A lot of TV series do status quo-altering season finales, then take a handful of episodes at the start of the next year to reset things to the default, and “Mad Men” could have very easily done that here. Betty has already taken Don back once and could do it again, and while the new firm lacks Kinsey and Sal and some others, enough of the familiar faces have relocated there that it could easily become, as Weiner puts it in our interview, “Sterling Cooper in a new office.”
But even though Don expertly throws Henry’s words back at him by telling him, “Believe me, Henry, everybody believes this is temporary,” it’s clear that the end of the Draper marriage, and the professional changes going on at the new firm, are permanent. “Public Relations” signals a show that’s looking forward, not back.
It could be that Don having to be so out front at the new firm - more public, less the corner office creative genius than the entire face of the company, makes him so uncomfortable he's off his game. Bert and Roger, who have been through the tough times themselves, make it very clear to Don that the Advertising Age interview was a disaster. You're the face of the company, Don. You're in the spotlight. So start dancing. And keep smiling. This, of course, is not what he's cut out for. But it's just another big change for Don. He's dealing with Betty, who's being vindictive and cold, and still living in the house they shared (which is bugging Henry, too). Work life and personal life not going great? Faux perfection that you mastermined (sic) all gone to hell? Then what does it all mean? Who are you and what are you? (Oh, and by the way, the world is shifting under your feet, incrementally...) Yeah, Don's adrift. But it's nothing some cash and a few slaps can't temporarily fix. Dark days ahead? Oh, you bet.
What also stood out is the level of Betty's bitterness, meanness and unhappiness. Now, everybody's known that was present. But in the past, Don was the easy answer to explain it all away. Now that Betty has her Dream Marriage version 2.0, what do we see? That she's a cold, perhaps unloving mother. That in under a year she's got Henry wondering what the hell he got into. But as interesting as some of that will be going forward, the bigger story here is what creator Matthew Weiner will do with Betty. She's in danger of being one-dimensionally irrelevant. Either that's a bold creative decision, or the writers need to give her something different (like Don's face-slapping, but, yes, different). She needs to either be redeemed in some small way, or her inherently unlikable nature needs to maximized in some monstrous way.
Peggy’s the person who’s changed most notably over the last year. I’m not sure which came first: the new hairstyle or the added confidence, but both are hard to miss. She drinks at work like the boys and, when asked to come up with a tagline, goes into a Don-like trance as she searches for inspiration. She bosses Joey around and tells him when he’s gone too far. And she’s not afraid to get creative to sell ham and wants credit for her idea, even if it encounters a minor disaster along the way. Most significantly, she’s standing up to Don at every turn now. He bullies her in front of her “fiancé” but hears about it later. And she provides a devastating mixture of admiration and chiding when she reminds Don that everyone at SCDP is there because of him and out of a desire to make him happy. It cuts enough that he leaves her out of the meeting, but I don’t think Peggy and Don are done sorting out the new boundaries of their relationship.
That’s a problem Don has on the homefront, too. Betty has a new life, but it’s still tangled up with his. The issue of her not leaving the house is more than a matter of convenience or wanting the best for the kids, no matter how much she protests. Despite her marriage to Henry, she’s still defining herself in relation to Don, even if now she’s mostly acting to spite him.
Stray comments from me
The 11 month jump forward to November of 1964 seems to signal the scuttling of creator Matthew Weiner's previously stated intention to do Mad Men as a 5 season show that ended in 1970.Will we ever see Paul or Kent again? What about Sal?
Not enough Joan.
Roger Sterling continues to get all the best lines. Stunningly, his mid-life crisis marriage appears to be the most stable romantic relationship in the Mad Men universe. What were the odds on that? He's also very familiar with his client's swimsuit catalog.
Don bombed the last pitch on purpose, right?
