Basket of Kisses

Interviewing Matt Weiner is a rollercoaster. Let me tell you, the Lipps are a talky family; we can speed-chat with the best of them, and Matt ran circles around us. He talks a blue streak, circling around an idea, but eventually looping back to answer the question. Like Don Draper, he has driving curiosity about everything he encounters, and so everything is interesting and worth discussing.

Following are highlights from this fascinating conversation, and then at the end is a full, and very long (over 8,000 words), transcript. (Or you can just jump to the transcript.)

(DL=Deborah Lipp, RL=Roberta Lipp, MW=Matt Weiner)

About the unpredictable plot, and an exclusive reveal about Rachel:
MW: As a rule, I would not say anybody is definitely going to be back, and I’m not just playing with that, as like a creative tool. I don’t know what the story is. It is completely possible that we could come back and be at a totally different agency. I want people to know that, and I want to take advantage of things on the show about our adventurousness in storytelling and our willingness to spend intellectual and financial capital on telling stories that aren’t predictable. And I think that there was a sincere belief, and there should have been, because I toyed with it, that Don was not coming back.
RL: There was certainly a sincere question. A sincere willingness to not trust you to bring him back.
MW: And that’s what I, or that we would follow, I mean, Don will always be in the show, but that the show would be somewhere else.
DL: Structurally, you could have done it.
MW: I could. It has to be in sync there. That’s why bringing Don back, it had to be very; I always saw him as coming back home from that, but I said in the back of my mind, you gotta believe that he’s going to leave. You not only have to believe in the story, you have to believe that the show will do that.
DL: We have to trust your unpredictability.
MW: That’s why Rachel is not in the show this year. Because it’s not believable. As much as we love her, and I love Maggie Siff, and I love the chemistry between them, Don is not in that place in his life and that woman would never go back to him. Never. Not at this point in her life…Can I just tell you? Which, this is an exclusive thing… (more…)

Throughout season 1, from the very beginning, we saw Don treating African-Americans with a dignity that we might not suspect. In Smoke Gets In Your Eyes, the opening scene has him listening attentively to a black busboy, who is then treated like dirt by his white boss. He addresses Hollis by name in a building where I’m sure some people don’t even know he has a name. (And if Roger calls Hollis by name, it’s only his sense of entitlement talking; he can know, or pretend not to know, the people he owns who work for him.)

Contrast Don’s behavior to Peggy and Pete in The Hobo Code, having visible sex without even considering the black janitor they came in with. They came in with him. They know he’s around. But they don’t consider. Because he’s hiding in plain sight. Don wouldn’t make that mistake.

Black people in the world of Sterling Cooper are treated like trash, but Don grew up treated as trash. Not just the generic “white trash,” but the very specific trash of his town; the “whoreson.” He can look eye-to-eye with anyone, of any circumstance, because he’s been there. Oppression is his bread-and-butter (oppression of males that is, Don’s understanding of women is more complex).

The only white janitor we’ve ever seen is Adam, Don’s brother. These farmboys understand themselves to be the bottom of the social ladder. Don is respectful to blacks because he knows they are as human as the Whitman boys. But also, because he is insecure. He knows he could fall back among them, and he is terrified of that fall.

All of the above was written between seasons. I had notes about it sparked by a conversation between Roberta and me, but I never got around to making it a post. Then in Six Month Leave, it all came full circle:

Roger Sterling: You know, BBDO hired a colored kid. What do you think of that?
Don Draper: I think I’m glad I’m not that kid.

Don still thinks he’s the black guy, the low man on the totem pole, the one oppressed and in danger. He’s still scared.

Now here’s a thing. I saved this essay for six months already. We’ve had a busy week at the Basket, so I could save it for another few days, but previews for Episode 10 suggest race will be addressed in it, and I wanted my thoughts up before the next episode proves them right or wrong. So here you are.

Peggy did her best to react “like a man;” she is more comfortable expressing her feelings in a business context. While women wept, Peggy saw the business implication and mentioned the Playtex account.

What is truly driving Betty’s depression now is the one secret she can’t unlock: The desk drawer. It will become a Damn Spot for her, she will not be able to let it go. It is all of Don’s secrecy embodied. Notice how she observed the lie Don created for Betty to tell Sally; all it is, for Betty, is more evidence of his skill at lying.

Pete was right again. Pete is a dick and everyone hates his vile suggestions, but they are right. Freddy cannot keep his job. He cannot be allowed to drink and fall apart as a Sterling Cooper employee. He can go to rehab or he can go. Pete is truly the wave of the future again, just in the slimiest form possible.