Roger and Don sit and talk on Mad Men
Photo Credit: AMC TV
A Review of tonight’s Mad Men coming up as soon as I cry
like a baby…
“You’re judgment is impaired. You’re not thinking with your
head”
-Don
Don is destructive in every part of his life, period. We saw
his absolute destruction of Sally’s heart last week and this week we see the
effects of his guilt and destruction on everyone else in his life. This week
shows the truth of Don’s aftermath guilt and throughout the absolutely
fantastic penultimate episode (two brilliantly top notch Mad Men episodes in a
row) the audience we get to see exactly where this string of destruction (along
with the great mystery of Bob Benson, but more on that a little later) is going
to play out at the end of the season.
Clearly we see that Don is divinely affected by the consequences of his selfish actions. We open
and close the episode with Don in some of fetal position, after alienating two
of the people in the world he holds dear. At the beginning we see Don in the
fetal position on Sally’s bed after having destroyed her last week. Don begins
as a drunk sick mess, not looking at Megan for more than getting something to
eat. He seems gone in his personal life reveling in his guilt for a day after
destroying his link with the kid he cares the most for. It’s truly fantastically
devastating watching Jon Hamm playing a down, out, and balls out drunk Don
Draper again and it makes the sad place we see Don in at the beginning of the episode
even more effective than ever.
Unfortunately Don has to put his later found energy into the annals of work and begins to cause problems with people at the office, most notably Ted. First there is the unfortunate juice conflict that, after Harry found a TV offer for Sun kissed juice, Don couldn’t keep out of Ted’s face despite their agreement last week. Don can’t refuse doing something that’s “better for the agency” but the personal motivations coming from Don are clear as day. Most of the decisions Don made throughout the course of this episode revolved around him despite the disguised veil of it being about the agency. Of course this begins to cause many problems.
Chief amongst those problems being shattering the soul of
Ted and killing any whiff of support from Peggy, one of the two people he cares
for the absolute most. Yes Peggy and Ted are really going at it flirting wise
here, so obviously that the whole office seems to notice. The worst part for
the company is that Teds love of Peggy’s ideas comes at the price of a budget
on a key account. This is a now clearly jealous Don to have an “it’s better for
the agency” excuse to crush whatever is left of Ted and Peggy’s flirting. What
a fantastically, unbearably tense sequence near the end of the episode where
Don takes the reign of the budget meeting and looks like he’s going to tell all
of Ted and Peggy’s constant flirting for the reason to extend the budget… And
then switches it up to making it look like it was Frank Gleeson’s last idea
instead. Even without Don actually telling the client, to everyone in the room
but the client the embarrassment tactics were obvious and the emotional consequences
clear. Ted is crushed emotionally and puts his tail between his legs and walks
out after being told to focus more on his head then Peggy. Peggy meanwhile loathes
Don for crushing the man that she finds good and sweet for his way of “saving
the agency.”
Again Don continues to disguise everything under this veil.
Sure there is some fake good intention on the surface of getting Ted to focus
on a job he seems out of. It seems that Don wants to make it seem that he’s
being harsh to allow Ted to avoid the many mistakes Don himself has made in the
name of a flirty office woman. In truth though Don is just a jealous and broken
old man searching for ways to end the happiness of his competitor and gain
Peggy back over to his side of thinking about things. To Don it’s all about his
needs and less about the greater good.
The other half of “The Quality of Mercy” revolved around the
mystery of Bob Benson. Pete, for all of his faults, seems to be learning a
little bit of something about how to handle people’s identity problems. Yes
surprise, surprise Bob Benson isn’t who he says he is. He’s essentially Don
Draper 2.0. It doesn’t help that Pete’s on the hunt for info (from our good
friend and sometimes ally Duck Phillips) after the whole leg incident last
week. It’s about time that the mystery of Bob Benson is being brought out to
the world.
Fortunately Pete seems to have learned something from his
trials with trying to find who the real Don Draper was nearly a decade ago now.
There is certainly no foolish running into Burt Cooper and him telling Pete
that he doesn’t care about where people come from this time. Nope this time
Pete seems smart and calculated about what he wants to do to handle the
potential threat that is Bob Benson. Pete confronts Bob in a much more merciful
way (hey there is that title coming in for us) in a dynamite sequence that
involves Pete telling Bob to lay off a tad and he can still go on doing what he
does. Pete, unlike Don most of the time, seems to learn from his mistakes and try
to have history not repeat itself get repeated.
Ultimately the whole of “The Quality of Mercy” revolves
around the repeating of history, both within and without the story of the show
itself. It has been a long while (since the tension and mystery of Don way back
in the first seasons of the show) that Mathew Weiner and crew have told a
mystery story as a main plot of Mad Men. It seemed like it would ware out its
welcome if done a lot, but when it’s brought back after so many years it feels
perfectly refreshing. All the tension and the mystery of both Don’s emotional
life and the mystery of Bob Benson is coming to a big head, one that could go
in so many interesting directions.
This episode was fantastic. I can’t believe next week is
season six’s last. I hope it lives up to the last few fantastic episodes.
Either way I’m going to have a lot to say about it next week.
Did I mention Ken got shot?!!! In the eye! And has an eye
patch! Those rascals at Chevrolet!
Some other musings:
- It’s the return of Glen! We did get to see some Sally this week as she needs to escape from both her parents and cause lots of trouble at boarding school. Cue Glen and a lot of drinking and potential trouble making.
- Did I mention Ken got shot???!!!!
- This marriage between Don and Megan has to collapse really soon doesn’t it? Maybe not next week but sometime soon, (within the beginning of the last season next year) things just have to go down.
That’s just me though. What did everyone else think?
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