Mad Men 6.12: The Devil In Don Draper

Mad Men is in full swing (wink, 1960s joke). Each week we’ll take a look at who’s shilling what to who; follow our recaps here. Obviously, spoilers.

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MAD MEN CLIENT MEETING

6.12: ‘Quality Of Mercy’

THE PRODUCT:

St Joseph’s Aspirin. Sunkist. Possession in all its forms.

THE PITCH: 

“You’re not thinking with your head.”

Is anyone these days? Don levels the accusation at Ted, swooned out as he is on his “baby girl’s” blue eyes, but why does Don care? What’s he thinking with? Peggy and Ted are guffawing like dorks in every corner of the office, and the rest of the staff are a little over the 9 to 5 fun times these two are having. Is Ted still clocking off his work wife at the end of the day, or are they starting to dabble in overtime?

Don’s not distracted by anything but his own bleak aloneness. There’s a saying that goes, ‘If everybody you meet is an asshole, the asshole might just be you’. If every relationship in your life has soured like so much CranPrune juice, maybe it’s time to face the fact that you’re the bitter fruit. Don claims he’s taking Formula 44 to get over his ‘sickness’, but Vicks Chemical and their cough syrup dumped him long ago. Let’s see who else he can leave in his wake.

Ken gets gunned down in the first five minutes and, just like his car crash a month ago, we’re left to anticipate every phone call for the next twenty minutes as imminent word of his demise. This is what the war felt like, right? Television footage of villages in flames and choppers going down, then long waits to find out if your boy from Vermont was coming home or not. Turns out those Chevy “yahoos in cheap suits” over-eagerly popped at a pheasant and plastered poor Cosgrove with buckshot. The sight of the sensitive young man dabbing at tears behind his patch is enough to distract you from Pete’s underhanded “Say you’ll back me up and I’ll be there for you” move of support.

Campbell’s up for the challenge, what with having no life to leave behind, and eagerly awaits shipping orders for Detroit. Unfortunately, his bunkmate will be that overly knee-sy private Bob Benson, and Pete’s disgust at accounts-on-accounts love leers its sneery face. It’s enough of a hiccup for him to call out to old shit-stirrer Duck to give Bob the boot. Only it turns out no one would hire Bob because he never really went to Wharton and, also, who even knows if that’s his real name. It’s Pete vs. the grifter, round 2!

If we told you there was a monster at the end of this recap, would you have guessed it was the uppity, arrogant Yankee Doodle who threw his mum out of the office, or the mopey old man who understands exactly what he’s done wrong? Okay, sure, it’s a Mad Men review; you had an inkling from the start. Pete, remembering just how well outing Don’s deception went down in Season One, decides to play a different hand with Benson. He offers an apology, turns the other cheek, points out that his cheek is off limits, and leaves. “You’re certainly better at it than I am at whatever I do,” he says to Bob, acknowledging that maybe survival in this world has nothing to do with hard work and expectations. When Bob leaves the room, there’s a list of people who like him ready to throw their weight behind him. Maybe it’s actually all about having two cups of coffee at every opportunity? Maybe Pete’s maturing?

Don, sitting darkly downstairs, manages to kill the ad, kill Ted, and kill his relationship with Peggy in one foul swoop. He uses money to kill creativity; surely the sharpest shift in dynamics the show’s ever seen. He pulls the creative credit out from Peggy, threatens to air her and Ted’s latent affair, and then drags down the name of Ted’s dead friend in an effort to fully cheapen the whole charade and his own reputation. It’s a killer performance.

Nixon’s on air preaching about the insidious nature that’s crept into the nation – the decay of New York and American values is both the cause and result of this never-ending war. And here’s the quintessential Manhattan Ad Man, sowing the seeds and reaping the rewards of his own shallow, sordid fantasy. You can all be happy because I told you you can, until you can’t because I say so. The evil’s on the inside, but The Exorcist doesn’t come out till five years after Rosemary’s Baby. Don’s going to have to handle this one on his own.

TAGLINE:

“Stop hiding behind the ad.”

OLD BUSINESS:

The term ‘friendly fire’ has been around since World War I, and we’ve seen the suits at Sterling Cooper scuttlebutt each other before, but never has an exec caught actual shrapnel to the face. Kenny’s eyepatch opens us up to the idea of ‘Evil Ken’; he’s one goatee away from the soap opera standard. Your dastardly doppelganger’s running around and threatening to ruin everything for you? Sounds like another day at the office.

NEW BUSINESS:

Looks like Sally’s off to boarding school. “I’ll pay for everything!” yells Don. “Uniform, hypnotism, ball gag!”, whatever it takes to keep Sally quiet and save his marriage in its dying days. After being rescued by the successfully post-pubescent Glen, Sally has a twinkle in her eye that we haven’t seen in a while. Is she enthralled with how men jump to her defense? Did she find joy in relying on the kindness of strange kids? Or did she just enjoy watching someone pound down on a sex-pest, after the eye-full of “comforting” she caught her Dad undertaking last week?

ON THE NEXT EPISODE OF MAD MEN: 

Oh, it’s a rehash of everything we’ve already seen. Maybe Don will have a heart attack, everyone will gather around his bed in hospital and recount the good times, and we’ll get a flashback episode. “Oh, and remember when we had that affair?” they’ll each say in turn and laugh. Then Don will wake up and sell the whole ordeal as a multi-platform campaign to Carnation Milk and Dairy. What a genius!