Mad Men - Recap: Do the Work, Don

If nothing else, "The Monolith" has me realizing that I more than likely misread the closing line of "Field Trip," in which Don says "Okay" to the stipulations in his new Sterling Cooper contract. What had seemed like an act of defiance, a decision by Don not to let the other partners push him out of a company he helped create, seems now like the desperate act of a man with no other choice but to assent to their demands. It's been three weeks since he's rejoined the agency, and in that time, Don has been a model employee. Yet the quality of assignments he receives doesn't really reflect his abilities, or what he could be contributing to the agency. And so, naturally, Don gets more than a little bitter. As does Peggy, although for different reasons. She receives a raise from Lou (Allan Havey), along with the lucrative Burger Chef account. However, in the trade-off, she gets stuck with Don as one of her team members. Feeling the thrill of power over her former mentor, Peggy assigns him to write 25 tags for the presentation, despite the lack of background research. She orders both Don and his colleague to complete the assignment over the weekend for the presentation on Monday, but Don simply blows it off. In his mind, he's still above the kind of work they're having him doing, and seems to believe that three weeks is more than sufficient to prove he's not going to self-destruct again. But Peggy is deeply resentful that Don doesn't appear to respect her authority, if he even respects her at all these days. She argues the point to Joan (Christina Hendricks), who lets her know that Don's employment came with several stipulations. Although nothing comes of it this week, it feels like a hint towards things to come in the future, as the stipulations represent the narrow tightrope Don must walk. And he doesn't always walk it with grace -- or skill, for that matter. But then, he never becomes that interested in Peggy's orders because...well, he's found himself a far more interesting prospective account...

Credit: Justina Mintz/AMC

Don meets Lloyd, the man leading the team that is installing a computer in the old office break room. He's a nice enough guy, with a mind for the computer business, and it inspires in Don the kind of enthusiasm that has been sorely lacking in his day-to-day work in some time. But the computer looms large in the background of the episode, the titular "monolith" itself. It speaks to a larger, overarching narrative about the gradual encroachment of time, as a computer seems to suggest that people like Don aren't long for this kind of world unless they can prove themselves capable of things that computers simply aren't. Anyone could type up tags for a pitch meeting, but could a computer have delivered the Carousel pitch from Season One? Don simply wants his old job back, to prove he's still got it. But it's being denied to him, and it's prompting him to wonder why he's even still here. In his conversation with Lloyd, they discuss computers and IBM's habit of discarding the latest model after just two years, irrespective of whether or not the old model has outlived its usefulness just yet. It isn't long before Don is facing his own worth, getting a verbal dressing down from Bert Cooper (Robert Morse), who has no interest in hearing Don out on the potential goldmine of the burgeoning computer industry. Don doesn't even care if he's the one leading the project or not, he just doesn't want the agency to miss out on the opportunity, but Bert feels Don is just trying to make waves. As he coldly explains, the agency has been running fine without him, and while he may feel entitled as one of the men who started this company, he started it with a dead man whose office he now occupies. And so, in response, Don does what he does best: he gets drunk.

Don's downward spirals aren't always the most novel plot points in the series, but they're never not interesting. Here, Don sneaks vodka into a can of Coke, and proceeds to tell Lloyd off for being duplicitous and not at all what he seems, as if rejecting the future he represents. In violation of one of the conditions of his rehiring, Don teeters on the brink of ruin by getting so obviously plastered. Which is why it's good, for him, that Freddie Rumsen (Joel Murray) is on-hand to keep Don in line. He not only gets Don out of the office before any of the partners notice his condition, but he also gets him home and sobers him up with coffee "as strong and black as Jack Johnson." And it's here that Freddie gives Don the speech that he badly needs to hear: "What the hell are you doing? Aren’t they giving you a second chance?" When Don argues that he just wants his old job back, Freddie rejoins, "How the hell do you think that's gonna happen when you're at the bottom of a bottle? You know you never have to have another drink again. ... I mean, are you just gonna kill yourself? Give them what they want? Or go in your bedroom, get in uniform, fix your bayonet, and hit the parade? Do the work, Don." It's the wake-up call Don desperately needs, as he heads into the office that morning and begins typing out the 25 tags, telling Peggy he'll have them for her by lunch. What I assumed last week was Don's declaration that the fellow partners wouldn't be able to keep him down is instead transferred to this week, as Don takes Freddie up on his advice and puts in the damn work. He's Don Draper, naturally. If he keeps at it, he'll get back to where he was, eventually. Entitlement gets you nowhere. It's work that makes the difference.

Credit: AMC

It's a storyline that somewhat carries over into the tremendous arc with Roger. He gets a visit from his ex-wife Mona (Talia Balsam) and son-in-law Brooks. Apparently, Margaret (Elizabeth Rice) has run off to join a commune of some sort, and what begins as a family matter quickly morphs into a larger odyssey. The story has both Roger and Mona questioning their choices as parents, with Mona believing this is her fault for raising Margaret to believe that by simply finding a man, all her problems would be resolved. Roger, meanwhile, is forced to confront the damage his absentee parenting has caused Margaret, as he's often privileged the job over his family. Sure, Margaret may have forgiven Roger, but the wounds go deeper than even she might have realized at the time. Mona eventually leaves Roger and Margaret behind when she can't stomach the hippie commune -- nor the harsh realities of her own bad parenting that Margaret throws back at her -- any longer. But Roger, who's been deeply entrenched in that culture as of late, is better equipped to handle the precarious situation Margaret has put herself in. What follows is a strangely pastoral sequence of events, as Roger lives like a hippie, peeling potatoes and smoking weed while offering to go chop firewood. They sleep side by side in a barn, and Roger slowly comes to recognize just how happy Margaret -- who goes by "Marigold" -- is here, and he doesn't seem to begrudge her that happiness.

Credit: AMC

Well, at least not until he spies her running off for a quickie in the middle of the night with one of her fellow residents. In this moment, Roger no longer sees this as a growing experience for Margaret, he simply sees it as a woman running away from her problems by drowning it all in sex, drugs, and a lack of responsibility. Paternal instinct kicks in, and Roger goes as far as to attempt to forcibly remove Margaret from the commune the next morning. She fights him and they end up landing in the mud. Furious, Roger proclaims that Margaret no longer has the choice of leading her own life, since she has a four-year-old son named Ellery who cries himself to sleep every night waiting for his mother to return. But Margaret sees her father's argument as pure hypocrisy, recalling all the times he chose work over being with her, and even mentioning all the years he had his secretary pick out a birthday present for her because he couldn't be bothered. Dejected, and faced with feelings of guilt and general uselessness, Roger trudges off on his own. He's been completely broken by the harsh truth that his parenting perpetuated a cycle that will now be visited upon his grandson. It's a heavy weight I'm not sure Roger is equipped to bear -- at least not without copious amounts of drugs and sex. And that behavior is exactly why Margaret ended up here in the first place. It's a vicious cycle with no sign of ending. But it's also a rich character journey that makes Roger a far more nuanced character than he's been in recent years, and Slattery is exceptional.

"The Monolith" is anchored by the drama that arises from characters being faced with issues they're ill-equipped to handle. Don, Peggy, and Roger each try to do something about their untenable situations, yet it's only Don who succeeds. And even then, it's only a pyrrhic victory. He has the opportunity to win his way back to where he was, but it'll require him putting his nose to the grindstone to work on tasks that are beneath his abilities. However, this is still more than Peggy can do about her own imbalanced position in the company, and it's more than Roger can do about a daughter with no interest in being a mother. Mad Men succeeds here by showing that feelings of powerlessness can't be fought in every situation, which is why it's so vital to fight that uselessness whenever possible. The future can't be stopped, but that doesn't mean your place in the world has to vanish once that future arrives.