This week’s episode was jam packed with symbolism and change. Let’s get right to it.
WARNING: SPOILERS AFTER THE JUMP.
Was it just me or did last night’s episode seem to have a lot of commercials? Made me miss the days when Mad Men was basically an art house show with only two, specially curated commercials per episode. Those were the days. Anyways…
- The entire episode was one long tribute to Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Slate has gone into incredible detail laying that out so I will leave them to it. The show touched on some intrinsic questions regarding the basic nature of technology – agent of evolutionary advancement or Pandora’s Box? – that remain largely unresolved to this day. We definitely know where Weiner stands, though. Clearly not a fan of at least the mindless statistic gathering which makes total sense. He’s fought some brutal battles of statistics versus art over the show.
- Has Roger always had that Dante’s Inferno poster in his office or was that new? It caught my eye because it featured heavily in the background of the scene between himself, Mona, and Brooks. The poster itself was the product of Push Pin Studios, the venture through which Milton Glaser (the artist Weiner specifically tapped for this year’s promo poster) rose to prominence, and a series the studio did on psychedelic travel posters. (There’s even a copy of it for sale on Ebay if you’d like to own a little piece of Roger Sterling’s office.) We’ve seen Dante’s Inferno referenced before. Obviously it’s more of a recurring theme than we may have realized. Crassfession: I have not actually read Dante’s Inferno. (I know… I know… it’s on the list.) If anyone cares to offer their insights as to what the association might imply I would be all ears.
- Roger’s themes for the episode regarding the sins of the father visiting the daughter were fairly straightforward. Not much further to say about it although I thought it was noteworthy how the hippies were portrayed as hipsters-of-ye-olden-tymes, i.e. trust fund babies with too much time and angst on their hands (or at least Margaret was for sure).
- It was interesting to see how Roger’s story line ran in parallel to Don’s throughout the show. Both men came starkly face to face with their demons, Don with his pride and resistance to change and Roger with his failure to be there for his family. Those parallels were highlighted in the jump between the scene with Roger and Mona discussed how Ellroy was being set up for a long relationship with counseling cutting to Don laying in his office reading Portnoy’s Complaint, a book told as a conversation between a man and his shrink. Portnoy’s Complaint is defined as “A disorder in which strongly felt ethical and altruistic impulses are perpetually warring with extreme sexual longings, often of a perverse nature…” which could very well be an allegory for the show.
- Digging into Portnoy’s Complaint sent me down a rabbit hole looking into all the books that have been featured on the show. The New York Public Library has a comprehensive listing. I had no idea how many there have been! One of the placements which stuck out in particular was that of the book The Penny Wars in Peggy’s carry-on bag in the promo pictures, the synopsis of which reads “A family struggling through the Depression loses a father to death and a stepfather to suicide.” This week’s episode in particular held numerous references to suicide. I was honestly half-waiting for Don to throw himself out the window. You have to wonder if that’s still in store.
- Finally, even when Lou does something nice he still sucks. Way to hide behind Peggy’s petticoats you weasel.
Did I miss anything? Am I off my rocker on anything? Let me know in the reply.
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