Last night was the season premiere of AMC's Emmy-dominating series Mad Men. Anyone who has ever met me knows that I will never not take the opportunity to talk about this show. So here is my recap/review of episode 4.01, "Public Relations," easily one of the strongest the series has seen since its pilot season.
“Who is Don Draper?” asks a reporter in the opening scene of “Public Relations,” the season 4 premiere of AMC’s Mad Men. And of course we the audience have been facing this question since episode one. He has been a suave ladies man, a prostitute’s son, a New Yorker lost on a soul search in California, a doting father, a philandering husband, the list goes on. But it seems the last person capable of answering this question is Draper himself, and as we venture forth into season 4, we find the cool creative director of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce at his most profound existential crossroads yet.
When we last left our gang of renegade ad execs, they were keeping shop in a Manhattan hotel. A year later, they have an office of their own as sleek and modern as the changing decade in which they live. Joan has slid comfortably back into her position as office manager, Pete is still kissing the ground Don walks on albeit with an ounce more self-respect, Harry is as bumbling and loveable as ever, and Roger is still…well, Roger. The most noticeable change, aside from Don, appears to be in Peggy.
Throughout the first three seasons she was a woman almost literally slumped over by the countless chips on her shoulders. If it wasn’t the wandering eyes of her superiors it was the down-talk from Don, heap onto that the weight of an unplanned pregnancy and it’s a wonder she hasn’t burned her bra in the middle of a boardroom.
She has spent the last four years learning her lessons and doing everything in her power to prove it according to the Draper method of self-denial and harsh stoicism. However, since their encounter from the season 3 finale, in which Don, in a moment of uncharacteristic outreach, confessed his need for her understanding and friendship, Peggy has finally figured out who she is outside of his definition for her. What has manifested is a bright, bubbly, downright comedic disposition that seems to drive the spirit of promise surrounding the future of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce and is sure to only bolster Elisabeth Moss’s credibility as a gifted actress.
Don has not been so lucky. After owning to his past and facing the consequences, he no longer has Betty to sustain what Ibsen once called “the vital lie” by which Don seemed to live and breathe and upon which he built the foundations of Donald Draper. Therefore he exists in a kind of identity limbo. In the office he is able to know himself at least on some level, but back at his dour one bedroom apartment it is the closest to being Dick Whitman he has ever allowed himself to get.
Despite the not insubstantial power of seeing him shine his own shoes and act unsure of himself on a blind date, these moments are nothing compared to the glimpse we are given at the true psychological state of the once invincible man. When, on Thanksgiving Day, a hooker enters the apartment (a place she clearly frequents) Don’s lack of self-confidence is immediately established. This is a man who just a season ago mocked a gentleman with a decidedly classier escort at the Plaza, no less. Here he is withdrawing cash from his wallet before the woman has even taken off her coat, an obviously settled routine.
As if this weren’t shocking enough, in the bedroom Don, romancer of some of Manhattan’s most powerful women, is utterly passive. She motions to unclasp her bra, he stops her. She says she knows what he wants, so he tells her to do as much. As a viewer, I did not at all expect what followed. She slaps him, hard. He smiles and tells her to do it again, harder. She does. Again. Harder still. This is without question the lowest we have ever seen him, and yet I have never found myself rooting for him more. Last season I remember hoping beyond hope Betty would deliver such a forceful blow, but now I just want to reach through the screen and give him a hug.
Not unexpectedly, Betty is more lost than ever as a politician’s trophy wife, and never has her resentment for her children been more apparent. They are reminders of Don’s lie, making the sight of them a daily humiliation. Her trajectory over the last three seasons has most closely resembled a child’s coming of age and when it came time for her to divorce Don, the optimist in me thought she was at last going to find happiness.
However, it seems she has simply exchanged her old cage for a slightly more gilded one and is more childish than ever. Hers and Henry Francis’ marriage is quickly established as one defined by the bedroom. He appreciates her sexually in a way her ex-husband never did and is there to stick up for her should she lose her nerve against Don. But is this enough to sustain a marriage? Is success enough to help Don sleep at night? Is a new boyfriend enough to quell Peggy’s fear of relationships? Only time will tell.
It’s difficult to say where season 4 will take us, but as the calendar wears on toward the second half of the decade, I doubt it will leave any of our heroes and heroines unscathed.
No comments:
Post a Comment