Mad Men review: "Maidenform"

Reflections and appearances.

How we see ourselves is rarely how others see us. Sometimes the differences are small but sometimes they are cutting: a despicable woman seeing herself reflected in us; undeserved worship from a child; the judgment-free gaze of a dog. These cut deep, showing us the darkness beneath our public facades.

Tonight’s central campaign is for Playtex bras. Duck tells Don their customer isn’t happy with the way their campaign is going and that they want something more fanciful like Maidenform’s. In fact, they just want Maidenform’s campaign. This, despite their profits, market growth, and success with a campaign aimed at fit and comfort.
In Don’s eyes, this is another example of the way Duck’s been managing accounts.

Don: You’ve been pitching more to me than you have to clients.
Duck: What does that mean?
Don: It means you’ve been selling their ideas to me more than mine to them.

Peggy, dealing with a problem common to women in business to this day, finds out the menfolk went out drinking after work and came up with a campaign without her. Trying to find her place at an office where the women are secretaries and the men are men, she asks Joan for advice. Joan’s advice, as always, is to act like a woman. Similar in content, if not tone, to Bobbie’s advice to her last week, Peggy ditches her schoolgirl uniform and dons a slinky blue dress for a client meeting at a strip club.

The men look at her differently – especially Pete and his glare – but to what end is to be seen. This could open the final set of doors for Peggy, allowing her access to the clients and the creative staff outside the office, but it could also turn her into a joke, the office party girl.

Certainly Pete’s behavior toward her will be different. No longer will he be coming to her and chatting about his weekend, looking for someone, anyone to be his friend.

Don and Duck, well their relationship is going to head in a rocky direction. Seeing a little of Duck’s former life tonight, we learn that he was a sloppy drunk. Afternoons used to be difficult for him. But through hard work and dedication, he’s been sober for a long while and hoping the long Memorial Day weekend would be his chance to work back into his ex-wife’s affections. She visits with their children and dog, Chauncey, a beautiful and soulful Irish Setter.

But Duck’s ex is getting remarried and leaving him the dog.

Too many things go wrong at once for Duck – his performance at work is clearly slipping, his ex is never taking him back, and his dog is now a reminder of the life he lost. He goes to take a drink, but Chauncey looks up at him with those sad, brown eyes and Duck walks away from the bottle. Sadly, tragically, he walks away far enough to abandon Chauncey outside Sterling-Cooper and go right back to his bottle.

Unable to bear the reflection of his failure in his own dog’s eyes, he abandoned him to the night on Madison Ave.

Unable to bear the reflection of his failure in his own daughter’s eyes, Don ends the episode alone in the bathroom. Just as he’d demanded Bobbie say nothing during their tryst, he’s obviously told Sally in the past to say nothing while he shaves. When she tells him she won’t speak, it cuts deeper than the razor ever could.

His daughter sees the facade and nothing else: she gazed with pride at him at the country club and obeys him implicitly. She’s never seen anything real of Don. There may be nothing real even left. He may be only a reflection of a man who never was.

What did everyone else think?

R.A. Porter is an aspiring television writer who currently toils away in the software mines. He can be found at his personal blog and stalked on Twitter.