Ah, Howard Johnsons. A weirdo orange and turquoise chalet, with a troubled Don Draper in the foreground. Gorgeous. "It's not a destination, but on the way to something," and certainly not a very good way-station for Don and Meghan. In fact, much of "Far Away Places" is about love troubles and literal "trips" taken, as the episode explores these relationship in a Rashomon fashion, with little overlaps to personalize the stories from the characters' distinctive perspectives. For me, the most significant struggles this week were about women dealing with work/life balance issues, with a little LSD humor thrown in for comic relief from the show's pervasive bleakness.
The show opens with Peggy and Abe fighting at her apartment, as Peggy pulls herself together for work, gearing up for a major presentation she's giving for Heinz beans. She's nervous and stressed, and Abe chooses this moment to build her insecurities about "behaving like a man" by comparing her to his dad, and claiming that she just uses him (while still withholding sex from him). After telling her to have a shitty day, she proceeds to have a doozy.
Peggy finds her lucky "violet candy" before the presentation, but Don and Meghan bail on her for a boondoggle at an upstate Howard Johnsons. Presenting without Don seems to give clients free license to hassle Peggy and her pitch, and she completely loses it with Heinz, claiming that he just likes to fight (with her). The Heinz exec turns to Ken Cosgrove and says "Can you believe this girl?" Ken smoothly navigates the conflict, suggesting that they are all frustrated, but the damage is done. Peggy's booted from the account. The telling moment is when Stan compliments her on such a suicidal confrontation with Heinz and remarks, "Women usually want to please." Thankfully, Peggy's far more complicated than that expectation.
In a huff, she takes off to see a movie by herself. Earlier, before their fight, Abe suggests they see a film starring Cornel Wilde, that takes place in Africa. Further investigation reveals this film to be The Naked Prey (1966), where Wilde and a bunch of men on safari offend a local tribe, who proceed to kill them off, one-by-one. The last survivor, Wilde, is stripped naked and hunted by the tribe in a life or death struggle for survival. Fun! Instead, Peggy goes to see Born Free (1966), a very different film that also takes place in Africa. Her experience at this film is not just about moving moments watching cute baby lions. Oh No!
As Peggy watches the film, a gentleman behind her lights up a joint. When she chastises him about it, he offers her some, and she accepts. Assuming an invitation, he comes and joins her in an adjoining seat. Now pretty stoned, he makes a move, but instead of letting his hands wander, she moves them out of the way. He then places her hand on his groin, and she's willing. He moves to kiss her, but instead she commands him to watch the film while she gives him a hand job. I found this scene to encapsulate so many of the tensions surrounding Peggy. She's aware of the feminine expectation that women be "pleasing," but she wants to negotiate that expectation on her own terms. She may be "pleasing" this guy, but she's controlling the narrative.
Back at work after a quick hand washing, Peggy witnesses Michael Ginsberg and his "father" bickering in the hallway. MG's finding it hard to maintain his "unencumbered boy genius" persona when his personal life is so often on display for Peggy (earlier she overheard a personal phone call of his). Later, Peggy's discussion with MG regarding his origin story serves to humanize them both, and I found myself actually warming to his character. Initially, he claims that he's from Mars, but then divulges to Peggy that he was born in a concentration camp, and that his "father" rescued him from a Swedish orphanage when he was 5 years old. The way the scene is shot, with MG's back to Peggy while he recounts this story through his reflection in the office window, speaks to the truthfulness and honesty of his story. Peggy (as a surrogate for the viewer) is undeniably moved.
This scene compels her to reach out and try to make an emotional connection with Abe when she returns to her apartment later that night.. The show implies that when she awakens Abe with a phone call and asks him to come to her, relating MG's story, that she and Abe share something meaningful, fulfilling beyond their sexual needs. She realizes that telling Abe that she needs him is something he needs to hear, but she comes to say this to him honestly, rather than as a means to an end. Of all the couples explored in this week's episode, Peggy and Abe seem to be able to actually listen to and hear each other. While she may have blown the Heinz account, Peggy has not screwed up her relationship beyond repair, and she at least tries to balance her work and personal lives with thoughtfulness.
Unfortunately, Meghan's negotiation of this balance is far less satisfying, and I felt for her far more this episode than I ever have in the past. As this season reveals episode by episode, Meghan likes her job and wants to be good at it. She continuously wants to move beyond being acknowledged as "Don's wife," and feels pride in being part of SCDP's creative team. When Don strong arms her into driving upstate to Hojo's, she apologizes repeatedly for abandoning them. Whereas Peggy in many ways feels beholden to Don for her position at the agency, Meghan knows that she would only be a secretary if not for Don. In the first few episodes of the season, I felt, in identifying with Peggy, that Meghan wielded unfair advantage over her. Now I see that Meghan's not entirely happy with the power dynamics involved, although she's not above using that power when necessary; it just feels hollow to her. Nowhere is this tension more apparent than in the creative staff room, where Meghan makes a comment about casting the Heinz commercial. When she's called away by Don, Stan makes a remark about Meghan's role on the team, and Peggy defends her, albeit ambivalently. Stan's circle of respect has widened to include Peggy, but he's just not there yet with Meghan. That attitude seems fair; she simply hasn't proven herself yet. With Don controlling her every move, though, she's hardly had a chance.
While Don has undeniably been on "love leave" since his marriage to Meghan, she does not feel as besotted or satisfied with their dynamic. When it comes to a woman being "pleasing," Meghan seems a little tired of this role, especially at work. Yet during their sex play, her role is to not be pleasing; unsurprisingly, she has a hard time delineating which role she's playing and when. Don continues to order her around, and does not listen to her; he's more uncomfortable than admiring of Meghan's perspective, especially when it disagrees with his views. Don is so focused on his fantasy of an upstate getaway, that he repeatedly dismisses Meghan's concerns about the Heinz presentation, emphasizing that she should take advantage of her position as his wife and just relax and enjoy herself. Later, when sitting in Hojo's restaurant, he starts to jot notes about the place, riffing on some pitch ideas. She rightly states, "You like to work, but I can't like to work." He's allowed to have a "working" vacation, whereas Meghan's only allowed a vacation, expected to be "pleasing" eye candy. Don prefers to see her only as his "wife," not as an intellectual equal.
After sampling the restaurant's wares, Meghan asks for pie, but Don immediately cancels the order and demands three scoops of orange sherbet and two spoons. He fully expects her to love this dessert as much as he does, and after one bite, she pushes the offensive neon stuff away, asking for chocolate instead. Don subsequently accuses Meghan of trying to spite him, and she responds by gorging herself on huge mounds of orange sherbet, moaning with fake pleasure all the while. This moment is hilarious, but precipitates a blow-up between the two, where Meghan calls Don on their troubled negotiation of their work/life balance, sarcastically claiming that he should tell her when she should be a worker and when she should be his wife. He stalks off to the car, and then demands that she get in the car. When she refuses, wanting to talk, he drives off and leaves her there. After he cools off, he drives back to find her gone. We are then left with a guilty, panicky Don who imagines the worst until he drives home in defeat.
I would have far preferred the perspective to have been Meghan's, but I understand that she's not as central a character as Don at this point. He arrives home to find the door locked and chained, with Meghan petulantly refusing his entrance, screaming at him to "Go Away!" Here the two characters slip into their previous roles, with Don turning neanderthal, breaking down the door, and chasing Meghan around the apartment, eventually hurling her and himself to the floor in a flying tackle. This scene mirrors one in "A Little Kiss," where Meghan peevishly rebuffs Don while cleaning in her underwear, and he forcefully role-plays domineering manliness into a bout of make-up sex. My sense is that these roles in their sex play are part of their dynamic, but here they don't fit as well as they have in the past.
Don wants to chalk this episode up to a mere fight, but Meghan cries that "every time we fight it just diminishes this a bit." No make-up sex this time; Meghan's on her way to work. Don, in turn, clings to her in abject and needy desperation.
I'm conflicted over this scene, because it feels as if Meghan has power over Don, but this power seems primarily sexual. I also did not feel like Meghan was in any real danger from Don, despite his incredibly violent fake murder during "The Mystery Date" episode. This episode's chase seemed like another one of their power games to me, rather than a possible hint of domestic violence. Nevertheless, violence doesn't have to be physical for Don to be abusive, and his leaving Meghan behind is pretty damn indicative of what he's capable of doing. Is this season about Don learning to be different, learning to be a better husband and co-worker, a better friend? Or is Don on a crash course to f*#@ing up this relationship as well? At work, he grabs Meghan's arm and they exchange a warm smile, but the cool tension between them is still there, rippling under the surface.
Thankfully, this dark and painful Mad Men episode is balanced by the hilarious trip Roger and his wife, Jane, go on after taking LSD at a pretentious dinner party thrown by Jane's therapist. As dinner ends and the blowhard academic in the group tells them to be ready to "turn on," Roger takes this comment as an excuse to "turn in," and tries to steer Jane home. She points out that he truly doesn't listen to her; the whole point of the evening was for them to "trip" together. Roger grudgingly goes along with the downing of laced sugar cubes, and wrongly assumes that he's unaffected by the drugs until he opens some Russian vodka and hears Russian Opera blasting through the room. He lights a cigarette, and it deflates in his mouth like a New Year's party favor. Upon looking in the mirror, he sees his hair as neatly white on one side, with the other half dyed black. Love the hallucinations. Other party guests are crawling around the floor or listening to Beach Boys songs with incredibly significant lyrics.
After they return home, Roger loses himself in the giggles, and then outright guffaws, as he believes he's literally attending the 1919 World Series. All this lightness paves the way for the two to have a deeply probing talk about their problematic marriage, and the fact that Roger doesn't even "like" Jane, even though he once "really did." When Jane wakes the next morning, Roger has come to terms with their relationship ending and has personally grown from their adventure; Jane's not as pleased. Whereas she hoped that their "trip" would bring them together, Roger's relieved that they will now amicably be able to leave each other, despite how expensive it will be for him. This move clearly leaves the door open for him to start bothering Joan again, who booted Greg out two episodes ago. Heavy Sigh.
Roger's last words are a great ending to the episode, and I'm really glad that Matthew Weiner and crew gave him a bit more to work with this week. As Don stands alone in the conference room, reeling from Bert Cooper's scathing cut down implying that he's "hardly working" at SCDP, Roger throws open the door and proclaims, "It's going to be a beautiful day!" Indeed, Roger, it is. Thank you LSD.
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