Mad Men: Obviously We’re All in a Different Mood

Wait. You’re telling me this was the episode before the finale?

But everything has already happened! The president got shot! Betty announced she didn’t love Don (and got proposed to by Francis)! Margaret got married! Peggy hooked up with Duck again! Trudy behaved even more awesomely than usual!

I have major trouble telling with this show whether it’s making a particular effort to draw parallels between the events of its era and the events of ours, or whether it’s simply trying to present things as they were and let us draw our own conclusions (probably, it does both). But, as someone who grew up hearing adults’ stories about where they were when they heard Kennedy was shot, the way the aftermath of the assassination mirrored the aftermath of 9/11 kept freaking me out as I watched this week’s episode. I’m sure there were weddings scheduled for Sept. 12, 2001, and I’m sure a lot of those weddings did indeed take place, and I’m sure they looked a lot like poor poor Margaret’s.

According to Mad Men’s telling, at least, the experience of the JFK assassination was like this:

You didn’t know exactly what was happening, but you gathered around the TV with everyone else anyway. Then the news came, and at first it was a shock, and then maybe you cried. Then all the phones stopped ringing at once, like it was the end of the world. Then you watched TV for three days straight, and drank a lot, and maybe made out with some boring dude in a car.

This episode includes a ton of TV footage from what I assume was one of the first constant streaming newscasts. (Harry is understandably – and appallingly, in Pete’s view – nervous about the effect this will have on their ad buys.) It’s kind of strange, spending so much time watching people watch TV, but it shows us what it was like to be these people, watching those grainy pictures of Walter Cronkite, except they didn’t know they were grainy. And the image of Betty and Carla watching TV and crying on the couch, while Bobby and Sally looked on, not getting it, will be one of the resonating images of this show for me. Up there with Peggy’s ER doctor putting her hand on her stomach, and Betty dumping the picnic garbage onto the grass, and Don, last week, his eyes bugging out when Betty confronted him about his secret past.

I believe that Betty doesn’t love Don – I think it’s been years since she was last in love with him, probably since well before the show began – and I believe that her recognition and acknowledgment of this fact will fundamentally change the show. But I don’t believe she’d be happy with Henry Francis. In fact, aside from his not being Don, I don’t see what she likes about him at all. I guess there’s the fact that he pays attention to her. But plenty of men have paid attention to Betty. Henry Francis just came along at the right time in her life, I suppose. In any case, Betty’s helpful family lawyer told us last week that she can’t just divorce Don because she wants to (although I guess she could blackmail him). Aside from that one scary episode back in season 1 when he tried to get Rachel to run away with him, we’ve never seen any serious indication that Don doesn’t want to keep on living with Betty and the kids (and let us note that he did not call Suzanne Farrell this week to see how she was coping). And with all the bonding we’ve seen between him and Sally and the baby this season, I can’t imagine him giving his family up without a serious fight – a fight which, presumably, he’d win.

I think the overall message of this series is that you shouldn’t pick your husband when you’re 22. (Although Joan did arguably worse despite waiting until she’d matured emotionally, by which point she couldn’t be as discriminating as she should’ve been. So maybe the message of this series is, don’t be a woman in 1963).

In any case, the sequence at the end where Don walks out of the house, to the office because he has nowhere else to go, even though it’s just him and Peggy there – and Betty is standing in the kitchen in her mumu and no makeup, but it’s not like last season when she had her breakdown, this time it looks like she knows exactly what she’s doing and she’s calculating and scary and heartbreaking – yeah. That was a well-done sequence.

But before it got all heavy, this episode was shaping up to be one of my recent favorites. After weeks of focusing on Don and Betty and their irritating paramours it was nice to have a real ensemble episode, and to spend some quality time with my favorite underlings (and beyond – even Paul had a nice scene teasing Peggy).

For example: Ken gets promoted over Pete. Pete handles this professionally in front of Pryce but throws a hissy fit as soon as he’s alone with Trudy. He wants to abandon ship and go work for Duck, which does seem like the appropriate career move, but Trudy the traditionalist tells him to stick it out (and Harry agrees with her, for whatever that’s worth). Post-assassination, though, Trudy changes her tune and decides Pete doesn’t owe SC anything. Much as I agree with her, and much as I adore Trudy, I did not follow precisely what prompted her attitude shift. Darn this show with its multidimensional characters and subtle plot developments. Adorably, Trudy thinks Pete’s clients will follow him to another agency. Well, maybe jai alai.

Also, Peggy and Duck seem to have an ongoing thing now, although we aren’t told why exactly either of them is bothering. So, I’ll give it my best guess: Duck is still trying to piss off Don, and is enjoying finally getting to be with a woman who doesn’t realize he’s a loser. Peggy is enjoying a no-strings-attached fling with a guy who’s old enough to know how to treat her like a – well, I was going to say like a lady, but you know what I mean. And they both crave the attention, and the chance to pretend they aren’t lonely without having to actually take any emotional risks.

Also this week: Roger prefers talking to Joan and even Mona over Jane (which I’m proud to say backs up my theory from last week that his rejection of Annabel had nothing to do with Jane and everything to do with Annabel). Peggy is indeed living with Carla Gallo, and appears to be fairly good friends with her, too. Margaret became an appealing character to me for the first time when she collapsed in sobs at realizing her wedding was ruined but then completely got over it by the next day, either because she was able to put things in perspective or because she was taking some of Betty’s happy pills. Pete, bless his heart, hates the cold as much as I do, and is even more of a baby about it than I am. Jane’s clothes continue to represent quite possibly the best clothes on the show.

We don’t even get a real trailer for next week. It’s not like the trailers ever even hint at what the episode is going to entail, so I don’t know why AMC felt the need to leave us in even more suspense, because I’m worried some viewers probably canceled their Tivo season passes thinking that this was the finale.

I’m not going to bother predicting what’s going to happen, so I’ll just say what I would like to see happen next week, as everyone adjusts to their lives post-national tragedy:

• Ken and Allyson elope.
• Sally starts writing Plath-esque poetry about how much her life sucks.
• Peggy leverages her offer with Gray’s into a salary at SC that’s higher than what Paul makes. Then she dumps Duck. She and Don laugh in Duck’s face and then feel kind of bad about it.
• Pete tries to start his own agency, but none of his co-workers or clients will come with him, except Hildy. Over the course of season four we follow their wacky Jerry Maguire-esque antics (except they don’t fall in love – only Harry completes Hildy).
• Roger and Joan hook up.
• Betty agrees to keep living with Don but openly has an affair with Henry Francis. (I hate Henry Francis, but provided this affair takes place over the season hiatus I have no problem with Betty teaching Don a lesson.)
• Sal gets re-hired and falls in love with Kurt. Kitty files for an amicable divorce and falls in love with Paul. Kurt and Paul reciprocate appropriately. Everyone is happy, and Sal gets to remake more campy movie clips.
• Pete and Trudy decide to experiment with polyamory and invite Peggy to move into their apartment.

For another take on this episode, check out National Tragedy Does NOT Make the Heart Grow Fonder by Matt DeGroot.

Season 3, Episode 12: The Grown-Ups (originally aired November 1, 2009)

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Photographs courtesy of AMC and Carin Baer