Mad Men Note: Endgame
All I could think of was the original Poseidon Adventure. Even against the backdrop of mortal disaster, people have their everyday gripes, as well as the determination to get on with their lives — unless, of course, disaster occasions a holiday.
The penultimate episode of this season’s Mad Men is unavoidably drenched in irony. Ordinarily, hindsight shows us depths of consequence and impact that contemporaries, hearing the news, couldn’t guess at the time. Here, the irony is inverted: for JFK’s assassination turned out to be utterly inconsequential. Aside from ushering Lyndon Baines Johnson into the White House, and, with him, a completely different brand of political savvy, the events of 22 November 1963 had nothing like the impact that Robert Kennedy’s murder, five years later, had on American politics. And even then, the effects were confined to politics. In the event, life went on, and with a vengeance.
In late 1963, however, the world seemed shattered to many Americans. We may smugly say, knowing what we know, that they overreacted: the end was not nigh. But of course they were simply reacting, as people do, and their reactions were real enough. Betty Draper seems to have been pushed by the congruence of her Junior League advocacy, her very recent discovery of Don’s forged identity, the Kennedy assassination, and an unexpected encounter with Henry Francis at Margaret Sterling’s severely under-attended wedding, into making the surprising declaration that she does not love her husband anymore. In a technical sense, this is true: children aside, the grounds of her marriage have been swept away completely. Whether the chances of re-growth have also been blighted is a different question, one that Betty may or may not linger long enough to find out. Her reaction to the assassination may be irrelevant and sentimental, but it’s very real.
I was surprised when Kathleen didn’t pop with vindication when Don responded to Peggy’s question, in the deserted office on the day of the funeral, “What are you doing here?” with a quick, almost unthinking, “The bars are closed.” Kathleen harbors the dream that Don and Peggy will go on to rule Madison Avenue together, in spite of but also because of their lack of romantic chemistry. Don’s frankness with Peggy — often raw and unhelpful — was halfway friendly for a change.
And the episode ended, not as it might have done, minutes earlier, in Don Draper’s bedroom (the usual fade), but at Sterling Cooper. A first? I leave that to the Mad Maniacs.