Don and Rachel look on on Mad Men
It’s rewatch time!! For the first time ever this summer we
will be watching an old season of a television show over the course of several
weeks. Installments will be posted Sundays and Wednesdays with the posts
spoiling only the episode that is being talked about. This summer the rewatch
is on the first season of Mathew Weiner’s 1960’s period piece Mad Men, one of
the great first seasons of television.
Some thoughts on “Marriage of Figaro” as soon as I figure
out what P-L-A-Y-H-O-S-E spells…
“Draper? Who knows anything about that guy? No one’s ever
lifted that rock! He could be Batman as far as we know!”
-Harry
Who is Don Draper? In the opening scene of “Marriage of
Figaro” alone the identity of Don Draper (after taking maybe a bit of a week
off last week) comes back into question again. “Marriage of Figaro” shows how
lost emotionally Don can be at both work and at home both with his identities
and emotions. While to others it may not be that noticeable Don Draper is
clearly disturbed by a few things as this episode goes on.
Let’s start with that opening scene. Yes on an average train
ride to work Don gets called Dick Whitman by a person who seems to have known
him in the past. Knowing what I know about the series I won’t elaborate more
for those who are watching for the first time but for now let’s consider two
options of how this could play out. One Don is Dick Whitman and changed his
identity for reasons that the viewer may or may not find out later, two the man
on the train made a mistake and some identity issues may ensue for Don. I can
tell you which one is more interesting but not the outcome so I’m curious to
find out how people new to the series interoperated that scene.
Either way the scene seems to have shaken Don a little bit
as he’s not fully there mentally at work or at home. At work he has troubles
interoperating the irony of the Volkswagen ad and doesn’t know how to handle
the returning Pete (again Trudy doesn’t show up again I’m confused now of when
she does). Don seems to gain his mojo back in the meeting with Rachel in which
he volunteers to check out the department store for research purposes.
Unfortunately he screws it up after telling Rachel that he’s married right
after kissing her, leaving his involvement on the account on the line.
Then the episode takes a left turn into Don’s personal life
with Sally’s birthday party. This half and half episode structure feels a bit
like Mad Men as a show is still feeling itself out a little bit. It works here
but it’s something Mad Men doesn’t do often in the future. Often both the work
and home life of Don Draper are mixed together flowing through each other like
one whole. Here they are unusually separated in a strange way for the series.
That being said it works when analyzing Don this week. Not
only is Don distracted at work from being called Dick Whitman on the train but
he’s distracted at home by Rachel’s rejection. He can hardly focus on Sally’s
party often spacing out, not socializing, and finding a bit of solace in the
divorced Helen Bishop. After Betty shoos him away to grab the cake Don just
drives, parks, and sits in the car trying to escape his situation. It dosen’t
seem like Don knows what he wants, but only the viewer can see as when he
returns with a dog for Sally the characters seem to think that Don has it all
together.
Some other Musings:
- Short one for this episode because outside of Don’s feelings not much that is substantial here. Pete and Peggy had a brief brush up but just a “this never happened” talk.
- We got a lot of the episode one storylines with a little more subtlety in the first half of this episode.
- There were a lot of more subtle sixties elements that got a lot of flack when the show initially aired. I think it’s odd that some got individual scenes (the slapping the kid thing for example) but for the most part after watching the show for six seasons I didn’t really notice.
Coming Up on Wednesday: “New Ansterdam” Staring Pete!
That’s just me though. What did everyone else think?
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