Don Draper and Suzanne Farrell: there was a pair. Yes? Suzanne was the woman in whom Don found comfort, sustenance, and rest, when those things eluded him elsewhere. The writers thought they were telling this story; but onscreen, it left many viewers cold.
Why?
Things started out fine. We got sweet, occasional tension between a concerned parent and a teacher. But then things took a turn. Don drove past a jogging Suzanne on a summer night, picked her up, and their encounters dissolved into the predictable. Silences filled with knowing banter. In a few scenes, a couple of people became types.
The man: cornered, tired, looking for an escape from his life. The woman: young but wise, a teacher who stays up late. They negotiate the terms in her apartment. Boom: an affair?
In a real relationship “ one that grows into something that feels and moves and fills the air around and inside two people “ what connects those two to each other is not a list (why we should, why we shouldn’t). It’s a moment. In that moment, the two see each other clearly. Each stands apart from all others, from past and future “ but slightly closer to one another.
And yet it’s about comprehension, not sex.
Remember?
DON: The reason you haven’t felt it is because it doesn’t exist. What you call “love” was invented by guys like me to sell nylons.
RACHEL: Is that right?
DON: I’m pretty sure about it. You’re born alone, you die alone, and this world just drops a bunch of rules on top of you to make you forget those facts. But I never forget. I’m living like there’s no tomorrow, because there isn’t one.
(pause)
RACHEL: I don’t think I realized it until this moment, but it must be hard being a man, too.
DON: Excuse me?
RACHEL: Mr. Draper-
DON: Don.
RACHEL: Mr. Draper, I don’t know what it is you really believe in, but I know what it feels like to be out of place. To be disconnected. To see the world laid out in front of you the way other people live it. And there is something about you that tells me you know it too.
DON: I don’t know if that’s true. (pause) You want another drink?
Rachel Menken seemed real: she had a good story and authentic feelings. We could understand her, whether or not we were Jewish, whether or not our fathers founded department stores. She was a woman with a job, a point of view and an edge, facing a number of obstacles in her world. She and Don Draper met on well-lit ground, and what they discussed was not originally “ or obviously “ personal. Clearly it was the beginning of something. They might have been about to do many things: start an account, and service it. Be friends, or not. Whatever: their original context was not sex.
The late-night encounter between Don and Suzanne doesn’t have the Don-and-Rachel freshness. It’s missing the discovery: and something else. What woman says to her lover in the beginning, “I know just how this ends”? How hopeful is that?
For me, the painful line is this: “I don’t think you’ve done this before this way.”
There she is: the single woman with a married-man habit. That is such a chestnut now. Why bother reheating it? Why not create an authentic character from the beginning?
A new element could have helped tell Don and Suzanne’s story: doubt, surprise, especially silence. In any of these, a viewer can find empathy with Suzanne, understanding for Don or himself, or herself. Viewers need silences. We fill them fast enough, with all our own stuff.
Try imagining the night at Suzanne’s, starting this way instead:
SUZANNE (opening door): Mr. Draper?
DON: Let me in.
SUZANNE: Is something wrong? Is it Sally?
DON: Sally’s fine. Please.
SUZANNE: Are you hurt? Where’s your car?
DON: Down the street. (pause) I need to talk to you.
(SUZANNE opens the door, standing aside to let DON in)
From this point “ the wary young teacher, the open door, the man who’s not at all sure he’ll get what he came for “ we don’t know what direction things will take. Hell, I wrote that, and I can’t wait to see what happens.
Mad Men lost nothing in Season 3. It gained plenty of new fans. But when you’re at the top of the pyramid of television excellence, you can leave the writing-by-committee to the networks. You can take all you know of human beings and pull it into your characters — even the minor ones. Make them pesky as lint, loyal as elephants, fractured as the inside of a kaleidoscope. Let them grow as naturally as bad haircuts. Write them just like you.
Other TV shows have taken risks like this, and won as you’ll see in part 2.
63 Responses to “It's Not Just An Affair (Part 1)”
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[...] brings me in a roundabout way to this post at Basket of Kisses, the unofficial Mad Men blog; a blog that I like to read and comment at. I became aware of the [...]
I posted early on in this blog, but I feel compelled to say again that Don and Suzanne recognize themselves in each other, most specifically their hardscrabble younger lives. I think that we have the luxury in 2009 of feeling disdain for the not fully liberated (whatever that means….) woman of that era. I understand Suzanne pretty well, and the writing in her episodes didn't impede that at all. I'm not a writer and probably shouldn't have been posting here, but, nonetheless, it is clear to me that she:
1) Is a working woman in one of the few professions open to her at the time.
2) Needs the money merely to live; not an middle/upper class protectee like Betty Draper.
3) Has dysfunctional family like we all do, including Betty Draper, but has to share limited resources with them.
4) Has a form of what we often see today in single women approaching a certain age: physical fitness neuroses, crushes on men they can't have or might be wounded by (Nickel Freud again…..) borne of low self-esteem.
5) And she drinks in an unhealthy manner, rather than going out to "the bar" with the girls which, only stewardesses and other loose women did then, certainly not school teachers.
I could go on, but the point is that her behavior is her own acting out of the same repressions that all of the characters deal with in their own ways; she's just not appealing because of her fears and vulnerabilities. Don picked up on it right away and that's where the "People like you" comment comes from – she's going to be an easy lay, but he gets surprised instead. I say again, perhaps coming down on LOM's side, we just don't like what she represents, and the twist is that Don sees all of the terrifying obstacles he had to overcome in his background in her situation, understands it, and feels at home with it. My two cents.
Nyna–Great post. It's like I said earlier, you've encapsulated all the reasons I should feel for Suzanne. I have/am–although to a lesser extent now that I've gained a certain wisdom–ha!– been in her shoes. And yet, she just left me cold, and based on the comments from Jon Hamm and others, this was something the MM camp didn't anticipate.Maybe it is indeed because her vulnerability is so naked, and it hurts to see it exposed; I just don't know. It's fascinating question to dissect I think we'll be doing it all off-season. Will be interesting to see if she returns in Season 4; however, as others have suggested, I think she was a plot device, and now that Don's single and in the city, I suspect he will move on.
P.S. An addendum: When I think of Suzanne, the word "cloying" as opposed to "vulnerability" comes to mind. Maybe because she seems to portray the former rather than the latter is what bugs me. "Vulnerabilty" is something I can embrace, as we all have experience it, no matter how hardened the outer shell. If we're honest, we all can admit we're all just boys and girls at heart, not matter how sophisticated. "Cloying," however, is annoying.
SFCaramia:
Too true. She is cloying. I see this going either way next season. Her use as a plot device could have been to remind Don of how hard life was/is, and to offer a juxtaposition to the protected Betty who (from his perspective) has the nerve to not love him anymore. That type of perceived rejection is one thing which could have created the horrible anger in the last episode wherein physical violence was a very real possibility between D & B. America is rife with class issues; even more than race or gender. The sociologist Richard Sennett unmasks this regularly in his books even though on the surface he's studying busing in the school system, etc. BUT, I digress.
Anne B. Very well stated. There was something real and even ground about Rachel. They were two connected souls – maybe simply by virtue of their "disconnecteness" in society. Don's relationship with Bobby, on the other hand, always seemed to me to be just a physical connect -but there was never sympathy or misunderstanding about who that character was. Don's relationship w/Suzanne was a complete disconnect….
Nyna–Re class in America. You're absolutely right, and you see it being played out in the last episode of Season 3 between Don and Betty. While there are many other issues that sank their marriage, I don't think it was an accident that in the final denouement between Don and Betty one of the reasons Betty ultimately chooses to leave Don apres-confession, is not just because she doesn't "love him anymore" but because her version of "love" is so shallow that ultimately, his humble beginnings, don't sit well with her. His admission of poverty is one of the final wrecking balls to her picture-perfect life, and MW is none to subtle about emphasizing that point by having Don say words to the effect that he was never "good" enough" for Betty; i.e., his "pedigree" was too out of sync with hers. You can say whatever you will about all the other issues that are at play in their breakup, but that class distinction issue is definitely there. Class in America is the dirty secret, our so-called "egalitarian" society won't acknowledge. And, believe me, what you're saying about the educational system is true; I taught school for five years, and, even though I know many will disagree with me, class trumps race almost every time.
Another way to interpret Suzanne, another lens, if you will, is that she's that character that always speaks the truth, without fear of its consequences. This is why she connects with Sally so much, who as we see during the season, is a one-girl Greek Chorus.
- She confronts Sally's behavior in school by addressing it with Don and Betty (Betty's reaction was to run, if you remember);
- Her response to Don during the eclipse is ballsy, but ultimately spot-on (MW confirmed he was indeed hitting on her);
- She says it's going to end badly but proceeds anyway (okay, we all knew that one);
- When her brother comes, her instinct is not to hide Don but bring him out, no matter the awkwardness;
- Confronting Don on the train was extremely brazen, and yes, nutty, but honest.
Point being, I think this character was drawn to show the opposite end of the spectrum. Everyone lies. Suzanne never lies. But of course lying is not always 100% evil. And truth-telling is not always 100% virtuous.
But the character bridges the gap between the black-and-white world of childhood and the complicated nature of adulthood.
Now, I'm no more of a fan of Suzanne's now than I was before. I think they kind of botched the execution of this character, and you can't write chemistry.
But if we step back and connect some dots, I think she serves a purpose, bringing the action of the others into relief.
I don't know if I was expecting the wrong thing. I'm not sure how I was meant to take Suzanne. It seemed to me that she was being set up as some kind of kind, nurturing earth mother, but that's not what I saw. Her only concern for her students seemes to be in projecting her own sad childhood onto them – she wasn;t above completely ignoring them for her inapproporiate conversation with Don in front of them at the park. She instsied on making Don meet her brother when he made it clear he was uncomfortable with it. She berated him for coming onto her when he hadn't even done so. Then there was the train stalking.
Was this what we were meant to see, or were we meant to see the May Queen? I'm normally fine with some ambiguity, but I just can't help feeling that something fell flat.
one jarring thing about Suzanne was that the actress's delivery was pure 2009, rather than the period delivery the other actors use. Her mannerisms, tones of voice, posture, etc. didn't look (as the others' do) like they stepped off a 1963 screen. Now, maybe that was intentional. Maybe we were meant to see Suzanne as being free of the societal restrictions the others buy into. But if that's the case, it just didn't work for me; it took me out of the moment.
I'm very behind on my reading and comments, but this was a very interesting piece and I think you really helped to solidify some of my thinking on this one. I think the eclipse interaction between Don and Suzanne really made the relationship feel awkward and somewhat unpleasant. Actually all of their interactions seemed very off. In some ways I found her to be as creepy as I found Henry Francis (and I still don't see the attractation, sorry). Both Ms. F and Mr. F seemed a little off to me, especially in terms of interacting very inappropriately with people in situations when those people were clearly off-limits.
I also strongly agree with # 31 Emi and the points about class later in the thread.
Yeah, I see Suzanne as creepy/cloying as well, and she's so perky that I'd like to drive a nail through her head. Maybe because she reminds me of some elementary school supervisors who thought they had to be up! And happy! and carefree! all the time, as though little kids couldn't see how fake and patronizing such an attitude is.
I don't see her as a bunny boiler, but her coyness mixed with her come ons ('Oh, you horrible man, you want to have an affair with me/ Hey, let's have an affair!") sends me up a wall. Like at the end of the eclipse scene, where she tells Don off for flirting with her, then bends down to see through an eclipse box. On one level, she could be telling Don "Kiss my butt.", and on another, she could be saying "Look at me! You know you want some of this, right?"
So yes, I could see how the writers might like her, but this two face attitude is intensely irritating. She may be playing Don like a fish, trying to angle herself into becoming the second (third?) Mrs. Donald Draper, but I hope we've seen the last of her.