Mad Men: Season 4, Ep. 1: Donipus Rex

“Turning creative success into business is your work.  And you failed.” — Bert to Don

Last season’s exhilarating finale showed Don Draper remaking himself once again by forging a new family with the cream of the crop of Sterling Cooper.  Last night’s premiere revealed the strains of shouldering the responsibilities of his new identity as the breadwinner of this new family, as well as that of his old one (Betty and the kids).  But instead of resorting to cowardice as he did in Season One, when he asked Rachel to run away with him, Don decides to “holster up his guns” and adopt a cockiness that befits his new stature as the sun of SCDP.  The premiere suggested the price Don will pay this season for his increasing hubris.

The episode also focused on the work itself, outlining the development of three ad campaigns: Don’s failed Jantzen pitch, his cinematic GloCoat commercial, and Peggy and Pete’s flawed but successful Sugarberry Ham stunt.  (Perhaps Don’s inspiration for the beautiful, vindictive mother in the GloCoat ad was Betty.)  The most interesting ad storyline was Don’s dealings with the rubes from Jantzen, who haplessly wanted to distinguish their “two-piece swimsuits for modest people” (ha) from bikinis.  When Don presented the Jantzen duo with his risqué ad, I wondered if it wasn’t out of spite.  And by the time he walked out of the pitch meeting, he’d only done a fraction of his job: one half of his job is coming up with an ad, and the other half is convincing his clients that his ads are right for them.  Don, letting his arrogance take over, barely bothered to do the latter, and lost the account as a result.

While the power and authority of Bert, Roger, and Lane have considerably diminished, the “scrappy upstarts” Pete, Peggy, and Harry (that sunburnt forehead!) have gained much in status.  Pete now has the job he’d been demanding since the pilot.  Peggy hasn’t lost any ground to Don since last season’s finale, and her sophisticated new business look — a short, bouffant ‘do, professional clothes, a drink in one hand and a smoke in the other — shows she’s completely left behind the Brooklyn frump she was called out as by the truck driver from Season One.  Her relationship with Pete has also normalized despite their strange and tortuous history; they make a much better work-team than they ever did a sex-team.  Harry has also come a long way since being threatened by Bert Cooper to be locked up in the closet in the Season Three finale.

Meanwhile, Don’s personal life — what’s left of it — has taken a few slaps to the face a beating.  He spends Thanksgiving with a prostitute.  The smart, young, calculatingly flirty Bethany (Anna Camp, last seen in True Blood) pities him (correctly) for being a lonely divorcee.  And he has to deal with Betty, who is even worse as an ex-wife than she was as a wife, and is undoubtedly racking up years of future therapy bills for Sally.

Stray observations:

• As usual, Roger had the best one-liners.  My favorite: “One wooden leg.  They’re so cheap they can’t even afford a whole reporter.”  Also, he’s writing a book?
• The second best line of the episode: “I don’t know how you can stand living in that man’s dirt.”
• The new Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce offices — all frosted glass, oak, and refined gray with a few flashes of primary colors — are sleek and gorgeous, but claustrophobic (like Don).  And Joan has her own office!
• Betty’s matronly makeover — the new hair, the red printed number at Thanksgiving dinner, the pink tweed suit — as the overcompensating wife of a middle-aged man with two adult children is tragic in its own way.

July 26, 2010. Mad Men, Recaps.