The storm's been percolating on this season's horizon: each character set up for the grand culmination. Peggy's secret lovechild with Pete; Don's erratic behavior; Betty's gradual liberation from the Stepford Wives; the Campbell's marital problems; Joan's unhappy engagement; Sterling Cooper's merger with Lowe. The Cuban Missile Crisis. The only question is ... what will explode?This week's episode, "Meditations in an Emergency," is the title of a Frank O'Hara anthology of poetry - a moody, reflective collection that comments on dystopia. The episode certainly reflects upon that notion.
In last week's episode, Betty found that she was spotting. So she goes to see the doctor. Turns out, there is a third Draper bundle of joy on the way. The doctor is curious why Betty isn't delighted, even more so considering an abortion. "I find it hard to believe that a married woman of means is even considering that," he says. Don comes back from his sojourn to California, the prodigal husband. Betty has just finished riding (though the doctor has told her explicitly not to) "I want to be with you," he says. And who has ever resisted a sales pitch that Don Draper has made? Betty Draper, that's who. "Things haven't been that different without you," she says. Score one for the Home Front!
Meanwhile, the ever-ambitious Pete Campbell finds out he's got promoted to Accounts Director, as Duck has been promoted to the new president of Sterling Cooper. It is everything he has wanted. To be the new Don Draper. And, we see Duck's true colors. He has no wife, no life outside of Sterling Cooper; with this new promotion, he is eager to fell the mighty warrior of advertising.
Don's homecoming to Sterling Cooper is not a jubilant one. People no longer down gin like it is going out of fashion, no light-hearted jest, no laughter. People, hunched around the television. Tense radio broadcasts. Whispers of Castro. It is not the effervescent carnival of before.
"Mad Men"'s brilliance lies in the ability to simultaneously alienate and amalgamate - it's off-putting, for instance, that forty years lie between Don Draper and us - to paraphrase Dylan, the times, they have a-changed. But, there is a strange parallel between the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Economic Crisis of today. Though maybe not in the form of an empty Times Square or angry bickering at the local beauty parlor. Worry translates throughout the decades.
The nuts and bolts of the episode belong to the women: Peggy, Joan, Betty. Betty Draper. Betty Draper, Bonnie Parker. What's the difference there? Both are experiencing sexual liberation. In one of my favorite scenes all season, Betty goes to an upscale bar after dropping off the children with Don. A man on the other end of the bar buys her gimlet. "This means he'll come and talk to you," warns the bartender.
"We'll see about that," Betty says, taking off her coat and adjusting her new suit. The vintage McDreamy comes over to woo her, but Betty dismisses him like last year's fashions at Bloomingdale's. "Thank you so much for the drink, I'd just like to enjoy it, if you don't mind."
Back on the home front, Don and the children have ordered room service at his hotel. Sally and Bobby seem nonplussed by all of this...they're just happy they can watch "Leave it to Beaver" and eat burgers in bed.
Cut back to Betty: she asks the bartender to look over her parcels. We think she's just going to the ladies' room, though she lingers outside. McMystery comes back, obscured in shadow. "What are you doing here?" he asks.
"I'm waiting," she responds. He opens the door to the back room and looks at her expectantly. "I'm married," Betty says, more as a statement than an excuse not to go in. It's an interesting juxtaposition - Don at "home" with the kids, and Betty being the solicitous adulteress. It's a classic role reversal.
Then, it is time to meet with the new owners of Sterling Cooper. Tempers flare as Duck proposes a more surgical, sterile approach to advertising. "There's more than one way to run a company," Duck says, making a not-so-subtle jab at Don. To Duck, that means buying time on television. Lots and lots of time. To Duck, it's not about the client; it's about what sorts of profit the client can procure. To Duck, it's about what is owed to him. It's clear that his nerve is hanging on a thread, and he makes it known. Poor Duck; not only does he have an unfortunate name and no business prospects, but he's a lightweight.
"No, he never could hold his liquor," says one of the Brits.
The office clears out for the weekend, with some thinking it will be their last. Peggy and Pete are the only two left. So, Pete asks Peggy to stay for a drink, which, of course, leads to talking on the self-same sofa where they engaged in lusty, passionate copywriter passion. "I think you're perfect," Pete confesses, gazing into her eyes. "I wish I'd picked you, then."
You expect Peggy to swoon, you expect her to look at Pete and say that's all she's ever wanted, you expect her to say that there's still time. Peggy's look is hard to interpret. "I could have had you," she finally says. She confesses that she had his child and that she gave him away. Pete's less than dapper response:
"Are you serious?"
"One day you're there, and all of a sudden, there's less of you," Peggy explains. It wasn't in the cards for her to keep that child. She leaves Pete in the emotional equivalent of an atomic bomb being dropped. And you wonder, why can't the Academy Awards apply for television? Because that scene was the stuff of legends.
And Don, content again to be the supportive father and husband he once was, wrote a note to Betty, begging her to take him back ("I'll be alone forever"). So, Betty invites him back to their house in Connecticut. And, what a better way to end. The perfect, Norman Rockwell painting of a family in front of the television. Mother, father, sister, brother. It would be cliche only if you know the backstory; both husband and wife have been with other people, Betty wants an abortion. They're on the brink of oblivion. Their world is crumbling from the inside out.
What, then, is in store for next season? (That is to say, if there will be a new season - AMC has not ordered any more shows as of yet.) I see the repercussion of Joan's rape by her fiancee, daddy issues, mommy issues, the Merger, at a lot more smoking and drinking, to be vague. Suffice it to say that they'll keep us coming back for more.
