Mad Men Season 7, Episode 11, “Time & Life”

This week sees yet another major overhaul to the organization of SC&P, this time in the form of their imminent absorption by McCann Erickson. Naturally, Don and the rest of the partners (except Ted) are resistant to the move, as it negates the independence they thought they were maintaining when they agreed to be bought out by McCann in the first place. Between a rock and a hard place, the partners have no recourse but to accept it, unless, that is, they can convince McCann to let them set up shop in California as SC&P West, maintaining the clientele that they would otherwise have to cut loose because of conflicts of interest.

The entire plot is strongly reminiscent of the season three finale, when Don, Roger, Bert, and Lane stole Sterling Cooper out from under Putnam, Powell and Lowe once it was clear that the latter agency had sold the former to McCann. It’s a bold move for Mad Men to go back to this particular well again, considering that the season three finale is perhaps the most exciting in the show’s history. Repeating some of its story beats risks diminishing returns. However, there are two significant differences this time around that prevent this latest development from being a complete retread of something the show has already effectively carried off previously.

The first difference is that the season three finale was designed as a caper episode: they were stealing the agency from PPL by clandestinely luring away their biggest and most important clients. This time, however, they try to keep everything above board by retaining only those clients that pose a conflict of interest or wouldn’t want to be handled by McCann. Don makes the distinction clear when he tells Joan that she’ll have to give Avon to McCann because McCann has no competing business. While this distinction lowers the stakes, when the partners break from their meeting discussing the possibility, the staging and music cues have a strong “we’re getting the band back together” vibe (albeit absent Don kicking in any doors to where the records are kept).

The second big distinction, and the one that makes this more than just a lukewarm retread of something the show has already tried previously, is that this time, their efforts fail. Ken toys with Roger and Pete before flatly telling them that he won’t take Dow Chemical to their fledgling SC&P West, and then in the meeting between the SC&P partners and the top brass at McCann, Jim Hobart shuts down another patented Don Draper pitch before Don can even get through the proposal. Instead, he offers a pitch of his own, one that seems to rival the persuasive power of Don’s best pitches. Each of the partners perks up at the offerings Jim pulls out of his bag of goodies: Roger would get Buick; Pete would get Nabisco (a perfect pairing for a man stuck in perpetual adolescence); Ted would get to live the dream he described last week in handling Ortho Pharmaceutical, and Don would be handed the keys to Coca-Cola, one of the biggest brands out there, and one we know that he would be well-equipped to sell, based on his Americana-infused pitches to Kodak and Hershey.* Jim ends his pitch by telling the SC&P partners, “Stop struggling. You won.”**

* The only partner at the table for whom Jim does not seem to have anything to offer is Joan, as she points out to Pete herself in their cab ride later on. Thus she is rightly skeptical about Jim describing their absorption as an entry into the advertising "promised land." Moreover, given her and Peggy’s experience with sexist McCann employees a few episodes ago, she has a good idea of the kind of harassment she can expect there, and says nearly as much to Pete. On the other hand, Jim did say that the partners are getting five of “the most coveted jobs in advertising,” implying there will be a place for her there. She may very well be asked to maintain oversight of the Avon account. Whether or not she’ll want to, however, is another matter. The thought of retiring to have jet setting adventures with Richard and little Kevin probably looks like a very appealing prospect.

** Even though she’s not present to hear it, Peggy also follows Jim’s advice; rather than struggling to find work outside of McCann, she decides to go along with the absorption because of the boon it will provide her career. 

In certain respects, Jim might be right about the SC&P partners winning. After all, from his description, it seems as though the partners will be fully integrated into McCann’s business, accorded every bit as much responsibility (and perhaps independence) as they’ve had at SC&P. However, it still feels like a defeat, because they’re losing the company identity they’ve fought so hard to keep over the last decade, not only during the Putnam, Powell, and Lowe caper, but also through their recovery after Lucky Strike left, their struggles to land a car company, and the merger with CGC. After the meeting, the partners go to bar to celebrate/commiserate over their fates. They toast Bert Cooper here, but what they’re really toasting is the death of their agency. SC&P no longer exists. It’s the end of an era, one which just so happens to more or less coincide with the start of a new decade, and which provides a somewhat tidy resolution to the fate of Sterling Cooper, which has always been one of the more reliably entertaining plotlines from season to season.

At least, it’s a tidy resolution from our point of view. For the many employees of SC&P, things seem much less assured, as indicated by the disquieted reaction everyone has to the partners’ announcement of the agency’s absorption. Don and Roger try their best to sell them Jim Hobart’s vision of their future, but the rank and file of SC&P don’t buy it (hilariously, everything out of Roger’s mouth is met by an increase in the staff’s alarmed murmuring, and he quickly shifts from positivity to avoiding blame).* Don tries to save things by shouting, “This is the beginning of something, not the end.” However, both the staff and viewers know better. This is a disaster for the staff, and a bittersweet moment for us viewers, who are well aware that we only have three episodes left to spend in this world with these characters.

*Ultimately, it is ironic that the majority of the SC&P partners – a group of professional liars and coercive fantasy hucksters – have been sold on the fantasies of someone just as skilled as they are, if not more so. After all, Jim Hobart probably didn’t get to where he is by being bad at his job. We’ll have to see how the absorption plays out over the course of the next few episodes.

In other developments, if last week saw the resolution of one long-dormant storyline involving Betty and Glen, then this week sees something similar happen for Peggy, although it’s more of a continuance than a resolution. The story in question involves the child she had with Pete in season one, and which she gave away during the break between seasons one and two. Mad Men has touched on this part of Peggy’s story from time to time, frequently in season two, but less and less so over subsequent seasons. Recently, it’s been alluded to a handful of times, but usually subtly, and rarely as the most crucial part of a scene or sequence.* One recurrent allusion to the child: he is the primary cause for the friendly but strictly professional rapport Pete and Peggy have developed over the course of the later seasons. More obvious allusions usually come in the form of Peggy’s interaction with children. For instance, in the first half of season seven, she develops a friendship with her upstairs neighbor Julio, a boy who likely reminds her somewhat of her child, as Julio is approximately the age of Peggy’s child. Later in the season, in the midst of her Burger Chef brainstorming session with Don, she idly asks herself, “What do I know about being a mom?”

* Perhaps the most explicit reference to Peggy’s child after season two was in season four's “The Suitcase,” where Peggy tells Don she tries not to think about her child, but that sometimes “it comes up out of nowhere.” 

However, Peggy and Pete’s child returns in a big way in “Time & Life,” courtesy of her and Stan needing to cast a child for a commercial. Peggy’s stiffness with the children in the casting session is no doubt once again a product of their reminding her of the child she gave away. This connection is reinforced when Pete calls her into his office to give her the news about McCann’s absorption of SC&P, and he sees Peggy being hugged by an overenthusiastic little girl. They don’t discuss their child in the scene that follows, but it hangs in the air; it’s an unspoken link between them, and the reason he reaches out to her, specifically, with a warning of the impending absorption.

Later on, one of the auditioning children has been left behind by her mother, who needed to leave to pick up her son from school. Peggy and Stan end up taking charge of the girl, and when they aren’t paying attention, the kid accidentally staples her thumb only a few moments before the mother returns. In their ensuring argument, Peggy questions the mother’s parenting, and the mother cuts Peggy to the core by replying, “You do what you want with your children, I do what I want with mine.” Had the episode left it at that, it would have been yet one more allusion to the child Peggy gave up.

However, later Peggy opens up to Stan about why this altercation upset her so much. She eviscerates him for judging the mother when he doesn’t understand what the mother has been through, and for having a glaringly sexist double standard about the responsibilities of fathers and mothers. In the process of empathizing with the mother, she (perhaps inadvertently) leads Stan to read between the lines, and reveals that she knows the mother’s dilemma so well because she has also had a child.

It’s a nice scene, as it lets Peggy express how she feels about her decision to give up the child. This isn’t something she would want to talk to Don about, and it’s not something she can raise with Pete. Hell, it’s hardly something she can stand to tell Stan, even though he’s like her brother. She quickly closes down the conversation when Stan apologizes, but ultimately it draws them closer. Near the episode’s end, they even behave like they did when Peggy was at CGC: they work in their own offices while on the phone with each other. It’s a very sweet moment for them.
 

Pete finally gets a spotlight in this episode as well. The scene between Trudy, Pete, and the headmaster of the school was fun for a lot of reasons, not the least of which being the strong contrast between the exhausted, mutual disinterest Pete and Trudy have for each other prior to the headmaster’s arrival, and the old patter the duo effortlessly slide into when the headmaster enters the room (as illustrated by the accompanying images). They always did make quite a team, at least before Pete began his poor man’s Don Draper imitation. And of course, this scene also provided the pleasure of Pete getting outraged about something, this time an ancient, unexpected and blue-blooded east coast rivalry along the lines of the Hatfields and McCoys. Not only is Pete’s scuffle with the headmaster one fistfight he is finally able to win, but his line, “The king ordered it!” will go down as at least as memorable a line as “Not great, Bob!”

The Pete and Trudy scenes were also notable for their exchange back in Trudy’s house. Trudy is clearly fishing for sympathy from Pete when she talks about what an ordeal it has been for her to be a single mother. It’s enough to make me wonder if she wants to reconcile with him, despite his numerous flaws. Or perhaps she’s just grateful that Pete so gallantly defended Trudy’s honor in their meeting with the headmaster. On the other hand, maybe she’s just grateful that Pete isn’t being an absentee parent (for once). Notice that the headmaster describes Tammy’s admittance test – a drawing of a man – as featuring a mustache. Trudy quickly brushes past this detail when it arouses Pete’s suspicions.

And finally, finally, we get an explanation for what the hell has been going on with Ted since the start of the season. He hasn’t been replaced by a robot, had a lobotomy, or developed a very selective form of amnesia. Instead, as he tells Don late at night at SC&P, he divorced his wife and rekindled a romance with a college girlfriend, whom he describes as, “Not too young, gorgeous, and a little bit deep.” Kevin Rahm is quite good in this scene: when Ted tells Don that he has to stay in New York because his new love can’t leave, and that he can’t leave her, there’s a hint of desperation in his voice, implying that finding her has saved him. Now that my curiosity has been sated, I can say rather confidently this development is not interesting enough to have warranted a B or C plot in previous episodes. However, this still seems like something that needed to be addressed much earlier in this half-season, perhaps in a conversation between Ted and Peggy, rather than kept as a background mystery and an impediment to our understanding Ted’s behavior. The first season of the show derived some intrigue from withholding information about Don’s past, but Ted is far too marginal a character for this mini-mystery to have been anything other than annoying. I suppose I should just let it go, or as Jim Hobart puts it, I should stop struggling, and enjoy the win of another great episode.

Other thoughts:

- Jared Harris directed the episode. Lane Pryce has come back from the grave to orchestrate the lives of the characters for a week, and he does a good job of it. There were good performances here, and some great cinematography.

- I’m glad we got a little taste of Ken toying with Pete and Roger. The scene that opens the episode is particularly rich, as Ken immediately sets aside the doubts he expressed to Pete about a campaign strategy once Don reassures him. Ken has no interest in antagonizing Don, as they were often on good terms.

- Diana left two messages for Don on his answering service. Thankfully, she skipped town before he could meet up with her again, sparing us more of Don’s romantic fumbling.

- I enjoyed Joan’s slow saunter into Roger’s office after he bellows twice for her near the start of the episode. Seems the appropriate response to such an obnoxious beckoning.

- Check out the three different reactions Caroline, Dawn, and Shirley all give Roger when he tells them they're all fired before hearing the full story about the lease. Caroline (and Joan) knows Roger is just being petulant, but Dawn is visibly upset, not realizing Roger has the bark of an asshole but the bite of a playful dog. Shirley, meanwhile just looks angry. It’s not often that dramas show simultaneous reaction shots of characters, especially when the reactions differ, because doing so makes it more difficult for us to process the mental states of the characters (which we do one at a time). It’s more common in comedies, however, and thus its use here in what is supposed to be a comedic moment.

 - An example of some nice cinematography: Joan calls Richard in the wake of the absorption news, and the imagery conveys her feeling of powerlessness by making her appear very small in the frame, dwarfed by the trappings of her office. Don gets a somewhat similar treatment in the scene immediately following this one, although it’s not as pronounced (which makes sense, considering he comes up with the plan for SC&P West a few moments later).

- So long, Lou! Not only does Lou get in a last laugh when he tells off Don prior to leaving to work on his cartoon in Japan, but as my roommate pointed out, for all the talk in last week’s episode about having goals and desires for the future, Lou is one of the few characters that is actually actively pursuing his dreams. My response: while this may very well be true, he’s still worthless.

- Lots of reaction shots of Meredith being concerned in this one, and for once, it’s not some faux-concern for Don borne of her juvenile fantasies about him, but a genuine concern over her own future. It was refreshing to see her register the potential for negative consequences for once, and for her to give Don some guff for not reassuring her (and for telling Don to knock it off with the “sweetheart” business). She also gets credit for putting together what’s going on with McCann on her own (although doubtless she could hear Roger bellowing about it in Don’s office earlier in the episode). Moreover, she astutely observes that in a month Don will have neither an office nor an apartment. She’s overreacting, but what if she’s also somewhat prescient? With both his home and office in flux, it could potentially be very easy for Don to dissolve the fiction of his life, and to return to being Dick Whitman (certainly McCann would not be destitute without him).

- Ah, Roger, I’ll miss your witticism perhaps most of all. When Pete is skeptical that Ken would be willing to take Dow Chemical’s business to SC&P West considering Ken’s dislike of Pete and Roger, Roger replies, “But he loves feeling the tip of your nose in the seat of his pants.”

- Lots of great cinematography in this one, which was full of symmetrical, planimetric framings. Feast your eyes on these beauties (in addition to many of the shots I've placed above):

 

 - Looks like Harry has taken over Bert’s old office. How appropriately ghoulish of him.

- I like the series of explanations Trudy, Pete, and the headmaster cycle through for why Tammy hasn’t been accepted to the school: she’s mentally underdeveloped; they’re divorced; Trudy only submitted an application to this particular school; an ancient family (or clan!) rivalry; Trudy being single is disruptive because of all the married men who hit on her; they haven’t greased enough palms. This is like Pete running through a list of arguments to convince a client of something.

- Another interesting byproduct of Don and company’s attempts to maintain SC&P’s independence is that it seems to have repaired some of the damage in Don and Joan’s relationship, given their exchange in the bar after the meeting with McCann. This makes sense, as she appreciates Don’s efforts to preserve the company that Joan sacrificed so much for.

- Another nice callback to the early years of the series: Don and Roger share a drink (or twelve) in a dimly lit bar and commiserate about their lives. Roger tells Don his lineage is done, as Margret is his only daughter. He essentially writes off little Kevin because Joan won’t let him acknowledge his paternity. At least he’s respecting Joan’s wishes, even in the private confidences of his closest friend.

- Don warns Roger that Marie is crazy once Roger reveals that they’ve been seeing each other. I like that Roger responds by essentially calling Don a hypocrite, pointing out that Don’s negative (even hostile) reaction to Roger marrying his secretary did nothing to deter Don from doing nearly the exact same thing a few years later with Megan (although technically weren’t both Jane and Megan Don’s secretaries?). It leaves me wondering who the equivalent of Marie would be for Don. Trudy? Jane's mother? Margaret?

- Also fun: another scene between Dawn and Shirley, especially because Shirley comes up with the wonderful suggestion of better monitoring Meredith’s whereabouts by putting a bell on her.

- There is perhaps no greater indication that McCann's absorption of SC&P is not the boon Jim Hobart claims it to be than Harry chiming in during the company-wide meeting, shouting to everyone that it's a good thing. Historically, Harry has been the most consistently clueless about the meaning of shifting winds at the agency. Keeping my fingers crossed that the absorption leads to his being fired. Then he can go sleaze it up with Danny Seigel at Los Angeles pool parties.

- Another thing I’m hoping for: before the series concludes, I hope to see at least one more time-tested, doctor-approved Don Draper pitch, one not aborted, interrupted, handed off to other characters, or sabotaged by mental breakdowns, earthquakes, volcanoes, alien invasions, or other disturbances. Don has never been as electric as he was when pitching his strategy for Kodak’s Carousal back in season 1, effortlessly weaving his approach to their product into the bittersweet fantasy of his personal life. I hope for a scene that tries to recapture that magic again before the sun sets on the series. It might be in the form of a conversation between characters rather than a pitch to a client about a product, but I hope it’ll be there in some form.