Mad Men – A turning point

After the past couple weeks of some of the best episodes of Mad Men to date, I feel like the show came back down to Earth a bit this week. It wasn’t a bad episode by any means, but I don’t think anyone is going to be submitting this outing for Emmy consideration. What I can say in favor of the episode is that it marked a big turning point for some of the characters, and Don in particular.

After the events of last week’s stellar episode “The Suitcase” Don did indeed make some changes in his life. More than halfway through the season, I think it was about time that he hit rock bottom and started to pick up the pieces of his life. It was nice to see him recognize that the alcohol was not doing him any good and that he wanted to reclaim some sense of control over his feelings, as he said in his journal. I’m curious to see if he will be able to keep up his more temperate approach to life as the season moves on. The fact that he held back from spending the night with Faye certainly has me optimistic.

I understand that Don was doing a lot of journaling and self reflection in this episode, but I have to say, the voice overs really weren’t working for me. It’s always hard to work in voice overs when they are not the norm for a show, and I felt a little distracted when they were used in the episode.

It seemed as though Betty turned a little corner herself in this week’s episode, as she allowed Don to come to Gene’s birthday party, even offering the toddler up to his father. After her complete freak out in the restaurant, I didn’t think that we were going to see any sort of reasonable behavior out of her. As I ponder it, though, I wonder if it was an act of decency or something else. In her conversation with Francine, Betty’s friend told her to watch out because Don had nothing to lose. Is Betty simply letting him into Gene’s life so that she can snatch it away later? Am I reading too much into it?

In any case, it has been interesting watching Betty and Henry together this season. Their relationship is certainly not all laughs and smiles. In fact, the more we see of it, the more it looks a whole lot like Don and Betty’s relationship before it fell apart. Betty feels controlled and trapped, Henry feels like she acts like a jealous child. We have definitely seen this before. They couldn’t possibly be headed toward divorce, could they? I mean they are both on their second marriage, and that was rare in the ’60s — would either of them be able to survive another break up? I know I would like to see some more of Betty and her psychiatrist to find out what she is thinking.

There was yet more turning of corners in this episode, with Peggy and Joan. It was a little sad to see that Joan, who used to be the queen bee at Sterling Cooper, has been marginalized into nothing more than “an overblown secretary” at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. I certainly hope that she gets some of her swagger back around the office. It was hard to tell if she was getting so upset at the office because her husband was getting ready to leave for basic training, or the other way around. Chances are, it was a little bit of both.

What power Joan lost, however, seems to have been picked up by Peggy. It was nice to see that she really is growing into her position. It was also nice to see just how much trust Don has in her. There’s no doubt that she was justified in firing Joey, but at the same time I think that everything Joan said in the elevator was true. It will be interesting moving forward to see how the dynamics in the office change after this.

Clacked by Bob Degon
on Sep 13, 2010 @ 19:10 EST5EDT