MYNDI - This episode felt like a lot of set-up to me for some fireworks to come.  The battle lines have been drawn between Roger and his ex, Mona.  Daughter Margaret doesn't want Roger's new wife Jane in attendance at her nuptials, though Mona was at least willing to concede Roger and "June" a table of their own.  Too bad the wedding is scheduled for the day after JFK's assassination.  All I know is that the nation was in a state of profound mourning that November weekend, so I have to imagine these plans might be derailed, and Margaret and Mona might find a way to blame Roger for it.  We see Don and Roger at a client lunch, and the onetime drinking buddies are not exactly laughing it up.  Roger is defeated, and now just "wants to win" in the "land grab" he categorizes the wedding as, while Don, that paragon of virtue, seems appalled at what he's hearing.  For all he's done to Betty, Don is unable to fathom how Roger got divorced and remarried so quickly, all the while seeming to take no responsibility for the wedge it's driving.  It doesn't really add up; but maybe Don's seething with jealously that Roger actually made the one move that he never could, even when he had the chance.  And if that's it, should we feel admiration for Don since he's so dedicated to his family?  Loathing because he's full of crap?  Or, sympathy because he's miserable?  The fact that all these questions exist is a testament to the character.

Who else has gotten married in the months we were absent from the halls of Sterling Cooper? Why, Joan Holloway is now being addressed as "Mrs. Harris" and still sharing stolen glances with Roger while informing a visiting Betty Draper that her husband Greg is insisting she get knocked up in July, once he's chief resident.  Something tells me Joan won't go quietly if she's not ready.  At least, I hope she doesn't.  There's no character I cheer for to get her just desserts more than Joan; no one more deserving of achieving what she wants.  I'm confident her time is coming.

In second place is Peggy Olsen, who is trying to emulate both the feminine wiles of Joan and the business cunning of Don--the boss she tells her one-night stand is "a jerk".  I was surprised at that statement; I'd always thought she admired Don, so I'm anxious to learn why she feels that way.  My guess is that it's a temporary thing, as he chided her to "keep some tools in her toolbox" when she repeatedly questioned the creative direction being used for an early version of Diet Pepsi called "Patio".  ("Everyone wants a drink that sounds like a floor.")  Peggy pointed out that the client isn't always right, and feels the agency should give them something more female-targeted than their desired Ann Margaret type, straight out of Bye Bye Birdie, whose charms are more suited for enticing a male audience (even Don is moved to a lopsided grin when he screens the opening of the film).  Alone in her flat, wearing as chaste a nightgown as there ever was, Peggy sings the same song into her mirror, trying to let her sexy out.  Elisabeth Moss just owns everything she does in this role, by the way.  The next night, Peggy hits the town after work, armed with her new Ann Margaret confidence and Joan's line she overheard in the lobby the day before.  "It's so crowded in here, it feels like I'm on the subway."  It earns her a free drink, and a nice guy with an apartment around the corner.  She's smart enough not to do the deed without a Trojan, but still gets to have some fun.  She leaves in the middle of the night without getting the guy's number.  See?  She's Joan and Don all rolled into one.

What I really can't figure out is why Don is so insistent on taking Betty's ailing Dad into the Draper home.  Is he just that intent on proving to himself that he's not as callous as Roger?  He's doing what Betty wants, which seems to be an extension of some left over guilt from her combative childhood relationship with her father.  He bullies Betty's brother William into leaving both Dad and the Lincoln behind, while sending he and his family home on the train with marching order to pay Dad's bills and not sell the family home.  He almost immediately regrets siding with Betty about not putting Gene in a nursing home, though, as he and Betty are roused in the middle of the night by the sound of Gene pouring out bottles of booze, obviously thinking Prohibition is on.  We'll see what complications arise from this as the Drapers await their impending bundle and all the upheaval that comes with a new baby.

And finally, the key question of the hour was from Don to his new boss, Mr. Pryce, after he told Don the agency was turning down the Madison Square Garden account he'd been pushing so hard to win with lines like "If you don't like what's being said, change the conversation".  After being told that Pryce had heard from the home office that Sterling Cooper was to walk on the business, Don snapped, "Why did you buy us, then?" to which Mr. Pryce said, "I don't know."  Don sees the massive potential in a sports arena in Midtown Manhattan: a way into the World's Fair and decades of sporting events, concerts and other attractions that will generate immense revenue down the line.  But "London" doesn't agree, and all of his former power--much like Bert Cooper's and Roger's--is rendered useless in that instant.  Have we ever seen such a frustrated Don Draper?  It's only going to get worse, isn't it?

EJ

So, it turns out that Roger Sterling got married in between seasons.  I was kind of looking forward to seeing that.  You just know that didn’t go smoothly.  And while I don’t think we’ve heard anything definitively, but it looks as if Joan was also married during the break.  Why can’t you just let us see a wedding, Mad Men?  Sure, I don’t think anybody’s really pulling for these unions, but it would have been nice to see.

Don’s been pretty cold to Roger all season, and even Roger’s starting to notice.  Whatever’s wrong between these two, Don’s really committed to being a jerk.  You know how you can tell when a relationship’s falling apart, because either one or both parties will not put any effort whatsoever into being even cordial?  Being pleasant and being unpleasant take the exact same amount of effort, but they just choose to be unpleasant over and over again.  I tend to think that Don’s upset about Roger’s role in the sale of Sterling Cooper.  For one thing, and I’ll get into this later, but the new status quo emasculates Don, which is not something he’s equipped to handle.  And what may be the bigger sticking point for him is the way he found out about the buyout, immediately upon his return from California.  Remember how happy he was in California, going back to being Dick Whitman again and not having to lie and hide and fight every day?  I think he returned home with a new view of himself, maybe the idea that he could once again choose his path.  Unfortunately, he was immediately thrown into the thick of things, and he was forced to be Don Draper again.  Roger killed Dick Whitman for the second time.

On the subject of Roger and the merger, don’t you just love how Roger is openly contemptuous of Lane Pryce?  He gets in some good digs, most of which are pretty funny.  It seems to me that Lane is in a pretty good position – his actual level or power is undefined enough that he makes everybody uncomfortable, but he also gets to attribute any unpopular decisions to “London”.  Logically, he must have some authority – this is before e-mail and fax, so the boys across the Atlantic are running things on the other side of the International Date Line – the time difference doesn’t allow for much of a real-time response.  I think he’s making a lot of these decisions on his own and passing the buck.  Also, he’s the bad guy from Fringe, so I will never trust him, ever.

In fact, it was the “London” decision to drop Madison Square Garden (Seems somebody wasn’t thinking about all those future Wrestlemania events…  As a side note, it turns out that at some point, I programmed “Wrestlemania” into my spell check.)  that set Don off.  If Bert Cooper had decided to drop that account, Don would have walked into his office, told him why he was wrong, and won him over.  When shadowy figures in a distant city drop the account, Don has no recourse.  He hates not being able to get his say, and the new corporate structure of Sterling Cooper will make that a regular occurrence.  I think that’s what exacerbated the situation at home – after losing a fight that he would have won a year ago, he goes after Betty’s brother the way he would have lit into Pete Campbell.  He can’t fight London, but he can sure as hell bully Betty’s brother into submission.

We haven’t really seen much of Don’s interaction with Betty’s father, so it’s surprising that he would insist on taking him in.  Did Don really need a win that badly, that he’d take on that burden as a byproduct of the chance to verbally shred Betty’s brother.  (And how great was that?  “Your father’s going to live with us.  You’re going to pay for it, and you’re going to leave your car here.  Get on the bus, bro.”  That guy is lucky Don let him keep his clothing, frankly.)  And again, Don might be trying to recapture some of what he’s lost.  He can’t have a relationship with his own father, since obviously he’s dead but also he was a horrible person.  Betty’s dad is as close as he’s going to get to a father figure at this point.  I don’t know that Don needs parental guidance, but as a guy who hasn’t seen his father in a decade, I do know that you’ll try to fill that void whether you need it or not.  It’s a relationship that changes in a fairly significant way as you come into your own as a person, and if you don’t get to see the second phase of that relationship, it feels somehow incomplete.  I’m probably reading way too much of myself into this, but that’s how it came off to me.

And we see that Betty’s dad apparently suffers from Alzheimer’s, as his late night Prohibition antics would indicate.  This is something that Matthew Weiner explored at length on The Sopranos with Uncle Junior, so I’m already preparing to have my heart broken.  It stands to reason that a writer so obsessed with questions of identity would gravitate toward a disease that literally robs it sufferers of theirs.  (One day, I will write about Mad Men without referencing The Sopranos.  Today is not that day.)

Peggy was the standout this week, and Myndi’s right – Elisabeth Moss can do no wrong.  There’s something a little scary to me about her need to mirror the strong personalities around her.  She took a page from Don Draper last season, and she’s actively emulating Joan now.  After she fought so hard to be included by the men last season, now she’s upset that they don’t view her as a woman anymore.  (Line of the week:  “What do you care?  You’re not fat anymore.”  Ha!  God bless you, Harry Crane.)  I wonder if Peggy used to have dreams of performing – at least, that’s what her musical number in front of the mirror made me think.  She watches Ann Margaret and sees the life that she wanted standing in sharp contrast to the life that she worked so hard to make.  This episode is very much about people confronting the discrepancies between their ideal and actual lives.  Still, Peggy went to that bar to be more like Joan, and even stole her line – she’s just layered in emulations of others.  Heck, I think that’s why she said that her boss was a “jerk”.  She generally likes Don, but people complain about their bosses in social situations, so that’s what Peggy does.  Sometimes it’s like Peggy just learned about being human from a guidebook, and is doing her best to fake it.  It was a nice touch that she thought about protection – clearly she learned a lesson.  Also, that’s not a complication that would slow down Don Draper during a hook-up.  Even better, after all of that, what’s the first account she talks to Don about?  Pampers!  Reality loves to taunt Peggy.

Finally, in the last scene we get Don and Betty at a May Day celebration for Sally’s class.  Don checks out the teacher, which is not unusual for him, but it’s the way he looked at her while he reached out to put his hand in the grass that really made the scene seem significant.  And I think this comes back to my earlier idea that Don came back from California unsure of whether or not he was going to be Don Draper or Dick Whitman.  The teacher, she’s the sort of woman that would be perfect for Dick Whitman.  He watched the simple pleasure she was taking in being outdoors in beautiful weather, and he wanted to feel that pleasure too.  That was Dick Whitman reaching for the grass.

Don (not Draper)

Hey, Mr. Weiner and the rest of the writing staff! What gives? Every week you hit me with a two-by-four right between the eyes with symbolism, layered story lines, and deep meaning behind nearly every word. Ah, heck, maybe I try way too hard to read something in everything. But all you gave me this week was the fact Roger's daughter's wedding is the day after President Kennedy is assassinated - so there's that. And was that it? Or is there something else?

Let me start with my favorite part. During the opening, which was the opening credits of the 1963 cinematic musical version of Bye Bye Birdie, we see everyone enjoying it. Kenny and Harry because Anne Margaret is, well, hot. And Salvatore because he loves musicals. And when they stop the film and bring up the lights in the conference room, Salvatore says, "I saw Susan Watson do it on Broadway, and she was great ...but she didn't have that." Um, Sal, baby ...that ain't exactly keeping it under wraps.

The episode, at first glance, could have been plucked out of any season and inserted anywhere within the show's run. At least that's what I thought at first, but upon a second glance, "Love Among the Ruins" just might be an episode that changes the game for the entire season, and possibly the series. Stay with me here.

Was Bye Bye Birdie and its lyrics the story? There seemed to be more than a few characters dealing with things changing and saying "bye bye" to the way it was.

"Bye Bye Birdie,
"It's awful hard to bear;
"Bye Bye Birdie
"Think I'll always care,
"Guess I'll always care,
"Guess I'll always care"

- Anne Margaret from the musical and song, "Bye Bye Birdie"

Pete Campbell and Paul Kinsey are shown pitching the Madison Square Garden group and Kinsey can't keep his personal feelings in check - he doesn't want to see Penn Station torn down to make way for a stadium. He thinks the city ought to preserve this architectural masterpiece. He, and the rest of New York, are resisting change and it breaks their heart to say "bye bye" to Penn Station.

Bert Cooper, Roger Sterling, and Don Draper are dealing with saying "bye bye" to their mid-size agency and the standards they once felt were important. Betty and her brother are saying "bye bye" to their father as he slips a little further into dementia. Her father is bidding farewell to his sanity, his home, and his independence. Roger is saying "bye bye" to his daughter as he sits ringside to her wedding plans. Joan and Roger miss the old days when their flings were new and exciting. Now, they'd just be desperate and defeatist - they had their chance to be together, and ignored it. Don knows, despite the fact he'll always ca-a-are (sing that last part), his former unchallenged influence and charm are being rendered useless. And finally, Peggy has weathered her storms and she's ushering out her brooding, guarded, troubled past and is going to charge head first into the feminist-driven sexual revolution that's knocking on the doorstep.

"It's Penn Station! This city has no memory. Out with the old, in with the new? Who says that's a good idea?" - Paul Kinsey

Oh, Mr. Weiner. Here I thought the episode was pointless. I thought the episode, at first viewing, was just a really good episode of a show about the business world. But seeing everyone struggling with fondness of the past, contempt for the present, and uneasiness on the future, I changed my mind. I might be wrong, but I'm going to suggest this episode might be a message to fans that Mad Men is about to change. Everyone wondered and worried about Season 3 and what it would be like? Will it be like Season 1, which was the chauvinistic, old-time Manhattan boys club business world, or would it be more like the trippy, Odyssey like adventure of Season 2 with more Don Draper following white rabbits through looking glasses? I think the answer is "none of the above."

Until now, Don has controlled everything and everyone. Even when things seem to be reeling in his world, for the most part, he can control that which he wants, and he gives himself freely to the mayhem he cannot. Now, there's mayhem and it isn't of his design.

"Change is neither good or bad, it simply is. It can be greeted with terror or joy ...a tantrum that says, 'I want it the way it was', or a dance that says, 'look, something new'. P.R. people understand this, but they can never execute it. If you don't like what is being said ...change the conversation." -Don Draper

I don't know what the new conversation is going to be, but I suspect it's going to change - and I'm going to greet it with a dance. It's the late '60s on Mad Men, and whether the characters like it or not, things are going to change.

Peggy hates the new Patio campaign, and makes Don watch the opening of Bye Bye Birdie and he summarizes it brilliantly, and in turn summarizes this episode of Mad Men.

"She's throwing herself at the camera. It's pure. It makes your heart hurt." 

- Don Draper

Do you see what we see? Am I being overdramatic? Does anyone have any idea what we were supposed to read into Don fondling the tips of the grass blades beneath his chair and watching the grade school teacher dance around the May Pole?

Thanks for joining us again, and we'll see you back at the roundtable next week.

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