Draper? Who knows anything about that guy? No one’s ever lifted that rock. He could be Batman for all we know.

—Harry Crane, The Marriage of Figaro

On the DVD commentary at this point, Jon Hamm says “I’m not Batman.” Ha!

Roberta said it first: Don loves Rachel.

Until my DVDs came, I had only seen Marriage of Figaro once—the only episode of Mad Men for which that was true. I didn’t start saving them right away, and around the time they were rebroadcast, I was in the midst of switching from Tivo (rocks) to Io DVR (sucks) and screwed up the recording. It’s an amazing and important episode, and I’d only seen it once. So I rewatched it right away, pausing only to write up everything and watch an extra feature.

Anyway.

In the early part of the season, I wondered if Don wasn’t seriously, even suicidally, depressed. And certainly his helpless sorrow in Marriage seemed to point in that direction. It seemed to be about the darkness of the American dream, the dissatisfaction of his supposedly perfect life, a cry of “is this all there is?” And that’s all true. But on re-viewing, I see how everything he sees in the darkness that descends upon his sunny Saturday has to do with the kiss he shared with Rachel Menken Friday night.

He wakes up to see the cufflinks. He looks in on a couple kissing, and the man lifts her chin, and she’s a brunette, and Don is lost. He goes out, lost. And comes home with a big dog. Not a puppy; a big dog like the ones on the roof. Because Rachel said that sometimes, that’s all a little girl needs.

Most of this Roberta already said; better than I. She understood that dog thing. When I was watching it, I actually had forgotten how much her post was about that dog.

But there was that one other thing; that kiss. At the birthday party, a married couple kiss. It explicitly echoes Don and Rachel on the roof. She is dark haired, they have a moment, he lifts her chin. And that captivates and devastates Don; he leaves soon after. So I saw that, and I wrote this post, and then I watched the episode again, this time with commentary on, and I was so pleased to learn that Matt Weiner made sure the second kiss echoed Don and Rachel’s kiss; that was on purpose. And that couple, they’re the only happily married couple we see, so that means more than just a visual echo; to Don, it’s his chance, and he blew it.

In Babylon, when Roger tells her that before meeting her he was ready to leave his wife, she play-slaps him. But the intention of the slap was, Don’t you ever talk about leaving your wife.

And in Marriage of Figaro, she says that Lady Chatterly’s Lover is “another testimony to how most people think marriage is a joke.”

by rkl

The same episode where Harry says of Don “That guy could be Batman for all we know,” is the episode where Don runs into someone on the train who calls him “Dick Whitman.”

Beautiful.

It’s hard to watch well-written television. Catch the subtext, foreshadowing, and motifs. Honestly, having this blog helps me do the thinking I need to do to fully appreciate the genius and subtlety of the show. Oh my gods I sounded like I was giving Matt Weiner a blowjob, didn’t I? But it’s just that good.

(Or, A Blog is Born.)

Hi.

So, I’m a little uncomfortable with this, because it may be crossing over into narcissistic. But I was over in TV Squad. TV Squad’s Bob Sassone has been a fan of and written about Mad Men since the beginning, and I used to follow his write-ups and comment. The show finally has its own category on the site, and Bob is now a reader of ours as well. (And watch for an interview over there with Rich Sommer in a few weeks. We’ll let you know.)

The thing about Basket of Kisses, as you basketcases know, is that we started it after Season One had aired. Pretty much, right after. The first post was basically Peggy? WTF??? only with a better title.

(Actually, pretty funny. I just glanced over at that first post so I could put in the hyperlink, and I absolutely ask the spelled out version of WTF. I am very freaking consistent.)

Okay so my point, and I will make one, and it in fact ties in with my being consistent… it turns out that looking at my profile page in TV Squad, I can (and now, so can you) view all my comments in one place. So, kind of mini-write-ups/reactions to S1 in progress.

Some of what I’d written are thoughts that I eventually turned into posts here, or talked about in our discussions, at least one is something I’ve still been meaning to write about, some are insights that got lost as more stimuli came into play, and some are predictions, right and wrong. It was interesting, for me at least, to have a look back at my discovery process of this splendid series. Oh and uh… at some point I refer to Don and Betsy. He does call her Bets from time to time, but still. I was so young then (sigh).

On Marriage of Figaro:

I wondered about the Dick Whitman, if it was a real secret past or metaphorical. Now that you guys have cleared that up, what is the meaning? That he feels so removed from his current life that he may as well have a secret identity? That he also feels so removed from his past that he may as well have been someone else? To me, Don’s biggest symptom of depression is an experience of disconnect; not just feeling different from other people, but I get a sense that there is a fog around him. And I think the scene on the train shows him succumbing to the fog… he doesn’t know this guy, but he can’t bring himself to address it. And if he had known the guy, he’d have reacted the same way. That was the purpose, I feel, of having the scene be deliberately confusing to the viewers.

Emphasis mine. “Now that you guys have cleared that up” sounds like commenters confirmed that there was NOT a secret identity, but I went and checked, and they actually confirmed that there WAS. So either I wrote the whole thing unclearly, or I misunderstood what I was reading back then. But the whole Don is depressed and in a fog thing… I was focused on that for weeks and weeks, and have since forgotten all about it.

Anyway, if you do check it out, keep in mind that these are comments, and as such, may be referring to other comments. And there’s one or two in there that are not from Mad Men (like my attack on Grey’s Anatomy’s crappy writing, and my disappointment with the Riches (a show I have since dropped), which is actually what got me over to TV Squad in the first place.

I was watching Long Weekend tonight, and taking extensive notes. I’ll have more to say later on. But for now, I was noticing this. That Don is not a womanizer.

People all over the Internet are angry at Don for cheating on Betty. And yeah, Don’s a cheater. An adulterer. These are bad things and we can be mad at Don. But he’s not a skirt-chaser. He’s not, to put it plainly, Roger Sterling. (And I have some thoughts about Roger I’ll also be fleshing out—no pun intended—in the near future.)

In Long Weekend, Roger says he wants to use Don “as bait.” He knows the way to go is to pick up two young women and end up with one. This isn’t new; he’s after the same thing in Red In the Face, and only wrangles an invitation to dinner when his plan fails.

Roger is a womanizer. He wants warm, lovely flesh. He wants a young woman to remind him of youth. He wants beauty and soft skin and lips like strawberries in milk. Don wants something different.

When Don says he wants to go home he means it. He doesn’t want to be with Roger, with twenty year-olds on their laps. He’s a bad husband, but he believes in the salvation of being a husband and having a family. And it’s when that salvation doesn’t pan out that he goes for Midge, and then for Rachel. He tells Rachel in Smoke Gets in Your Eyes that he doesn’t believe in love, but he’s deeply romantic; he believes each of these women might save him.

I’ll tell you something else: Don Draper married Betty, but Dick Whitman went for Midge and for Rachel. Dick Whitman is the one attracted to Midge’s taste of Bohemia, and to Rachel’s aloneness and motherlessness. Betty is truly and deeply being cheated, because she’s the only one who gets not even a taste of the authentic Dick Whitman within Don.

Which is…not where I thought this essay was going. Funny how these things turn out. What I started out thinking was how much we need our television heroes to eschew the getting laid side of relationships. I’m reminded of Mal Reynolds being all uncomfortable with “Saffron” (our own Christina Hendricks). He’s as horny as the next fellow, but you don’t just screw a woman because she happens to be naked in your bed! I don’t know if real men really go ahem-ahem-ahem and back away when sex is available, but I know on television you can count on it. We can sympathize even with anti-heroes if they have that quality.

Don has that quality. With the twins in Long Weekend it’s quite obvious, but it’s there in the first episode with Peggy, and in Marriage of Figaro he’s practically the only one not to hit on Helen Bishop.

Don, as I said, is a romantic. And (despite what Bert Cooper thinks), kind of a humanist. He wants to be with a female person, not a female body. He wants to be touched and moved and he wants to connect. He longs to connect. Whereas Roger has no such longing. He just wants a respite.

From their writeup of Marriage of Figaro:

Rachel, however, is unimpressed, saying her store already has personal shopping and designer collections, which makes her wonder if they were so focused on her competitors that they forgot to visit her store. Pete: “I’ve been away on my honeymoon.” I quoted that directly because I was afraid that if I’d merely told you that Pete used his honeymoon as an excuse here, you wouldn’t have believed me.

Heh.

It’s all there in their first ‘date’ in Smoke Gets In Your Eyes… She is 28 and has never been married because she’s never been in love. Don laughs this off because in his view, there’s no such thing as love.

And though I believe he has love for Betty, it’s never been that kind of love. So in the ongoing question of why did Don marry Betty,  I really don’t think he saw it as selling out or settling. It is not even a matter of believing in love. Don knows. KNOWS. that this is all that love and marriage are. That other kind of love does not exist… it was invented by Mad Men and, ironically, by Hallmark. (It’s ironic because Midge is a freelance artist for the likes of Hallmark. And there it is, again, in the pilot… she tells Don that they have just invented Grandmother’s Day.)

You know, we keep talking in here about love. Does Pete love Peggy, does Don love Betty. Here’s one… does Joan love Roger? Does Roger love Mona? I think we all struggle because, let’s face it, who the fuck knows what ‘love’ is?

But I do think (and I am once again reminded of the opening credits) that Don has taken a deep fall for Rachel. And for the sake of argument, let’s call that love.

With all my viewings of Marriage of Figaro, I never really took his misery as solely Rachel-based. I knew he likes her, and that she affects him. He is shown gazing at the cufflinks that she gave him. But I didn’t consider her the source of his misery that day.

Until the dog.

Until I finally put it together about the dog. At the end of Figaro, Don comes home, hours and hours late, with a big dog for Sally. We never see how he comes to acquiring this full-grown dog. But it takes a lot to buy a dog; it’s not as simple as walking into your local Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company and searching the frozen food section.

Flash back, if you will, to Rachel and Don on the roof of her store. And she is telling Don all about her childhood, and how these big dogs were her closest allies. Don bringing this gift to his own little girl. This tells me that Don went all the way in. This is not just a crush… he is crushed by her. Don is thinking about Rachel as a child, he is with that little girl on the roof. He is thinking about Rachel today, on that roof, laughing at her own childhood. He is with her as she relates back to herself as a child. He is yearning for her as she is now, whole and tragic and somehow not haunted by her losses.

One more thing… this feels eerie and magical to Don. Back on that first ‘date’ over drinks, she tells him that she recognizes that he is a complete outsider in his own world. No one has ever called that out before. And on the roof… well, later we find out that his mother, too, had died giving birth to him. This goes beyond the usual, Wow, you like Chinese food too? Those are tricky moments in the development of a love story (and I mean in the personal development of our own love stories)… those psychic connections, those things that have never been shared… to suddenly have a partner on things that you’d long written off as yours and yours alone. This is a powerful draw.

So yes, for whatever it’s worth, I think he is in love with her.

This post, via its title, is dedicated to the memory of Heath Ledger.

Let me say this. It was this episode that solidified my love for this show. I’d been watching the previews, all the behind-the-scenes stuff, for quite awhile, and was excited about the prospect of this show. And I definitely liked the first two episodes, but the jury was out. The whole thing could rely on clichés and stereotypes and time travel references like Don’t remark about ’some kind of magical machine that just makes copies’ in the pilot. Marriage of Figaro showed me that I didn’t have a clue as to what to expect. That this show felt like nothing I’d ever experienced before, that it wasn’t fucking around, that it was on its own ride, and yeah, I was along for it.

1. I love Rachel’s reaction to the chicken. While she herself resembles some kind of bizarre Gertrude McFuzz in that hat.

2. I love Rachel’s response to finding out Don is married. There are some who take issue with the fact that she jumped from one kiss to committed relationship, but I think she had it right; there was nothing casual about their connection. He says Don’t try to convince me that you were ever unloved. So her response of Well then am I supposed to live some life running alongside yours? to me, was so grounded. How many women would just close their eyes, kiss him again, and pretend it will all somehow work out? I saw right there (and not for the first time) what a whole, together woman she is.

3. I love that Don and Betty are fine. Through the entire morning of the party, when it is so obvious to us, because we are culturally informed, that every time Betty mentions the cake or any other chore, (and later the movie camera), she is actually freaking out and really wants to lunge, she remains sweet and composed. And with every request from Betty, we know that Don is a pressure cooker. But he never shows it. He remains good-natured (look how he handles the powder room moment). Rachel’s presence leads to what happens later, but this interaction… this is their life together. And they keep it terribly pleasant. (This starts to shift after a lot of drinks; see #7.)

4. I love that the birthday party has NOTHING to do with the kids. Betty prepares a killer spread, but it’s for the adults; she just puts out peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the children. It is a party for the grownups; the kids are hardly an afterthought. There was supposed to be a clown, but they couldn’t get him, so the kids just run around inside and outside, playing on their own, with no planned activities. They are barely introduced to the adults, and that is reflected back to us, as they are also barely introduced to us, the audience.

5. I love Helen Bishop. What’s not to love? She reminds me of Rachel; she has killer foresight and the balls to speak on it (she puts that slimeball Carlton in his place, and fast). And she is liquid killer sexy, also like Rachel.

6. I love that after his kid is slapped by someone who isn’t him, after he asks ‘do you want some more’ (hitting), Carlton then tells his son to go get his mother to clean up the mess he made. His hugely pregnant mother, I might add.

7. Don has four beers before the party, by my count. Then drinks throughout, like everyone. He starts to become visibly affected when he is filming the party; this is when he finally appears agitated as well. I love that sitting on top of the cake box on the front passenger seat is an empty plastic cup… he had brought his drink with him for the ride to to HiTop.

8. I love what sounds to my unresearched ear as the anachronistic, We haven’t done birthday cake. (Nancy says this after her husband Chet suggests that they leave. Chet then follows with There’s not gonna be a cake. Am I the only one that knows that?)

9. I love that Betty’s hands, very subtlely, looks like they have gone numb while she is trying to cut the sorry looking frozen Sara Lee pie birthday cake thing.

10. What I love about this episode, what shocked and dismayed me upon the initial viewing, was that we stayed in Ossining. The first portion of the show was in and around Madison Avenue, and I assumed that it would go back there. I kept waiting for the scenes from the party to cut back into Monday at the office. It never did. It was… excruciating. I wanted to go back. This was awful. I felt like I was suffocating in this horrible world. And like I said, this was the moment when I recognized that this was unlike anything I’d ever seen on television before, and that I would never be able to predict where this show was going to take me, week after week.

Oh and fine. I can’t keep it to ten. I mean, I didn’t even mention Don at the train. But…

11) I love Don in his t-shirt building that playhouse. I’d offer to shower with him, too.

So, last week I was speculating about Don at the train station in Marriage of Figaro. Was he suicidal? Was he thinking about running away again—was the train “escape” to him?

So on Saturday, there’s Matt Weiner, and of all the zillion questions I want to ask, well, that seems like the best one. After Roberta finished her question, I took the mike and that’s what I asked.

She has the digital recorder, so I’m paraphrasing, but here’s what he said:

Trains are profoundly important for Don. He got on a train as Dick Whitman, got off as Don Draper, leaving “his” corpse behind. In a very real way, the train is where Don Draper came from. So when he was lost, confused, bereft, and didn’t know where to go, he went to where he came from, where he began. The train.

Then Weiner talked about the CGI image of the train reflected on Don, and how beautiful it was, and how important, and how pleased he was to see it.

But the thing I came away with was that (a) I was right about the importance of trains as a symbol, and that felt validating, and (b) that Weiner’s response was more psychological, more nuanced, and less of an answer.

I love that. I was looking for “an answer.” As in “it meant this.” It meant suicidal. It meant running away. But no, it didn’t mean anything so specific, so packagable. Don sat there not knowing why he sat there. He sat there hoping an answer for why he was sitting there would emerge.

I hate movies and TV shows that are too answery. It was all a dream. She was really his sister. Ray Charles had a drug problem because of his brother’s death. Howard Hughes had OCD because his mother made him spell c-h-o-l-e-r-a. Movies and TV are full of “because,” but real life just isn’t.

Sometimes I’m on a date and someone will ask me why my marriage ended. And I want to ask, ‘Did your marriage end because of a “why”? Does any marriage end that simply?’

There’s an answer to Don’s past—he was Dick Whitman, “whoreson,” and he switched dog tags with his dead CO. But there also isn’t an answer. He’s a lost and fearful person who doesn’t understand why his happy life doesn’t feel happy, why he’s given his wife everything but her hands go numb, why he sits at the train and can’t make himself go home. And answers don’t come in neat little packages just before the last commercial break. Not on our show.