Plasma Pool

This essay is part of “Point-Hyperpoint: Mad Men,” a rollicking series of posts devoted to discussing AMC’s drama series. Spoilers abound. To read the entire series, please visit this page. To see all of Plasma Pool’s “Point-Hyperpoint” discussions, please click here.

The key plot turn of the first episode of Mad Men’s third season concerns Pete Campbell and Ken Cosgrove battling to become Head of Accounts, but the obvious most important moment is when Don catches Salvatore Romano with a shirtless man in his Baltimore hotel room. Salvatore is rightfully terrified, knowing that Don could end his successful career with one word to his fellow partners at Sterling Cooper. Then, on the flight back, Don asks him about an idea for the London Fog campaign as if nothing had ever happened. Salvatore is now safe, or something. I suppose Don could just be more liberal than he lets on, but that seems unlikely. Instead, we seem to have a case of one man who passes in his own life empathizing with another who must do the same.

Except Don and Salvatore have to do very different things in order to pass. When Dick Whitman became Don Draper, he didn’t become an engineer or try to live with Anna Draper or pull of some kind of Face/Off science experiment — all he really did was use the Don Draper name to leave his past behind and give him a bit of a boost on the way to success. Despite his act of fraud, Don’s still essentially a bootstrapper. Any secrets he keeps from his family and coworkers aren’t matters of life and death; he could very easily tell everyone his life story and leave out the part about assuming another man’s identity. Granted, that’s a big secret to keep, but he manages to expose himself to Rachel Mencken in ways he never has to Betty, and Rachel never learns about his origins. Dick Whitman isn’t keeping Don from having fulfilling relationships, and the sleeping around is as much a part of the Draper persona as the beautiful wife and children.

Salvatore, on the other hand, suppresses a fundamental part of his being. Sure, there are ways that he could have sex with men — his encounter with the Belle Jolie executive in Season 1 suggests that there are available partners — but exposing himself to his coworkers would ostracize him and probably end his career. It’s worth noting that Salvatore doesn’t exactly hide his more effeminate qualities, to the point where most criticisms of the character involve the argument that he’s so obviously gay that everyone would be able to tell, but coming out would put him in the sort of danger that Don has only sniffed.

Assuming another man’s name is scandalous, but Salvatore’s true self has been deemed wrong by society, the effects of which can be seen in the way he’s reacted to the few encounters he’s had with homosexuals in the series. In “The Hobo Code,” at dinner with the Belle Jolie executive, Salvatore says “I know what I want,” which makes the executive ask him what he’s afraid of, a question that Salvatore can only respond to with a “no duh” declaration of “Are you kidding?” Beyond just the fear of losing his livelihood, like any good Catholic boy, Sal is also deathly afraid of his own feelings towards other men. This same dynamic manifests itself in “The Jet Set” when Kurt outs himself to the rest of the office. In this scene, you can see Salvatore tense up, which could be a reflex to the mere mention of homosexuality, but it’s equally (if not more so) a reaction to the brazenness that Kurt exhibits. For someone ashamed of his own desires, such an open declaration of otherness is both galling and exciting, the kind of thing Salvatore would never do in his own life. His reaction is a mixture of “how dare he” and respect for Kurt’s bravery.

Then you have last night’s scene with the bellhop. Bryan Batt absolutely nailed every part of this episode, but his best moments come when the bellhop escalates things from eye contact to kissing to making out to dick-grabbing. Yes, Salvatore is excited that he’s about to do it with another man, but he’s also clearly terrified at the things he’s doing and what they mean for who he is. Because while anyone who thinks about other men is a sinner, those who act on it get a special place in Hell. If Salvatore wasn’t gay in his own mind, he is now.

The constant in all these scenes is the fear of stepping into the unknown, of finding out something new about yourself and facing unknown consequences because of it. Don encounters something similar whenever he exposes a part of himself to another person, whether it’s Betty or Rachel or Roger Sterling: the simple act of telling another person about his past unnerves him. Rachel, the one person we see get to know Don better than any other, only learns a fraction of what we see in flashbacks, yet these are things he claims never to have told another person. It’s telling, I think that Anna Draper, the person who knows Don best, only has that knowledge because she confronted him about it.

So let’s return to the scene between Salvatore and Don on the flight back to New York. More specifically, let’s ask this question: What exactly is Don doing for Sal by not mentioning that he saw him with a shirtless bellhop? To be sure, there are worse things he could do, like chewing him out, telling everyone on his return to the office that they’re working with a fruitcake, or just demanding that Salvatore be fired without any explanation. But while Salvatore might be relieved to have avoided a horrible outcome for the time being, Don gives little indication that his secret is safe. Salvatore’s relief comes from a temporary stay of execution, not the knowledge that another man understands his situation. Apart from the indication that Don has sympathy for his colleague because they both have their secrets, little has been shared between these two men, particularly for the one who especially needs the comfort.

As usual, Don has avoided confrontation and taken the easy way out, instead deciding to pretend like it never happened and going on with his business. But that doesn’t change the fact that Salvatore’s going to have these feelings again, just like Don is going to wonder why he can’t stay faithful and Peggy is going to wonder what might’ve happened if she’d decided to raise her child. The path of least resistance will always be there, and so will the existential malaise.