Megan’s friend from acting class gives Megan the idea to ask Don for a part in a shoe commercial being produced by SCDP. Don is genuinely surprised at her request, but he’s also disappointed. He tells Megan, “You don’t want it this way. You want to be someone’s discovery, not someone’s wife.” This might be partially true for Megan, but it’s even truer for Don. While it was difficult for him, he could ultimately accept her rejection of a promising career in advertising in order to follow her dreams. Don is (or was) a creative person himself, so a part of him could sympathize with Megan’s desire to explore her own creativity through acting. Plus, Don's experience with Betty is a cautionary tale for what happens when you deny someone their dreams.
However, for Don, there are no short cuts to success. Despite his leaving Michael’s Snoball pitch in the cab earlier this season, Don tends to believe that talent wins in the end. It’s a reasonable worldview for someone like Don, considering that he climbed the advertising ranks using nothing but his own talent and hard work (and the name of a dead man). In asking him to use his position at SCDP to get her an audition for a commercial, Megan is not living up to the standards Don has set for himself, and certainly not the idealistic view he’s had of her as an artist who does not want to compromise herself through advertising. In other words, for Don, Megan’s request of him is a betrayal of both his ideals and his idealization of her, both of which have been his principle ways of coping with her leaving SCDP.
At the same time, we can also see things from Megan’s perspective. She sorely wants some sort of affirmation of her talents, and she wants Don’s unmitigated support in the pursuit of her career. Don’s conflict of interest over her potential success is very difficult for her, and she can’t help but suspect him of putting his desires above hers in his reactions to her successes or failures (an issue they discussed explicitly last week). We see this difficulty and this suspicion in her hiding the return of her reel in the mail, as well as her reactions to his initial denial of her request to audition for the shoe commercial: she fills the bathtub to hide the sound of her sobbing, and then gets drunk the next day.
It’s during a drunken outburst that she spells out what she thinks is going in Don’s head: He won’t give her a chance either because he wants her to be a kept woman, waiting for her when he gets home, or because he thinks she’s a bad actress and doesn’t want to sandbag the commercial. Since he doesn’t know her capabilities as an actress because he’s never seen her act, she infers that it must be the former. It’s also clear that Marie thinks the same thing, as she tells him, “Nurse her through this defeat, and you shall have the life you desire.” That’s just the problem though: neither he nor Megan ever wanted Megan to be a stay at home wife. Don wanted Megan to be the Hepburn to his Tracy, but Megan wanted to actually be Hepburn.
While Don never wanted Megan to wait on him hand and foot, there is some truth to Megan and Marie’s inference about Don’s behavior. Don feels disappointed and betrayed, but he is also somewhat fearful that Megan’s possible success would take her away from him. This is what he thinks happened with Peggy a few episodes ago, and he says as much to Peggy when they run into each other at a movie theater in the finale (even if we know Peggy’s leaving was partly caused by Don’s treatment of her). Don tells Peggy he’s at peace with her leaving SCDP when he says, “That’s what happens when you help someone. They succeed and move on.” While this statement applies to his relationship with Peggy (more below on their scene together), it also applies to his feelings about Megan and her career. Moreover, we can see these thoughts run through his mind as he views Megan’s acting reel late at night at SCDP. He smiles as he watches Megan; she looks radiant, and he’s proud that she’s his wife. But then his smile sours as he watches her act. One could read his reaction as his thinking she’s no good, but from what we see of it, she appears to be pretty good, thus I think it more likely that his reaction is a product of the part of him that fears losing her.
This shot perfectly sets up final scene of the season, where Don enters a bar with an air of resignation, orders his usual old fashioned, and is promptly propositioned by a beautiful woman who asks if he is alone. Don stares at his drink for a long moment before turning to look at her, his face a mix of indifference and intrigue, and the season ends as he contemplates his reply. Given the last shot of the previous scene, and what both this episode and this season has shown us about Don, the show seems to provide a strong indication of what the nature of his response will be. It’s a marvelous way to end to both the episode and the season.
In other developments, what a relief it was to see Peggy again, and then what a treat it was for her to have a scene with Don! Her scenes this week seem like clear evidence that Matt Weiner has no desire to write her out of the show. I never seriously thought it a possibility, considering that unlike other characters who disappear after leaving Sterling Cooper or SCDP (poor Sal, Paul, Ken for a bit, Freddie, etc.), Peggy is such a central part of the show that until last week, she was one of the few characters other than Don to appear in nearly every episode. Nonetheless, I was still relieved that she showed up this week, and for her to appear in the season’s closing montage along with all of the other major regulars at SCDP.
Moreover, each of her three scenes is great. It was a nice surprise to see her in her office at her new firm, as this was something I thought we’d have to wait until season six to see. We get an inkling here that things are not as ideal as she’d hoped they would be. She has her own team of semi-competent underlings to harass (how very Don Draper of her to yell at them for failing to correctly perform what for her is a simple copywriting task), but she seems rather put off by Ted Chaough blatantly disregarding that she's not a smoker when he assigns her Virginia Slim. While she’s happy to have the responsibility and the confidence of someone like Ted (and perks like plane rides and hotel rooms), Peggy’s creativity has always stemmed from who she is as a person as well as a woman. Ted’s refusal to listen to her protests about not being a smoker seems to confirm that he hired her for two reasons: she’s a woman, and she was Don’s woman. The job is still too new for it to really bother her much yet, but I think Peggy may eventually chafe at Ted’s treatment of her if he continues to disregard who she is in favor of what she represents. Her last scene in the episode, during the concluding montage, encapsulates rather well the minor discord evident here: she’s enjoying the amenities of a hotel stay (possibly the first of her life), but outside the room, she spies two dogs fucking, something that doesn’t quite jive with the picturesque fantasy she’s trying to maintain.
The scene between Don and Peggy at the theater is mostly warm and fuzzy: Don is proud of her, and she shows herself to be every bit his protégé by appearing in the theater in the middle of the day in the first place, and they both know it. It seems to get a bit awkward when Peggy tells Don to give her love to Megan and brings up the possibility of their getting together socially, although this could also just be a result of the movie starting.
Poor, sociopathic Pete. He comes to a self-aware realization during his visit with Beth in the mental ward after she willingly undergoes shock therapy. Under the pretense of speaking about a “friend,” he tells her his affair with her made him realize that, “His life with his family was some temporary bandage on a permanent wound.” It’s a beautiful piece of writing, and a touching performance by Vincent Kartheiser. Realizing you’ve always been broken and that the things you’re trying to do to fix yourself are only stopgap measures probably doesn’t make life any easier, although now Pete simply seems resigned, rather than restless, so perhaps it’s an improvement. His self-awareness makes him becomes slightly more sympathetic again, or at least pitiable – better to know your misery is a disease rather than to blunder through life blaming it on others (ahem, Betty). Even sadder, his realization comes only slightly before Trudy acquiesces to his request for an apartment in the city (itself an indirect product of Pete getting the shit beat out of him – for the second time this season – after fighting on the train, first with Beth’s husband Howard, and then with a conductor). Before, Trudy’s decision would have pleased him, at least for a little while, but now he knows it won’t really help to alleviate his malaise, and we can see it on his face when Trudy tells him her decision. It’s another treatment of a symptom, not a cure for his ails.
Other thoughts:
- Megan’s actress friend couldn’t be more wrong about Marie being “elegant and encouraging.” Marie covered nicely for her slip about the casting agency taking advantage of Megan’s “hopelessness” by implying her phrasing was a failure of her English, and that she actually meant that they were taking advantage of Megan’s hope. However, later in the episode, we discover in her conversation with Don that she actually feels that Megan is indeed hopeless, cursed with an artistic mentality but without any artistic merit. Moreover, she seems to have a complete disinterest in comforting a disillusioned Megan. If this is what Megan’s upbringing was like, perhaps she has more in common with Don than we realized.
- Roger pretending to be French is hilarious, as is his ending the season on another LSD trip, standing naked in front of a window. Perhaps we’ll see a return of enlightened Roger in later seasons (or a drug-addled Roger).
- Last week, Sepinwall really nailed the connection between Lane’s suicide and Don’s half brother Adam’s suicide. This week, he's proven right, as Adam kept showing up out of the corner of Don’s eye, and then Don had a drug-induced talk with him after Don fails to console Lane’s widow with money (Adam's line about Don's tooth not being the only thing that's rotten is the only thing a bit too on the nose for me). The scene with Mrs. Pryce was just as much an attempt for Don to appease his own conscience as it was to do right by the Pryce family, and the same goes for Don’s advice to Joan in their scene together, where they discuss Lane. It makes sense for them to discuss Lane’s death, as they were probably the two characters closest to him (which really shows how distant he was from everyone else, considering that he wasn’t all that close with Don). Don is so resolute in his advice to Joan because he knows from experience not to think about why Lane did what he did, nor what anyone could have done to stop it. This has been his coping mechanism, and it must be a good one, considering he’s much more culpable in Lane’s suicide (and Adam’s) than Joan is. Equally great is the knowing look Joan gives Don when he asks what she could have given Lane that he would have wanted. Christina Hendricks is magnificent here.
- SCDP is feeling Peggy’s absence. Don and Michael continue to butt heads, and we see that Michael handles stubborn clients almost as poorly as Peggy did earlier this season. From their first appearance at the end of season four, when they demanded Peggy come up with pitch after pitch on the spot, Topaz has always been a finicky client. This episode, we see that for them, the shine has worn off Michael (who appears more disheveled now than ever before – there are huge stains on his shirt).
- Good episode title. Marie describes Megan’s desire for an acting career as her “chasing a phantom,” but the phrase is just as applicable to Don, who now seems to think that the woman he thought he was marrying is only a phantom.
No comments:
Post a Comment