Mad Men Ep 1: Speaking The Truth

Mad Men Blog, Season IV, Ep 1 Public Relations

Welcome back, loyal readers (or newcomers) to the next few months of blog posts examining season IV of Mad Men. As this blog is dedicated to allowing all of us to gain a slightly deeper understanding of Mad Men, I urge you to send your comments, questions, criticisms and corrections (goodness knows, I make many mistakes, more so as I hurry to send out this blog for your inspection early each Monday). I thank you in advance for reading and your comments.

So, let’s dive in. Last night’s opening ep was loaded with many of the elements—strong writing, fine production values, apposite music, good acting—we expect from this series, although it fell short of last season’s opener. The 2009 opening ep was nearly flawless in its pace and content. And not a word was wasted. Still, we received plenty to chew on last night (it would be done best with false teeth, however, as you’ll see below).

The Preliminaries: Based on Don’s date Bethany Van Nuys’s (the wonderful Anna Camp) mention of Andrew Goodman losing his life in Mississippi working for civil rights (he was killed in June 1964 trying to register black voters) and Don’s telling The Wall St Journal reporter about the firm’s good fortune “months” after founding the new Sterling, Cooper, Draper and Pryce), we know we’ve moved on at least 1 year from last season, to 1964 apparently.

Also new is a spunky copywriter Joey Baird (Matt Long), who’s working with Peggy. Is this a working relationship or do we smell romance here? The two clearly get along on a certain level. Note their little gag, with performing Stan Freberg’s song parody of soap opera drudgery (“John…Marsha”).

And Celia, Don’s new housekeeper, starts off her Mad Men career with a bang, talking sotto voce about Don’s not eating anything and leaving his (shoe) shine kit in the middle of the floor of his dark apartment (more on interior lighting below). We want to see more of Celia’s sarcasm, she seems great.

One of the motifs in this opening episode is starting over. Don and Betty are starting new lives. Don’s professional life is new, too, new firm, new clients, new women to conquer. This life ‘mulligan’ is a creative piece of work from Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner, a point made a few weeks ago in The NY Times by Alessandra Stanley.

The night’s overarching theme follows closely from the previous 3 seasons and concerns an idea running through many of Hitchcock’s films—things are not always what they appear. For Mad Men, this could be modified to ‘there are a lot of people slinging bull around.’ And, yes, that bull is abundant in an episode’s titled Public Relations probably is not a coincidence.

The Opening Scene: The word is that we’re going to learn much about Don Draper’s life this season. Knowing that, Matt Weiner’s opening scene was brilliant. The screen goes black and we hear the Ad Age reporter asking the $64,000 question: ‘Who is Don Draper?’ Will we ever know the answer?

But from there we go quickly to the night’s, and one of the series’, main themes, falseness, lies, deceit, whatever way you wish to describe the enormous load of untruths that permeate the lives of the characters and situations in Mad Men.

Don gets the falseness off to a quick start by failing to correct the Ad Age reporter, Jack Hammond, regarding the facts of his life: “knockout wife, 2 kids, house in Westchester…”

Then the two discuss the Glo-Coat TV commercials that Don devised to intentionally mislead people. He didn’t want them to think they were watching a commercial, “at least not for the first 30 seconds,” he says. And those first 30 seconds, which we see later in the episode, show a little boy seemingly in jail. “Let me out of here,” he cries. Actually he’s under his mother’s kitchen table. Is the boy a representative of Don’s unpleasant childhood? Of Don’s disgust with himself for messing things up to such an extent that he’s alone in a Greenwich Village apartment on Thanksgiving?

After the reporter’s false step, the journalists heaps on the falseness motif-he’s got a false leg, courtesy of Korea. After the reporter hobbles away, Roger Sterling chimes in with another example of falsehood. He notes his uncle lost a leg hitching a trailer. “He used to ask me to scratch his toes—he didn’t have any.”

Immediately after that Roger, Don and Pete Campbell head to the Jantzen “party,” as Don calls it. Another falsehood. In reality it’s a cattle call—the type of set-up that Don would not have had to lower himself to attend previously, but now, as a “scrappy upstart,” Sterling Cooper Draper and Pryce has to grin and bear this sort of thing. At any rate, the meeting is with the sportswear company Jantzen, whose prudish owners insist they’re “a family company,” despite the fact that they manufacture the suggestive outer garment known as a bikini, er, two-piece swimsuit (hey, this is still 1964, remember). But are Jantzen’s garment’s revealing? Well, they passed the Roger Sterling test. “I’ve spent a lot of time with the catalog…I’d say no concerns at all,” Roger coos suggestively. After that, upon entering the new S,C,D, P offices (more on the new space below), even Sterling complains of Jantzen’s falseness. “I love how they sit there like a couple of choirboys, you know one of them is leaving NY with V.D.,” he tells Don.

Later, falsehood again comes to the fore with Don’s presentation to Jantzen, when he argues there’s little difference between a bathing suit and underwear. The cut and the print of the cloth, and “some sort of gentlemen’s agreement.” In other words, nothing. Ultimately, as we know, Don can’t stand the falseness and explodes. Is he reacting to the Jantzen people, who are selling sex but insist they’re not? To the false nature of advertising? To the falseness of his created life, whose layers are beginning to be peeled back by Ad Age?

The other major piece of falsehood last night came courtesy of Peggy Olson, who always seems to be struggling on some level. It’s she who hatches the idea to stage some sort of incident to keep ham purveyor Sugarberry happy. Eventually the team settles on paying actresses to pretend to be fighting over a ham before Thanksgiving.

(Yes, yes, I know what you’re thinking—Peggy has always longed for Draper, played by Jon Hamm, so here’s a case of art imitating life imitating art, right? Sorry, I don’t buy it. Just a coincidence. What is not coincidence is that right after Don gets only to first base with Bethany in the cab, one of Peggy’s hired actresses, sitting with Peggy in a diner, says, referring to her acting partner, “She doesn’t know when to stop.”)

The New Digs: At first blush the scene upon entering the new offices seems hokey and purposeless. On second thought it goes directly to Dorothy Rabinowitz’s point that the office in Mad Men is where things are cool, lights are bright, there’s lots of glass and chrome, people move about with determination and energy. It’s a cool place. At home, however, things are different. Their interiors are drab and dimly lit. Look at Don’s new bachelor pad, a dark, funereal place. Definitely not cool.

The falsehood theme also finds its way into architecture with the new office’s so-called 2nd floor. Cooper wants “no part of” this fabrication, but Don uses it to his advantage (we assume) in his 2nd of two press interviews (at the show’s end). The phantom 2nd floor also figures (pun intended) into Don’s pitch to Jantzen (see below).

Another Voice of Truth: In an episode with falsehood at its core, in a series populated by a bevy of bull slingers, with little Sally Draper the lone voice of truth, Henry’s mother, Pauline (Pamela Dunlap) is a welcome addition to the fold. She shoots from the hip for the most part. Pauline figured out Betty quickly (“She’s a silly woman”) and speaks her mind to her son, if a bit ruthlessly (“I know what you see in her, and you could have gotten it without marrying”) and with a large dose of meddlesome-ness (“Honestly, Henry, I don’t know how you can stand living in that man’s dirt”).

It’s interesting that she and little Sally, the only straight shooters in the bunch, begin their relationship being at odds with each during Thanksgiving. We’re hoping for an alliance.

Speaking of the truth, Peggy’s office scene with Don might be the most honest of the night. Since the ham thing blew over, the agency’s reputation is intact, Peggy says after Don tells her, “I try to stay away from those kinds of shenanigans.” (True, Don, but you’re hardly a saint.) Later Don says she brought her date to his (Don’s) apartment on Thanksgiving Day to get the ham payoff money because she thought (Don) wouldn’t embarrass her. “At least I’m thinking ahead,” she says. “It doesn’t always work, does it?” Don answers. And then Peggy’s coda: We’re all here for you, Don, just to please you.

Dandy Don: Oh, Don. You’ve made such progress. You’re handling the divorce with a tremendous amount of class, allowing Betty and her new husband to squat freely in the former chez Draper. And you seem to be improving your parenting skills, you hug and kiss the kids, you look at them longingly when you put them to bed, you can sew enough to attach a button (presumably in a pinch you cook a bit, too). At least in comparison to that icy cold ex-wife of yours, you are the better parent. (Although, sure, that’s not too much of a compliment. And in truth, prior to your divorce, you were a parent on the weekends only. Running the house and raising the kids were Betty’s jobs, right?)

Oh, and Don, have you become a prude? When you accountant asks, “So, how’s your balls? Are you enjoying yourself? “ you blush. Although you admit to Roger when he’s trying to set you up that “I’ve hardly been a Monk.”

On the other hand, you’re still Don, er Dick. Whomever. Your “plans” on Thanksgiving include holing up in your Greenwich Village bachelor pad and having your prostitute slap your face (“harder”) while she earns her money astride you. Anybody want to comment on what all that means? A thought: Don simply is thankful for hookers with a good right hook.

Saturday Night Live: Clearly Weiner’s been watching Jon Hamm’s flair for comedy on several Saturday Night Live gigs. So he’s given Don a few subtle comic lines. First was his jab at the Jantzen boss for having to make the same case multiple times during the cattle call. “Next time just have 1 meeting.” Another funny line came at Henry’s expense, when they’re discussing Betty and Henry and the kids living in Don’s house and Henry says, “It’s temporary.” And Don retorts, “Trust me, everybody thinks this is temporary.”

Another good shot comes during the early chat with Cooper, regarding the conference table. Cooper says a client thought “a circle of chairs (instead of a conference table) demands a conversation.” Don shoots back, “About why there is no table.”

Roger’s Still Sterling: Roger and Don seem to have made up and Roger’s witty mouth endures. A few examples:
* Roger on Ad Age: “They’re so cheap, they can’t even afford a whole reporter.” (Do people really speak about print reporters like that?)
* Roger on how to treat women: In Don’s office, Roger describes Jane’s friend Bethany for Don—she looks like Virginia Mayo, is 25 years old, Mt Holyoke gymnastics team. Go out with her the weekend before Thanksgiving and if you hit it off, “come Turkey day, maybe you can stuff her.”
* Roger on interviewing: He berates Don for not cooperating with the Ad Age reporter. “You turned all the sizzle from Glo-Coat into a wet fart. Plus, you sound like a prick.”

Of course, Roger and Don both whack at the reporter. After reading the article, Don says: “I learned a valuable lesson…stay away from one-legged reporters.” Roger: “Yeah, I was thinking about that. Who is he to criticize anybody?” And later, noting Bethany liked Don on the first date despite his being “a bit grabby in the car,” he says, “Maybe you should have fondled Peg-leg Pete?”

First Date: Note before Don leaves his apartment for the date—“the first that Roger was involved in”—he makes certain his bed spread is nice and neat. Was Don expecting something to happen on that bed? Hmmm…Also note two incidences of car romance in this episode. Henry is successful, getting Betty in the garage. (Oh, heavens, sex in the car!) Meanwhile Don gets a juicy lip sandwich from Bethany in a taxi, which seems a pretty thorough tonsillectomy, but is not enough for an exasperated Don. Maybe he has been a monk?

A few words about actress Anna Camp, who plays Bethany. This was yet another nice casting job by Weiner and his crew. Camp was terrific as Sarah Newlin in HBO’s True Blood, where she played the wife of a religious zealot leader. Her character in that series switched between being prim and chaste and being a sexually overheated philanderer. That experience should have prepared her well for work on Mad Men, where complicated characters are a staple.

Notes: [Some parts of this section were updated on July 28 as a result of comments from readers. We thank them for the insights.] Gotta love the manipulation of the press by Don (in his 2nd interview at the end of the show) and by Pete Campbell in the ham incident (getting a false story planted in The Daily News). Roger caps the whole thing off and ties into the night’s main theme when he hands a copy of the Ad Age piece to Don saying: “You know, nobody who’s been associated with an actual event has thought it’s been honestly portrayed in the newspaper.” That should get TV critics and bloggers buzzing. — Interesting bit when the older Jantzen guy asks to put his feet up on the table during Don’s pitch. A classless act from someone representing a family company, right? Go ahead, Roger blurts out, “Pretend like it’s your living room.” Seems everyone’s pretending in this episode. – Speaking of the Jantzen pitch, funny how it returns to the false 2nd floor in Sterling, Cooper, Draper & Pryce’s offices. Don’s tagline on the Jantzen ad is that the company’s swimsuit (or the model wearing it) “is so well built, we can’t show you the 2nd floor.” – Three Jewish mentions: the earlier mention of slain civil rights worker Andrew Goodman; Pete’s trashing of Sugarberry for test marketing some of its hams in Jewish neighborhoods (“they’re idiots,” he says of Sugarberry, knowing traditional Jewish dietary laws prohibit the eating of pork products); and Harry’s telling Joan that his trip to Hollywood was not a vacation. “I had a lot of “tsuris” from Lucy and Desi,” he says to her. Tsuris is a Yiddish word meaning trouble or aggravation. I’m guessing Weiner is showing the acceptance of Yiddish words as part of the vernacular by 1964. Recall that in the series’ first show, which depicted 1961, Sterling Cooper was nearly devoid of Jews. Both Roger and Don swore they’d never “hired one.” The office was scoured to find a token Jew, mail room employee David Coen, to attend a meeting with a Jewish client, Rachel Menkin (Maggie Siff) of Menkin’s department store. Don entered the meeting and introduced himself to Coen, unaware that he was a fellow Sterling Cooper employee. Eventually Don had an affair with Rachel. – Let’s dispel the notion that Betty Draper (see photo below) is an ice queen. Heck, she didn’t put the family pooch outside for the night, she tells Henry in bed. “It was cold outside…I locked him in the laundry room.” What a peach. – The night’s theme, indeed the entire series, can be summed up in Roger’s comment to Don in the aftermath of the Ad Age article, “Who knows who you are?”