Mad Men - Recap: Drop Your Buffs, Time For A Merge
Credit: Michael Yarish/AMC
Recap video and review of Mad Men - Season 6 Episode 6 - For Immediate Release:
As far as straight-up plot developments, "For Immediate Release" is the first big mover of Mad Men's sixth season, representing a seismic shift in the dynamics of the show's business end. For a series that is demonstrably about its era, much of Mad Men focused on the day-to-day toils of securing clients and producing ad copy in the intense world of advertising. And it's produced some of the show's most exhilarating moments. I'm thinking back to the season three finale when Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce was formed, an absolutely magnificent episode that took an "all hands on deck" approach, creating a feeling that we were watching something momentous happen before our eyes. And we were. Few shows on television are as willing to take the risk of completely reshaping its environment the way that Mad Men does. "For Immediate Release" completely reorients the dynamic of the series by merging Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce with Cutler, Gleason, and Chaough, not even half a season removed from SCDP moving to a new floor in their building, which also changed the look of the series in considerable fashion. These are shifts in the series that are seismic yet subtle, if that can even be said to be possible, as the environment isn't always something you notice right away. But for a show that utilizes space and framing to illustrate character dynamics, these kinds of things are huge. Look no further than the scene in which Don (Jon Hamm) and Pete (Vincent Kartheiser) have an argument over the loss of the Jaguar account. Don is positioned on the right side of the frame (in line with his own sense of self-righteousness) while Pete is on the opposite end, with Joan (Christina Hendricks) caught in the middle, between her fondness and loyalty to Don, and her own ambivalence over having slept with Herb Rennet (Gary Basaraba) for nothing. Choices like these imbue the episode with a greater dramatic heft, resulting in an hour of dependably excellent television.
Credit: Michael Yarish/AMC
The episode depicts the ways in which SCDP inadvertently ends up screwing itself by torpedoing relations with two valuable clients. For Don, he ends up blowing off Herb from Jaguar after the head honcho discusses outsourcing SCDP's job to some upstart kid whose vision is more in line with what the company wants. Meanwhile, Pete goes to a whorehouse and runs into his father-in-law, a Vicks exec who holds an account with SCDP. This unfortunate confrontation compromises the deal, and also Pete's chances of fixing things with Trudy (Alison Brie), who believes that Pete is a monster who's simply making up the story of having seen her father with a big-breasted black prostitute as a means of hurting her. Regardless, the damage has already been done. Don has inadvertently ruined a deal that Pete and Joan had been setting up, which had the potential to net the company well over a million dollars. It was a source of joy for Pete, and a matter of pride for Joan, who was looking to make her first major contribution as a partner. However, when Don ends up making a mess of things, it leads to a very public blow-up in the SCDP offices, as Pete rails against Don for his short-sightedness, and Joan turns on Don for not being able to put up with Herb when she'd done the same (and so much more...poor Joan). She has a point in calling Don out for always saying "I'll fix this," etc., and never using the word "we". Because, for Don, SCDP isn't really a team so much as it's a one-man operation, in his mind. And Joan calls him on this, saying that it's BS that he expects everyone to just root for him from the sidelines. Everyone is making contributions, but they're going unrecognized. Hell, it's part of why Peggy (Elisabeth Moss) left SCDP in the first place.
Credit: Michael Yarish/AMC
Of course, the moment Don decides to start using the word "we", it has little to do with his associates at SCDP, instead referencing a newfound partnership forged towards the end of the episode. While getting drunk at a bar in Detroit and lamenting the loss of business that could keep his firm afloat, Don encounters Ted Chaough (Kevin Rahm), who reveals that smaller agencies have banded together in confederacy against the larger agencies. It's a relatively subdued scene in which Don goes into drunken pitchman mode and Ted can do little else but bear witness. Yet the conversation results in a curious proposal: one of partnership. If they band together, they'll be able to merge accounts and save both businesses. It's a formality when Peggy comes into the office, expecting to come face-to-face with Ted again, for the first time after their kiss in his office earlier in the episode (as a dejected Ted finally made his move). Peggy has remained loyal to Abe as best she can, but there's a wandering sense of potential infidelity in Moss' performance, the idea that Ted is someone to whom she's attracted, despite her love for Abe. However, she doesn't get the private time she wants, as she enters the office to see Ted with Don. They inform Peggy of the merger, which has yet to be made public. Ted tasks her with writing the press release, for immediate release. Peggy has just bought a new apartment with Abe, so it's not as if she can just bail on her job to escape Don again -- and really, we're not even given cause to infer that Don's presence would be a breaking point for her, uncomfortable though she is. But the episode invites extrapolation from these scenes, and it's a fun exercise to try and read into these characters and what they're feeling. Ultimately, Peggy types up the release, having also been tasked with naming the newly-merged company after "whichever company you want to work for." No pressure though.
Credit: Michael Yarish/AMC
There are also dual plots that center on Mother's Day, as Roger (John Slattery) has an affair with a stewardess named Daisy (Danielle Panabaker), inadvertently blowing off Megan's mother, Marie Calvet (Julia Ormond). There's considerable thematic weight in Roger using his mother's death to elicit sympathy from Daisy while ignoring someone else's mother on Mother's Day, though Roger has always been one of the bawdier characters of the series, so I'm not sure this is entirely surprising. Megan (Jessica Pare) is doing everything she can to reinvigorate her marriage with Don, even going so far as to get oral about it, and though the awkward mother-daughter conflict/bonding portions of the episode dominate much of Megan's narrative, Jessica Pare does a tremendous job of portraying a young wife who's already enduring threats of stagnancy in her even younger marriage. It's a plotline that dovetails nicely back into the business end of things, as Roger calls Don's house while he's getting conjugal with Megan and gets Marie on the line. Slattery is hilarious here as he swears that while he meant to call Don, Marie was next on his roster of people to call. But there's damn good reason for Roger calling Don first: Roger has been in Detroit securing the account for Chevy's next, super-secretive, top-of-the-line vehicle. Though they've lost Jaguar and Vicks, the company is not out of the fight. Not by a longshot.
Credit: Michael Yarish/AMC
"For Immediate Release" is an episode that manages to deliver personal drama and business developments and make them equally-compelling. The tenor of the series could change, but I feel like the basic tenets of what works about Mad Men will always remain the same: a dedication to character, a nuanced storytelling approach, and a recognition of what works and what doesn't. With good reason, Mad Men remains one of TV's most sophisticated dramas.
