"Mad Med" Season 7.1: So Far

Mad Men's new co-star, the IBM 360

The series run of Mad Men, which will come to an end next year, can be divided into two parts. Or at least, that's the way I see it. In Seasons One through Four episodes did carry plot lines across installments, but there didn't seem to be any great plan at work. There were twists and turns, but I'm not sure that producer and writer Matthew Weiner was thinking too far ahead. Even individual episodes didn't seem to have clearly unifying themes to then. He may have had an idea where he wanted the season to go, but I'm not sure he had an endgame for the series in mind. What was happening was that week by week we were learning more about the show's main figure, Don Draper / Dick Whitman. Yes, there was a great deal of office intrigue, and sex and boozing, and corporate reshuffles, but if I were to sum up, these were mainly four seasons of developing and unfolding the enigma that is Don Draper.

After the contract dispute that delayed production of Season Five, Weiner knew that he had two to three seasons left, and returned to work with a greater sense of purpose. Episodes were constructed in a more symmetrical way, with plots and subplots coordinated to accent particular themes. In spite of this the episodes are not completely self contained units. This story is leading in a direction, and it's upon a second look that the foreshadowing becomes clear. The show always had a literary air to it, but now it was being constructed in a literary way. It wasn't clear to me until now, but since at least Season Five, the story has been constructed to lead to a particular end. What that is is yet to be seen, but we are at a point in the show that unless you've seen at least the last three seasons I'm not sure a new viewer will understand what's going on.

I would not want to predict the ultimate payoff Mr. Weiner has in mind, but there are themes that can be identified that can give us clues. There is no doubt that a main theme dominating the entire almost six and half season run of Mad Men is change and people's capacity to adapt to shifting social norms. With the show taking place in the 1960's, and following the decade in a semi-real time fashion, we can follow this theme right from the pilot episode when Don struggles to find the right angle for Lucky Strike cigarettes that will satisfy new government restrictions on tobacco advertising. I would say that in season seven another theme has emerged that melds somewhat with that of change. It's one that may not be completely new to the show, but which is being put forward with greater force than before. Is it me, or are there a lot of people suffering from paranoia in and around SC&P? As far as I can see, all this fearful mistrust begins with a computer.

If a working knowledge of Rosemary's Baby, and it's wider cultural significance to the sixties, was helpful for making sense of last season's goings on, then 2001: A Space Odyssey is this season's touch stone. While there is still a lingering Sharon Tate - Charles Manson vibe hovering over Season 7, the references to the Stanley Kubrick classic came hot and heavy the last couple of weeks. I have to admit that I missed all the references to 2001 made in Episode 4, but once I saw the connections explained on various sites I felt like a bit of a dolt for having those easy fly balls sail over my head. In fairness, many sites that I perused made no mention of the paranoia in space fable either, so maybe I shouldn't feel too bad about it. My only excuse is that I saw 2001 many years ago, and it simply didn't make a lasting impact on my imagination. On the other hand I am familiar with Rosemary's Baby, and it's connection to the Manson Family murders so I saw those clues much more clearly.

It was impossible to miss the 2001 allusion this week, since they essentially re-staged one of the movie's most famous scenes, in a quite clever and comic way. Michael Ginsberg, always a bit neurotic, and even more edgy since a new room size IBM 360 computer was installed in the office, spies Jim Cutler and Lou Avery conspiring inside the glass room that houses the contraption, a la the HAL 9000 eves dropping on the two astronauts. Only instead of being able to read lips like the fictional super computer, Michael fills in the blanks with his increasingly deranged imagination. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Michael wasn't only anxious over being replaced by a machine, but he's struggling with his own sexual identity as well.

Paranoia is not not restricted to poor Michael (I was sad to see him wheeled out of the office, strapped to a gurney, knowing he may never return. He was one of my favorite minor characters). Lou and Cutler plot secretly. Lou, himself, is nervy about Don's return to the office. Peggy sees the hand of her would be lover Ted Chaough behind every flower arraignment. Megan is convinced that Don is cheating, even though, for once, he isn't.  She essentially kicks his pregnant "niece" out of the house because she suspects that he's the daddy. Some of this mistrust is understandable, some is truly paranoia. But as the times do indeed change, no one knows where they stand and if they can trust that the ground won't fall out from under them.

The only person who doesn't seem to be looking over his shoulder is Don Draper; the person who has the most business being nervous. He's the Army deserting, identity stealing, serial philanderer who's probably on more than one jealous husband's hit list. Lets not forget that he's been let back to work after a forced leave under duress, with harsh conditions and partners salivating at the opportunity to get rid of him for good. Yet he, as always, is cool as a cucumber. Frustrated, sure, but he's the one plotting to get ahead, not to simply hold his place.

Like I wrote, there have been hints of paranoia spread throughout the show's run. I think specifically of Season Five when Sally is fed the sorted details of the Richard Speck murders by her babysitting step grandmother. At first she tries to hide the newspaper from the child, but eventually shares the gruesome details with the overwrought drama of a camp counselor telling ghost stories before lights out. When Betty and Henry come home after their long weekend, they find grandma sleeping on the couch with a knife and Sally sleeping under her feet (imitating the lone survivor of Speck's rampage who had hidden under a bed). Both are haunted by the idea of random murder at the hands of a demented intruder.

So we see this year these two themes; the specter of change and the psychological unease that it brings. Life is nothing more than a series of changes, but the 60's saw them come at lightning speed. And yes, there is a dark side to the era that often gets white washed by the romance of flower children and cool music. I hope that there are no Manson style murders thrust directly into the Mad Men story line, but I'm glad for the paranoia. I read this approach criticized as a reactionary questioning of the glorious social progress made during that era. I think that's ridiculous. If the 1960's era Baby Boomers are going to take credit for Civil Rights, ending the Vietnam War, Woodstock, the ushering in of an era of self awareness and the sexual revolution then it also has to own the Manson Murders, and their glorification by the underground press at the time, Altamont, drug abuse, dislocated lives and broken families; in other words they need to wrestle with the dark side of the dream.

Charles Manson: Still looming large from the foreshadows