I don't think I've taken the time in this space to write about "Mad Men" before, but I feel I must. The fifth season premiered two weeks ago after a too-long hiatus. Does it really matter how long? One year? Six months?
While some say that it is not quite up to its usual tightly constructed standards, it is still one of the best shows on television and it's something I look forward to every week.
SPOILER ALERT
If you do not want to know what happens, stop reading.
Still there? Good. I'm sure we lost some people but if you've been watching "Mad Men" or have only casually seen it a few times, you know that it's a terrific show.
Season The Fifth
The year is 1966. There are race riots in Chicago and New York. Gillian Hills' "Zou Bisou Bisou" is still making its way around the airwaves, though released in 1961. Women are demanding more respect in the workplace. There is an airline strike. The Vietnam War rages.
"Mad Men" is undergoing a cultural paradigm shift in toto, but I'm going to focus more on this past Sunday's episode.
"Mad Men" opened this past episode with Peggy's reporter colleague showing the copy writing staff pictures that "Time" magazine deemed inappropriate and too shocking to print.
Turns out, the pictures were of the recent (in this episode he was still on the lam) crime scene of Richard Speck. Who is he? I'd never heard of him either, but apparently he wheedled his way into a town house shared by 9 nurses in Chicago, where he brutally raped and murdered all but one, who was able to hide under the bed for 7 hours without detection. Goosebumps inducing, right?
This episode showed almost everyone afraid of something. This fear, primarily from the horrific acts of one Richard Speck, permeated the country and spread to our cadre of characters.
Don was very sick and had a nightmare that a former flame came over to his house and would not stop trying to sleep with him (even though he gave in once in this dream). So, he unleashes some of his pent up rage and strangles her. He dumps the body under the bed. He tried to hide it from his wife, Meghan, who had serenaded him with the aforementioned "Zou Bisou Bisou" in the season opener. Did you know that the Mad Men soundtrack just released it as a single and I heard it on Sirius 3 yesterday?
But it was all a dream.
The fear, whatever the cause spread. Sally was afraid. She frightens Grandma Francis in the middle of the night because she cannot sleep due to the Chicago murders. We see Grandma Francis sitting there with a butcher knife, afraid as well. However, in true 1960s fashion, at Grandma's suggestion, they both split a sleeping pill and fall into a deep slumber. It was so comatose that even Betty and Henry couldn't rouse them when they arrived home at the end of the episode. She was under the couch, by the way.
Peggy, on the other hand, embraced her fear of being a woman in a man's world in the office by getting $400 out of Roger Sterling. Apparently, he needed copy writing done for Mohawk Airlines and was completely out of options. He asks Peggy, who took him for everything that he had in a gender and character role reversal. Is Peggy the new Don?
Peggy, however, had this money in her purse after she invited a co-worker to stay with her for the evening (the first African-American hire at SCDP). "They won't take me past 96th Street," bemoans the lone African-American.
At Peggy's house, though, the two share some beers and Peggy turns to go to bed. In the look heard round the world, Peggy eyes her purse on the table in front of her co-worker. She grabs the beer bottles they shared but you can tell, Peggy is ashamed for thinking her co-worker might steal it and her co-worker knows that Peggy thought she might take it. It was a very racially charged moment and well-acted. Fear once again came into play.
Finally, the lone person who was not afraid was Joan. After her husband returned from Vietnam, the two got cozy for a few days and between themselves, the baby (who's not her husband's but rather Roger's), and Joan's mother (welcome back to TV, Mrs. Huber from "Desperate Housewives!"), it looks like they have the perfect, all-American family.
At a dinner with both sets of parents, Joan, the baby, and her husband, it is revealed that her husband volunteered to go back to Vietnam for a year. This destroys Joan and the dinner, needless to say, does not go well.
The next morning, Joan wakes up to her husband, child, and mother eating breakfast. The two exchange words and her husband says "If I go out that door, that's it."
Joan ultimately has this to say about her husband, Greg: "You're not a good man. You never were. Even before we were married — and you know what I'm talking about." Ka-Pow! She referenced what we all think every time we see Joan. Are they ever going to reference what he did to her in Don's office before they were married?
And just like that, they did. Last night's episode felt more like Seasons 1 or 2 in terms of its impact. It was the best episode since perhaps "The Suitcase" whenever it was it aired before.
Yes, Mad Men is back and it's great. And oh yeah, Betty doesn't have cancer but she's fat.
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