Don says that to Shelly in Out of Town, the first episode of S3. It’s so pointed, so on-the-nose, so sad.
And yet, by the last episode of S3, Don is somewhere he’s never been. The quote turns out to be not the least bit on-the-nose, but actually a complete bait-and-switch.
5 Responses to “"I keep going somewhere and ending up where I’ve already been."”
Big picture, he's always moving in one direction: forward. He re-invents himself and continues to move on with that path. The new agency is consistent with that. But for the "small stuff", I think he has patterns which he repeats: his affairs, his frustration with office politics, the coldness in his marriage. Shelly, to whom he made the comment, is definitely in the latter category.
It seems like that's the quote people cite most commonly to describe Don's character — "I have a life. And it only moves in one direction: forward." But I don't think it's been true about Don for a long, long time. I think the whole first season, in fact, is centered around Don escaping that limited worldview. After all, what is the Carousel speech but an acknowledgment that as much as he wants to "go forward," to escape his past, he has an equally strong urge to move "around and around and back home again," to relive and redeem his past?
In fact, season 2 sort of sees Don leaning too far in the other direction — he becomes obsessed with living life in one place, inside a vision of "perfect" domesticity so static that it will not admit even the slightest hint of chaos or conflict. He still returns to his "go forward" mantra of escape, but only as a means of exorcising the parts of himself that don't fit into his idealized life — he sends them running so he can stand still. (Fittingly, one of those parts of himself goes running after Bobbie Barrett, the woman who puts words to his unconscious efforts: "I like being bad and then going home and being good.")
Ultimately he despairs of finding a place for any part of himself in that perfect, static world, so he set off running again, to California, to Joy, and finally to Anna Draper. But Anna essentially convinces him that he doesn't have to choose between embracing the past and running toward the future — that he can return to the family he loves even though it means accepting whatever problems and imperfections the future will bring.
So it's fitting the season 3 begins with the line Deborah quoted above. It's Don's bittersweet acknowledgment that his two opposing tendencies can and do coexist. He's going to keep going forward, and he's still going to end up going around and around and back home again. And vice versa.
I think this is also the episode where, in flashback, we see baby Dick brought to the Whitman household from his mother's deathbed. Notice the plaid wallpaper in the Whitman farm's kitchen–very much like the plaid wallpaper we all know and love from the Drapers' Ossining kitchen where Don is heating up the milk on the stovetop. It is a striking visual metaphor reinforcing Don's statement about "I keep going somewhere and ending up where I've already been."
Big picture, he's always moving in one direction: forward. He re-invents himself and continues to move on with that path. The new agency is consistent with that. But for the "small stuff", I think he has patterns which he repeats: his affairs, his frustration with office politics, the coldness in his marriage. Shelly, to whom he made the comment, is definitely in the latter category.
It seems like that's the quote people cite most commonly to describe Don's character — "I have a life. And it only moves in one direction: forward." But I don't think it's been true about Don for a long, long time. I think the whole first season, in fact, is centered around Don escaping that limited worldview. After all, what is the Carousel speech but an acknowledgment that as much as he wants to "go forward," to escape his past, he has an equally strong urge to move "around and around and back home again," to relive and redeem his past?
In fact, season 2 sort of sees Don leaning too far in the other direction — he becomes obsessed with living life in one place, inside a vision of "perfect" domesticity so static that it will not admit even the slightest hint of chaos or conflict. He still returns to his "go forward" mantra of escape, but only as a means of exorcising the parts of himself that don't fit into his idealized life — he sends them running so he can stand still. (Fittingly, one of those parts of himself goes running after Bobbie Barrett, the woman who puts words to his unconscious efforts: "I like being bad and then going home and being good.")
Ultimately he despairs of finding a place for any part of himself in that perfect, static world, so he set off running again, to California, to Joy, and finally to Anna Draper. But Anna essentially convinces him that he doesn't have to choose between embracing the past and running toward the future — that he can return to the family he loves even though it means accepting whatever problems and imperfections the future will bring.
So it's fitting the season 3 begins with the line Deborah quoted above. It's Don's bittersweet acknowledgment that his two opposing tendencies can and do coexist. He's going to keep going forward, and he's still going to end up going around and around and back home again. And vice versa.
Then there's this notion from George Harrison: "If you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there" … http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mePp1l299EE
I think this is also the episode where, in flashback, we see baby Dick brought to the Whitman household from his mother's deathbed. Notice the plaid wallpaper in the Whitman farm's kitchen–very much like the plaid wallpaper we all know and love from the Drapers' Ossining kitchen where Don is heating up the milk on the stovetop. It is a striking visual metaphor reinforcing Don's statement about "I keep going somewhere and ending up where I've already been."
In the immortal words of Buckaroo Banzai, "No matter where you go, there you are."
(BB probably didn't invent the phrase, but I couldn't resist.)