Mad Men Season 6 Premiere: Some Thoughts
I’m sure that anything that needs to be written about the Season 6 premiere of Mad Men has been written already. But I watched it last night, and it really moved me, so I thought I’d write a few words. As a warning, some spoilers are below.
The whole episode felt like dreaming. Each introduction into the characters’ narratives was staged in such a way that the viewer — or rather, I — had the sense that I was wandering into some sort of bizarre, entirely disconnected conversation that had no reference point. The scenery looked familiar, but there were characters I didn’t recognize, and things I hadn’t been told. Who, for instance, was the Lolita-esque violinist Sandy, and why was she living in the Francis household with Betty?
And why did Betty turn to Henry in bed, and suggest that he rape Sandy? Although her character is cruel, the salacious, drawn out description felt less like an utterance, and more like a strange thing someone would say in a dream — or in a Murakami novel. It had an air of casual absurdity.
And when did Megan Draper become a soap opera star? The narrative never lays out the backstory— rather, the viewer is clued in when she’s standing at a dinner in Hawaii, and someone comes to ask for her autograph.
To me, it all seemed like it was happening inside Don Draper’s head. He exists at such a remove from life — he notices things only sporadically, because most of the time, he is trapped in the dungeon of his own mind. The world moves forward without him. It reminded me so much of the way that I sometimes feel during periods of exquisite sadness — there’s a lack of desire to engage with those around me, but a sort of painful pleasure in observing them. I feel both nothing at all, and everything — a boyfriend can register just as an object who shares my bed, but the sight of a man reading a newspaper on the subway can move me to tears.
I thought the whole bit with the soldier at the bar was one of the more brilliant moments in television history. Don Draper, who clearly has emotionally detached from Megan, leaves her sleeping in bed, and ends up meeting a young man who is on leave from Vietnam. The air of death hangs about them both. Draper, because he’s getting older; the soldier because he might not survive the war. “One day I’m gonna be a veteran in paradise. One day I’ll be the man who can’t sleep and talks to strangers,” the soldier tells Draper. That paradise, I think, will be heaven.
Draper ends up giving away the soldier’s bride, in an early morning celebration on the beach; the rest of the episode, he cannot shake the soldier. Death has clung to him, and it will not be ignored.
Part of being creative is having those moments — or rather, opening yourself up to them. Some people would meet a drunk soldier at a bar, and make it into a running joke, or an anecdote about their trip. Most people wouldn’t be open to the encounter at all — they’d be in bed, or in close proximity of their “herd.” But Draper, himself numb, is like a sponge — when he cannot feel himself, he absorbs feelings off other people. And then, after he’s processed whatever they’ve offloaded on him — their impending deaths, the bittersweet reality that their marriages may never work — he turns them into something creative that can be shared with the world.
The show stopped feeling like a dream only in the final scene, when Don knocks on a door, and is let in the back entrance to his neighbor’s apartment, where it is revealed that he is sleeping with his neighbor’s wife. He tells her he read the copy of Dante’s “Inferno” that she gave him — it was what he was reading when the episode opened. Part of the reason why Draper sleeps with women is because they already know that he is flawed, in the very act of cheating. He can be more himself in the act of doing something wrong than he can be while he’s in bed with Megan, acting the perfect husband.
Affairs are less about sex than they are about succumbing to weakness. It’s hard to stay faithful to someone not because you get bored of them sexually, but because the commitment is pure. Like a priest who takes the cloth, a marriage, when it’s faithful, is a sacred act. It’s hard — or I think it must be hard — to keep it unadulterated, especially when you don’t feel like you deserve it. When, at your core, you are yourself not pure.
I thought it was all very beautiful. I’m in fact almost crying as I’m writing about it. A few other thoughts I had were that it’s a shame that no one eats meatball subs anymore, because they’re delicious, and sideburns look absolutely terrible. I hope they don’t come back into fashion.
Watching the show took a lot out of me, though. Caleb was in his studio last night. After the episode ended, I went in bed, and lay in the darkness for a while, thinking about private things that I’ve never shared with anyone before.
