Monsters of Television

“It’s all I have. That, and my ideas.”

Sorry everyone, but with Nick moving to Los Angeles tomorrow (perhaps to see his cancer-stricken ex-wife or have a Fellini-inspired romp with a girl), it means I get to review this week’s Mad Men. Happily, I’ve been enjoying this current season far more than I did the seasons leading up to it. The season thus far has given me exactly what I wanted: more ad agency goodness and Don Draper coming apart at the seams. But no pears yet.

However, that hot streak was doomed to die at some point, and it drank itself to death with “Waldorf Stories.” If anything, it gave me too much of what I wanted from the show, as Don’s descent in being a useless jackass is ever closer to rock bottom, and I find myself almost feeling sorry for Don.

But not as sorry as I do feel for Peggy.

“Waldorf Stories” is bound to win an award for showing the dangers of over-drinking from some alcohol awareness group (if How I Met Your Mother can earn one, so can Mad Men), but that’s probably it. The episode showcases how alcohol helps drives the ad business, especially in regards to hiring, as it managed to hire two people on two separate occasions (Don with Roger and now Danny Strong with Don). Sadly, it’s not a pretty picture, unless you turn out to be a genius, like Don (jury’s still out on whether or not Danny can cut it).

Under no other circumstances than his life having fallen apart would Don ever take a meeting toasted. But brimming with overconfidence after winning a Clio for his floor wax commercial and drunk as a skunk, Don does exactly that. For a kids’ cereal account, no less. It’s this scene that made me almost feel sorry for Don. Having seen all three seasons, we’re used to what a Draper ad pitch is: confidence, smooth, polished, and simmering. What Don delivers to the folks from Life cereal is overconfident, uneven, (ultimately) tainted, and microwaved. Any time a client said the idea didn’t make sense, or that their market wouldn’t get it, Don would wear them down with his precise insight into the mass audience’s nature. And he makes a stab at it, until he just starts pitching taglines like a rookie, hoping something sticks.

Of course what does stick is Danny Strong’s “X: the cure for the common Y” ads, and Life cereal loves it, and Don is thrilled. He’s hit another home run for SCDP! Except he hasn’t, but he doesn’t know that. Only Peggy knows it. The man pitching to Life isn’t the man who won that Clio, isn’t the man who sold Kodak on the Carousel, and isn’t the man Peggy wishes she could be. He’s a drunken slob who walked into an ad agency who happened to look like Don Draper. He spends the rest of the haze alcohol and women, not waking up until Sunday with Doris, a waitress, who thinks his name is Dick. To salvage the Life campaign, Don must hire poor Danny Strong, completing the circle of drunken hiring started with Roger (shown in flashbacks that could’ve been really interesting, but weren’t).

I should be thrilled with Don’s tumble this week, but I’m not. Because I know while Don can recognize this as a momentary stumble from his life, it’ll be covered up with some plaster and he’ll pretend it never happened. And later in the season, when all of the plastered cracks start to show again, Don will have another realization about himself that will then be ignored in season 5. So while I like seeing Don fall, I can’t see it as actual character development because I know it isn’t. It’s just a hiccup, a necessary conflict for drama that probably ultimately lead nowhere.

Peggy, on the other hand, plays up her desire to be like Don as she tries to assert herself over the new art director Stan, an oafish pseudo-bohemian type, like Kinsey but with less education. Their little game of Strip Advertising Writing is a bizarre moment for the episode, but demonstrates just how far Peggy is willing to go to be accepted. I applaud her drive, but she’s mistaking, as Stan kind of points out, smugness for confidence. Don is never smug in front of people, just unnervingly confident. Peggy isn’t there yet, and has to belittle those around her to get there, because I think she thinks that’s how Don does it.

But like Don (and Danny Strong’s character), all Peggy really has are her ideas, or better still, her perceptions of reality. And even when finding Don horribly hung over from the bender to end all benders (at least on cable television), she’s the voice that wants him to do better, wants him to shape up and be the idea of a man who so very much wants to be, and she’ll do whatever it takes to protect that perception.