Who are you? Are you dumb, or pure? Running out here in the middle of the night and I run into you. How did that happen?
I think that he wants to feel again what he once felt with Rachel.
With Rachel it was magical. She looked right through him in the pilot and saw in one moment what Betty had failed to see in all their years together–that he wasn’t who he pretended to be. And later he learns that Rachel’s mother had died in childbirth, just like Don’s mother had. Just like Dick’s mother.
And this is what he longs for, this deeper, bigger-than-we-are connection.
When we first see Suzanne Farrell, we see, as does Don, a full painting–the Maypole, the dancing, the children and the flowers and ribbons. Nature and femininity and purity and ancient ways. And we see that his longing is elicited in this moment–his fingers in the grass–but I never felt that it was a longing for Miss Farrell specifically. I felt at the time that the youthful, dark-haired free spirit was just one more element within this fuller image.
Only now it’s shifted.
I want you. I don’t care. Doesn’t that mean something to someone like you?
He wants to feel it again, and he thinks that Suzanne qualifies. He thinks that this woman, and the ‘magic’ of their story, will make him feel the feelings. And so he’s chasing them. The feelings.
Rachel was never “someone like you”. He didn’t want her because she was a type, a puzzle piece in a shape that has been proven to fit.
Suzanne calls it:
Because I’m new and different. Or maybe I’m exactly the same.
As a reminder, he also wanted to feel again what he once felt with Betty. He did in fact feel that in Souvenir, but then they came home and she rejected him.
And for the record, I still think Suzanne Farrell is a nutjob, and that more will be revealed on this. Wait for it.
52 Responses to “Don is chasing the magic”
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"I think what she wants is commitment, and the feeling that she’s part of a team, but intellectual or emotional depth? Not so much.
Where have we ever seen that part of her? Let’s say for a moment that Don thwarts all that in her — but have you ever seen an inkling of it when she’s with someone else? "
Well, I don't know what you would count as deep — maybe we all would disagree — but I saw signs of that when she was talking with her therapist, of all people. She was reflecting on this ideal of happiness that failed her — "She wanted me to be beautiful so I could find a man. There’s nothing wrong with that. But then what? Just sit and smoke and let it go ‘til you’re in a box?" Or, "I know people say life goes on, and it does, and no one tells you that’s not a good thing. Why is that?" Remarks like that lead me to believe she is searching for more and not just an insensitive airhead.
There's no doubt that she has the narrow views and prejudices on class and race of her time; she's had a very sheltered bubble life of WASPy privilege, and it shows. She's also, yes, very obsessed with her appearance, and Don calls her petty. But it's a classic move of the time for men to praise and value women mostly for their looks, then criticize them for being shallow and image-obsessed and vain, not seeing a causal link between the two. The same kind of men tell their wives not to worry their pretty heads over things and shut them out of decision-making and then tut-tut when they feel so helpless at dealing with problems on their own.
I agree she can be shallow — very few people on this show haven't been — but I think there's a difference between saying someone is shallow and saying that that's all they have the potential to be. Forgive the strained simile, but maybe she's like a houseplant with shallow roots because she's always been in a tiny pot. Maybe that IS all she can be, but personally I'm not ready to bet that just yet.