Mad Men - Recap: Okay

Unmoored from his usual way of life (as he proudly trumpets to Megan, he doesn't even drink all that much anymore!), and from the environments (Sterling Cooper) and people (Megan, his coworkers) through whom he identified himself, Don just isn't the Don Draper of old. So it's really no surprise that "Field Trip" treats Don like a ghost, of sorts. He meanders through the episode, never really making his existence felt, because the people in his life have either already moved on without him (such as Joan and Peggy), or would rather move on without him (Megan). Don is a man who has lost agency in his own life, which is why the final moments of the episode are so triumphant: this ghost of a man essentially makes himself corporeal again with the brilliant, show-closing "Okay." Mad Men traffics in subtlety, but this was as close to shots being fired as we've come this season, and that final punctuation mark on the episode alone would have been enough to elevate this to "A" territory. But everything that came before maintains the high bar the show continues to set for itself.

Credit: AMC

As with any good Mad Men story (or, really, just any Mad Men story), "Field Trip" can mostly be boiled down into a handful of sentences. Maybe a paragraph, at most. But it's in the margins of what happens that the show finds its worth. Here's the quick-and-dirty:

In short, Don flies out to California to visit Megan (Jessica Pare) after getting a worried call from her manager about how Megan ambushed a casting director in order to get a second audition. Megan is thrilled to see Don, assuming he came because he missed her; however, she quickly learns the real reason for his visit, and it results in a fight that very well could signal the end of their marriage. Later, Don returns to New York and entertains an offer from a rival ad agency, before confronting Roger (John Slattery) and getting his old job back. Yet Roger forgets to tell anybody that he's rehired Don, and he also forgets to call a meeting of the partners to discuss the terms of Don's return. So Don is left to wander around the SC offices, with everyone looking at Don as though he's some kind of dead man returned to life. Bert (Robert Morse), Cutler (Harry Hamlin), and Joan (Christina Hendricks) are vehemently against bringing Don back, but Roger argues that it would cost more money to buy him out than it would to just bring him back from "paid leave." And so Roger gets what he wants -- kind of. The other three partners come up with a plan to offer Don his job back, but with a set of terms and conditions so restrictive and absurd that he couldn't possibly agree to it (no meeting alone with clients! No diverting from the script during meetings! Getting a script for meetings approved beforehand! Reporting to LOU, for crying out loud! And, worst of all, no drinking in the office!). The partners were likely operating under the assumption that Don would decide to just go work for another agency, which means they wouldn't owe him a dime. But Don blows their plans straight to hell by actually agreeing to their terms.

"Okay."

Simple. Devastating. Awesome.

Credit: AMC

But while that paragraph is what actually happens, there's a lot going on in the margins. During the fight in California, Megan accuses Don of cheating on her, which he vehemently denies, although the discovery that he's been lying about his employment status for a year is somehow worse than the notion that he could be sleeping with someone else. For his part, Don tries to mend fences on a phone call from New York after Megan kicks him out of her LA apartment. In the call, he states that he's had an idea in his head of how he wants Megan to see him, and he's been striving to maintain that facade. Megan scoffs at the notion, but there's a deeper pain behind Don's pathological need to assume an identity that isn't strictly his own. The Don Draper persona was forged in the crucible of Dick Whitman's lowest point, so he clings more desperately to that persona because to do otherwise would be to risk devolving. Yet, as the years go by, the Don Draper persona becomes harder and harder to maintain, to the point where the fear and self-doubt of Dick Whitman begin to come through more and more. Don just seems so untethered to reality as Megan (and, therefore, his marriage) slips from his grasp, becoming every bit as lost to him as his career, and the respect of his peers. Which is why it's so triumphant when he returns to work and reclaims the only real identity left to him. Sure, he suffers such indignities as Peggy (Elisabeth Moss) telling him he hasn't exactly been missed, and Lou (Allan Havey) calling the art department into his office after they're caught enjoying Don's company, but in the moment at which he agrees to the terms of his new contract, Don is as close as he's been in ages to being the Don of old. It may be a world that has worked fine without him, but that doesn't mean it's a world that can't work better with him in it.

Credit: AMC

Meanwhile, the story from which the episode gets its title centers around Betty (January Jones) going on a field trip with Bobby to a farm. Much like with Don's end of things, the events of this half of the story prompt Betty to question the only identity she knows anymore, that of mother. It starts out as a perfect day, with Bobby and Betty sitting together on the school bus, and chatting about movie monsters (Bobby proudly telling his teacher "We were having a conversation!" is not only adorable, it's one of several instances that illustrate the esteem with which the boy views his mother). At the farm, Bobby looks on with wonder as Betty becomes the only person in the group, parents included, to volunteer to drink milk straight from the cow. Then, at lunch, Bobby shoos away a fellow classmate because he's saving a seat for his mother. In short, it's mother-son bonding at its most quaint. But it all gets ruined by Betty getting bent out of shape about Bobby trading her sandwich for some gum drops. I could get why she was mad (seriously, Bobby, there were two sandwiches in there! Why would you think your mom didn't plan on eating at all?), but her reaction is out of proportion to the offense. And worse, it really seems to hurt Bobby's feelings that his mother has shunned him, as he spends his dinner staring sullenly into the plate, telling Henry, "I wish it was yesterday."

But what's peculiar is that Betty doesn't see anything wrong with her reaction. For Betty, successful motherhood isn't measured in delivering a child, keeping them clothed and fed, or putting a roof over their head. She measures the success of her parenting by how much her kids like her. She asks Henry if he thinks she's a good mother, and when he responds with "Of course," she asks, "Then why don't they like me?" Henry indicates Gene, who is asleep on his mother's chest at the time, but Betty isn't convinced. "It's only a matter of time," she says. Because she doesn't see her actions as driving her kids away. She sees the kids as just naturally migrating away from her, for whatever reason. It's as if she feels that the strained relationship she has with Sally and Bobby is the result of their failure to appreciate her mothering, as opposed to a stern, borderline cold nature on her part. Betty strikes me as someone who could have a better relationship with her kids, but her ego just keeps her from seeing her own culpability in her kids drifting away from her. Betty is a rich character, and I kind of wish we'd get more of her. We're already nearly halfway through this half-season, so I'm not sure what to really expect, in terms of who gets what screentime. But I was surprised how glad I was to have her back this week.

Credit: AMC

"Field Trip" is an episode that suggests that, at least on Don's end of things, the comforts of the familiar are only comforting if nothing ever changes. But since change is a constant, we have to adapt. Don adapts and, in the process, reclaims his sense of personhood. He's once again Don Draper the Ad Man, and it's an easier identity to inhabit than Don Draper the Husband, or Don Draper the Father, or even Don Draper the Friend.