"The emptiness is a problem."
It really is. Don Draper is a hollow man, a charlatan, a grifter who believed so fervently in his façade that he became it. He's also a spectacular storyteller and reader of people, so talented that he's been able to disguise the gaping absences in his own character.
But now, the emptiness is showing. When Roger asks him to write a "Gettysburg address" type speech outlining the future of the firm - the kind of assignment that ought to be right in Don's wheelhouse - he falters. We see him grasping desperately at straws, asking Ted and Peggy and Sally and Sally's friends how they want the future to look, because he has no idea himself.
The psychologist Rollo May famously said that depression is the inability to construct a future, and this came pretty powerfully to mind for me watching Don mumble vaguely into his Dictaphone: "It's got to get better... It's supposed to get better." He gets Meredith to dig up the press release from December of 1963, when he and the partners first formed SCDP, a time when everything seemed possible and the future was limitless.
It's interesting to compare the ending of 'Shut the Door, Have a Seat' (the episode in which SCDP formed) to the final shot of this episode. 'Shut the Door...' ends with Don surveying his newly formed SCDP family (Peggy, Pete, Joan, Lane) with a smile, who were then working out of a cramped hotel room. Even though he'd just split with Betty and moved out into the city, he was surrounded by people and possibilities. That couldn't be further from where he ends up here, shut out of his own vast, empty apartment, another tie severed.
Don's realtor Melanie (much like Diana in 'Severance') seems to have slightly too much insight into him for a near-stranger, snappily telling him that his apartment won't sell because "it looks like a sad person lives here". Don can't understand why an empty apartment would be off-putting because to him, an empty space is an opportunity to spin a new story: "Tell them somebody lived here who made a million dollars inventing the Frisbee, and then he had to move in a hurry to a castle in France." Melanie's not buying it.
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Later Mathis - who gets himself fired for following Don's advice way too literally - comes in with another truth bomb as he yells, "You're just handsome! Stop kidding yourself!" This might not have stung much in itself, but it comes hours before Sally tells her father pretty much exactly the same thing.
I didn't think Don overstepped any lines in the way he handled Sally's flirtatious friend - the scene mostly reminded me of the season five episode where he hung out with teenage girls in order to figure out why they loved The Beatles - but Sally's just had it with both of her parents' narcissism, which she brilliantly describes as "oozing".
Her anger at Don - though definitely not unearned considering their past - is mostly misdirected disgust from that earlier interaction with Betty and Glenn, who seems to have grown up into Robert Pattinson with a jewfro. Glenn's fixation with Betty was never really as one-sided as you'd hope, and now he's fully grown she doesn't even try to hide her interest.
To Betty's credit, she does shut Glenn down when he comes back for what I guess is his version of "a more formal goodbye" before he ships off to Vietnam. Their whole interaction wasn't anywhere near as creepy as I worried, and Betty trying to be reassuring about the army "having all the comforts of home" was actually sort of sweet, if misguided.
Joan's storyline was actually the one I found most depressing this week, which is weird since Richard (aka Captain Pike!) is the first serious potential romance she's had in way, way too long. There are echoes of Peggy's aborted trip to Paris with Mathis's brother in 'Severance', as Richard romances Joan with the prospect of a getaway to Santa Barbara, but she opts instead to head back to the office. But what's more disturbing is how willing Joan is to send her son away - that "You're ruining my life!" was so clearly not directed at the babysitter.
I'm not sure how we were supposed to feel about Richard, but he seemed like the classic archetype of the dude who's great with the big romantic gestures (surprise visits, flowers, buying property near you) but terrible with actual emotional commitment. There were just so many things that bothered me about him - his jokes about low-income housing, his snotty response to Joan saying she lived on 12th Street, the way he wanted credit for "not being a cad"... yeah, no. But Joan does have a track record of bad romantic choices, so we'll probably see more of him.
Other thoughts:
- "I can fire you!" Ugh, my Peggy/Pete dreams are dying on the vine.
- When we first saw Melanie the realtor going into Don's apartment, I assumed she was Joanne, the mysterious phone secretary who seemed to have been hired to field calls from his various lady-suitors in 'Severance'.
- Skimmed milk, coffee and a grapefruit was making me really sad as a breakfast menu, so I was relieved when Joan added French toast into the mix.
- "He's very busy." "Stay out of this." Ha, gotta love how Peggy just has no time whatsoever for Meredith, even though she was in her exact position ten years ago.
- Having noted all the symbolism about emptiness and trying to sell an imagined future, it was still odd to me how bitchy and negative the realtor was, and how she tried to make it seem as though not having sold Don's apartment in a single day was the worst thing in the world. Did the NYC property market really move that fast in 1970?
- "You know I could have you killed for drinking anything but a Coke around here." Is Don's drinking ban from last season really still in effect? It barely worked even then.
- Why on earth did Mathis ever think the line that worked for Don with Lucky Strike would work the same way for him? Especially given what he said about Lee Garner Jr being in love with Don!
- "I'm sorry, mother, but this conversation is a little late. And so am I." I sort of love Sally these days.
- On that subject, I always thought Sal looked kind of like an older, slightly better-fed Don, so Lee Garner Jr's whole thing with Sal makes even more sense now in retrospect.
- "Jesus - love again?" Heh. Don used to be all about using love in campaigns. Two divorces was all it took to change his tune.
- Don gazing into the vending machine felt very loaded considering his Hershey history, although he doesn't end up opting for the Hershey bar (it looked like something with a red wrapper). Trying to deny his past? Trying to consciously make a different choice? Just wasn't in the mood for Hershey? Your answers on a postcard...
Emma Dibdin is a freelance writer based in Los Angeles who writes about culture, mental health, and true crime. She loves owls, hates cilantro, and can find the queer subtext in literally anything.
