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Mad Men: "Hands and Knees"

It’s all Don Draper’s fault.

Last season, around this time, with his back up against the wall, Don Draper found out something about himself; he wanted more from life. He wanted to build something rather than skate along through it while trying to keep a low profile. The idea that if no one knew who he was, how could they be disappointed when they found out was dashed as soon as Betty discovered the truth about Dick Whitman. Forced to confront his past, he finally confessed to her who he was. In “Hands and Knees,” he’s at the same point but it’s not just his marriage and family that hangs in the balance, it’s his own life as the United States government has to start poking into the past of Don Draper. A simple ad job threatens to upend the small amount of security he has as words like “security clearance” and “background checks” begin to be heard around the hallways of Sterling Cooper Draper Price.

But you look at the other partners in this episode—Roger fighting to keep SCDP together on two fronts, Pete having to take the fall for Don’s past, Lane having to be bullied by his father and even Burt, the once proud ad man now reduced to a doddering relic, sitting around the office because he has nothing better to do. It’s all Don Draper’s fault.

For all of these men, the key men in Mad Men, the relics of a passing age, they’re hanging on to what they have by the most tenuous grips. They thought they faced the worst when Sterling Cooper was being sold off by the Brits but Don’s realization that he didn’t want to be part of some large machine dragged all of them, Peggy, Pete, Joan and Harry along on this dangerous and uncertain path. “I want to build something” Don told Roger and Burt and we all believed him at that moment, didn’t we? We could see that even as his marriage was ending, he found something to fight for in keeping his professional independence.

For whatever else it was, the old Sterling Cooper was solid; it was a rock. With Roger, Burt, Don and Lane at the helm, SC was an institution. So what was lost between the Machiavellian moments when Lane Pryce fired Don, Roger and Burt and any moment in season 4. In the old days, could Lee Garner Jr. have made Roger dress up as Santa Claus? In the old days, would the creative bullpen have been overran with frat boys and “artists” rather than business men and professionals? Maybe it’s a sign of the changing times but the dreams at the end of season 3 were never fully realized because Don simply didn’t know how to build anything. He had never built anything so how could he know what to do?

Roger also never built anything as Lee coldly reminded him even as he pulled the carpet out from under Roger. Everything Roger has is inherited from his father, the first Sterling at Sterling Cooper. In that way, Roger has more to lose as he has always been the boy with the silver spoon in his mouth. Even as he’s getting slapped down by Lee and Lucky Strikes on the business end of his life, he’s watching the destruction of his personal life as Joan is pregnant from their one night stand. He loves Joan more than he has loved either of his wives but it’s always been a game to him, a harmless flirtation. Well, a baby makes it real and when he learns that Joan is pregnant, he says everything but the right things to her.

There have been many themes in Mad Men this season but the broadest one seems like it’s the old versus the new. We’ve seen generational conflicts, racial and sexual conflicts, old husbands versus new husbands and even old loves versus new loves. The world is changing around Don Draper and for every instance where it seems like he recognizes that change, there are 10 more where he falls into his old ways, unable to accept and embrace the new. Of course Don would try to buy his daughter’s love with Beatles tickets at Shea Stadium. But also, of course he would wear earplugs to that concert. It's his fault that he has to be there in the first place.