Mad Men Season 7, Episode 5, “The Runaways”

Don Draper’s past rears its head again in this episode in the form of Stephanie, Anna Draper's niece, whose reappearance throws Don and Megan’s marriage into further disrepair. Stephanie seems to have lived a wild life since we last saw her in season four, as she is now pregnant, filthy, and dressed liked a hippie. She contacts Don from Los Angeles asking him for money, and he directs her to stay with Megan until he can fly over to see her, whereupon trouble ensues.

It seems as though Megan and Don have made up over his latest betrayal of her, at least to some extent, as they’re on good terms when he calls her about Stephanie. However, this will soon change when Megan becomes incensed by the affection Don has for Stephanie, as well as the obvious concern and care he shows for her well-being. Don’s behavior toward Stephanie is how Megan wishes Don would behave toward her, and Megan’s happiness to help Stephanie and her in confidence her marriage quickly deteriorates over the course of the episode.

First, Megan is taken aback that Don didn’t tell Stephanie that Megan is an actress. The implication is clear: Megan is such an afterthought to Don that it doesn’t even occur to him to tell Stephanie anything about Megan when he instructs Stephanie to stay with her. Later, Stephanie inadvertently belittles the connection Megan has with Don when Stephanie boasts about knowing all of Don’s secrets. Don’s openness with Megan about Dick Whitman is a symbol of the trust they share (damaged though it may be); her intimate knowledge of this huge secret makes her feel connected to him. However, Stephanie makes Megan feel small by drawing direct attention to how Megan isn’t the only one who knows about Don’s past.

This leads to some rather cold, Machiavellian behavior on Megan’s part; threatened by Stephanie’s intimate knowledge of Don, and self-conscious about the frayed state of their marriage, Megan quickly asserts that Stephanie doesn’t know Don, and gently suggests that it would be best if Stephanie left before Don arrives. Stephanie takes the hint (and Megan’s check), and leaves. She tries to reassure Megan that nothing ever happened between her and Don before she goes, but misses the point of Megan’s jealousy: Don’s emotional connection to Stephanie makes Megan even more insecure than a sexual one would have, precisely because Don has been so withholding of his emotions from Megan.

Motivated by her insecurity, Megan spends the rest of the episode determined to arouse in Don some sort of passion for her. First she tries to make Don jealous by dancing with a handsome guy at a party, and later invites her friend Amy into their bedroom for a ménage à trois, figuring that if she shows Don that she can be sexually adventurous, Don’s interest in her will be renewed. Unfortunately, it is immediately evident that Megan’s schemes do not have the desired effect. Don is perhaps the least excited straight man in the history of the world to have a threesome with two beautiful women, distracted as he is by both Stephanie and his work situation (more on that below). While he goes along with the threesome, he behaves more like a put-upon old man than an excited lover.

The scene the next morning is very well-played: Megan clearly hopes Don will now look at her with new eyes and renewed interest, but the threesome seems not to have changed his behavior toward her in the slightest. She greets him with an almost too-casual “Hey,” but rather than returning her greeting, he digs through the mess in the kitchen, and without even bothering to turn around to see her, he barks at her about being unable to find the coffee. However, when Stephanie calls, Don’s face lights up like a kid at Christmas, and he eagerly takes the call. To make matters worse, as soon as he’s off the phone with Stephanie, he’s back to business as usual, telling Megan he needs to return to New York immediately, never once acknowledging that anything about the previous night was different or special (not even when Amy says goodbye and awkwardly slinks out of the apartment), even though this is clearly what Megan wants to hear.

While Don is being an unappreciative and oblivious prick in this morning-after scene, his distracted reaction to the threesome is also somewhat understandable. He’s not lying when he says he needs to return to New York, as the night before, Harry, ever the oblivious fool, appeared with a date at Megan’s party (he did not know she was the host), and is immediately coerced into abandoning his date and having a drink with Don at a bar, where he eventually reveals that Jim is cooking up a plot to get rid of Don by pursuing business with Philip Morris’s Commander cigarettes. Should SC&P land the account, Philip Morris would almost certainly insist on Don’s ouster, since Don so publicly humiliated the cigarette industry with his scorched earth ad in The New York Times after the Lucky Strike fiasco at the end of season four.

Harry's news leads to a vintage Don Draper power move, and a fantastic scene. Don crashes a business meeting between Jim, Lou, and Philip Morris, and essentially deflates Jim and Lou’s plan in one fell swoop. He seems to convince Philip Morris that he would be an invaluable asset should they bring their business to SC&P, rather than a liability, and leaves them with the impression that they should insist he be placed in charge of their account, rather than summarily dismissed from the agency. It’s a masterful move on Don’s part, as his oil-smooth pitch to Philip Morris leaves Jim and Lou flustered and at a loss for words: they can’t throw a fit in front of a potential client, and have no idea how to counteract Don’s rhetoric. It's as if Don walked into their meeting and pitched them his own business, rather than the business of SC&P.
 
This whole scene is wonderful, but I just want to point out two particularly satisfying moments: Sensing a trap, Jim tentatively thanks Don for offering to resign should Philip Morris sign with SC&P, and then Don flashes a little smile at Jim before launching into his pitch. After Don has said his piece, he slips Jim another smile as he stands up to leave. The smiles are wonderfully smug and self-confident, and while they would seem genuine to the Philip Morris reps, to Jim they are a a pair of private little messages: “Fuck you.” It's a bit of the old Don Draper nastiness, but this time applied in self-defense rather than in an attack. After the meeting is over, Jim weakly threatens Don, and all Lou can think to say to Don is, “You’re incredible.” For once, I agree with him. Lou means it as an insult, but Don hilariously replies, “Thank you.” All hail the return of Don Draper!

In other developments, poor Ginsberg has finally cleared up any lingering ambiguity about his sanity. He’s always been a bit touched – early in his run on the show, he seemed quite serious when he talked about being able to pick up signals with his brain – but this week he finally succumbs to a psychotic break, driven over the edge by the humming of SC&P’s new computer. However, the lead up to his break provides some comedic fodder, first with a homage to 2001: A Space Odyssey, where Michael enacts the role of the eavesdropping Hal by spying on Jim and Lou as the two conspire together in the computer room, and then later when he makes a surprise weekend visit to Peggy’s apartment and insists on their having sex in order to counteract the influence of the company’s new computer, which Michael claims turns people into homosexuals (I loved the moment where Peggy wakes up on her couch to see Michael staring at her from a few inches away).

The next morning, Ginsberg appears to have regained his sanity, and once again expresses romantic interest in Peggy, only to show his affection for by presenting her with a jewelry box containing his freshly-severed nipple. Michael departs from the episode (and presumably the series) on a hospital stretcher, railing against the dangers of the new computer. If this is indeed the last we’ll see of Ginsberg, it’s a sad ending, and I’m surprised that I think I’ll miss his presence on the show. In his initial appearance, I found him incredibly irritating, like a Woody Allen caricature with the “nebbish” dial cranked all the way up. However, over the past two seasons, I’ve come to enjoy his sarcasm and his irate overreactions to the goings-on at SC&P. I was also enamored with his creativity, as the show went out of its way to establish that he is somewhat of a prodigy by having him usurp Don’s role as SC&P’s creative genius (although that aspect of his character has been emphasized less and less since season five). Ginsberg even seemed to have the potential for his own interesting stories: we saw a bit of his home life in his first appearance, and last season we saw him on a date. I suppose we’ll never know if he manages to find a nice Jewish girl, but with only nine episodes of Mad Men left, I’m in favor of this sad, somewhat truncated ending for his character, rather than his taking time away from the show’s A-listers.

Other thoughts:

- There’s a nice grace note when Don spells out “strategy” for Meredith in a voice memo. Don seems to be taking a shine to Meredith, calling her “lovely” and “honey” in this episode, which is odd, considering he is usually hostile toward incompetence. Perhaps Don’s meanness has been diffused by Meredith’s blatant flirtation with him. Don's a sucker for a pretty blond.

- Looks like the other creatives are also none too impressed with Lou, as they savagely mock him for the amateur cartoons he accidentally leaves in the photocopier. The jokes at Lou’s expense are nice, but I was happiest to see it lead to Don directing a bit of nastiness at Lou mid-episode. Lou throws a temper tantrum over the cartoon and makes everyone stay late, and later in the evening when Don suggests that Lou let everyone leave, Lou rhetorically asks if that’s what Don would do, and Don responds, “No I’d let you go, Lou.” Burn!

- I don’t have much to say about the Betty-Henry drama in this episode. Betty behaves immaturely after she and Henry embarrass each other at a dinner party. It’s moderately interesting only insofar as Henry’s belittlement of Betty’s intelligence later inspires Betty to strike back with some (for once) deserved vindictiveness, but I’m incredibly tired of Betty’s small-mindedness and immaturity. At least their drama yielded some sympathy for poor Bobby, who reveals to Sally that Betty and Henry’s fighting is giving him a perpetual stomachache.

-However, I did enjoy Henry’s approach to defusing the fight simmering between Betty and Sally over Sally’s newly-broken nose: treat them like they are quarreling siblings, rather than a mother and a daughter. It’s perfectly appropriate, considering Betty’s track record. Sally also directs some nice zingers at Betty. It’s a shame the two are so hostile with one another, but lord is it satisfying to see that Sally has learned not only how to defend herself, but also how to effectively spar with her goblin of a mother.

- I also enjoyed the scene between Sally and Bobby. It’s nice to see some sibling solidarity in the face of an otherwise miserable family situation.

- Another nice grace note in the margins of this episode: Peggy has developed a rapport with Julio, the child of her upstairs neighbor/tenant. It is strongly implied that he regularly stops by in the evenings to watch television with Peggy. Peggy’s life might be relatively empty at the moment, but at least she’s not completely alone.

- I loved the first shot of Megan’s party: the camera tracks along the balcony, showing everyone having a good time inside, and then comes to rest on Don, who dispassionately sips his drink and stares out into the canyon with his back to the party. It does a great job of underscoring Don's discomfort. Even more powerfully illustrative, however, is how happy he is to see Harry arrive at the party. Don loathes Harry, but Don would rather leave to have a drink with him than stay for one second longer at that party.

- Some more hints that all is not right with Ted: even Harry recognizes that Ted is broken. When will we finally get our Ted episode?

- “I’m not stupid. I speak Italian.” Betty’s line is funny because it trivializes what was once a watershed moment for her character. Don looked at her with new eyes in season two when she transformed herself during their jaunt in Rome. However, bringing it up in an argument with Henry does not have the same effect.

- Before she realizes that Michael has lost his mind, Peggy gently shuts down his advances by telling him, “I’m flattered, and that happens when you work with people, but it’s not real.” It’s a nicely played scene by Elisabeth Moss, as Peggy is both letting him down gently and also clearly thinking about herself and Ted at the same time. It’s as though she’s trying to convince herself as well as Ginsberg.

- It's the second week in a row with an explicit homage to 2001: A Space Odyssey.

- I liked the moment right before Don crashed Jim and Lou’s meeting, where he pauses before entering the room, smooths down his hair, and straightens his jacket. He’s psyching himself up to be his most Don Draper-y. I cannot overstate how much I loved this scene. At its conclusion, I literally leaped up from my couch, pumped my fist, and shouted, “Don Draper!”