Things seem so random all of a sudden

Dear Natalie,

What a fantastic episode! It was one of those gems that managed to pack so much into 47 minutes, while also keeping to a strong central story line. Like the last several episode, particular historic events framed the episode and infiltrated the consciousness of our characters. In this case, the Charles Whitman shootings at the University of Texas, and to a lesser degree by Britain’s defeat of West Germany in the 1966 World Cup (still a central moment in British self-consciousness marked by the little ditty my English friends like to sing about Germany: “Two world wars and one world cup, do-da, do-da”). Pete’s young co-ed summed up the general reaction with her lovely quote that I stole as the title of this post: “things seems so random all of a sudden.” Couple this with Roger’s reflection from two weeks ago (“when will things get back to normal?”) and we can see how the changing times are affecting our main characters. Racial politics and Vietnam and women’s lib – they are all in the background and sometimes in the foreground. But what it actually feels like isn’t radical intrusion or transformation but disequilibrium. The world as they know it is just ever so slightly off. [brief aside, what a beautiful moment when Don gently corrects Trudy: not “Whitemore” “Whitman” – a name he is not likely to overlook].

Somehow working this out via the domestic personal dramas was more effective to me than hammering home the social forces in play. At the heart of the episode is the Campbell dinner party, which gave us some fabulous moments around gender, domestic happiness, and the difficult negotiations to figure out normal. We see the old city/country debate set up with some interesting twists. Pete’s nostalgia for Manhattan only grows with each promised cold brownie and probably with the realization that he has so much farther to go on the suburban househusband ladder when he can’t even fix a leaky faucet. Don mocks the suburbs and flees with his second chance wife as fast as he can, only to pull her to the side of the road with the husky desire to make a baby. It is hard to tell what Megan thinks of the likely procreation in her future, but she certainly loved the glimpse of her suburban superman in shirt-sleeves showing off his husbandly knowledge (was this Don’s unintentional French housecleaning moment?). And sweet Ken and whats-her-name Cynthia hold the middle ground with a semi-retreat to working class Queens (having made the same decision myself, I felt especial fondness for the Cosgroves).

No one represented the painful disequilibrium of the changing ordinary like Pete Campbell. Two weeks ago I speculated that Pete might just beat Don at the upper-middle-class game. That is, that he might figure out what it takes to be the workhorse husband with the wife and kids in the suburbs. Now I’m not so sure. Moment after moment Pete seems to confront the possibility that the stable middle class dream he’s been fighting (and fighting dirty) for may not hold much promise after all. He tries his hand at caddish inappropriate flirtation with his driver’s ed co-ed only to get upstaged by the younger man. Worse, his vision of her life (well, maybe you’ll live in the city when you get older, then you’ll get married and move back to the suburbs) is shot down. She doesn’t want a Sunday driving lesson anymore than she wants to think about marriage. So he tries his hand at an older profession only to discover he feels like a louse and the number one louse in the world is lecturing him on moral advice. Pete goes from being the happily married man morally lording it over his wayward and miserable boss to tearfully confessing his own life feels meaningless.

Um, after having been knocked out by Lane in the board room!! I can’t even say much about this scene except that it rivaled the tractor scene from last season as one of the most unexpected and amazing scenes in Mad Men history. Like Roger I knew cooler head’s should prevail, but damn did I want to see it. Peggy’s face peering into the deserted battle scene was also priceless and a reminder that the glass ceiling is not always above women, but sometimes is a broken vase on a sideboard.

I’ll leave Joan’s magnificent return to SDCP and her graceful handling of Lane to you. As well as a guess at the new pen name Ken Cosgrove/Ben Harsgrove will assume for his turn at John Updike fiction.

I won’t waste your time with compliments,

Kathryn

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Dear Kathryn,

What a fantastic episode! Thank you for lifting out this theme of disequilibrium – I was thinking along similar lines. And given that the true chaos hasn’t even hit yet (it’s still only 1966…we’re on just the eve of some genuine moments of cultural revolution), our characters’ disorientation seems all the more acute. When Pete imposes Trudy’s trajectory on the young co-ed, her response that she plans to go to college upends his vision…but then her own vision gets immediately upended too – perhaps she won’t go to college. Too many young girls are being murdered. Whatever is happening in the broader culture destabilizes not only dominant cultural norms, but the norms that are replacing them as well. And so, in the end, it was Roger – surprisingly – who managed to rise to the top on this theme for me. He might not want to be professor emeritus, but at least he knows what he is…and knows how to do it well! Hearing him articulate the philosophy and methodology of what to me have always seemed to be drunken instincts was quite breathtaking. Doesn’t the idea that Roger was never quite as drunk as we thought he was cast a whole new light on his character? Something is brewing in Roger (at least I hope), and I’m itching for him to break out into his old self – with Pete so thoroughly chastised, this possibility might be closer than it seemed at the end of last week’s episode.

Which of course leads us to Lane, who also was floundering for a place of belonging – to know he was needed. How heartbreaking that just as Joan tells him how different he is than all the others, he has to prove her wrong. I loved her quick-minded response to his apology, that when it comes to Pete, everyone’s wanted to do that since he arrived. Yes, of course they have, but I sensed her sweetly telling him: it’s ok, everyone’s wanted to kiss me since I’ve arrived; this is your afternoon for performing all the office’s fantasies!

What I’m left intrigued by with Lane is just how much no one really knows him – and just how much that allows him to bring a surprising element to each story he enters. If what the Jaguar rep wanted was an underground sex club, well Lane most certainly knows where to find one. Whether or not he would have mixed business and pleasure in that way, however, is a completely different question. I am eager to see what other tricks Lane has up his sleeve in the weeks to come, because it seems he sits at the crux of some of the more interesting turns of events this season (the hiring of Dawn, the strange episode with the girl in the wallet, and of course the demise of Pete Campbell).

As for Ken Cosgrove – what a fantastic development. One aside: between the reference to Duck a few weeks ago during Megan’s party planning, and last night’s reference to Ken and Peggy’s pact to move firms together should such a move arise, I’m wondering what story is developing? But back to the matter at hand: I loved the implantation of a narrator into the stream of the story! The idea that someone is watching, always watching our characters, and then secretly disguising and reporting their antics and, more significantly, their sadness to the larger world is quite a lovely thought…especially given how much I love those antics and sadnesses. So what’s the underlying theme within the robot who removes the bolt to kill commuters, the girl who lays eggs (did Peggy resonate with that one because it was somehow her?), and The Man with the Miniature Orchestra (by Dave Algonquin)? Perhaps there isn’t a common theme, and we’re simply supposed to witness the movement in Ken’s persona from writing clear sci-fi to offering more realistic commentary on the people he knows. Here I was reminded of Richard Yates’ painful rendering of sub-urban family life in Revolutionary Road…I don’t know, dear readers, what are your thoughts on the connections here?

One more thing to note about Pete: as the prostitute worked her way from the fantasy option of wife who actually wants to have sex at the end of his hard day to a parody of the co-ed, “it’s my first time, I’m nervous,” didn’t you expect him to take that one? His one-by-one dismissal of nope, nope, and then, “You’re my king…” – “ok” was chilling. But it also revealed just how much Pete is motivated by the desire to conquer. Sadly, he has to pay someone to fake it for him because he’s just too weak and petty to actually rule anything. And this leaves me wondering what will be the repercussions of this fight with Lane? How will Pete’s childishness fight back? And has he finally met his match on his manipulative rise to some false version of the top? Will Lane end up being the most surprising Alpha Dog of SCDP?

bearing the beauty of the ordinary,
Natalie