Sun Blogs: The TV Yogi
Don Draper, Welcome to the '60s
September 28, 2009 - 11:00pmThrough two seasons of Mad Men, Don Draper was a man in supreme control of his destiny. Things didn’t always go his way, but you at least got the impression that — with the notable exception of Betty evicting him last season — he was always in exactly the position he wanted to be. And, if he weren’t, he would extricate himself, quick and clean. No messy emotions allowed.
Not so anymore. Though the assault he suffered in last night’s episode at the hands of the draft-dodging elopers was the most obvious example of Teflon Don being issued a Phenobarbital-laced, fist-sized blow in the head, it wasn’t the only one.
The world is changing. And Don’s life is changing with it.
In the first two seasons, Don’s estimation of the two young hitchhikers he picked up would have made perfect sense: a couple of cute kids who weren’t about to let the establishment tell them what to do. And while Don is obviously part of that establishment, he’s never seen himself that way, or been comfortable in that role. He saw something of himself in the young elopers, so he was drawn to them.
But the counter-culture isn’t as innocent as it was when he was keeping a mistress on the Lower East Side in 1960, or sitting poolside with jetsetters in Malibu in 1961. The hitchhikers might have been young lovers looking to get married and avoid being separated by the draft, but they also had designs on Don’s money.
This time, he paid the price of naïveté with a lump on the head. (And maybe a bruised ego.) But other recent developments look to have more lasting impacts on Don’s life.
Conrad Hilton — equal parts intriguing and menacing — has made his presence known in the halls of Sterling Cooper, and apparently taken Don under his wing in the process. But while everyone else may be elated by the arrival of Paris’s great-granddaddy, the new business means Don is going to need an actual contract, a prospect he’s less than thrilled by. He’s never been bound to one place in so tangible, legally certifiable a manner, and you can actually feel his anxiety mounting at the sense of being increasingly boxed in.
One last thing: How about that eclipse? How appropriate was it that, in an episode when night switched places with day, Betty and Peggy were (to varying degrees) pursuing pleasure in the guise of work, while Don was caught off guard by events beyond his control? Things are starting to get a little bit weird, a little bit unsettled, and the events of the past few episodes are looking to have far reaching consequences from Madison Avenue to Ossining.
The specter of the real 1960s has been creeping into view through this entire season, and now it’s even clearer than before. Don, a byproduct of post-War optimism, is getting a little bit older, a little more out of touch. He’s not prepared for the tumult. And however much he wants to think himself different from all the clueless cads at Sterling Cooper, he’s just as oblivious to the approaching storm as the rest of them.
But for him, the endgame is a little different, because its taking aim at his own (ostensibly) tranquil domicile.
See you next week.