Lane Pryce: Hello Don.
Don Draper: How was your morning?
Lane Pryce: Very productive.
Vitality restored.
Genuinely confused. I just couldn’t get a handle on where he was at. He was being downright nasty to his group, he was following Conrad Hilton like a child trailing the Pied Piper, he wanted nothing to do with Roger. I kept thinking I was missing something, some over-arching blueprint of this dynamic, something obvious that everyone else saw (and not for nothing but I’m supposed to be good at this show), some big cause and a diagnosis of its effect. But I couldn’t.
I even asked Rich Sommer about it:
Me: I guess I’m asking [what you mean by everyone is in over their head] because I’m trying so hard to understand what’s going on with Don this season. Most scenes with the creatives, he’s kind of a dick (no pun).
See?
Rich Sommer: Yeah. Clearly he’s got other fish to fry. He’s got a baby at home and he’s got the fact that he’s got these dual personalities that he’s still trying to rock somehow. When he’s dealing with people like Roger Sterling and Lane Pryce and Bert Cooper, clearly starting to put a thumb on him, like when Cooper, in that fantastic scene at the end of Seven Twenty Three where he says, Who’s really signing it anyway, and that Don’s response is, I don’t want to have anything to do with Roger Sterling. This is a guy who’s kind of up against the wall everywhere he turns; things seem to be closing in on him a little bit. And you look back at season one, and this is a guy who when the walls are closing in.
That didn’t help. And still, he’s answered it, it’s all there, but I don’t get it. I stumble blindly along through further episodes, and further interviews. Jon Hamm tries to help me out as well.
Me: Why do you think that Don is so angry at Roger? I mean, why do you think?
Jon Hamm: I think what Don -I think that part of Don’s professional life is wanting to be in control. I think we see that in Seven Twenty Three when he does not want to sign a contract. He’s essentially forced to do it. And the reason he’s forced to do it is because they don’t own the company anymore. Don’s situation, as we saw at the end of Season 2, is that he has personal relationships with the people he works with, but that is his sort of the core of his realm, and he has done very well by that. So when he stands up in the PPL meeting and says, “I don’t have a contract,” and they look over at Roger and he says, “We’re friends. We didn’t think we needed one,” which is another amazing John Slattery line. When that is taken away from him, and part of why it’s taken away is because Roger in choosing to marry Jane and divorce Mona needs money, and part of needing money is selling his company, selling his birthrights, selling all this, and ostensibly selling a lot of Don’s freedom without consulting him. Now, the reason he didn’t consult him was because he was off the grid in California, but that’s neither her nor there. So that was the first kind of domino falling.
RL: Right.
JH: And I think he sees Roger as sort of being frivolous in his care of this thing that he feels that he has helped to build as well.
RL: Interesting.
JH: More than just for the pursuit of money. And I think he sees Roger as being kind of checked out of the whole thing. And a lot of the responsibility and a lot of the stuff that’s falling back on Don’s shoulders once he’s forced to sign a contract and be beholden to these people that he does not get along with, doesn’t like, the PPL folks, he looks at that as a further thing to blame on Roger. And I think that’s the heart of it. You know, they are friends. They are friends, and Roger is responsible for bringing Don into this world, but I feel like he’s looking at Roger as a guy who’s kind of being frivolous with all of this power in many ways. And I think that’s what the majority of the conflict has been this season. Now whether or not they get to a place where they’re able to -
RL: Hug it out?
JH: – work it out. Hug it out, yeah. (Laughs) Whoopee. When they’re sitting there getting their shaves, “That’s what I did to you? I made you a half a million dollars. Gee, I’m really sorry.” You know, it’s much less about money for Don as it is about control.
Now this starts to make sense. I am fascinated by his answer, and it was one of my biggest takeaways from the interview”the loss of power. I don’t know how I didn’t miss it. And how in Don’s mind, the loss of control and the loss of the friendship are intertwined.
Understand, I’m finally getting this insight mere days before the final episode is aired. And I’m ruminating on it, because I’m still a little confused and frankly, disappointed in myself.
I discussed it with some friends.
Me: Maybe it’s a guy thing. Maybe this was the kind of a man’s world dynamic that still eludes me.
My friends: Yeah maybe.
It wasn’t until the finale that I truly understood what’s been going on with Don. With all of them.
Sterling Cooper had been castrated. These guys were walking around with their balls cut off.
How each of them reacted was its own fascination. Remember, they’d seen all the layoffs. Bert was being old, quirky, and patient”playing well with others, figuring to bide his time. Roger did not know where he fit (understandably, considering the new org chart in Guy Walks Into an Ad Agency), and was getting a bit sloppy”he was too drunk to well manage the Madison Square Garden lunch. It was a bit different for Lane of course, who had handed his balls over voluntarily.
And there was Don was fighting it, and also fighting for something, whether it was trying to bring in his own clients or just order appropriate office supplies or being angry at Peggy for wanting more money or Sal for not keeping in line*. He was harder on his staff because nothing was good enough.
And nothing was. Good enough didn’t get you Madison Square Garden, and great didn’t get you Conrad Hilton. Don was making it happen, and nothing was being received. How frustrating.
Don Draper: I want to work.
Don’s life ostensibly fell apart in one day. And somehow, with hardly a pause for a breath, he walked into Coopers office and took his balls back. Then Roger, then Lane, gaining momentum Blues Brothers style. I know we weren’t the only ones who cheered out loud at Roger’s Let me make a call.
(please know that this fan/blogger is heartbroken at what may likely be the farewell of some of her favorite characters. but that is not what this post is about.)
Suddenly there was energy. And I finally understood just how deadened they all were since the takeover. Once I saw the life force rushing, I got it.
They are working. Working for something–building something exciting. And every time I watch that final scene, even think on it, tears of joy come to my eyes.
*Yes I just gave Don a pass on Sal. He doesn’t really deserve it and it certainly ain’t this simple, but it felt like one bit of truth in this context.
67 Responses to “Productive.”
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The Roger/Annabelle thing was interesting because he makes it sound to her like he's passionately in love with his wife, which is the thing he's been insisting to everyone all along — yet, in the very next episode, what do we see? Him and Jane fighting bitterly, and definitely NOT for the first time, and him dumping her drunken ass mirthlessly on the bed. You wonder how long he's been BS-ing the whole world about their blissful union.
I had no trouble seeing what was happening to Don work-wise: He's in a slump, which may or may not be temporary. At some point, almost every creative person who's been financially successful loses touch with the public's taste, and either gets it back later or doesn't.
Don is coming out of a period where he hardly had to try, pearls just spilled out of his mouth and what he had to offer was exactly what clients wanted. Now they, like everyone else around him (including his kids!), are demanding more of him. Three years ago, he could scarcely have imagined a client grumbling, "But I wanted the moon!" Things are changing at a dizzying speed, and they're not going to change back.
The fact that he reaches out to Peggy and Pete (and I think the Suzanne affair had something to do with this too) means he's aware that he's having trouble keeping up all by himself and doesn't really understand what's going on out there. (Certainly Betty couldn't tell him; she's even more conservative than he is.) You wonder how Mr. Take Your Hat Off In The Elevator is going to deal with hippie rebellion when it takes over the culture (or at least New York) for real, when it becomes more than just an amusing diversion for him. In the 1960s, you couldn't love Sinatra AND the MC5; you had to pick.
The main reason Don wanted to start a new company was..
.. he wanted to be free of his contract! (just kidding)
I loved looking at the group from Dons point of view, I felt like there is hope!
I used to see Abigail Spencer on All My Children a number of years ago and I could never shake the image of her as a soap actress when I was watching her on Mad Men.
Thank you Roberta. I have been scratching my head abit too. I've asked the question in other posts here: why is Don so angry with Roger b/c he wasn't angry when he first heard about the sale; he seemed a little delighted to be getting $500,000 as his share? However, he began increasingly more angry w/Roger until their "blow up" at the Kentucky Derby. I get it… macho, balls cut off, slowly realizing he was nothing more than a "ping pong ball" (isn't that what he said to Bert Cooper daring him to buy back the company instead of "sealing himself up in his golden coffin" and taking the young men with him?). Excellent post, as always.
GMW, that's it exactly, and I didn't have her history to taint my view. Sometimes the difference between good and great is subtle, but it truly had its way with us via this performance.
Here's the other thing about Roger, re Jane–he's gotta be bored. Jane may be intelligent, but I doubt she's interesting to Roger. I know we're all looking at Joan, but also, look at Mona–these are two women who can hold their own when it comes to sharp, witty rapport. We haven't seen much of Jane, but not only is she young, I think she also takes herself too seriously. And I think that when he thought about retiring now, it wasn't the threat of dying in three years, but living–spending all his days with his wife. Roger needs a job!
Not sure where to post this – just want to say I'm having total phantom limb syndrome tonight without MM at 10. JJ on SNL last night just didn't cut it for me. Please tell me they're already shooting season 4 – Deborah? Roberta? Anybody?!?
Yes. They are already shooting season 4–it will start back up in about three weeks.
(Does that really help? Really?)
Btw, I totally get the phantom limb thing, but it's especially apropos, no?
The more I think about it, the insistence on including the Kennedy episode is to blame for much of the season-long slowdown; it was like all of the action had to wait until after Dallas because they needed to have both Sterling Cooper and the Draper family still intact in order to show everyone impressively frowning. This could have been avoided by either bypassing the entire year; or if they insisted on dealing with it, by beginning the season in late 1963, and have the Kennedy thing occur in the 2nd or 3rd episode, and all the plot points would have been free to unroll in the wake of the event and into early 1964.
At the beginning of the season, MW said he thought the key image for the entire season would be Don Draper's bare feet. And now, after seeing the entire season, I have (at least I think I have) a fairly good idea of why he said that. This season was all about stripping Don Draper's life down to the essentials: which means the revelation and (at least the beginning of) the integration of Don Draper/Dick Whitman into a man with, if you will pardon the expression, his feet firmly on the ground.
No, this season wasn't as purely entertaining as the first two seasons, but watching the dissolution of a marriage isn't really the pure entertainment that seeing the skulduggery and infighting of a competitive workplace is. In one sense, I did find it interesting as a dramatic choice to focus more attention on Ossining this season. We rarely if ever get a story about how a marriage breaks up with this kind of depth. And, as with every serious relationship, it wasn't pretty. And no, it wasn't "entertaining."
But I do think it was *necessary*, at least in terms of the story MW seems to want to present: which I believe (particularly this season), is how a man with a fractured personality grows up. I know that that process can happen in two ways (often simultaneously): a slow evolution, with some periods of radical change, usually brought about by a crisis.
The other thing that I haven't seen anyone mention is how this season's finale links so well to the the tarot card reading from last season. I've been reading Tarot for decades, and I was really impressed by the layout of cards they chose for that reading. Anna explained that the key to the reading was The World or, more specifically, Don's belief that he was all alone in the world, and that it was this which was keeping him from being happy.
Well, a man who can say to Peggy, "Will you help me?" is a man who has been stripped of his illusion that he has to do everything on his own. He has begun that integration in the workplace world. It will be interesting to see if/how that continues and if he is also able to do the same kind of growing/healing in his personal life.