Wednesday, August 18, 2010

"I Never Thought About Love, When I Thought About Home" Mad Men: Season 4, This Season So Far.


So far, this season of Mad Men has not been engaging me the way the first few seasons did. I was so exhilarated to see Don and Co. strike out on their own at the end of "Shut the Door, Have a Seat" I didn't fully consider the implications of such a move. The "successful at work/disaster at home" formula worked for me, and I have been have a hard time adjusting to the "shaky at work/unmitigated and total disaster in every other walk of life" identity that Don has taken on this season. Even though Don Draper is a right bastard, I don't really like seeing him get what's coming to him. Watching him pathetically unable to woo women who would have been throwing themselves at him a year before, seeing him forced to say goodbye to the one person who can actually say "I know everything about you, and I still love you.", seeing his children miserable without him (and with the ever more monstrous Betty) is just getting too relentlessly grim for me. Even the moments in the show that cause you to laugh or smile do it wistfully, with nothing like the triumph that came when Don Draper would get a one-up on someone in seasons past.


Don't get me wrong, the acting is still wonderful, and Jon Hamm still amazes me with how he is able to shift from being Don Draper to Dick Whitman in subtle, barely perceptible ways. (Get this man an Emmy!) The show is still miles better than anything on television right now. But there is something of letdown in the fact that even though it seemed that many characters were getting the change they wanted and so needed at the end of last season, they are still just stuck. Stuck married to idiot man-children, stuck being idiot man-children, stuck making a choice between career girl and happy homemaker, stuck between something new and something old. But more than the that, the grimness comes from a sense that each of these people is just so alone. Don, Joan, Peggy, Betty, these are all incredible dynamic people afraid to show their true selves to anyone, afraid to give love, to be loved, to actually connect with someone else. It brings a darkness to the show that is making it hard for me to connect with them this season.


So my hope for the rest of the season? Don gets a little swagger back, Joan gets a little spine back (at home), Peggy realizes she can have a different life than her mother and still be happy....and Betty? Well, it's hard to imagine a happy ending for her, even with my relentless optimism. Um, Betty keeps ignoring Bobby and therefore does not totally destroy him the way she will her daughter? That's kinda happy. I'll take it. (Also, more Roger. NEED MORE ROGER)