A serious looking Roger on Mad Men
Photo Credit: AMC TV
A review of this week’s Mad Men after I do a tap dance I
learned from my mother first girlfriend…
“Every time we get a car this place turns into a whorehouse.”
-Don
Well that was sure disorienting! Don’s a mess, a very large,
very sad mess. “The Crash” was the episode which displayed, as the title
suggests, the potential low point in the ever descending mindset of Don Draper.
Who knew all it took was a wild trip into the land of high energy serums to get
there. “The Crash” was perhaps the weirdest and wackiest episode of Mad Men to
date but was ultimately a large success due to the raw emotional place the show
placed its characters in. “The Crash” was indeed a crash on so many levels and
provided raw emotions that caused many characters to go very close to strange
edges.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect “The Crash” was the way
it was shot and edited. To display what the characters were going through when
on their magic serum (or even before with Don being very tired) there was
little sense of time during the scenes in the office and it truly felt like
what the characters were going through was utter chaos. Shots often were cut in
interesting places and completely different time frames blended within each
other almost instantaneously providing a feeling of time not playing a factor
into these character’s lives. Director Michael Uppendahl and the editing crew
did a fantastic job of giving the episode the timeless feel that allowed for
all the strange emotions to be felt throughout the episode.
One of the main escapes that were felt throughout the
sixties was sex which was dealt with in some interesting ways in this one. Stan
for example is devastated by his cousin being shot while on a mission in
Vietnam so he attempts to escape into Peggy. Peggy denies telling Stan that
ultimately emotions need to be felt and escaped from through sex (something
that throughout the whole run of the show many of the characters haven’t
realized) and ultimately get’s him to stop at a few kisses and a “nice ass”
comment as she leaves his office. Well Stan has been a marginal character who
is usually there to provide a good laugh he was used well here to convey the
need for escape throughout the era of many tragedies. Ultimately the audience
unfortunately has to see him escape with the now deceased Frank’s strange
psychic daughter it’s a deeper more interesting use of Stan that hopefully
leads to some more Stan centric bits.
Then there is Don and his very unfortunate sex life. “The
Crash” gave us a glimpse into the head of Don and relationship with sex through
flashbacks. Yes it’s a return to the flashbacks to the whorehouse where we get
to see young Don Draper get his first and kind of strange experience with nutriment
and then perhaps unfortunately sex. Don is introduced to sex through a lady at
the house who does a better job of caring for his illness then his inept mother
seems to. Then unfortunately she has to try him causing the sexual obsession
and confusion we see with sex in his present years. It’s truly an interesting
and disturbing prospect to see how the one seemingly nurturing sole in Don’s
early life ends up taking his virginity thus changing his prospective on how
sex works and potentially turning him into the strange man he has become
presently.
The flashbacks provide a frame work for Don’s continued drop
as a creative force and as a man in general. The episode starts with the
fallout of Don and Sylvia’s fling that sees Don looking very much like a sad and
lost puppy. Don’s never been brought out to the curb before quite like with his
affair with Sylvia (whom after last week is completely right in her cold
ousting of Don) and it’s evident here that he has some strange attachment that
he can’t seem to deal with. He has weird smoking sessions outside of Sylvia’s
door as well as an awkward phone conversation regarding his super stupid feelings
towards her.
Then comes the serum and things become increasingly
interesting for Don. The flashbacks and the interesting ideas start flowing
through Don like wildfire producing a self destructive rage of a weekend. Don
seems to get lost in the flashbacks and instead of finding ideas about Chevy
cars Don goes out of his way to find a soup add that represents what he needed
as a kid and what he’s feeling at the moment. It’s a assortment of emotions
that ends up in nothing as at the end of the day nothing is produced from the
serum filled rampage save for a few Ginsberg produced pages with Chevy spelt
wrong.
Then there are the consequences that come in Don’s familial
life. Don’s just not a good parent at all that has been established but what
happens in this episode may take the cake in that regard. Having a woman who is
able to come in and trick Sally and Bobby into thinking that she is their
grandmother so she can steal all the valuables in the apartment is a truly
scary prospect. Megan is ultimately a decent step mother and it’s not really
her fault for leaving the kids thinking that Don would be home to take care of
them soon, Don is just awful for not being there. He’s also awful for returning
in a drug induced mess only to find his house broken into, his kids traumatized
and his Betty telling him off. His crash at the end doesn’t only show him
drugged up and exhausted but symbolizes his ultimate crash. Don’s life both
professionally and personally is a mess and it’s going to take a while
(especially with the merger and the new people to watch over him) for him to
recover from this awful state he finds himself in.
Some other Musings:
- Great opening sequence here that sets off the “what the heck is going on” vibe right off the bat with Ken getting to drive with the crazy Chevy folk. Poor Ken he works so hard and gets dumped on too often.
- Speaking of Ken who knew he was such a tap dancer. Ken high on serum tap dancing while talking to Don is one of the funnier Mad Men bits in a long time.
- Betty’s skinnier and blond again allowing January Jones not to wear that kind of awful fat suit again.
- The other thing that is really sad about Don’s relationship with the kids is that they know literally nothing about him at all and that causes the robber to trick Sally and Bobby with elegant ease.
- One thing I wish was in this episode Roger Sterling on Serum so much could have been done with that.
- Poor Peggy is getting kissed by every guy friend she has. Maybe this time though she won’t go imagining Stan’s head on her boyfriend’s body.
That’s just me though. What did everyone else think?
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