Mad Men Season 4

Don got in a fight at his office, got shitcanned in front of a worker who looks up to him, is still realing from losing his family and his friend in California.

He finally hit rock bottom, and now he's ready to recover. He's sick of the random women, so he's going to cut his drinking down and clear his head. Get back to writing so he can be atop his game and finally make a play at the woman that his company works with. (I forget her name.)

 

He was also on SNL and his song skit with Michael Buble was hilarious.

 

Is it at all possible that we were wrong all these years when we just assumed this show was going to be about the fall of Don Draper? That it wouldn't end well for him?

Seems right now like it's just about a guy trying to make his way through the ups and downs of life. And I like it that way. It would be miserable to just watch him fail week after week for as long as the show has remaining.

 

Absolutely. I'm unclear why people think Don is either going down on the elevator of life, or going up, and there are only two directions and he needs to be going one way or another. Think about where Weiner learned about television (Becker and The Sopranos) before he got his own show. Not exactly stories where the main character was either rising or falling. Draper's story isn't necessarily a triumph or a tragedy, just a story meant to help us understand questions about identity and how often we lie to ourselves in order to be happy.

 

The reason I think Don still goes down is all great dramas understand that people don't change. And this show is about a decade which proved this more than any other. The striving for change is worthwhile, redeeming, but never permanent. I don't think Weiner would betray this notion. Otherwise , he has written a sit-com or a Jimmy Stewart film, and he has inaccurately summed up the 1960s.

 

If Draper doesn't change, though, why would he go down?

If nothing really changes, then Draper will spend his whole life comfortable but naggingly unsatisfied with the fake identity he's created for himself.

 

I don't think the show is about "Draper" per se - I think it is about the change in society during the 60s. You have the WWII types, you have the young turks embracing the 60s and you have Don on a tightrope, who really doesn't belong in either world for multiple reasons.

 

Change is impossible if the man you are tying to be is the man you already were. If he changes, he simply re-emerges as Dick Whitman. Which is not an actual change.

Whether Don goes down in the end is immaterial in relation to the notion of change. We already know Don is essentially a good man in the form of Dick. But alcoholism doesn't respect our values.

I don't think there is a right or wrong answer to whether Don should die for his sins. I just don't think Weiner let's him off the hook for those decisions.

 

Dick's biggest sin wasn't a sin it was realizing he couldn't get past the circumstances of his birth and upbringing without drastic action. He took Don's identity but not his life and made good to Don's family.
Dick, as Don, sinned by turning his back on his brother, for which he'll pay by being without a family. No Betsy, no kids and his personal intimate relationships will be transient no matter how hard he tries to find permanency.

As Dick, the man succeeds by being Don Draper, Ad Man extraordinaire. As Don, the man fails by being lonely, a kind of walking dead, alone in a world of others.

 

The market research lady said he'd be married again within a year, and no one likes to think they are a "type" but they are. I'd be shocked if that doesn't come true.

Although has it been a year since she said that? I have trouble keeping track of time on the show.

 

It's been about 6 months. She said it to him at the Christmas party and last week's episode took place in June.

 

Bethany is hot. She was the preacher's wife in True Blood