Mad Men – “Mystery Date”

Man. After seeing what Don did to Bobbie Barrett back in season 2, I’ve always had the feeling that this guy is a little crazy. Maybe not Dexter crazy, but definitely Tony Soprano crazy. He’s the kind of guy who does a reasonably good job of keeping his temper in check, but when he or his interests are very obviously threatened, he lashes out, grabbing a hold of your private parts and whispering menacing things in your ear. And after Bobbie, we saw that Don wasn’t above hitting a woman. And tonight, we saw that Don wasn’t above strangling a woman to death and kicking her lifeless body underneath his bed, snuggling up under his sheets and going back to sleep.

Now, if we’re those viewers who are so in love with Don Draper that we refuse to believe that any of the horrible things he does actually reflect on his character, then we can write this little episode off in a couple of different ways. One is that it was all a dream, and we do all sorts of cray things in our dreams, right? I mean, if I had a nickel for every person I’ve strangled in a dream, I’d be able to open a savings account or something. I’m not a violent person. All I’m saying is that it happens. If we’re looking at things a little deeper, and taking the fact that Matthew Weiner graduated from the David Chase School of Television Writing into account, then we’ll know that one of the things he learned there was how to use a dream sequence to illustrate some inner struggle a character is going through. We can view this as significant, or tell ourselves that even in his dream Don was delirious.

By now you should know that it’s significant.

Remember, all of this was happening against the backdrop of the Richard Speck murders in July of 1966. Speck was (obviously) a murderer who raped, tortured and killed eight student nurses who worked at the South Chicago Community Hospital. So I think it’s safe to say that’d it be FOOLISH for us to assume that the violence perpetrated against these women didn’t figure prominently in this episode for a reason. But what’s the connection? It can’t just be that Don’s a sadist and feels violently toward women. Remember that Bobbie was kind of blackmailing him when he had his Tony Soprano moment with her in “The Benefactor.” And he was kind of being blackmailed with this woman in tonight’s episode. And what was in jeopardy in this episode was his relationship with Megan. It’s looking for and more like Don is making a serious run at putting his cheating ways behind him for good. He really does seem to be more “in love” with Megan than he was with Betty. When they were still married and had one of those moments when it seemed like they were finally going to start treating each other right, their relationship snapped back to indifferent fairly quickly. But despite the fact that they’ve been married for months, Don is still complimenting Megan on the way she looks, and it seems like they’re still having a reasonable amount of trouble keeping their hands off each other while outside the apartment. They look like they’re in love. So, we can assume — at least for now because who knows that Weiner will throw at us as the season goes on — that Don’s gut reaction to what was happening in his dream was to protect his relationship with Megan at all costs. And Don really took that “at all costs” bit to heart, amirite?

But a final interpretation of this whole thing changes when you look at this as something that really happened (which we know it didn’t, but there’s no reason to believe Don knew that in the moment), and something that happened in Don’s head. If it’s something that really happened, then what Don was reacting to was just what I said: a threat to his marriage. But if we look at this as something that happened in Don’s head, then what he was reacting to is open to interpretation. This woman who Don used to work with and slept with on I’m assuming a couple of occasions caught him in a vulnerable position. He was sick and alone. Don told her that he wasn’t the guy she used to run around with and asked her to leave several times. And each time she came back at him, even coming back to his apartment after he had kicked her out. She gets him while he’s lying in bed, and finally Don succumbs and they do their thing. Whenever it’s all over, she tells Don that they’ll do this again, and brushes him off when he tells her it isn’t going to happen. And it’s only then that he snaps and strangles her. Here, if we take this women to be a representation of Don’s weaknesses, we could look at it as Don striking out at a part of himself. A weakness that he doesn’t like and wants to get rid of. I said that Don isn’t a sadist, but we know he’s a masochist (remember this little chestnut?).

Don’s got problems any way you look at it. He had a bad childhood. He stole someone’s identity while in Korea. And you couldn’t describe his marriage to Betty as healthy. But, he’s trying to be better. And if you look at the fact that this dream Don had was brought on by a fever, then you could even look at it as symbolic. Representative of Don getting better, and becoming a better person. It’s something to think about.

Perhaps less interesting, but more of a reason to pump our fists in the air, “Mystery Date” marked the return of the dreaded Greg Harris, Joan’s douchebag husband who I think most people were hoping would get killed in Vietnam. Greg’s only been home for a couple of hours when he tells Joan that, in ten days, he’s going to have to ship back out to Vietnam for another year. And when Joan thinks that these are his orders and that he never had a say in it, she finds a way to deal with it. But at dinner that night she discovers that Greg volunteered to go back, and that, obviously, is a bridge too far. She tells him that she’s tired of trying to make him feel like he’s a good man when she knows he isn’t.**And if there’s some need he’s got that the military’s fulfilling that she’s not, well, he can just get the hell out. And he does. Of course, not before he throws out a token, “If I walk out that door IT’S OVER!” But Joan’s not having any of that, so he goes.

(**Remember when Greg raped her before they got married? Well, Joan’s held onto that AND SO HAVE WE.)

Honestly, I was surprised to see the show get rid of Greg so quickly, and so cleanly (although I guess they could always bring him back). It’s too bad Joan’s relationship isn’t looking as good as Don’s right now, all things considered. But, it might help clear the way for Joan and Roger to get back together. You know you want it.