Mad Men, Season 4, Episode 1: Public Relations
(Disclaimer: This is a long winded rant about basically one scene in last night episode of the best show no one is watching.)
“Who is Don Draper?”
A fitting opening phrase to the new season of Mad Men. We see Don in a multitude of roles - Don the creative director, Don the business man, Don the dating single guy, Don the divorced father. The funny thing is he fails at all of these personas throughout the episode. When can Don not close the deal on a cute, blonde girl? Or talk the client into his idea of what their product should be?
I think it’s this last question that caused me to say last night that I hope this show hasn’t “jumped the shark.” No matter what you thought about Don in the previous seasons, you have to admit that, when the client was in the room, he was the best closer in advertising. But, in that Jantzen pitch, he turned mortal.
I’m reminded of Don’s quote in the season 2 opener when he chastises Peggy about her pitch to Indian Airways.
Peggy: Sex sells.
Don: Says who? Just so you know, the people who talk that way think that monkeys can do this. They take all this monkey crap and just stick it in a briefcase completely unaware that their success depends on something more than their shoeshine. You are the product. You- feeling something. That’s what sells. Not them. Not sex. They can’t do what we do, and they hate us for it.
It’s a polar opposite of what happened in that pitch. Don has, seemingly turned into exactly what he’s been fighting against since we’ve known him… the typical ad man who believes that the product being marketed is secondary to the advertising plan.
There are a couple reasons I can see the writers going this way with Don’s character. My initial thought was to show the amount of stress he is under with the divorce, the bombed AdAge article and the shoe-string budget SCDP is running under. We see Don struggling with failures in his life like we haven’t seen before. He’s at the bottom. He has a failed marriage, failed business man and now a failed creative director (the one thing he was always great at).
As I was talking with a friend today, he thought this may have been a delibrate move on Don’s part to get the “small guys” out of the office… quickly. Don makes mention to the “cattle call” of the first meeting and seeing Y&R in the waiting room as they left. Don sees Jantzen as a company that is wasting his time. SCDP needs money and they aren’t the answer so he quickly dismisses them to get to the whale.
Whatever the reason was, I hope it becomes clear this season why Don made the decision to treat that client different from every other one he’s ever disagreed with. But until that point, I’m worried that the Don I grew to like has been transformed into a person I’ll grow to hate.
