And so it begins.
The second half of Mad Mens final season kicks off the same way its first half ended: with a death. Its been nearly a year since Bert Coopers abrupt passing a glimpse ofNixons televised speech about Cambodian troops levels places us in April of 1970 but youd scarcely know it from the premiere episode (titled, all too appropriately, Severance) where time practically seems to fold in on itself. As one of the characters says, When people die, everything gets mixed up.
This time, its Don Drapers old Season One flame Rachel Katz, ne Menken, whos passed on, though not before or is it after? visiting him in a dream. It may be the only part of the episode thats explicitly unreal, but the whole hour has the feel of a fevered hallucination. Peggy Lees suicide note-cum-pop song Is That All There Is?, with its lurching tempo and startlingly bleak lyrics about that final disappointment, plays over the opening scene closing credits, but listen closely during Don and Roger Sterlings visit to a diner early on and you can hear it played as almost subliminal background music. Theres a beginning, a middle and an end here, but not necessarily in that order.
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Severance eases us back into Mad Mens world with a familiar image of fantasy: a beautiful woman, not quite naked beneath a $15,000 fur coat. Don is directing her, as he has so many females, sculpting the dream for his (and our) pleasure. But the illusion wont quite take hold. Don seems trapped. Hes in his shirtsleeves, gripping a cup of lunch-cart coffee. This is work.
Dons not the only one discovering that money cant buy happiness. Joan is, as Peggy observes, filthy rich, but that doesnt stop the jeering fratboys at McCann from harassing the both of them with crude double entendres. She responds to a crack about her figure with a blistering Excuse me? but Peggy doggedly returns the subject to her information sheet, as if bringing the conversation back to dollars and cents might will away the distinctions between the women on one side of the conference room table and the men on the other. Way back in Season Twos Maidenform, Joan advised Peggy to stop dressing like a little girl; now the latter turns it around, effectively telling the former that she was asking for it. So what youre saying is I dont dress the way you do because I dont look like you, Joan shoots back in the elevator. And thats very, very true.
Cash ruins Ken Cosgroves life, then nearly saves it, and then ruins it again. After his father-in-law retires from Dow Chemical, Kens wife suggests he quit the advertising business, which is slowly eating away whats left of his soul. You gave them your eye, she points out. Dont give them the rest of your life. As if heaven-sent, a McCann executive forces Roger to fire Ken who, in fairness, did once refer to his former colleagues as retards the very next day. Hes aghast at his bosss inch-deep loyalty, then quickly sees the bright side. Maybe this would-be Salinger actually will write that Great American Novel after all. Unfortunately and, entirely typically Kens wounded pride and competitive instincts take precedence over both his happiness and his spouse. He returns to Sterling Cooper & Partners office as Dows new head of advertising. Rather than go for the quick kill by pulling their business, he promises to inflict long-term pain as the client from hell.
Peggy gets what might be a shot at happiness when Mathis sets her up on a blind date with his brother-in-law, who turns out to be cute, charming, and, perhaps most critically, neither a loser nor a career-driven monster. The man is a pushover, but hes also easily contented: When the waiter accidentally brings him veal instead of lasagna, hes too weak to send it back. Were it not for Peggys waylaid passport, their first date might have ended up in Paris, and planning for a second one proves cumbersome hes got job interviews up and down the East Coast, while Peggys schedule remains as unforgiving as ever. But perhaps Matthew Weiner & co. have a happy ending in mind for at least one of their protagonists.
Will it be Don? Thats hard to imagine. In the time weve known him, hes gone from king of the hill to the side of the road, watching life pass him by. His fear, so crushingly expressed in the earlier Season Seven episode The Strategy, that I never did anything, and I dont have anyone, lingers like cigarette smoke in a motel room. The first time he had drinks with Rachel Menken perhaps the only woman Don ever loved as an equal, and the first one smart enough to how troubled he was and run like hell she told him shed never realized until they met how hard being a man must be. Mad Men began at the last untroubled moment of white male supremacy, before civil rights and feminism changed the country for good, and Don has never really found his footing in the new world. On some level, hes still Dick Whitman, the terrified young private ducking machine guns in Korea, the shamed son of a nameless prostitute. (He loves to talk about how poor he was, Roger quips in the diner.) Don Draper, whose first and last names both suggest covering up, is an empty suit or at least thats what he fears. Without his masks, theres nothing left.
Its been eight years since Don saw Rachel, enough time for her to marry, have two children, and lead the life she wanted she wanted to live, as her sister tells him. Her family is sitting shiva, and Don has a passing familiarity with Jewish custom (Ive lived in New York a long time, he points out). But hes not mishpocha, as is underlined when Rachels husband goes looking for a tenth man to form a minyan. As they pray, they turn their backs to Don. Hes shut out, a man with no family, no community. He has only his Clios to keep him warm.
Thats not quite true, of course. As Ted Chaough says, There are three women in every mans life, and even if Betty, Megan and Sally arent present in this episode, theyre still connected to Don, however provisionally. And he still has a long list of women waiting for his call, like the pretty blonde stewardess who spills red wine on his rug. (Not an ominous symbol at all!) But when he wants more, as he does from Diane the diner waitress, he cant get it. She may pull him into a back alley for a quick hump, but shes just paying off the perceived debt incurred by Rogers flashy gesture of leaving a hundred-dollar bill for a $12 tab. Elizabeth Reaser, who plays Diane her co-worker calls her Di, another entirely non-ominous symbolic gesture is a perfect not-quite match for Maggie Siffs Rachel, like the Betty clone who breezes by in Season Twos The Jet Set. Theres a fitting irony in an ad man being constantly surrounded by visions of things he cant have. Whether that will change for him or not before the series takes its last bow is something well know soon enough.
Previously: The Best Things in Life Are Free