Mad Men Season 6, Episode 1: ‘The Doorway’ Recap
For months on end we’ve been asking ourselves the same question that’s been ringing in Don Draper’s head since the Pilot — Is he alone? Not in a literal sense. We know there’s always someone near by. Betty, his children, Megan, Peggy, and countless women like the one uttering the last words of last season’s finale have received the closest thing to affection Don Draper/Dick Whitman is capable of.
The question stems more from Adam’s tooth metaphor from last season’s finale. Even in a post-Ebert world, we’re able to catch Matthew Weiner’s point. Countless “rotten teeth” of romantic and personal relationships have gone way of Lane Price’s prospects through the years, and Don’s irrevocable darkness is the cause. The question of the season premiere is not whether Donald Draper is alone. The question is, and will — for the foreseeable — remain, is he redeemable? And, more importantly, do we want that redemption?
Alone
We are jolted from the sheer terror of a person clinging to life, to the picturesque majesty of Diamond Head, white sand, blue drinks and Megan. In what has to be a first for the beach, Draper holds Dante’s The Inferno in his hands. Hawaii shows us a bronzed , quieter (he doesn’t speak his first words of the episode until the seven minute mark), “reefer” smoking Don who seems to be experiencing as much enjoyment as he is capable of.
Night brings quiet from the Luau’s and guided tours and the ever ready to please Megan, but it also brings space for Don’s demons to creep their way to the forefront of his mind and guide him to the hotel bar. The look back over his shoulder at his sleeping wife seems all too familiar and we fully expect to find he and Jessica Rabbit in the sand. Instead, we find our hero alone at the bar until joined by a G.I. on the night before his wedding — a wedding at which a strangely at peace Draper gives away the bride.
Megan and Don’s return to their apartment building is accompanied by a flash back that shows the man clinging to life was the doorman of the building who has since recovered. The man who saved his life is a doctor who lives in the building and whom Don has apparently befriended. Their encounter on the elevator is the closest to a normal conversation we’ve seen Don have in years.
The offices of SCDP are different from the way both we and Don left them. The renovation is complete and the partners are found posing for a photographer on the new stairwell. Inside the office and the mind of the Mad Man himself, confusion abounds. During a photo in his rearranged office, Draper discovers he inadvertently switched military-issued lighters with Pfc. Dinkins — the man whose bride he gave away in Hawaii — while hearing the photographer deliver the heavy-handed line, “I want you to be yourself.” Nothing gets easier for Don as the episode slugs along. An eerily familiar vomit at the Sterling funeral coupled with the rejection of his campaign for the Hawaiian hotel he was pitching leave him in an increasingly darker place.
The mood seems to be lightened a bit by the company of a New Years eve party filled with the Doctor and his wife as well as another couple. Don seems as comfortable in a social setting as he is able to feign and the mood is light until the Doctor is called to the hospital near 1 AM. Don walks the good doctor downstairs and exchanges philosophical thoughts about “Guys like us” before he makes his way back upstairs to a different door and into the arms of the arms of the Doctor’s wife. We know this is not the first time.
Mother of the Year
His former bride is her typical bizarre self as she awkwardly jokes to her new husband about the option of raping their sixteen year old house guest, Sandy, in the next room. Betty’s awkward attempt at humor is as unsettling to Henry as it is to the audience as she offers to hold the arms and gag the motherless teenager. Her rape scenario stands in stark contrast to her attempts to give paternal advice to the same child over a typical fat Betty midnight snack. When rejection to Julliard, the loss of her mother and typical teenage angst cause Sandy to run away, Betty dawns a get up that your grandmother would think was frumpy and waddles of into the Enrico Rizzo suite of the slums of New York City.
The rape “joke” is Betty. It’s the attempt of a woman who still, at her age, hasn’t the slightest clue who she is or what she stands for. Nothing about that exchange should come as bizarre or out of character for this woman. When you give locks of your hair to admiring prepubescents, the shock factor is all but eliminated. Rash, awkward behavior is the only constant of a little girl trapped in a model’s body.
In contrast, I don’t know who the hell the woman with maternal instincts trying rescue Sandy might be. Those instincts have been absent in every encounter she has ever had with her own children. If Sally even thought of challenging Betty in the same ways that Sandy did during their midnight snack, she would have earned a bloody lip. Instead, with Sandy, Betty seems to relish the dialogue. During an episode in which her children announce their hate for her and address her as “Betty,” contrast could not be more extreme.
Marc Antony
While Draper soaks up sun in the islands, his protegee refuses to be pulled under the waves of a faux crisis. While a staffer does his damnedest to recount a bit from a Carson guest, Peggy does her driest, coldest Don impersonation to perfection. Like her former boss, Peggy refuses to be caught up in the hysteria of a fleeting moment and attempts to persuade the client to stay the course. When the client refuses, we watch as she settles into a role of belittling the meager creative attempts of her subordinates and wallowing in the inability to find the idea on her own.
This is not a Peggy episode, necessarily, but make no mistake — this will be a Peggy year.
The Motherless Child
Between trips to the psychiatrist during which he drops in occasional serious thoughts around his typical Sterling-esque banter, Roger learns of the passing of his ninety-one year old mother. Roger’s dry, humor-laced facade is highlighted by the hysterics of his secretary’s devastation and tears over a woman to whom she has only spoken on the phone. The facade cracks a bit at the funeral when the sight of his ex-wife’s new husband sends him into a tirade and a demand for everyone to leave, screaming, “THIS IS MY FUNERAL!” a slip of the tongue that was far from a coincidence in this death-centric two-hour opening. When the dust is settled, we see the only woman who has ever had a calming effect on Roger work her magic yet again.While sitting beside him on a fur-covered bed, Mona manages to bring him back to the real world and encourage him to improve his relationship with his daughter.
The minions of SCDP noticed the same thing we did. Joan was nowhere to be found at a funeral whose guests included Pete Campbell. There are as many oversights in Mad Men as there are minorities. Joanie’s absence was not an accident. Your inner romantic can rest easy knowing the saga of Joan and Roger is far from its conclusion.
The only real glimpse we get of Roger Sterling and what is happening beneath that magnificent white mane arrives in the form of a shoe shine box. The man he has asked about no less than four times during the episode has died suddenly. His widow has sent the shine box as a memento. Roger sits and stares and finally weeps uncontrollably.
Abandon All Hope
He was always going to be alone. In our heart of hearts, we had to know that. Maybe he said no to the woman at the bar, maybe he didn’t. It couldn’t matter less. Abandon all hope for redemption. Abandon all hope for peace. No one can bring that peace but Don Draper, and Don Draper is dead.