Mad Men Season 5 Episode 2

Mad Men Season 5 Episode 2

The second episode of Season 5 offers hints and outright clues as to what the season will be about. First, Sterling Cooper is forced, after an add joke gone awry, to hire an African-American to work in their office. This doesn’t go over with everyone in the office, but the audience can see the connection from the first episode, this season’s historical maker will be race and inequity. Thus far the show has dealt either sensitively or tangentially enough with world events for them to have been an interesting part of the show without ever overwhelming the main plot. Race is something of a taboo subject in America, and I’m interested to see how the show engages with it. Certainly, they are doing it through a historical lens, but it’s still interesting to watch them walk that still tenuous line.

The second piece, hinted at in the first episode, is Pete coming home a bit later to his wife, who, sweet lady that she is, affirms him in his desire to be ruler of Sterling Cooper/the world, before he gives her a big hug and slithers into bed. I don’t think he ends this season as the consummate family man. His development has been interesting though, as he’s always been that kid in school who no one liked, but who didn’t give a damn and just kept succeeding. It was clear from the first season that he could one day be a rival to Don Draper in terms of his sheer ruthlessness, and, in this season when Don says that he isn’t even that interested in work, it’s easy to see the baton starting to be passed to Pete. It’s unclear what Pete will do with the baton, perhaps use it to bash everyone else on the head.

The episode also highlights Joan’s return to the office, casting her as a woman who has a desire to work, clearly showing a shift from the beginning of the show in the late fifties when such an idea would have been anathema. Joan is being shown as the forerunner of the modern woman, one who wants to have it all, and knows, in a strange way, that she can’t. She can’t be both at home to enjoy her child’s every moment and working long hours at the office, and so she must choose. Weiner has simplified the choice a bit at this point, making Joan’s desire to work a stronger force. I’d be interested to see if the tension between the two could be explored more for her internally, as it’s pretty clear that the easy way to create that tension is externally, from her husband’s return. However, the internal struggle would be of more interest to me as the viewer.

The centerpiece of the episode is the tension created in the office by the  marriage of Don and Megan. Her French bedroom song, is mocked by Roger and lusted after by Harry, which leads Don to say, “we don’t make fun of each other’s wives here.” It’s clear after two episodes that much of the focus on this season will be on the dynamic between Don and Megan. The difference in their age and experience, and how their relationship changes the working relationships in the office and the degree to which Don is respected by his colleagues. When Megan leaves early, upset at Don’s treatment after the party, he hurries home after her, cancelling on the rest of the day. Part of Don’s charm and magnetism has always been his desire to do great work. Absent that, it will be interesting to watch how he is regarded in the office.  

The tension  created by the difference between Don’s age and Megan’s is ever present. It is clear that he desires her a great deal, as expressed in their make up sex, but it is also clear that her youth unnerves him. He is trapped between wanting her and wanting her to be safe. The transition of a spouse like Betty, a traditional, if ice queenish fifties house wife, to his young French secretary is vast, and the big question in the early part of the season is whether she has tamed him, whether his disinterest in work and women will last.