Mad Men - Recap: Father of the Year
Recap video and review of Mad Men - Season 6 Episode 11 - Favors:
One of the biggest characteristics of Don Draper's frequent infidelities over the course of Mad Men's six seasons is his Houdini-like ability to keep it separate from his home life. Aside from when Betty (January Jones) discovered Don had been shtupping Bobbie Barrett back in season 2, Don has been able to keep his hands relatively clean in front of his wife, whomever that may be, and his children. Yet "Favors" brings Don to account for his irresponsible, even reckless, behavior in a more direct fashion. In an irony similar to the way in which the affair Betty finally catches him in is one that probably meant the least of all his flings, the moment Sally (Kiernan Shipka) catches her father in is a moment he hadn't even planned to have. His dalliance with Sylvia Rosen (Linda Cardellini) had ended; it was done, over, finished. If Sylvia hadn't been the one to answer the phone when Don had called the Rosen household looking for Arnold, the entire debacle would never have happened, if only because it was a completely ludicrous, improbable chain of events that led to Sally discovering the tryst in the first place. I would be on the show's case about a storyline that contrived if it didn't produce some of the best moments of season six. Seriously, of all the things I might have expected Mad Men to do, I never expected that Sally catching Don in bed with a woman who isn't his wife would be among them. Yet here we are, and the show is better for it.
Credit: AMC
About that contrived series of events: Sally has a sleepover at Don's apartment with her friend, Julie, and while staying over, they meet the handsome son of Arnold and Sylvia Rosen, a boy named Mitchell. A college-aged boy, Mitchell has sent back his draft card in protest and has basically quit school, an act that earns him 1A status from the government, meaning he could be shipped over to Vietnam at the drop of a hat. Sylvia and Arnold are despondent over the thought of losing their only son, so Don offers to see what he can do. He eventually learns that Ted (Kevin Rahm) knows a guy who knows a guy in the Air National Guard. Ted agrees to help Don on the condition that he basically never do again what he did at the Chevy dinner earlier in the episode. Don had essentially pissed off the Chevy clients by going into an in-depth discussion about the war, conveying the plight of Mitchell Rosen, whom the Chevy men see as little more than a draft-dodging hippie. Ted has a certain admiration and fondness for Don that's noted by those in his immediate orbit, and it comes to the fore here, as he pledges to get his Air National Guard contact to exempt Mitchell from service altogether. When Don phones the Rosen household to break the good news to Arnold, Sylvia answers instead. Though Mitchell's salvation isn't set in stone, Don tells Sylvia the good news anyway. She breaks down, flooded with relief and joy; emotions that prompt her to give Don a real explanation for why she ended things. Turns out, she simply didn't want him falling in love with her, since she didn't feel as strongly about him as he did about her, though Don remains skeptical. Of course, this reconciliation could only lead to more boot-knockin', which brings us to the unfortunate business at the end of the episode...
When Julie reveals that she wrote Mitchell a love note, signed Sally's name, and then slipped it under the Rosens' door, a mortified Sally goes out of her way to get it back, returning to the apartment building and telling Jonesy the doorman that she lost her key. He gives her the set of master keys, at which point Sally rushes to the Rosen apartment, lets herself in...and sees her dad giving the business to a woman who isn't Megan. Sally flees in horror while a mortified Don gives chase, pathetically tucking his shirt into his loosened pants while calling after his daughter. Sylvia completely loses it, beating her fist against the mattress in frustration. It's a real life depiction of a car crash, as opposed to the slow-motion, cinematic take: everything is happening too fast to process, in all its devastation. In the elevator, Don fights the urge to have a nervous breakdown, as tears fill his eyes and he seems at the edge of a panic attack. He fails to catch up to Sally, and if Sally catching her father in the act is in any way like Don catching his stepmother having sex with his "Uncle Mac," then the poor girl is going to have a litany of issues as she grows up.
As he always does when things get rough, Don self-medicates with booze and returns home drunk, only to find Sally cold and distant, Megan (Jessica Pare) over-the-top in her warmth, and Julie simply quiet and awkward. Things get worse, as Arnold and Mitchell drop by to thank Don for using his connections to get Mitchell out of service. They all shake hands while Megan congratulates Don for being such a wonderful man, but Sally can't stomach the scene. She loudly proclaims that her father makes her sick, and storms off to her room. Don, once again, gives chase and explains, from the other side of the door, that Sally doesn't understand what she saw. He was "comforting Mrs. Rosen." (Um...come on, man. Really?) Sally doesn't say a word, and Don slinks away down the hall, defeated. It's a wonderful arc for both Jon Hamm and Kiernan Shipka, and both actors nail the complexity of the story, as Don has put his daughter in a terrible, untenable position. The only way for him to make things right, at this point, would be to confess his infidelity to Megan so that Sally doesn't have to keep her father's secrets. But is Don a good enough man to make that sacrifice? I know it's a platitude, but really, only time will tell.
Credit: AMC
The other big story of the episode sees Pete’s (Vincent Kartheiser) mother return to the narrative, as she believes she's in love with Manolo, the Spanish nurse recommended to Pete by Bob Benson (James Wolk). Peggy (Elisabeth Moss) briefly speaks with Mrs. Campbell while Pete and Manolo are discussing payment. Mrs. Campbell, who confuses Peggy for Trudy, extols the “physical satisfaction of love” that Manolo has provided her, in a moment that's every bit as amusing for Elisabeth Moss's reactions as it is for what Mrs. Campbell is actually saying. Worried that Manolo might be taking advantage of the elderly woman, Peggy tells Pete what she knows while they're at a dinner with Ted following a meeting with Ocean Spray. It's one of the best scenes of the episode, as a drunk Pete tells Peggy that he can tell she's in love with Ted, and then states that he can tell Ted is in love with her too, despite having a wife at home. Then, in a poignant exchange, Pete tells Peggy that she's among the few people who really know him. Kartheiser and Moss are an underutilized pair, given the amount of drama mined from the pairing in the early seasons of the show. It's great to see the show placing them in isolation and allowing us to get back to that core relationship that helped to define early Mad Men.
Credit: AMC
Pete asks his mother about Manolo, and she confirms what she'd told Peggy. “Manny has awakened a part of me that was long dormant,” she says, and a grossed-out Pete confronts Bob about Manolo's character. Bob implies that Pete has nothing to worry about, since Manolo isn't really into women. However, we learn that Bob might not be either. He tells Pete to simply let his mother have whatever happiness she thinks she has with Manolo. “Couldn’t it be that, if someone took care of you, very good care of you, if this person would do anything for you, if your well-being was his only thought, is it impossible that you might begin to feel something for him?” Then, Bob lets his hand rest on Pete's leg as he states, “When there’s true love, it doesn’t matter who it is.” Pete seems uncertain how to take Bob's inference at first, until he catches Bob's meaning and instructs him to tell Manolo he’s still fired, but he'll get a month’s salary. “And tell him it’s disgusting,” Pete adds, killing whatever hope Bob might have had in that moment. So Bob is gay then. It certainly casts a new light on his previous scenes, as he wasn't particularly up to any shadiness. Now it seems he was simply casting out feelers for other men in the office, attempting to ascertain if anyone else was like him. Granted, he's probably still trying to climb the corporate ladder, and maybe much of his past interactions were towards that goal, but it seems as if the suspicion among the fanbase that Bob is up to something was less his actual shadiness, and more the fact that he was trying to conceal an essential facet of his identity. Given how things turned out for Sal Romano, that paints the Bob Benson portrait in a much sadder light.
Credit: AMC
"Favors" is terrific TV, and the most purely substantial episode of the season thus far, as there's a lot of story to digest on both surface and subtextual levels. Few shows on TV reward close attention like this, and even fewer end up subverting that close attention by refusing to give you what you might be expecting. I wouldn't be shocked to learn I was completely wrong in my reading of Bob Benson in one week's time, nor would I be surprised to learn that Don is actually a man of strong enough character to confess the truth to Megan and implode his marriage just so his daughter wouldn't have to bear that burden. The key to the complexity of these characters is in how they're capable of just about anything, and pretty much everything, all at once.
