drupal stats

Now what? Thoughts on Mad Men "Public Relations"

“Who is Don Draper?”

It should be a simple question.  It is a reporter’s question, trying to do a simple profile piece on the new creative darling of Madison Avenue, Don Draper.  Or is that Dick Whitman?  It echoes a question from last season, as Don was trick or treating with his family and a neighbor jokingly asked “who are you supposed to be?”  In “Public Relations,” the first episode of season 4, Draper brushes off the question.  It’s not one he wants to answer.  The last time he honestly answered the question, after Betty discovered the box that contained Dick Whitman’s life, he opened himself up and lost his family.  He told Betty of his life as Dick Whitman and how he became Don Draper and, as a result, he lost everything; his wife, his children and, you could even argue, his ad agency.  After last answering “Who is Don Draper?” Don lost everything and had to rebuild again.

“Public Relations” begins as a distorted mirror of “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes,” the premiere episode of the series, as we follow Don Draper around and see his world.  The confident Lothario of that first episode though is gone.  He’s not the darling of Sterling Cooper able to sell any ad campaign with a smile and a nod and he’s not the man who can get any woman just by smoldering at her, almost willing her into a bed.  That man was in complete and total control of his world.  The Don Draper of 1964, not so much.  

Actually, no one is the same as they were in “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes.”  Pete and Peggy are much more confident, less intimidated by Don’s childish outlashes at them.  Burt Cooper, the gentle patriarch of Sterling Cooper, is more frazzled than we’ve seen him before; the pressures of starting over have worn on him.  Betty Draper, the one time untouchable suburban housewife, is now a divorced woman, with all of the eyes of Henry Francis’s family all watching and judging her.  Betty’s life is in as much turmoil as Don’s is; without his protection, Betty is being judged as both a wife and a mother, neither of which she is very good at.  Maybe the only person who remains unchanged is good old Roger Sterling, who still says what he wants to who he wants.  

So, who is Don Draper?  That’s the question that Matt Weiner and his team of writers have simultaneously been trying to answer and avoid.  To define Don Draper is to close him off.   If Don Draper can answer the question who is he, he instantly becomes one of us, another man trying to get by.  Weiner worked on The Sopranos and I think it’s easy to define who Tony Soprano was-- suburban father and family man and also the leader of a mob.  The conflict in The Sopranos was the struggle between Tony’s two well-defined lives.  Don Draper doesn’t live in that kind of world.  He gave up that world after the Korean War and his deliberate identity switch with a dead man.  His life since then has been running way from the conventional things like family and identity.  He’s found them but you get the feeling he’s stumbled into them.

Now, he’s stumbled into something new; the new ad agency Sterling Cooper Draper Price.  His name is on the door.  He’s marked something as his.  That actually is a bit of definition and we start to see Don stumble a bit because of it.  And maybe it’s not a stumble; maybe this Don Draper is a different man, a new man, than we’ve seen in the past 3 seasons.  You can almost see the age and weariness on Jon Hamm’s face as he plays Draper.  He doesn’t carry himself the same way anymore.  Even at the end of the episode, when trying to control the damage he’s done, Don is asked the same question again, we see a slight bit of the old Don Draper but then... something changes again.  He’s not the quiet man, who’s more confident to let his actions speak louder than his words, anymore.  He’s changed and now he’s a bit more in control, trying to mold who he is, to redefine himself.  

“Public Relations” is about rebuilding.  Matt Weiner is rebuilding his show just as Don Draper is rebuilding his life.  There are holdovers; Betty (creepily with Henry) still live in Don’s suburban house and sleep in his bed while Don has a small NYC apartment.  The lavish and open office of Sterling Cooper is replaced by a small maze of offices for Sterling Cooper Draper Price.  Both environments reflect how trapped Don’s life has become, how small and knotted.  Try to get a feel for the layout of either place from this episode and you can’t.  Don’s life has become smaller, more trapped.  In the past, we’ve seen him run away in episodes like this.  I wonder how long his life can hold together this season before he runs off again.