitch, using the same “nostalgia” line he used in the season one finale, the one he’d so eloquently pitched to the Kodak people for “the Carousel.” Don was a mere shadow of what he was back then, when it dawned on him that family and loved ones were of paramount importance. Only he realized that fact a bit too late to salvage that particular Thanksgiving with Betty and the kids.



To make matters worse, sloppy, inebriated Don continued drinking on that Friday night after he won the Clio. He went home and slept with an advertising professional and woke up at noon on Sunday with a waitress named “Doris” in his bed who referred to him as “Dick,” because apparently he’d lapsed back into his original identity. He woke up from his bender to an irate phone call from his ex-wife Betty who reamed him out for being more than two hours late in picking up the kids as he'd promised to do, making Betty and Henry miss an appointment. Don didn’t even know it was Sunday yet.

And I thought that the post-Christmas party Allison situation, coupled with her emotional resignation, might’ve been a turning point for him. What is Don, another Rescue Me/Tommy Gavin type who needs to reach about a billion low-points before getting the message that things need to change? If he doesn’t allow that message to seep into his consciousness soon, he could indeed be headed for Duck territory.

As for Peggy, that moron Stan and the Vick's campaign . . . I admire the courage Peggy frequently displays when she’s facing difficult situations with no obvious way out. I certainly wouldn’t have taken the route of stripping naked to prove that Stan’s a full-of-crap-blow-hard when it came to his "we should all live purely and naked" line, but that’s why I’m a fan of Peggy’s. She takes you to very unexpected, and oftentimes pretty great places.

Most intriguing moment: Don reaching for Joan’s hand -- after Joan and Roger had already clasped hands under the table -- just before the Clio award in their category was announced. Plus the way Don kissed Joan after he won seemed curious, but maybe I’m reading too much into it.

What’d you think of “Waldorf Stories?”

Image credit: Michael Yarish/AMC.

'Mad Men:' Public Relations (Season Premiere)

*Warning: Spoilers ahead from the recent episode of Mad Men.*

Who is Don Draper? Someone who was almost unrecognizable during the season four premiere of Mad Men.

His confidence in everything appeared to have been shaken: Don screwed up an interview with a reporter from Advertising Age, that was meant to promote Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, by refusing to say much of anything at all. He appeared to be flailing around in the sleek, glass-walled confines of SCDP as the face of an underdog firm with money issues and no conference table. He hasn’t been eating, according to his housekeeper. He was being set up on dates by, of all people, Jane Sterling and even got shot down (as far as walking her up to her apartment) by her young friend in a cab at the end of their date. And, most shocking, Don has been hiring a woman to have sex with him and repeatedly slap him in the face, because, apparently, he’s been a very bad boy and deserves to be punished.

Don Draper is now into being dominated? (Don, the child of a prostitute who was nicknamed “the whore child,” wanted to be slapped around by a call girl? Freud would have a field day.)

It seems as though his postcard-perfect (on the outside) family, with wife, kids and the house in the ‘burbs, really was important to him after all – though he realized it too late – and he now knows, deep in his core, that his deceitful and duplicitous ways are responsible for that. No more trying to shift blame onto Betty. When the episode began, Don was still allowing Betty and Henry to live in the Ossining house for which he was paying the mortgage (so much for Henry saying he didn’t want Betty to owe Don anything) even though the divorce agreement says they were supposed to have moved out a month ago.

I literally was dumb-founded watching this version of Don Draper walk around, lonely and disconnected. He was almost like a foreign character who I didn’t recognize, save for Jon Hamm’s face. Even in the first three seasons of Mad Men, when Don had tremendous difficulty allowing people to capture a glimpse of his true feelings (Midge, Rachel, even, to some extent, Miss Farrell got to see them), he wasn’t THIS inaccessible, just going through the motions of life. Observing a depressed Don Draper was disorienting. It made everything, from SCDP to his dark apartment, feel unstable, different.

Was this dour episode – where the fit he threw over Jantzen’s two-piece bathing suit campaign that his clients rejected – the catalyst for Don to finally say, “Enough of the self-flagellation?” For him to evolve? The Wall Street Journal interview, where he promoted himself with vigor, seemed like a turning point.

Meanwhile, I loved – LOVED! – what a year has done to bolster Peggy’s confidence so much so that not only would she pull a caper like hiring two actresses to stage a faux fight (which evolved into a real one that necessitated bail) over ham so that they wouldn’t lose their account without consulting Don, but Peggy was willing to talk back to Don as good as she got. When Don was feeling extremely down, he tried, as he has in the past, to direct some of his ugly hurt onto Peggy, but this time, Peggy was having none of it. It was a glorious site to behold.

By the way . . . Joan in her own office, a vision.

As for Betty and Henry, all I can say is . . . ick. The two of them, together, have zero chemistry, and are extremely unsettling to watch, particularly under the attentive eyes of Henry’s calloused mother who later referred to Betty as a “silly woman” and chastised Henry for “living in that man’s dirt.” (“Silly,” maybe so, that sweet potato/pinching incident was embarrassing. But “dirt?” No.)

What did you think of the season premiere? Of sad Don? Of Betty and Henry?