Mad Men “Time Zones” Review: Everybody’s lost! Everybody’s lost!

Peggy Olsen in returning to action on Mad Men

Photo Credit: AMC TV 

And so it begins again! For the final time (or at least for half of the final time we still have to sit through a split final season… Thanks AMC) we’re back in the world of Mad Men and boy there is a lot to go over in this premiere so…

A review of Mad Men’s 7^th and final (ish) season premiere as soon as I make this conversation about coffee….

“Are you ready?”
-Freddy

So it’s only two months later and boy has so much changed. In fact this felt almost like we are in a complete establishing where everyone is mode in “Time Zones” which had a ton to cover of the course of a very short feeling hour. “Time Zones” found a lot of the characters in a state of being lost in their current positions. Familiar I guess for Don and Roger but even poor Peggy is in a state of disarray. It’s an interesting place to be in as the season begins, and “Time Zones” does a great job at establishing it.

“Time Zones” doesn’t open with Don, Peggy or any of the regulars for that matter; nope it opens with our wonderful recovering alcoholic Freddy Rumson! Yes Freddy is now the voice of Don Draper (which of course is revealed much later but the ad is so Don Draper you can almost tell/assume), and is making a name for himself through the work of the former creative master. The Accutron pitch sets us up perfectly for where we are going to go, what strange, strange places we are going to go.

So Roger is hosting an all day, every day orgy party? This seems very rock bottom for Roger (maybe where the LSD has taken him) as he seems to be lost in this predicament. He can hardly take the forgiveness charm from his daughter (who seems to have found something, therapy? LSD?) as he’s caught off guard and also finds himself detached from the situation in the first place. It seems that Roger has no clue where his life has gone, and even less of an idea of where it’s going to progress.  We saw over the last few seasons just how off Roger is about his career, and now it seems like we are going to get the same sort of thing with his personal life. It’s a little sad for Roger and the final shot of confusion on his face will hopefully, but not likely, spark a potential redemption for the old man.

Then there is Don, very, very lost Don. In a rare move for a Mad Men premiere Don doesn’t show up for a good 9 minutes, and when he does it seems so glamorous. Don gets his own big slow motion Rolling Stones backed scene where he meets his wife Megan at the arrivals section of the LA airport. Everything in that scene seems so sexy, so happy, and so right for Don, but of course as per usual it just quite frankly isn’t. Don is trying to keep his life from falling apart at the seams and, so far, it seems as though he’s not doing as well as he would probably like to. Let’s start with the marriage which is still as rocky as it has ever been, but not in the same ways. There are no blow ups, or big arguments to speak of (Megan even mentions that he’s not in California long enough for arguments) but there is just sheer lack of chemistry. They just don’t really click anymore, from Don trying to woo Megan with fancy gifts (in this case a big (for 1969) television) of which Megan wants absolutely none of, to the most awkward sex in the entire universe, these two are just holding their marriage together by a very thin thread. Even Don is at the point of admitting, in a strange moment of devil on his shoulder with ie the woman on the flight back to New York that he knows that Megan thinks he’s a horrible husband, and that what he has at the moment is a sham of what it may have been in the beginning.

The more troubling part of Don’s overall nature of being lost is the work aspect. Don’s been in a state of being lost before, whether it being in his personal life or keeping up with these kids now a days, but he has always had the constant of work to at least be able to have some outlet to get his creativity and whatever else out. Now that’s gone and has been for what seems to be for Don a very long two months. It’s gotten to the point that he’s funneling ideas through the now freelance Freddy Rumson, who is gladly taking his ideas and moving along with his life. It’s still not enough for Don who is lost not at least just going in to the office (which let’s face it was often the only thing he would do on a workday) and he’s just stuck at home to do nothing. Both Freddy and Pete are itching to try and get him to push himself back into the fold but to no avail. The final shot of him moving out to the cold patio alone and in his underwear when the sliding doors won’t close perfectly describe the sad state of Don. He’s got nowhere to go for the time being and is lost in a heap of the shadow of himself that he’s all of a sudden become.

Peggy’s doesn’t seem to be doing much better either. She’s so used to the Don order, and is ultimately so much like Don, that it’s so hard for her to bear the new, Mr. Rogers type creative head Lou Avery. It could be so easy for her to just walk through that door and work with this guy, who seems like the most sane creative head that Mad Men has ever presented, but Peggy can’t simply walk through it (in fact Lou even says “Why are you making it so hard? Open the door and walk through it.”). Peggy is so used to the hardcore, perfectionist, slightly off nature of her predecessors that she can’t stand the nice, laid back nature of the new world order. It leaves Peggy hot and bothered and attempting to ram through ideas that she knows that she can’t get through because they are way too late and spontaneous.

Not only is it frustrating professionally for Peggy, but her personal life is potentially even worse. The whole Ted situation has left her broken personally, she still ends up living in the terrible apartment with the terrible tenants, and is haunted whenever Ted shows his face back up in New York (which by how it’s presented in this episode is very often) leaving her personal life in shambles. She really has no one (she even seems to have alienated Stan by the end of this episode) both in the professional world and in her personal life and it certainly seems like it’s not a great time to be in Peggy land. The sequence at the end of the episode with her finally breaking down and crying at her apartment door perfectly reflects her position in the world at the moment, alone, personally destroyed, and unable to cope with what the rest of the world has to offer.

Finally we have the unlikely and dysfunctional duo of Ken and Joan. Full on captain eye patch Ken (I guess the eye is still healing) has now been put in charge of New York accounts and is not taking it well at all as he is crumbling under the constant stress of the job. Joan on the other hand is trying to work her way into the copy area of life, managing to defy the expectations of both a client and a University business professor, with her charms and knowledge. The scene with her defying the University professor’s expectations with her knowledge of commissions and fees (and in a funny way him defying her expectations by not being a total pig when he asked for a deal, instead asking for information for research) was a wonderful scene as was the quick turnaround that she managed to pull on the snarky client, putting the agency firmly back in control. It creates a little bit of a mentor underling relationship for Ken and Joan (even though technically speaking Joan has a higher rank than Ken) as Joan tries to get into the ropes of the accounts business. Hey we never know maybe Joan will go for head of accounts out of all this who knows.

Ultimately “Time Zones” was a strong place moving opening for the last season of Mad Men. We’re in some interesting places at the moment especially in rearguards to Don and Peggy and it’s going to be fun to see how all of these charcters ultimately get to say their final dues. We’ve only got 13 more left after this and boy I’m just happy to be back in this world with these characters again.

Some other Musings:

• California douche Pete!!! Wow was that wonderful to see Pete go unabashedly eccentric California hipster in this one after the strange crappy year that the character had last season. Poor guy just wants to get his tan on and have sandwiches with coleslaw in them! With Vincent Karthiser (along with pretty much the whole strew of California bound cast) still being regulars it’s going to be very interesting how we move from California to New York throughout the season.

• That airplane sequence with Don and the widowed potential lover was curios and fascinating. It allows Don to have the little devil on his shoulder (she clearly wants to sleep with him) and whether he will continue to ignore it like he did in this episode or whether we will add another mistress to the ever growing group. For now it seems like he’s backsliding less which is a good sign I guess.

• I wonder how the heck Betty, Henry and the kids are going to fit into this season. More Sally Draper please!

• Eye patch Ken needs to be a superhero, equipped with a Gif of him throwing that earring into oblivion (yay depth perception).

That’s it for this week folks! I’m pumped that it’s Mad Men season again and I hope this season is great, despite AMC’s strange decisions…

That’s just me though. What did everyone else think?