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.

There’s pretty general agreement around Earth that Sunday’s Mad Men is one of the best they’ve ever done. Recaps have focused on the typical thematic correspondences, like in Noel Murray’s piece for The AV Club, which had this opening line: “If last week’s Mad Men was all about the inertia of jobs and families, and how difficult it can be for people to seize opportunities and reorder their lives, then this week’s is all about the inciting incident—the moment that forces change.” That’s all true, and Murray’s recap is very good, but let me give a simpler explanation why this episode was so great: they cut off a potentially main character’s foot in a freak office lawnmower accident!!!

Look, I’m not saying people shouldn’t be analyzing themes, but at some point you have to cut it out and talk about visceral effects. Mad Men is usually so restrained and subtle that a moment like this one grabs you by the throat to a degree it never would on a show like Nip/Tuck (note: I’m pretty sure there have already been 74 lawnmower accidents on Nip/Tuck). Occasionally, you just have to go with it and praise the sheer audacity. Introducing Guy, who had the potential to be a Bizarro Don and change the dynamic of Sterling Cooper in a massive way, was a surprising move in itself, but then Matthew Weiner and Co. went ahead and ripped him away from us just as we’d started to picture him as Boy Wonder in Charge. According to Darren’s Hitchcock Index, this was the equivalent of the shower scene in Pyscho, a moment of orgiastic violence after a prolonged period of steady tension.

Not to mention that it was an incredibly ballsy move, the kind of thing a show doesn’t run with unless everyone involved is extremely confident in their abilities. On the night of the Emmys, Mad Men proved that they are on another level compared to other active series. It was the ultimate “we are the best show on TV and we’ll do whatever the fuck we want” moment. Join them or get trampled.

Then again, there’s a lot more to the moment than the initial thrill of surprise. If Mad Men is a show about people who focus on goals only to find those goals unsatisfactory and elusive, then the lawnmower accident put the viewer in that same situation. The introduction of Guy was a surprise, but it really only challenged the expectations of the characters; viewers expect twists and turns in a serialized drama, to the point where there have been complaints that this season hasn’t had enough. But Guy’s demise was a serious surprise for viewers and characters alike, a moment that creates legitimate connections between the experience of the audience and the events of the show. There are differences — the characters were relieved not to have to deal with Guy, whereas viewers were mostly shocked — but it still creates a moment of empathy that goes beyond basic sympathies.

There was another all-time great scene in this episode that has been overshadowed by the lawnmower: Betty’s Barbie bribe/gift to Sally. At this point, I think it’s pretty well established that Betty is an awful mother, the kind of woman who never says more than a few words to her children at a time. Sally is going through some serious grief over the death of her grandfather, and Betty, who at least professes to feel that same grief, has no idea how to deal with her child’s pain. Resenting a new sibling is serious business and likely an overreaction, but most people would agree that naming a baby after the recently deceased and then putting that baby in the dead man’s room is pretty weird. Betty’s reaction, of course, is to try to buy Sally’s sympathies with a Barbie, an image of feminine perfection and happiness. As usual, she expects a model to work in place of real comfort, except Sally is the only Draper capable of expressing her emotions and sees through the bullshit. You really gotta feel for the kid, with only Don and Betty around to learn from, but I suppose negative examples can teach, too.

Looking forward, I just hope they can find a way to keep Joan around that doesn’t feel artificial. It’s old hat at this point to talk about how hot Christina Hendricks is, but she’s also a talented actress who gets that Office Joan is a very different creature from Domestic Joan. She’s extremely bright and has proven herself capable of doing things other than telling secretaries how to dress — remember her short tenture as Harry Crane’s script reader? She loved it, and my hope is that she can find a way to work herself back into the advertising game that doesn’t involve being a secretary or office manager. It’s easy to see Joan and Peggy as opposites, but I’m convinced Joan could do Peggy’s job in a snap.

As Darren says, her goodbye scene with Don was odd in that it would be coded romantically on virtually any other show, and then they’d hook up two episodes from now and Don and Roger would have a fight to the death for her love. To me, it was a shared moment between the two people at Sterling Cooper who seem in charge of everything they do at all times. They’re not actually that way, of course, but they appear it, so both know the pressure that comes with the expectation of control. They can assume shared internal strife even if they don’t know the specifics.