A Mad Year of "Mad Men"

Spoilers for the whole fifth season ahead.

I watched "Game of Thrones" and "Mad Men" more or less simultaneously this year, usually with a few days delay, but often literally one after another. And there was no better contrast between the relative merits of the two shows than the episodes that ran three weeks ago. "Game of Thrones" premiered "Blackwater," which gave us full scale, bloody warfare, dozens of onscreen deaths, and special effects galore. With a little more exposition, it could have passed for a decent fantasy feature film. "Thrones" fans were beside themselves with delight, and "Blackwater" became the talk of the internet for days afterward, held up as a new milestone in television spectacular, and many claimed it was well worth waiting through all the torpor and tedium of the second season, to see the event brought to screen.

I, however, preferred the episode of "Mad Men" that played the same night, "The Other Woman," which will be forever known as the episode where the advertising firm of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce prostituted their office manager, Joan Harris (Christina Hendricks), in order to land Jaguar as a client - and perhaps damned themselves in the process. The debate swirling around this turn of events was much more interesting than the reaction to "Blackwater." Were the actions of Joan, Roger Sterling (John Slattery), and Lane Pryce (Jared Harris) out of character? Was what Joan did necessarily a moral failing, or could it be rationalized for someone of her era, in her situation? And last week, the "Game of Thrones" season finale was completely overshadowed by Lane committing suicide in the office, confirming that all the signs of impending doom and death throughout the season were not red herrings after all.

The common complaint I hear about "Mad Men" is that it's boring, and that nothing happens. Rather, the real issue is that nothing big and exciting happens very often, and the show demands a certain amount of patience and engagement to reap its greater rewards. Plenty of things are developing and changing from episode to episode, but they aren't very obvious or overt. No one is going to come out and say that the big question of Season Five was how the marriage of Don Draper (Jon Hamm) and the lovely Megan Calvert (Jessica Pare) would develop, if he could embrace the second chance that this presents, or if he'd end up falling back into his old womanizing habits, back to the double life he lived in the earlier seasons. And no one is going to point out that despite Megan being so much stronger, more ambitious, and more modern than the troubled Betty (January Jones), perhaps her arc will be no different. The show trusts its audience to suss out these themes and ideas themselves, to catch the significant little nuances and details.

After the fireworks of the last two weeks, the finale was considerably more subdued, but no less dramatic. Business at the firm was better than ever, but perhaps too much had been sacrificed for it. Cracks in the foundation were showing, with Megan gone, Peggy (Elisabeth Moss) gone, and Lane gone. Don and Pete (Vincent Kartheiser), who should have been on top of the world, were deeply miserable. Pete, who many suspected would be dead by the end of the season, instead got into another fistfight over the damaged Beth (Alexis Bledel), after their tentative connection was literally erased. Slimy Pete, unlike Don, actually finds no solace in affairs and subterfuge, but he's being thrust into that world, inevitably. Don, meanwhile, suffers a toothache, sees visions of his dead brother, and compromises his ethics to help Megan out of a depressive funk. And maybe he hates her a little for it. Maybe enough to let himself stray again, into the arms of less complicated, less demanding company.

I enjoy the wonderful mood that "Mad Men" is creates, the stylish restlessness and dissatisfaction of all these privileged, unhappy people. Even in the sunniest, most humorous episodes, the show has a fearsome psychic undercurrent, a lurking menace. We got to see the show's dark side more up close and personal than ever this year, with Lane's death and the slow souring of Don and Megan's beautiful partnership. They all know that success requires sacrifice, but perhaps success is only a phantom, and perhaps success isn't the same as happiness. Only those characters on the periphery, like Megan's mother (Julia Ormond), and Lane's widow (Embeth Davidtz), dare to voice the truth aloud. Ambition is often a destructive force, and some people just aren't equipped to handle the consequences. And those who are, like Don, and like Pete, hate what they have to do to cope.

I guessed that Peggy was the one who might have been the one to suffer tragedy this year, after watching her and Don become supplanted by Michael Ginsberg (Ben Feldman) as the creative star of the firm. Her departure from the firm was one of the great surprises of the season, and one of the biggest harbingers of potential doom. Peggy has always been one of the most sympathetic characters in the show, with an arc charting her gradual, generally positive ascent in the advertising world. Removing her from the picture means another major supporting, stabilizing force is gone. In the finale, Matt Weiner checked in with her, and signaled that Peggy's story isn't over yet. I'm grateful for that because I love the character and I want to see her next season.

However, I think it's telling that her absence was more significant than most of her screen time this year. It's time for Peggy to move on, and it's time for Don to deal with the void. Or fail to, if that's where his story is headed. I'm still not sure what Matt Weiner has in store for these characters in the last two seasons of "Mad Men." However, this year their world became a darker place, and a lot of birds are coming home to roost at last. And in the end, I'll take those gorgeous shots of Lane Pryce contemplating his death and watching the snow fall past the skyscraper windows over CGI explosions any day.
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