Tuesday 21 September 2010

Mad Men Exhibit H – The Summer Man

Scene of crime: AMC (US)

Defendants: Writers Lisa Albert, Janet Leahy and Matthew Weiner

Case for the defence:

With us now over half-way through the fourth season - a season that has witnessed Don hit new lows and reach the nadir of waking up with waitresses who know his real name - The Summer Man sees Don start his climb back to the top. He's not failing professionally and deserves his place as SCDP partner, but personally he realises that he is not relationship partner material just yet.

We know this as the episode starts with Don narrating his diary – a trick of many a poor script, but Mad Men just about pulls it off, even if it doesn't reveal anything we don't know. At least now we know that Don is beginning to understand what kind of a man he's become.

As he struggles to regain his former composure, others lose theirs. Joan, subject to common room-quality sketches by the art team, loses it with them and with Peggy when the former secretary fires one of them. Betty too loses it, telling Henry she wants a drink when he meets a political wallah – a no-no in Henry's book. But Betty has just seen Don out on a date in the same restaurant with a suspiciously similar blonde, but a good many years her junior. 

Don's date with the Betty lookalike Bethany ends with what at the time would have got them charged with outraging the public decency, but that's probably the last we'll see of her. Instead Don asks Dr Faye out – and this time she accepts, although not after making it on her terms. After speaking about the heartache of not seeing his two-year-old son, Don does not use this as a tearjerker to wheedle his way into Dr Faye's bed but instead acts the gentleman and drops her off at her flat.

Betty's dinner date with Henry ends with a scolding and while she's upset about seeing Don – and boosted by her friend Francine saying he's a 'sad old man' – by the end she's reconciled and doesn't have a fit when Don turns up at baby Gene's second birthday as if he belonged there.

The former husband and wife seem to become adults, while Henry has regressed, driving his car into Don's boxes and then dumping them on the pavement without a look at Don.



Witness statements:

"As for Dr. Miller, I think she holds more interest for Don than she does for me as a character. Apart from the first season, I’ve always found Don’s extramarital (and now post-marital) affairs the least compelling element of the show. Not that these subplots drag, really. But Don’s parade of women has rarely yielded many interesting characters and I don’t yet see Dr. Miller as an exception, however well Cara Buono plays her. I’ve sometimes wondered if this is by design." - Keith Phipps, the AV Club

"At the onset of the episode, Don is badly winded after swimming a lap in the pool. By the end, he's easily besting an athletic lap lane competitor, easily ten years his junior. The promise for redemption is right there, evident and ripe for the taking, but will he continue on this strange new path? Was Anna's death such a motivating catalyst for self-realization that Don will actually set himself on the straight and narrow? Or is this just an extended moment of clarity, balancing on the temporary calm?

"We'd be foolish to predict anything but the latter, but it's impossible not to root for a man so desperate to right his own wrongs." - Johnny Firecloud, Crave Online

Findings:

Narrating a journal to start an episode is a crime – a crime where guilt is assumed unless innocence can be proven. The reason we do this is because in the majority of cases that come our way, voiceovers and journals don't reveal anything we don't already know and it's a lazy way to move on a story. Mad Men has received official commendation for its proper use of flashback, which also presumes immediate guilt, but with voiceover the commendation does not apply. It's not done badly, but just because it's passable doesn't mean it's not criminal.

Don's diary does not reveal much more than what we've already seen or will see and his writing is used to show that he wants to get his life back together. However, as Citizen Witness Firecloud observes, his swims do this best – at the start he gasps for air he's so out of shape, but by the end he's pacing his juniors. Likewise Don's rejection – and contrary to Dr Faye's expectation – of ending the night together and his maturity with Betty also shows his change.

Much as I agree with Firecloud's verdict on the swimming metaphor, I also agree with Citizen Witness Phipps that no woman can match those seen in the first series, Rachel Menken and Midge Daniels. Dr Faye is intelligent and independent (literally, being a consultant), but she lacks the banter and equality that Rachel and Midge had with Don. We saw Don woo Rachel and it was more gripping than this.

Joan and Peggy's confrontation did not tell us much more than what we know – that Joan is bitter over Peggy's rise to power and her status as a sex object and nothing more by the office and her husband. Mad Men gets good reports when it works subtly and this episodes was less subtle than most.

Despite these failings, the evidence presented itself well, particularly Betty's maturation, and we gladly anticipate the next piece for judicial review.

Verdict & sentence:

Lisa Albert, Janet Leahy and Matthew Weiner, your crimes, while you may not view them as major, set a poor example for others in our society. As such I am making an example of you – traffic island, two months, for Wanton Use of Voiceover.

Now to sentence the witnesses. Johnny Firecloud, you get six months in the cubes for Agonising Analogy. "There are some tectonic chess moves at play here" indeed. Take the chess set, you're going to need it in isolation, but your only partner's going to be the earth's tectonic plates. You may be waiting a while for them to make their move.

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