Commentary
Episode 613: 'In Care Of,' Or, All Fun And Games Until Someone Is Shot In The Face
- by June 24, 2013
Season six began in hell -- well, actually, Don Draper was physically in Hawaii, lying on the beach next to his adoring, model-perfect, bikinied wife.
That would be the average person’s heaven. But with his trademark penchant for self-sabotage and creating chaos, Don brought along his own hell -- "Dante’s Inferno" -- courtesy of his downstairs neighbor Sylvia. She turned out to be another in his perplexing bevy of dark-haired mistresses who provide a sexual diversion. That allows Don’s mind to be someplace else, no matter where he is or what he’s supposed to be doing.
And for that reason, this was our season of disconnect and discontent.
Really, if Don can’t seem to get it together enough to be present and engaged, why should we? After a few of the weaker episodes, it was a little hard to hang in there with ole handsome puss, with his thoughtless, booze-related disappearances and bewildering screw-ups. It was painful to watch him so senselessly and repeatedly damage himself, his agency partners, his career, his marriage, his one male friendship, and worst and most unforgivable of all, his daughter’s psyche. Enough already!
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From his own hell, back to heaven -- there was talk of a quick exit to California that never panned out, as that’s the place to which he typically flees.
And yet, the season ended on Thanksgiving, with a cornucopia of things to be thankful for. (One of them was
Joan’s little gold horn pin on her suit collar. She is an account executive on Avon now!)
If you recall, the first season also ended on Thanksgiving, with Don in an empty house, stripped of his family. This episode, “In Care Of,” was all about properly caring for children and those you should cherish, and the idea of going “home.” And it showed how all that discomfort and pain along the way brought Don to a place where he could no longer hide.
The superb and moving final minutes of the finale showed Don and his kids standing in front of a rundown old Victorian whorehouse in a dilapidated neighborhood in a rust belt town of Pennsylvania. There’s a little African-American boy on the porch, sucking a red ice pop.
Unlike in Hawaii, where his thoughts were of death, here, in this grim and crumbling part of town, Don could come clean, and be light and free. Silhouetted in his black fedora against the cloudy blue sky, he could for the first time really look at the daughter he injured so badly, because he was finally free of the lies that he had invented to save himself, but were now destroying him.
And Sally, played by Kiernan Shipka, an actress who is so good she gives me goose bumps, could, in turn, look up and lock eyes with her father. For the first time, she could see him for the “fixer-upper” adult he is.
Don is now the empty house of his childhood. He is a monumental wreck in need of reconstruction, which will
also result in the repair of Sally’s “broken” family.
I like to think that what finally allowed Don to hit bottom was, first, spending a night in jail after punching
out a minister and blacking out. (I loved his line, “Jesus had a bad year.”) But more importantly, he could also see that Sally was in so much pain that she was mimicking all of his
addictive and avoidance behaviors.
Traumatized from having caught him in the saddle with Sylvia, and trying to bury that vision and fit in at boarding school, she faked her name on an ID,
got drunk, and was placed in Miss Porter’s version of the hoosegow: the Infirmary. In a lovely phone call with his ex, Don was quick to tell “Birdie” (also now seemingly caring and
soft) that she shouldn’t blame herself.
The pitch-perfect choice of music that underscored the ending, Joni Mitchell's “Both Sides Now” as sung by Judy Collins in 1967, refers to the show’s theme of twinness and duality; but the song also lent just the right note of gravity and wistfulness to the proceedings. The song acknowledges that even with the passage of time -- and, one hopes, with achieving some wisdom and maturity -- it’s “clouds’ illusions I recall. I really don’t know clouds at all.”
It was a bravura bit of writing and direction from Matt Weiner, and a pretty brilliant way to end the season. Don is now a clean slate. We don’t know if
his suggestion of a “bicoastal” life (the first New Yorker ever to use that word!) with Megan means a separation or an estrangement. But in a pre-intervention style
intervention, his work partners finally called him on his shit (with the Hershey meltdown, Roger told him he “shit the bed”) and told him to take an extended leave of absence.
The icing on Don’s icing was running into Duck at the elevator, who was shepherding in a new executive candidate.
No wife, no job, no particular allegiance to New York, and no drinking. The possibilities for Don next season are endless.
Now let’s get to the other doppelgangers: Pete is bloodied and bowed but seems ready for his own redemption -- now freed from his mother, who went overboard (in many ways), while in the care of manservant Manny, who, as Bob tells Pete, “couldn’t hurt a fly.” A Spanish fly?
Not only did Bob not respect Pete’s demands to get Manny (Marcus Constantine, the name of two Roman Emperors!) away from his mother, but the two-fisted coffee bringer also manipulated a way to get Pete fired from Detroit. Turns out Pete can’t drive a stick (slightly symbolic) and knocked over a GM sign in a comic scene.
I was hoping for at least another severed limb -- but nothing was injured, except for Pete’s ego. He returned to New York, his home, but now without a home. In
taking some of his mother’s furnishings, “the highboy” (an apt description of Pete’s condescending ways) and a chair, he tells Trudi that he drove with “a chair tied to
the roof of the car like the Beverly Hillbillies.”
That’s quite a step down for a Dyckmann -- perhaps he’s sufficiently humbled to realize what he thoughtlessly gave up in his life with Trudy in an attempt to be Don Jr. Trudy tells him he’s “free” now, and he answers that it’s not the way he wanted it.
His moment with Tammy in saying goodnight to her was touching. Sleeping the sleep of the beloved was the theme of the evening, along with reinventing oneself in California. That’s where Pete’s headed; indeed, in 1968, it was a beacon of “free-ness,” a sun-kissed place sans history where you could easily reinvent yourself.
That’s why Stan had the intention to go out there -- and it was shocking that Don not only stole the idea, but parroted his exact words about “homesteading” to Megan.
Now to Peggy. Before this episode, a friend on Facebook was fuming that, as a young woman in 1968, with Twiggy coming on the scene and mod clothing and miniskirts abounding, Peggy “should be the hippest person in the room,” but looks so dowdy. My friend said she looked like an “account executive.”
That’s surely intentional. Peggy is a rigid personality, and she is as bad a picker of clothing as she is a picker of men.
That’s why the scene of her in the low-cut black mini-dress with the pink bow was so dramatic. It wasn’t exactly chic, but she sure looked young and sexy, in an attempt to make Ted
jealous. Last week, she called Don a “monster,” and she thought Ted was the opposite.
But after their lovemaking, Ted turned out to be similar to Don, since he thought he was giving Peggy a gift by fleeing to California with his family, and
magnanimously allowing her to go on with her life alone. “At least you get a decision!” she snaps. In the end, Peggy is wearing a pantsuit (for the first time!) in Don’s
office, staying there to get work done over the holiday. She tells Stan that she’s there because it’s “where everything is.” Indeed, in her world, that office is
everything. For Don it was hell, will it be her heaven?
Certainly, the agency won’t function well with one creative director in California, and Peggy in New York minus Don.
But Weiner has the right idea in showing the ad migration to the West. Jay Chiat started Chiat/Day in 1968, and increasingly California was becoming a magnet for hot agencies. If the crew ends up in L.A., will “Mad Men” become more about thinly disguised TV writers?
And how will Don function stripped bare? The phrase now would be that Don is finally “standing in” or “owning” his “truth.” In the language of that time, Don finally achieved “consciousness.” With addicts, however, relapses are often part of the process.
The world is blowing up in 1968 and 1969, and as we get closer to the times that we actually remember living through, it becomes tougher for Weiner to make it credible. Joni put her finger on it: “But something’s lost and something’s gained in living every day.”
At least Don and Sally are out of hell. And sadly, we are now in purgatory, waiting.
Thank you, commenters, for all the great insights and generosity. It’s been a blast. Please tell me what you thought of the finale, and what you predict for next season.
You wrote: "...The world is blowing up in 1968 and 1969, and as we get closer to the times that we actually remember living through,..." Apparently this is not your era. For those of us who were there the part coming up is less relevant than the one they have already covered. What came next requires Sally's generation, the Boomers...
another point about the the Hershey's presentation-- Don was starting to go into his usual Carousel-like pitch about nostalgia.
Then he equated chocolate with love-- the only love he felt in his miserable young life. And that the bar was the same "inside and outside." He remembered something pure and untainted-- and told the clients not to advertise.
That indeed was the case-- Hershey's didn't advertise until the early '70s,and the account went to Ogilvy & Mather, an agency that used the same ampersand as the one in Don's agency's new logo. The spots were all about children enjoying "The Great American Chocolate Bar."
LOVE! “fixer-upper” adult. Brilliant. I would predict that Betty and Don get back together. They at least created something they both lacked; life. They are dead in the same way but coming back to life because running from it didn't work. They are the same person and now they both have something to save - their children. Perhaps by saving the kids they will save themselves. Meagan lives in an illusion and I'm hoping she finds true love in CA and leaves the show because I'm not sure I can watch her mouth navigate her teeth for another season. Peggy is like many women I knew in the advertising world. If you wanted to crack the glass ceiling the office was your life - I'm hoping next season brings her an epiphany. If she isn't careful she will become Don in a dress.
Nice recap of what I thought was one of the better episodes. Looking forward to your perspectives next season!
One note - despite the actual campaign coming out in the 50’s, was really hoping that the injured Ken would somehow get to pitch the Hathaway Shirt account…he’s got the look!
Thanks, Barbara, for the dissection and comments! Always thoughtful and well written. I think Don will reinvent himself in california/ hawaii, with and agency named don's ho s, a tribute to the ever popular Hawaii 5-0 and one of it's actors.
The first episode that brought me near to tears; instead of a cliffhanger with dread, we have some hope for Don, and the rest of them. And a season of great writing, thank you (and comments that made this all the more fun). One prediction I have for next year: Bob Benson will be shot, with Pete Campbell's .22 rifle. Either by Pete or by Roger. This shooting will result in wounds more serious than the superficial ones that Kenny suffered.
I absolutely loved the ending. It was moving and majestic. And promising, for both Don and Sally. The Hershey theme had typical Mad Men duality all over it. It's a man and a chocolate bar. A town and a treat.
Predictions? I think we have to first ask what year it will be set in. Is it possible the show will jump a decade or more?
Oh, m khay, Don Ho was a Hawaiian singer, not a regular cast member on Hawaii 5-0. (Although I believed he had a cameo or two during it's run.) He was most famous for "Tiny Bubbles." I believe the actor you're thinking of is Kam Fong Chun, who played Chin Ho Kelly. (I lived in Hawaii for 4 years; they drill these things into you.)
Its. Not it's. (Bruins lost last night; I'm out of sorts.)
Just as Roger said to Benson: “I’m keeping an eye on you,” we are all keeping an eye on the program, details and MM series. Ted commented—“We can’t find Draper---again.” More eyes on Don.
I thought when Don talked about Hershey it felt similar to one of my favorite episodes---Don’s new business presentation to Kodak. Don said “Hershey is the currency of affection and love.” “Currency” didn’t seem the right word for the ‘60’s.
Great choice to use Hershey. To this day, it is an example I use in my marketing and advertising classes they can’t seem to stick to “push” or “pull” strategies. Promoting to the trade or advertising to consumers. M&M’s and Mars have done a better, strategic job of advertising and new product development supported by consumer advertising. From the 60’s to the 2000’s, and today. WSJ/AdAge likes to use them as an example of what not to do.
Ted said to Don: “You can’t stop cold like that.” Unfortunately we have to. Can’t wait ‘til 2014.
Nice recap of a corker of a closer. Don had to hit bottom (again) and it's good to see him rise like a hungover, wounded phoenix from the ashes of all he's burned along the way.
A perfect re-set for what portends to be an amazing finish to this incredible series. Thanks for your insights and analysis, Barbara.
As Weiner says, this episode was about reconciliation - Don with Sally (and maybe Betty), Roger with Joan and Kevin, Ted with his wife and Pete with himself. The ending scene might be one of the best scenes in TV history. And the episode also contained one of the best lines in TV history, when Pete said about his Mom: "She always loved the sea". Almost fell off my chair when he said that. So where do we go from here? I do see Don continuing to 'come clean', but can he do it on his own or will he crawl back to SC&P? He may have to do the latter so we keep Roger, Joan, et al involved in the script. I see Peggy taking a much larger role in season 7, much like women with her talent and drive did when I worked in NY in the late 60's/early 70's. And kudos to Leslie for suggesting Megan go quietly into the sunset, leaving us with the best line in this dialogue: "I'm not sure I can watch her mouth navigate her teeth for another season." Bingo!
I was surprised to be moved twice in the show. I'm surprised to be be moved by any show (The Wire, Sopranos, Homicide: Life in the Streets).
But Don getting fired (leave is a euphemism) was what productive people in advertising often face when the unproductive people hold the cards, the chips, the stock, the power. Even the meeting before the meeting is a recurring theme in a life spent in advertising (or maybe any enterprise with levels). The guy he meets getting off the elevator has to be his Creative Director replacement candidate, one whose "going down" line shows his class. Of course the second is the presentation + house call. (I only met one person capable of making that presentation in the ad business: Carl Ally. But he owned 67% of the chips and the stock and 100% of the power). I hope the ending means Don comes back and wins and is a hero, not defeated, not another dead Tony Soprano. The heroes on the show are all women: Joan and Peggy and Megan, although Joan wimped out in the partners' meeting consigning Don to Limbo (Dante reference there) and Peggy will take her first mentor's job cheerfully (or as cheerful as a Scandinavian Catholic from Brooklyn can be) and Megan (award-winning copywriter, star of a soap opera, soon to be Hollywood) is loyal without much reason. Oh, one other thing moved me...this time to laugh: The Roy Goodman poster in a bar. Moynihan, yes; Goodman--unless he had a DUI conviction along the way--was the straightest of State Senators in my district for a lifetime of 2-year terms.
Great recap of a hell of a finale, Barbara. There were some beautifully written lines in the finale; one of my favorites was when Don was coming clean about his childhood to the Hershey execs, and recounted how the hooker would give him a Hershey Bar if he got more than a $1 from a john's pants; he describes going into his room and for that time he was a normal boy, and that he would unwrap the bar and eat it "with much ceremony". Gorgeous phrasing.
But the final scene, in front of the dilapidated house, wow. I rewound and watched it 3 times it was so stunning. The look on Sally's face as she looks at her father - seemingly really looks at him for the first time - and the way they locked eyes as the perfect "Both Sides Now" plays...it was like looking at a perfect painting.
Fabulous finale. I cannot add to what the others have already written. All great observations and comments. I wept when I heard "Both Sides Now." Killer. Just wanted to thank you, Barbara, for excellent insights and commentary on this season. II will miss these de-constructions as much (or more) than I will miss MM until next year.
Oh, yes, and how about Don watching "Bewitched" in the bar before he thumps the bible thumper and lands in jail?
Don watching Darren, now that's entertainment.
I agree that the final minutes were as magnificent as a great painting! It was like a Hitchcock shot crossed with the emotion (not as hokily manipulated) of a Spielberg shot. Matthew Weiner is a genius director. And so many references to the past and loose ends that are kept track of!
The final scene, showing Don and his children all in a row, backs to us, facing out into Don's past, mirrors last year's final closing image with Don and ad team all in row, backs to us, standing in their yet-to-be-constructed new office space, facing out into, well, perhaps a sterling future (at least from last year's perch).
Columns can surely be written about where this will go -- as Don confronts his past head on, present-tensing his past to his children...
And so I look forward to reading your superb columns next season, Barbara. Thank you for this season.
The technique of final piece of music seems to be done a lot these days for a lot of shows. Anyone know the genesis of that? Sopranos had a bunch of music themes (even two Cd's), but I don't think the ending music which has been such a signature for Mad Men. Weiner interviewed in Times today: says only one more season. Too bad. Seems there are lot of things to play on and keep fresh while playing out the old lives and themes. Weiner said he doesn't read mad men blogs anymore. Can understand that in a way.
I think, based on the quality of the episodes this year, that one more year will be just about right. They can still end up on top. The closing scene, the music, and the circumstances, lead me to wonder when and whether Don will even get back in the business. We may find that, in deciding not to be the ultimate liar, he finds a truth in his family that is more important, and more important than this business.
That is not to imply that this business is for or about liars. But Mad Men implies that the liars in the show all have found places in it, to fool themselves or others.
Great point about the mirroring of the scenes, Ivy. That was really dramatic-- staking out the new floor, and Joan spraying an "X."
The final final for season 5 was that great tracking shot, where Don leaves the manufactured fakeness of Megan's set, where he was obviously unhappy, to walk into a bar, and be asked if he's "alone."
I guess the existential message is that we are always alone!
@Jonathan-- I wondered the same thing. Now that he's not such a master liar, what will he do?
Then again, it won't be a show without him and advertising!
Terrific finale for the series' weakest season, and it's not even close. Let's hope Don Draper really can change and this isn't another cruel tease before the final coup de grace.
Maybe the "Bewitched" scene was a bit of foreshadowing? Darrin was an ad man after all...Next season Mad Men will be a typical 60's sitcom?
: }
I'm surprised no one has mentioned Peggy in silhouette sitting in Don's office chair in exactly the position & posture of (presumably) Don in the show's title sequence. Might she not get that job, a la Mary Wells?
Amazing episode! I too was teary-eyed at the end. Sally had said to her dad she didn't know anything about him, and here he is sharing part of his past, his life, with her.
Speaking of which, his new-found transparency almost seems fake, forced. This guy's been secretive for the majority of his adult life, and now he's sharing scary secrets with prospective clients?! It was unbelievable to me. Do we know if he's going to AA (did AA exist then?), and if so, would this have caused him to "come clean" with God and everyone?
My second favorite part was when Peggy was sitting in Don's chair and turns her back on the camera, and gives her head a slight tilt to the right ala Don. She is a female Don, and like it or not, he was and continues to be her mentor in work and in life and love.
I predict Don goes to California for his forced sabbatical (he's always loved it there), and plays househusband while Megan does the Hollywood thing, but that seems to transient. I don't see him staying in NY for his break from the firm, but we won't know until he comes back.
Great writing, Barbara! Can't.wait.til.2014!
Maybe Don has found the ultimate ad gimmick: truth.
Now he just needs clients who see that. Consumers already buy into it.
Totally agree about "Both Sides Now." Nice music placement.
I figured out last night that we've all spent close to 60 hours with these characters over the last six years. So I'm thinking the best way to think of Mad Men is as a sprawling, decade-long novel. In which case, Season 6 is just a piece of a great long trajectory, and to my mind, really pretty satisfying. We all know that Season 7 will hardly be a long perfunctory rebirth of DD. That would be boring. So he will continue to fall down, and get up again, and we get to watch it unfold. How great is that?
Barbara, like everyone else I've been thrilled all season by your introspection and will miss these weekly gatherings. As for this episode, I never gave it much thought before, but I always had the sense that Don grew up in some godforsaken Dust Bowl state. When I saw the dilapidated house (which looked more like the south Bronx than the Rust Belt, which was still booming in the 60's), I thought to myself that it was probably a grand home 30 or 40 years ago - I'm surprised newly cynical Sally didn't suggest that. Regarding Pete, I'm surprised he didn't use the nuclear option with Bob, i.e. suggesting to GM he was a homosexual - that would have blackballed him in Detroit for sure. Finally, I don't think Betty has ever ended a phone call with "good-bye". She must have missed class the day they taught the girls at Miss Porter's how to graciously end a phone call.
When Don called Betty "Birdie" I think Megan got it although she didn't want it. Being married was important but out in the world she is seeing that divorced could work especially with alimony in NY. Don has at least one more marriage in him, maybe two. I remember one man with some Don in him in the biz who married and divorced one of his 4 wives twice. Then that one night in jail all of sudden he realizes where he is and what he has to do to make it better ? The time line bothers me. But we will see. Relapses are common. Anyway, what is always missed most is your synopsis and your fan club's additions. Thank you ever so much for one of the best columns ever. See you on The View.
the whore-house:
http://franklinavenue.blogspot.com/2013/06/we-found-it-actual-la-location-of-don_25.html
Great stuff all around! Thanks, Maddy Mud, for showing us that Weiner CGIed his way to smokestack PA i via a corner in LA.
INTERESTING interview with peggy (moss) in which she hoped that don would have a redemption....i would too, but professionally mostly....to see him crush those guys who fired him.......that is, i would think, one of the best revenges of an advertising person "let go"
A lot of fun, this show and this blog. They have a show on amc following the walking dead called the talking dead.....perhaps you (barbara) could pitch amc on doing a similar post-partum for next season and for re-runs running up to the debut.......
great idea, Tom! and I know who my droogies on the show should be!
I maintain that Don's professional redemption would be to conduct himself honestly within the business, give his family precedence in his life, and show the people within the show who posture and prostitute themselves (how about that?) that there is success and reward from honesty. Boy that sounds religious. Next year's conflicts will come from what he wants to or should do, vs. what he's really capable of. Peggy would see Don's attempts at success and become a nun. Pete would emulate Don's striving for honesty by shooting Bob.
@Jonathan-- Ha! A nun, a killer, and an honest man walk into a bar....
Maybe Don and Pete will start their own agency in LA??