Mad Men Client Meeting: Episodes 1 & 2
Mad Men's back with its sixth season, and each week we’ll take a look at who’s selling what to who. First up, the two-hour season premiere: 'The Doorway'. (Spoiler alert!)
Mad Men is back on air. Each week we’ll take a look at who’s selling what to who. And yes, there will be spoilers.
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Season 6, Episodes 1&2: ‘The Doorway’
THE PRODUCT:
The Waikiki Sheraton. Koss Headphones. Death. Obsolescence. New experience.
THE PITCH:
How many boxes do we have to tick before we get to the place we’re supposed to be? Career, marriage, kids… How many doors and windows and bridges and gates are there to get through? And after all that — what’s at the end, anyway? Don Draper said it best last year: “Happiness is just the moment before you want more happiness.”
It’s 1967 now, and it’s different. There are riots and crime and Vietnam. Don and Roger both have a term of service in their past, and Roger can “still smell the gardenias”: it’s the chapter of his life he’s most proud of, certainly moreso than the bullshit pages he penned and published himself. Don was there “briefly”, but walked away rebranded, repackaged and resold into a new being.
Those wars churned out a generation or two of emotionally stoic square jaws. The next few years gave us soft, whiny blabbermouths like Pete and Harry… and now? GIs are cutting off ears to make trophies, and it’s all fodder for late night talk show gags. This is not the time for houndstooth and brylcreem; this age belongs to the dark shaggy herd shacked up in the creative den; or the darker, shaggier brood bunked down in the squats. Joan can smell reefer, but she should watch out; these kids’ll kick you out if you’re a “nuisance or a narc”.
“Is that you Don? We can barely make you out across this hazy generation gap!”
Roger’s mum dies, and he’s had his “last new experience”. Don has a vision and he can’t put it into words. Roger swaps out his Dictaphone for a therapist, and his rants still don’t get laughs (maybe a blog, Rog?). Don takes another whirl on the Kodak Carousel of picturesque, emotionally empty marriage, beds another brunette, and these guys feel like they’re only another couple of pennies away from the light.
Roger and Don have been surrounded by death for years — Don’s parents, his brother, Betty’s father, Miss Blankenship, Lane Pryce — and how did they deal with it? “We ignored it.” Well, also they’re usually drunk. But all of a sudden there’s a big, bright staircase dumped in the middle of the office, leading to a shiny new somewhere… Keep up, you elderly fellows! If you don’t you’ll be turfed aside like some old square, blushing in bed at his wife’s kinky rape fantasy. So walk into the water! Shed your skin! Be reborn! Embrace the hot tropical sunshine!
Just be yourself, Don. Your aging, philandering, alcoholic, unhappy self.
OR: Try something new. There’s young blood hustling in the wings – eager new guys with pens in their top pocket and a spare coffee they’ll trade for two minutes with the boss. Don’t repackage the same old idea three different ways; pull something fresh out of the offcuts. Write a letter to a fictitious acquaintance, or have a one-way phone conversation with a priest. Introduce yourself to a new audience with a smile, or a laugh. Or a new hair colour.
THE TAGLINE:
“The Jumping Off Point.”
OLD BUSINESS:
“Dear Me. Nailing it.”
Peggy Olson is great at her job, maybe because she actually does it. She sits in front of her typewriter while Don stares out the window. Her boss likes her, her accounts man thinks she’s genius, clients trust her, her boyfriend knows when to shut up and put on some headphones, and she has a late night gossipy phone buddy in Stan. Somewhere, someone (The Atlantic) is putting together the cover of a magazine and wondering whether “poster child” is too infantilising for such a strong woman.
Betty Francis had several adult conversations and thought about someone other than herself. Incredible. Maybe she blew out the candle on the New Year and started on her resolutions a little earlier than everyone else?
Pete Campbell apparently didn’t get socked enough times last season to learn how to keep his mouth shut. What a smarm ass.
NEW BUSINESS:
“You thought that poster of you passing yourself on the street was a metaphor? No siree, I’m the new you!”
Bob Benson (all the important TV characters have alliterative names) is the over-stepping upstart who delivers coffee to Don and Pete, and deli to Roger. He’s played by James Wolk, who starred in a little show called Lone Star two years ago. The show was unceremoniously cancelled after two episodes, and was about a man in Texas living two lives, with two different women, and two identities, and it came out just after Mad Men got popular. Was Matthew Weiner checking out the cheap competition — the Mohawk to Mad Men’s American Airlines — and saw something he liked? Bob’s enthusiasm was pretty similar to Don’s in his early years, last seen in flashbacks to when he started at the agency. Will Benson be an exciting new flame, or another cynical sputter-out like Ginsberg?
The Rosens are new to the building, but they’re already making friends and lovers and you can only presume future enemies. Dr Rosen skies into the snowy streets to save a life. Mrs Rosen tempts Don back into the Inferno.
ON THE NEXT EPISODE OF MAD MEN:
Pete clicks a clicker. Harry double checks something. Don and Joan are in a room at the same time. Somehow this will all come together and create an amazing new campaign for Secor Laxatives.
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Matt Roden helps kids tell stories by day at the Sydney Story Factory, and by night assists adults in admitting to stupidity by co-running Confession Booth and TOD Talks. He also illustrates for Junkee; you can find more of his work here.