Mad Men season premiere recap: The New Normal

Mad Men

type

TV Show

Current Status

In Season

seasons

7

run date

07/19/07

performer

Jon Hamm, John Slattery, Elisabeth Moss

broadcaster

AMC

genre

Drama

If Megan’s true ambition was to get her colleagues to like her a little more, to see her not as a trophy wife but as a sophisticated modern woman… oh, well. The next business day, the hardened, calloused souls at SCDP couldn’t wait to feast on a breakfast buffet of shadenfreude produced by her folly. Pete wanted to strategically position himself so he could watch “Masters and Johnson” slink into work shame-faced. “Bonjour!” teased Roger before ripping into a sarcastic rendition of “Frere Jacques.” Don scowled and reminded him of the rules: We don’t make fun of our wives. Roger clarified: He was making fun of him and his nutty newfound happiness – but he apologized nonetheless. Their ex-secretary wives were “great girls… until they want something.” Roger let that hang in the air; Don walked away from it. Foreshadowing?

All Megan wanted in the remainder of this episode was to avoid any further discussion of the party. Again: Oh, well. She entered the kitchenette just as Harry was describing to Stan all the things he’d zooby zooby zoo to Megan if she was his girl. (Poor Jennifer.) Megan harbored the most bitterness for her role model: Peggy. It burned Megan that Peggy had complained about working through the weekend. (So had she.) It burned her even more that Peggy couldn’t even apologize properly when called on it. “What is wrong with you people?! You’re all so cynical. You don’t smile. You smirk.” Peggy ate her humble pie by degrees. First, she asked if Don was mad at her. Megan bristled at the disrespect. “I don’t care!” Then, finally, Peggy sincerely apologized to her. But Megan had shut down. She didn’t feel well, she said. “Am I allowed to go home?”

Don raced back to the apartment himself after Peggy bravely entered his office to apologize and explain what had happened. He found Megan preparing to clean the mess made by the piggish prigs she was quickly growing to loathe. Had she been anticipating Don’s arrival? I think yes. She threw off her housecoat. Don saw she was wearing only sexy underwear. “Don’t look at me,” she snapped. “Stop looking at me,” she protested again. “You don’t deserve it,” she hissed as she got on her hands and knees to comb the carpet of crud. “Besides,” she taunted, fanny jiggling from her cleaning, “you’re too old. You probably couldn’t do it, anyway. I don’t need an old person.” That one got Don’s engine going. He grabbed her by the arm. She presented defiance. “You don’t get to have this,” she said. “All you get to do is watch.” No: Don gets what Don wants. He wanted her – and he was damn certain she wanted him. A hard kiss, and then they hit the shag.

Afterward, spent and sorry, Don gave this explanation for why Megan’s well-meaning surprise party left him feeling disappointed, not celebrated: “The reason I didn’t want you to have that party is that I didn’t want ‘them’ in our home.” (Mad Men, Season 5: The us vs. “them” year … and there are a lot of ‘thems’ in this particular world right now, both inside and outside the office.) Don viewed his agency – the whole mad culture of Madison Avenue – as “infected.” When Megan shared that she was beginning to reconsider working where he worked (a good idea, I think), Don said: “I don’t really care about work. I want you at work because I want you.” How committed is Don to this principle? How far will we take it? Don Draper: Future counter-culture drop-out? I doubt it. And I so worry that Don – rattled by this challenge to his happiness – is now poised to sabotage his salvation, such as it is.

This recap has largely focused on the storylines that resolved last season’s major cliffhangers. But “A Little Kiss” was filled many other significant subplots, many of them about our need for significance. Pete the agency-sustaining rainmaker made a big show about needing a bigger office to host and entertain potential clients – but that was a lie. What he wanted was a singular space that affirmed his perceived importance. Namely, Pete wanted Roger’s office. Roger wasn’t about to let it go without a fight – and by that, I mean a literal ‘you-wanna-step-outside?” sidewalk showdown. Pete balked. “I thought so,” Roger said, alpha male triumphant. Still, Roger knew Pete needed to be assuaged, and so he pressured Harry into surrendering his office with his favorite weapon: Money. “Who carries a thousand dollars in cash in their pocket?” Harry asked. (Oh, maybe, say, about 1% of the population?) Harry took the bribe – and tried to stick Roger up for more. Pete bristled when heard he was getting Harry’s office; it was Roger he wanted to displace. But as he sat in his larger space, sipping an Old Fashioned, Peter stewed in his swelling sense of relevance, wearing one of those smug smirks Megan talked about.

I was most touched by Joan’s pursuit of significance in “A Little Kiss.” She was eager to end her maternity leave and get back to work for various reasons, like getting away from her visiting mother and her Book of Ruth “where thou goest I will go” moralizing about fidelity and her snarky comments about her curvier-than-usual post-pregnancy body. She also rocked Joan’s world by showing her a notice – written by Don and purchased by Roger — in the advertising section of The New York Times:

Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce

An equal opportunity employer. Our windows don’t open. We are committed to proving that Madison Avenue isn’t all wet.

It was a dunderheaded inside joke between rich white guys, suggested by Roger — a rib at the racists at Young & Rubicam. Joan immediately assumed that the boys in the title were looking to replace her. After all: No one had visited, no one had called, no one seemed to really care she wasn’t there. The sequence in which she visited the office with baby in carriage was one the episode’s very best. For a few fleeting moments, selfishness cleared and some humanizing decency broke out like sunshine. I loved how Matthew Weiner milked that infant for every possible ounce of character-oriented subtext.  “Where’s my baby!?” Roger bellowed in greeting — to Joan. She had decided to keep bike-gifting “Uncle Roger” ignorant of the truth. When Megan picked up the boy and cooed, Joan couldn’t resist wondering aloud when she and Don were going to start making a family of their own. (Don didn’t look opposed to the idea. Please: No.) Peggy wound up alone with the baby at one point – a poignant beat that turned season 2 painful when Megan suggested that she “leave him on the steps of a church” if she wanted to be rid of the responsibility. The ironies multiplied when Pete showed up. He and Peggy exchanged some furtive, knowing glances – and then she stuck him with the kid and bailed. Nice. A lovely scene between Joan and Lane cleared up the misunderstanding about the ad, affirmed Joan’s significance to the firm, and concluded with a fart. Now that’s some $30 million writing.

As the episode came to a close, we saw Sterling, Cooper, Draper, and Pryce (and junior partner Pete) dealing with the unintended consequences of yet another rash act authored by Don Draper: A lobby full of women and men, all African American, responding to the agency’s insincere NYT ad. Pete – who showed signs of being more open minded on matters of race and more wired for social justice than is peers, younger and older (he quickly, easily branded those Y&R water-bombers as “bigots” earlier in the episode) — blasted his betters for their “childish prank.” Lane shot down Don’s idea of hiring someone; the agency couldn’t afford it. Not even as a receptionist? “We can’t have ‘one’ out there!” Roger growled, as if the idea of having anyone that wasn’t a pretty white woman fronting the company violated all common sense. At that moment, a special delivery from Y&R passed through the lobby and into the clutch of partners: An African artifact and a resume. How did you interpret the artifact? Did you see it as an offensive caricature? Or a legit piece of art? Either way, Y&R had raised the stakes. more Said Colonel Sanders Bert: “Did ‘those people’ out there see that artifact come in here?” Yep. Sure did. Lane Pryce went into the lobby, announced they were only hiring secretaries, and began collecting resumes from the ladies who had them. And in this way: Change. Whether we want it — or believe in it — or not.

I’m leaving much on the table, including newly suburbanized Pete’s city-yearning and his struggles with Trudy, as well as that inspired if icky subplot involving Lane and the wallet. Since I’ve already taxed your patience with my installment-plan approach to posting, I will direct you to Ken Tucker’s meaty review of the premiere for further discussion of those points. My Mad Men recapping comes at an even greater cost: There was no bigger fan of Karen Valby’s weekly summations of this show that yours truly. She’s currently at work grappling with the cultural phenomenon that is the Real Housewives franchise. Our gain and our loss. I promise to work hard at honoring the spirit of her irreplaceable voice. Now: Your turn. I know you’ve already started the conversation; look forward to reading your thoughts on the premiere and engaging when possible.

Twitter: @EWDocJensen