Mad Men Season 5, Episode 12: “Commissions and Fees”

Matt Weiner has said that the theme of this season is “everyone for themselves.” Again and again, through nearly all of the big and many of the small developments this season, we’ve seen this theme manifest in the mindset and behavior of the characters: Don’s hedonistic “love leave” comes at the expense of SCDP; Megan quits her advertising career to focus on her acting dream; Peggy leaves SCDP to advance her career; Joan prostitutes herself for a partnership; Michael and Peggy each bilk Roger for under-the-table work he throws their way; Don leaves Michael’s Snoball pitch in the cab, and so on and so forth. Lane’s embezzlement of company money to pay his taxes is yet another prime example, and in “Commissions and Fees,” we finally see some of the saddest consequences of this mindset. In the payoff to what other critics have described as an excessive amount of foreshadowing of something tragic befalling one of the SCDP partners, Lane hangs himself rather than deal with the shame of being fired by Don once Don discovers what Lane has done.*

 * Many fingered Pete as the possible character on death’s door: among the many signs are his terrible driving, and his doodling a noose on a notepad at one point.

Lane’s predicament and suicide demonstrates the “everyone for themselves” theme in at least two different ways. First, his suicide is a selfish act in itself – he’s depriving his family of a husband and father, rather than suffering a measure of humiliation. We never met his son, but it’s clear that his adoring wife would have certainly preferred a living Lane to one stained by charges of embezzlement. Moreover, neither she nor anyone else but Don would have even known about the reason for Lane’s firing – Don gives Lane the opportunity to use the quick thinking he’d demonstrated all throughout the season and make up anything he wanted as a reason for his leaving. But apparently, carrying his secret shame in his heart was more than Lane could bear.

The second way in which Lane’s predicament demonstrates “everyone for themselves,” is through Don’s reaction to discovering Lane’s theft. Rather than give Lane a second chance, he fires him without much hesitation. I’m of two minds about Don’s decision. On the one hand, I sympathize with Don; he is correct when he tells Lane that he is being lenient, considering the other options available to him (firing Lane and letting others know why, or pressing charges against Lane), and it is understandable that Don would feel he couldn’t trust Lane again. On the other hand, Don is also being somewhat severe here. This is Lane we’re talking about, a character who has devoted as much time and energy to the firm as Don (perhaps more, this season), and whose until-now unwavering foresight has helped keep the firm afloat these past two seasons. Hell, the two even bonded over prostitutes last season, although that probably doesn’t count for much in Don’s book, considering everything else he did or was implied to have done during his “lost weekend” period. Thus while Don does try to comfort Lane (I particularly like his advice about this being the worst part about starting over), his firing Lane reads a bit cold.

Lane certainly doesn’t help his case by at first attempting to deny that he forged Don’s signature, and then by indignantly attempting to justify his decision when Don asks why he didn’t just ask for help: “Why suffer the humiliation for a thirteen day loan? That was my money!” If Don seemed on the fence before, Lane’s reaction here seems to seal his fate. A man who would steal rather than suffer the humiliation of asking for help is not someone Don can trust, and we see it on Jon Hamm’s face as looks away, shakes his head, and says he’ll need Lane’s resignation. Only then does Lane think to apologize, but it’s too little too late.

Regardless of whether one thinks Don acted to severely in firing Lane, once Don discovers Lane’s suicide, and the “boilerplate” note he leaves behind, it seems that Don feels the full impact of the pitfalls of “everyone for themselves.” Don never suspected that the severity of Lane’s shame would lead him to suicide, but Don clearly feels he’s at least partly to blame for it; had he given Lane another chance, Lane almost certainly doesn’t hang himself. We can see this thought run through his mind in his multiple reactions to the news: he first sits down and holds his head in his hands, then insists on taking down the body before the coroner arrives, and then solemnly stares at floor after hearing Roger describe the suicide note. His sick expression here is rather devastating, and while he may or may not blame himself, he must now carry the secret of Lane’s suicide, lest he destroy what the suicide attempted to preserve: Lane’s pride.*

*Although Don will doubtlessly tell Megan, who already knows that he had to fire Lane. Also, I wouldn’t put it past Bert to put two and two together and infer what must have happened, as he’s shown some remarkable intuition in the past. However, whether or not he’d approach Don with this information is another matter.

The scenes where the characters discover the body and the aftermath were also very well done. Joan, intuitive as she is, knows what’s wrong as soon as she spots the chair through the crack in the door – combined with the smell and her difficulty opening it, there is probably little doubt in her mind. However, it’s a sight she’d rather spare herself, so she has Pete, Harry, and Ken confirm her suspicions by peaking over the top of the office partition. Sad as this moment is, I very much enjoyed Christina Hendricks’ performance here: her quick dash from Lane’s office door to Pete’s office conveyed just the right sense of mounting urgency (and perhaps panic) over her hypothesis, as does her phrasing of her suspicions to Pete, Harry, and Ken. Her bursting into tears upon seeing Pete’s reaction (which itself was quite good in its understatement – a hand to the mouth) was also pitch perfect: she’s lost a friend, and also might feel guilty for kicking Lane out of her office the last time they spoke (if she’s even thought of that yet).

Additionally, I like that the show withheld the sight of Lane’s body until near the episode’s end: our finally seeing it at the same time as Don allows the hanging’s gruesomeness to impact us just as it must Don, even if we aren’t as shocked as Don is. We don’t see the body until Don, Roger, and Pete pry their way into Lane’s office, and Lane suddenly comes into view as the door slams shut under the weight of his swinging corpse. The three stand there for a moment, dumbfounded, before cutting him down. I couldn’t help but think about these characters’ history here; Roger and Don have both been in wars and have seen corpses before (including the real Don Draper’s); for them, this is a somewhat familiar sight, although nonetheless still a shocking one. However, this is likely Pete’s first face to face encounter with death, thus his slightly greater discomfort. There’s no evidence for it, but these characters are so well-established by this point that I imagine Pete is relieved he doesn’t have to touch the body.

We get a little bit of night and day with Betty and Sally in this episode. The two are perfectly nasty with one another at the episode’s start. Betty is frustrated by Sally’s disinterest in the ski trip and her desire to stay with Don and Megan in Manhattan. Betty accuses Sally of trying to ruin the trip with her attitude, and then threatens to lock her in a trunk (straight from the good parenting playbook!), while Sally is equally nasty in turn, basically telling Betty that her idea of vacation is inferior to Don and Megan’s, and also gets in a dig at Betty’s weight when she says that Megan lets her eat whatever she wants (the implication being that Betty doesn’t do so because of the changes she’s made to the family diet since starting Weight Watchers). Sally, unsurprisingly, is becoming quite good at manipulating both of her parental sets, this time successfully getting Betty to give her to Don and Megan for the weekend by implying how much more she likes Megan. It’s easy to see why, of course: Betty’s can be a monster, whereas Megan’s like a cool older sister.

However, once Sally get’s her period, she runs to Betty for support and guidance; despite how terrible she can be, Betty is still her mother, and sometimes, you just need your parents, even if they’re cruel. And to her credit, Betty takes it in stride, instantly forgetting Sally’s previous behavior and the $25 fare from her taxi back from Manhattan, and comforting her as best she can. Still, a part of me is very skeptical of Betty: I wonder how much of her positive attitude toward Sally in this later set of scenes is a product of her care for Sally, and how much is a product of Sally providing Betty with the validation she constantly, incessantly seeks. A fifty-fifty split seems rather generous, and we can see her rather pointed self-satisfaction when she tells Megan what happened over the phone, first implicitly chastising Megan’s negligence, and then coolly saying, “I think she just needed her mother.” She might as well have added, “And that’s me and not you!” and then stuck out her tongue. I also thought it was funny that in explaining menstruation to Sally, Betty seems somewhat relieved to finally be able to share with her daughter the “burden” of womanhood. In telling Sally being a woman is a lot of responsibility, it almost seemed as though Betty was justifying her dour view of life: “You see? On top of everything else, we also have to deal with this. Now you know why I’m always miserable.” On the other hand, it can be difficult to raise teenagers, so Betty’s relief at Sally’s turning to her and not Megan in her time of need is somewhat understandable, if somewhat undeserving, considering that she’s such a lousy parent in the first place.

Other thoughts:

- Lane asks his wife where she got the money for the surprise Jaguar gift, and she obliviously replies, “I wrote a check!” Granted, Lane doubtlessly hid from her the state of their finances, but for someone married to an accountant, she seems to have difficulty grasping where money comes from.

- The show couldn’t resist adding a little humor to Lane’s suicide. Bert’s attitude toward Jaguar (“They’re lemons! They never start.”) proves prophetic, as Lane’s first attempt to die by inhaling the exhaust fumes from his wife’s Jaguar purchase are foiled when he can’t get the car to start.

- Loved Don’s nonchalance about Betty’s wanting to kill Sally over her resistance to the ski trip: “Well, if you think killing her is the only way out of that [ruining the trip]…”

- At least one good thing seemed to come from Don firing Lane: it seems to have lit a fire in Don’s belly. After demanding Lane’s resignation, Don bursts into Roger’s office with a head full of steam and complains to Roger about wanting to land big accounts. Catching Lane’s embezzlement has also seemed to motivate Don to absolve himself of a guilty conscious. He tells Roger what Ed Baxter said to him at the American Cancer Society dinner about never landing any of the big companies that attended the dinner. When Roger asks why Don didn’t tell him about it, Don replies, “Because I wrote that letter.”

- The meeting with Baxter also motivates a bit of vintage Don and Roger tag team: Roger provides Don with a pep talk in the elevator after scheduling the meeting, and they work together beautifully during Don’s very aggressive pitch. It’s like we’re back in season one!

- What’s more alarming is that after firing Lane, Don does not blanch at Ken’s conflict of interest regarding Dow Chemical. When Roger says Ken is squeamish about working with his father-in-law, Don replies coldly, “Then fire him.” Not quite thinking that one through, Don – firing Ed Baxter’s son-in-law is unlikely to do you any favors in winning Ed Baxter’s business. Roger realizes this and takes a more subtle (and satisfying) approach to Ken, one that allows both he and Ken to stick it to Pete at the same time: Ken gets to preserve his relationship with his wife and father-in-law by being “forced” onto the account, and Pete is decidedly not on the account. Should they land it, it would dwarf all of Pete’s hard work over the past two years.

- Ken also gets in a nice dig at Roger and the rest of the partners who agreed to Joan’s prostitution-for-partnership deal: he doesn’t want a partnership because he’s “seen what’s involved.”

- I thought it was funny that Don is able to instantly defuse Megan’s ire over not being told about Sally’s arrival with the news of his having to fire Lane. It’s easy to imagine that if Megan was similarly upset about something else on Monday, the whammy of Lane’s suicide would have also trumped whatever might have been bothering her.

- Roger’s enlightenment wore off. Shame.

- We get a lot of Glen this episode, which is unfortunate, because given the limitations of Matt Weiner’s son’s acting, Glen works best in small, creepy doses. Still, the episode ends with a nice touch: reacting to the guilt he feels over Lane’s suicide, Don first offers to drive Glen back to school, and then in an effort to show Glen that not all things that you think will make you happy turn into “crap,” he lets Glen drive his car. It’s a small attempt on Don’s part to provide some measure of karmic compensation for Lane’s suicide. Don might have squashed all of Lane’s hope, but at least he can make sure that the hope with which Glen started the day doesn’t remain totally unfulfilled.

UPDATE: In an interview with Sepwinwall Jared Harris talks about how neither Jon Hamm, John Slattery, nor Vincent Kartheiser had seen what Harris looked like in his hanging makeup prior to shooting a take where they burst through his door. No wonder they look dumbfounded. Near the end, there's also a nice comment about why Lane chooses to hang himself in the office.