I wish Weiner hadn’t brought back the Dick Whitman flashbacks. I thought we’d put the Mystery of Don Dick Whitman Draper to rest. The flashbacks we’ve gotten this season have not been illuminating. In fact, I’m starting to wonder if Tom Batiuk is on the writing staff.
It’s reasonable if you only go so far back as Dick/Don switching identities because he wanted to escape his family. If you want to show why he wanted to escape, it’s reasonable to show that he was poor and it was the Depression and his stepfather was abusive. But when you specify that his childhood/adolescence* was warped not just by abuse, but by his having been raised in a freaking whorehouse, you lose me.
A lot of people can relate to a character who grew up poor, or abused, or both. For that matter, a lot of people can relate to Sally, if their mother was undemonstrative or their father was mostly absent. And they can relate to Peggy, with an overbearing mom and older sister who thinks she’s a second mom, and so forth. But when we’re shown the whorehouse, that’s too far from what a viewer is likely to have experienced. Those scenes seem like they belong in a different show. Don’s first story was a little too cute to be real even if we didn’t know his background, but if I were the Hershey guys, I would think the second story was made up too.
*Which is another thing that bugs. Why didn’t they just recast Dick Whitman, like they’re always recasting Bobby, so he wouldn’t be a teenager in scenes that should take place earlier than scenes already shown in which he was pre-pubescent?
I put on episode 1 of season 1 after watching this and was shocked by just how much Don and Pete have aged (they all did, obviously, but those two especially).
Since the beginning of the show, we’d thought the Depression, the abusive father, dead whore mother & sanctimonious stepmother was Dick’s whole back story. Last season, Don had a drink & spoke to a madam while giving clients a bordello visit–he said “I was raised in a place like this.” I remember being shocked–this was <i>not</i> the story we had learned.
This season, Don flashed back to give us details of his whorehouse years. His stepmother let “Uncle” screw her so the two of them would have a home–yet she remained sanctimonious. The “stepfather”–who probably never married her–didn’t really abuse him. And the boy was a victim of at least one statutory rape. Really, it was all significantly worse than any of the Depression tales so many of us were raised on.
But–was his incessant dwelling on these tawdry events just an excuse for his tawdry affair with Sylvia? (Really, he’d had far more interesting mistresses.) Or for his increasing alcohol intake & lack of care at work? No, his “message” came through during the Hershey pitch: he was an orphan & nobody cared for him, all the titillating details aside. So, after the meeting, he told Ted to go to California–to keep his kids from being raised in a “broken home.” And he’d stay near his own kids–who need him. Especially Sally–and it looked like he might have a chance with her.
After (how many?) months we’ll see how the company has fared after Duck’s “find” took Don’s job. I’m betting Peggy & Stan (& Ginsberg) have not been happy. Roger & Joan might miss Don–Cutler had been wanting to “cut” the merged company since the beginning. Will Don rediscover his mojo & can he be convinced to come back? How bicoastal will the show become? Alas, Megan will not disappear immediately–let’s hope success & a new “love” distract her. Pete did know how to drive–but couldn’t handle a “stick”–unlike Bob.
I really enjoyed the episode, with its black humor & real feeling–both sides. On to one more year. (But we do need more Joan.)
I have a vague impression that they’ve been ageing Pete artificially a bit. Though I can’t remember why I thought that, so maybe I’m just making it up.
John Hamm has definitely crossed the line into middle age during the series run, though.
Pete can drive (remember, he used to drive from the train station; met Rory the Electroshock Patient that way). He just can’t drive stick.
I’ll admit that this seemed odd to me. I was born in 1973 and just assumed that most cars back in the 60’s were stick and automatic transmissions didn’t become “normal” until later. I had no basis for this, just my misconception.
They’ve been shaving Vincent K’s hairline back for the show and he intentionally put on weight to give him a more middle-aged look.
I think Duck’s guy is just padding creative with both Ted & Don gone. Peggy will be locally running the show. Otherwise, her in Don’s chair was a wasted scene.
I’m another one who doesn’t buy this. Don’s upbringing shouldn’t concern her at all. What matters is how he lives in the here and now. If you accept the logic that his lousy upbringing justifies his cheating, his indifference, his drunkenness, his anger, his leaving, and all his other faults then what does that say to Sally? “You had a nicer home so you can’t have any flaws?” “You now get an excuse for whatever wrongs you do because your parents aren’t perfect?” The only way forward that is a positive is if Don transforms himself into a caring father and human being. Does anyone believe that’s going to happen? Does anyone here have parents who magically transformed themselves when they were 14?
I learned to drive in 1966 on a '59 Chevy. It had automatic transmission and so did all the cars of all the other parents. I never touched a stick until about 15 years later when I bought a Rabbit Diesel and had to learn it to be able to drive it off the lot. IMO, this was absolutely normal for the time. Unless you got a sports car or a “foreign” car, automatic was automatic at least from the mid-50s. Sticks were for the low-end cheapo model in American cars that everybody knew to avoid.
I really liked this episode, especially the last scene. It’s an oddly hopeful end for the season, Don’s career might be on the brink, but maybe he will be able to salvage some kind of relationship with his kids. I wonder where it will pick up next year?
Where do you get the idea that knowing someone’s background justifies anything? An explanation of why someone might have done anything IN NO WAY justifies anything about how he lives now. No magic involved, then or now.
Well maybe. And I admit that Ted was shown as the good guy in this episode. But it didn’t work out all that well, did it.
Hersheys was known as the company that never advertised. They eventually started, but I think it was well after 1968 so it didn’t matter in the end. But still not a good thing to do, especially since word gets around fast in the industry.
All parents are mysteries to their children, especially when they are younger. Sally is just getting to the age to appreciate what being an adult means, having to make choices and failing, just like her father did. Look at the parallel - she got suspended from school, he got suspended from his job. And Don especially was a mystery. Remember in the first seasons he kept this information from Betty also.
Sally discovering - being shown, not just discovering - that her father came from a bad house in a bad neighborhood doesn’t excuse anything, but it does help her understand. I definitely thought her look was surprise and understanding, not one of this is bull shit - we’ve seen that look plenty before. Notice also how they stood together as a family - I don’t remember them ever being shown in that way before.
Weiner actually likes Don. He said that the campaigns Don is coming up with aren’t bad, they are just ahead of their time. Unless he is fooling us, I see next season as Don being redeemed - and maybe Sally won’t turn into a runaway hooker after all. It is very typical for a narrative arc to have the low point for a character at just about this point in the story. He might sink a bit lower, but not much.
Commentary in the Times today compared Don to Sidney Carton in a Tale of Two Cities - giving himself up to New York so his twin, Ted, can live in the other city. Remember that was the title of one episode.
I think that was last season. One of the starts to Pete’s mid-life crisis when the cute teenager surprisingly wasn’t captivated by the 30-something flirting with her and was more into the cute football player.
I don’t think Sally’s look was “bullshit” – she was the one who visited the Mrs. Draper (wotshername) home in California and saw the Dick name on the wall. I can imagine her believing that there’s more to her father than she knew and, while this may not answer for his behavior, may make him interesting enough to overlook that at least temporarily as she wants to learn more. She’s obviously bored as a rich kid; learning that she has a link to a slum past may hold a certain panache with her.
The automatic transmission stuff is interesting. As I said, I just assumed out of ignorance. Cars ain’t really my thing.
Agreed about the typical overall plot arc being a final fall and conflict before the resolution. Final season may be about Don finally reaching equilibrium. It better be because another season of Fallen Draper would really be a turn-off.
The post you quoted only said Sally had a better understanding of where Don had come from and that she couldn’t judge him in the same way she had been doing. That in no way states or implies that his past justifies his present day asshole behavior. Just like whatever happened in your past doesn’t justify your sarcasm toward me, although if I knew what it was, I might understand.
Anyone else think that Don might head to California anyway next season?
My theory is that the story of Mad Men is the story of Don Draper trying to ignore/abandon his old life and take on a new persona, and the dramatic arc of the story has been his struggle between two identities, and in this season the ‘Dick Whitman’ character has been increasingly asserting itself. By the end, we had Don coming completely out of the closet and basically admitting his past to everyone close to him.
I think the little speech he gave about wanting to go back to California was telling. He doesn’t want to just put distance between himself and his mistakes, but he has a real yearning to go back to something simpler, smaller, and fresh. He’s done with New York and Madison avenue.
Don has another California connection: That’s where the real “Don Draper” was from, and that’s where he spent some of his happiest times with Draper’s widow, and it was the only place where he said he could be himself.
So I could see him moving back to California and starting his own ad agency. This time he can be himself and feel free to take ad campaigns wherever he thinks they should go. I could see the series ending on a high note, with Don finally shedding his dual life and becoming his real self and being spectacularly successful because of it.
Then Charles Manson kills Megan and Don kills himself. Because shows like this rarely have happy endings.