Will Don Draper save the world?
Mad Men Season 7:Episode 5: One story line is our intrepid protagonist Don Draper’s search for perfection. He never quite makes it. Often, Don sabotages it. Don is a classic alpha male: Mad Men sub-themes include male-female dynamics, the world of business, and crazy violence. Oh, also sly humor and lots of sex. This season purposely started slow. The pace has picked up.
In season 7, we see Don now professionally and hedonistically neutered. Once the Founder and leader of an Ad agency, drinking and hubris lead to great loss: at Sterling Draper, Don’s name remains on the door. He’s retained his partnership interest. But he is no longer a real partner. He first gets a staffer who is to only handle his calls; Don manipulates her into doing more. Then his old drinking buddy wants him back. Roger Sterling, who waltzes through life, wants back philandering buddy. Don begs the other partners to let him back into the agency. That plan is quickly dashed.
Aside from Sterling, the other partners, see Don’s begging to come back as an opportunity to take Don’s interest, which they deride as alimony payments. Joan, Don’s former friend suggests they allow Don back on onerous terms, specifically require he not have any power. She points out that Don will eventually violate the deal. A desperate Don agrees, thinking that once he gets his foot in the door, who knows what will happen.
Don spends his days alone in an office formerly belonging to a man who committed suicide. Partner in name but leper in fact, Don spends his days closed in his office doing nothing. Normally in such doldrums he’d look for new business, re-establish his power base; however, the firm has contractually obligated him not to be alone with any client. Still, his drinking buddy wants him back. When the firm needs another body, the other partners agree to promote Don to junior copywriter, working for his former secretary Peggy. How about them woman? Peggy and Joan have moved up in the world. Joan’s a partner and Peggy a creative director. Now they act just as ruthlessly as the men, with a feminine spin.
Don’s fall has led him to cut back on his drinking and his sex based escapades. A few times we’ve seen this in earlier seasons. Still a tall handsome man, he spends his time alone in his New York apartment, rejecting various come-ons, while Megan, his sexy younger wife, pursues her acting career in California.
How about that business? Don lost his job in a meltdown which cost Sterling Draper it’s very profitable cigarette business. The firm gets a computer. In Episode 7:5, in an epic wild ride meltdown, Ginsburg the brilliant sensitive copyright, believes the computer has come to take their jobs. Following a script mimicking the poet Ginsburg’s poem Howl, Ginsburg has a nervous breakdown. First, he makes a rude, dumb pass at his boss Peggy—who smacks him down politely--then mutilates himself.
We’ve seen various Charles MansonSharon Tate murder tells. Megan has worn some of Sharon’s old clothing styles, is an actress like Tate, and now lives in the same canyon where Tate was murdered. In 7:5, we get another Manson tell: Don’s acquaintance shows up, niece of the real Don Draper who he previously thought to seduce, and she’s pregnant. She gone full hippy and has not eaten meat for a year. Don, who tried once to sleep with the girl, goes out of his way to help her, sending her to Megan. The child’s Father? No. Not Don. The girl says not much about the Father. But she does say that, like Charles Manson, the father of her child is a musician in prison. And, like the Manson murders, we get a connection between a possible Manson and the people and place of the murders. The Manson clan also had similar social ties to Sharon Tate.
Don is sometimes altruistic, sometimes responsible, but usually has some sly self-interested angle working. The man’s so handsome and charming, it’s hard to see it. Maybe he’s just looking to sleep with his niece. Maybe he’s being responsible. Maybe he’s just bored. He certainly seems that way with Megan.
Don flies to Los Angeles. His wife’s social life, unlike his own, is booming. A Sterling Draper colleague shows up. Bored with an actor’s party twenty years his junior, Don skivs off to a bar to drink and do some work. Hedonism rules. Megan brings Don a threesome, with him as the center of attention. And he’s non-plussed. The next morning, he politely makes the girls coffee and gives his wife no kudos. Then, we see the return of alpha male Don. Using the information Don learned in California, he crashes a Sterling Draper client meeting and tries to resurrect himself, telling the cigarette company executives that he is ruthless, that pretended to be part of the health crusaders as a ruse, and has learned how to beat company’s enemies, the health crusaders and competitors both.
Leaving the meeting, the last scene has Don alone at the curb waiting for a cab. His enemies at Donald Sterling, the men who want him gone, stand beside him as the cab arrives, complimenting him on his brilliant presentation. Don’s gone over their heads, directly to the client. It’s Don’s cab. But Don gives it up to his partnership enemies. Don smiles as their little warning and they drive off, leaving Don alone again. But he stands tall and confidently gives a loud alpha male whistle for another cab. Mad Men’s attention to small details again shows: music is playing but Don’s whistle is the loudest thing we hear.
Will Don Draper save the world? Mad Men’s wild ride has been funny, culturally connected, and often quite shocking. The Ginsburg Ginsburg/Machines will take over stories were nicely done. Better go re-read Howl.
Can a professionally neutered Don save Draper Sterling from the evil machine Hal? Go back to making millions selling addictive death sticks? The threesome alone did not bring back Don’s libido. Maybe he needs to do something on his own. A sevensome, perhaps. And will hedonistically neutered Don save Megan from a Manson like brutal murder? Or will there even be one? Sure looks like it. In life, success is usually fleeting.
Don’s life challenges grow harder and harder: now Don's problems are on two sides of a continent. So I bet on failure. And on poor Megan getting murdered--likely while pregnant-- at the behest of a cult running, wanna be musician, ex-convict. Peggy and Joan? I see them roar. Brilliant Peggy and beautiful Joan both rising from secretary to running their own advertising agency. Just a guess. The show focusing on men. It is called Mad Men after all. And it has proved wonderfully plotted and surprising.