MAD MEN Travels Through "Time Zones"

Article originally published as TV Review: 'Mad Men' - 'Time Zones' on Blogcritics.

AMC’s Mad Men is finally back. True, it’s only seven episodes, before the network makes us wait a full year before delivering the second half of the season, but at least we get these characters and this story on our television for some fresh installments.

The season premiere, “Time Zones,” picks up less than two months after the previous season ends, one of the shortest time jumps Mad Men has ever done. In a way, that feels a bit like a cheat, since most of the threads in this hour are direct continuations of those from last season; there is no reset going into the victory lap. On the other, this does provide a through line, and most of the players are at very pivotal points in their lives.

A major theme in the advertising for this season of Mad Men is air travel, and it certainly seems like all of the major players are on lay-over. They’ve made quite a journey from who they were at the start of Mad Men to who they are now, but at this point, they must take stock of the lives they’ve built and decide where to head next. Should they continue on the same path, or maybe change their flight to somewhere else? They have 14 episodes to decide.

Don Draper (Jon Hamm) is on the verge of losing everything. Suspended from the job he loves, the only constant happiness in his life, and living all the way across the country from his wife, Megan (Jessica Paré), whom he hasn’t seemed to have told about his job troubles, he’s floundering (he’s still getting paid, so I guess it’s not a huge deception). He has a plan to hang onto both, flying out to spend time with Megan and using Freddie (Joel Murray) as a patsy to deliver his ideas to SC&P via freelance, but both are tenuous.

Don’s work is good again. We can tell this by the stellar pitch Freddie gives Peggy (Elisabeth Moss) at the start of “Time Zones,” a mystery presented and not solved until the end. However, Peggy doesn’t know it’s coming from Don; no one does. So does it even count in Don’s favor?

It may be that Don will have to chose between Megan and SC&P. Giving up heading the West Coast branch cost him, and now his grip is slipping. There’s no telling when the firm might welcome him back, and Megan has grown distant, building a life for herself in California that doesn’t include him, annoyed by his intrusions into it. Hopping back and forth is costing Don, his emotional state seeming very precarious in the closing shot, his life as broken as the sliding door, and he just can’t do everything.

Strangely, Betty (January Jones) and Don’s children, Sally (Kiernan Shipka), Bobby (Mason Vale Cotton), and baby Gene, don’t even appear in “Time Zones.” As we see Don trying to define what’s important in his life, these people do not factor in. They absolutely should, though. Whatever Don decides, he’s still a father, and should keep that in mind.

There is one positive sign in Don’s favor, and that’s that he doesn’t sleep with the woman he meets on his airplane ride home (Neve Campbell, Scream, Party of Five). Well, technically, he does sleep with her, but no sexual play is had. In each of the first six seasons, it’s hard to imagine Don passing up nudity with a beautiful girl. Now, he has more important things to worry about, and he’s committed to doing better. Or maybe he’s just too worn out to perform, getting older.

Believe it or not, Don is not the only, or perhaps even the most, messed up person in the cast right now. Peggy is still dealing with her anger and resentment towards Ted (Kevin Rahm), playing the scorned mistress. Roger (John Slattery) is in a total destructive spiral, sleeping with whoever happens to wind up in his bed, multiple people of both genders at once, and doing drugs. Not to mention, his daughter, Margaret (Elizabeth Rice), might just be in a cult. Pete (Vincent Kartheiser) is trying desperately to play the consummate Californian, while clinging to any shred of New York he can find. Ken (Aaron Staton) is over-stressed and falling apart in his new position, and Don’s replacement, Lou (Allan Havey, Hancock), is uncaring and strict, and not in a helpful way.

Never in Mad Men‘s run can I think of a time where things are falling apart more. SC&P’s future will surely be effected by the fraying ends on both coasts. Can the firm survive such an upheaval, or has its time passed and it’s doomed to sink into irrelevance as the season unfolds?

The only character who is doing well, besides arguably Megan, in “Time Zones” is Joan (Christina Hendricks). Talking to college professors about graduate-level business and single-handedly working to save important accounts, she even finds time to flirt with Wayne Barnes (Dan Byrd, Cougar Town, Easy A). She’s got a good head on her shoulders, and without serious men to distract her, Roger not being an option and Bob Benson (James Wolk, who’s currently over on The Crazy Ones) ensconced in Detroit, she can be even more fully committed to bettering herself than she has been in the past. No matter who else falls, Joan will be fine.

“Time Zones” is a depressing episode, but it’s also a good one. It serves the characters well and continues the trajectories began in seasons past. It’s the natural evolution of the story and does seem to be inching closer to the end, even if we can’t yet see the light at the end of the tunnel. It doesn’t give us any groundbreaking new developments, but it does show us yet another aspect of the players we’ve come to care about, and a taste of what this year will be like.

Mad Men airs Sundays at 10 p.m. ET on AMC.

MAD MEN Makes Don "Care"

Article first published as MAD MEN Makes Don "Care" on TheTVKing.

AMC's Mad Men only has a single season left, so one should expect this week's season finale to have more than a few big changes and surprises. One would not be disappointed. In the episode, "In Care Of," there is some serious movement, including in some of the show's biggest arcs.

The thing most shocking is Don's (Jon Hamm) firing from the firm. Well, technically it's a forced indefinite leave of absence, but the intention is clear when the partners ask Don to go and Duck Phillips (Mark Moses) immediately shows up with his replacement. Don, the man who brought the firm most of its success for the past six seasons, is no longer employed by Sterling, Cooper, & Partners.

Is this a mistake or a betrayal? Well, despite all of the business that Don has earned the firm in the past, he has lately been costing them money. Lots of money. And given that Don is only getting worse and worse, from a professional stand point, they have to cut him lose or risk losing the company. It's a no-brainer, as hard as it might be personally for Roger (John Slattery), Cooper (Robert Morse), or Joan (Christina Hendricks) to vote Don out.

The reason for Don's change is because he just can't stand to lie any more. Don's entire life has been clouded in secrecy, and his real name isn't even Don. While a handful of individuals have found out bits and pieces about Don over the years, most of who he is and what goes on in his head is kept hidden. This might be why he is so good at advertising, because he is always selling a version of himself, and now that he's losing that ability, it spills over into other aspects of his life, too.

At the end of "In Care Of," Don takes his kids to visit the whore house where he grew up. Sally (Kiernan Shipka), in particular, is affected, seeing her dad for the first time as a real person. She cannot stand the lies her dad has told,  but seeing how he grew up, begins to feel sorry for him. This could be the beginning of a healing in their fractured relationship.

I don't know what Don will do next, but I think he is better off being true to himself. He could go back into advertising, running his own small firm where he is free to be who he wants to be and reinvent his career. This might be what he needs to find peace and break the cycle of drinking and cheating. A new Don could still be brilliant at his work, but without the baggage that comes with the old Don.

As part of his new start, Don may need to find a new wife. He tries to salvage things with Megan (Jessica Pare) when she walks out of their home, furious at having called off their plans to move to the West Coast. Now that he doesn't have his job, he could follow her, maybe with Sally in tow. But considering he doesn't fill Megan in on the extent of what he is going through in "In Care Of," it's hard to see how she might reconcile with him unless he confesses the depths of his pain and emotion.

Pete (Vincent Kartheiser) also is faced with reinventing himself. His wife, Trudy (Alison Brie), is done with him, and he is assigned to the West Coast office of Sterling, Cooper, & Partners under the leadership of Ted (Kevin Rahm). For Pete, this is the opposite of everything that he wants, but he doesn't realize that until it's too late. Trudy's "Well, now you know" is a great comment on where Pete is, and now perhaps he can seek out the life he wants going forward.

Pete has changed and grown over the last six years. He doesn't go after Bob (James Wolk) when Bob's secrets come out. He doesn't annoy and pester Trudy when he loses her. He accepts the transfer, humbled after losing his spot with Chevy in Detroit. Pete, someone who is very hard to like on Mad Men, may finally be on the path to redemption and happiness.

Meanwhile, Peggy (Elisabeth Moss), someone most viewers like and root for over the years, is at her lowest point, completely at a loss over who she should be. Now done with her long-time boyfriend and abandoned by her married lover, Ted, Peggy is aimless. Her career goals are always her focus, but once she becomes like Don or others that she looks up to, she is where she doesn't want to be, having failed to cherry pick the best parts of her mentors, inheriting their bad traits, as well.

With Don, Pete, and Ted gone from the New York office, though, Peggy has the opportunity to flourish. Her distractions are removed and she can re-focus on what's important. This may be the time for her to step up and be the heart of the agency, landing the big accounts. It will be interesting to see how she turns out.

I really love the glimpse of family "In Care Of" gives us when Roger attends Thanksgiving at Joan's apartment with their son and Bob. I still can't decide if Bob is gay and just a good friend of Joan's, or if there's something romantic between them, but they've formed a bond that has allowed Joan to be healthy enough to permit Roger into his son's life. And Roger, seeing the depths of his mistakes with daughter Margaret (Elizabeth Rice), is ready for a do-over where he can be the right kind of father. This grouping may be unconventional as a unit, but is sweet, and is very beneficial for all of them to be involved in.

More minor characters don't get much story in "In Care Of," and that's OK. Mad Men services quite a few faces on occasion, but the core group is Peggy, Don, Pete, Roger, and Joan. Rizzo (Jay R. Ferguson) has a small part in the beginning, but that's it. However, as we move into the final year, time is limited. As much as fans enjoy all of the supporting players, as long as the series serves its main players well, I think the end will be satisfying.

Mad Men will return next year for its seventh and last season on AMC.

Mad Men Goes Through "The Doorway"

Article first published as Mad Men Goes Through "The Doorway" on TheTVKing.

As we go through "The Doorway" into Mad Men's sixth season on AMC, we can immediately see that a lot has changed. Some of it is surface, such as the hair styles, an excess of marijuana smoking, and the bustling, busy, successful, two-story Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce agency. But some of it goes deeper, as the unhappiness that has long-festered in several of the leads comes to the surface even more now, making "The Doorway" a pretty depressing and dark installment.

Don (Jon Hamm) is our main character. As "The Doorway" opens, after a cut scene of an unknown man having a heart attack, he lounges on the beaches of Hawaii, reading Dante's Inferno. There is a stark contrast between the white sands and blue water and Don's choice of reading material. Plus, Don himself is silent, letting life happen around him, but not really participating in it.

We've seen Don like this before. While, last year, he is an active participant in his marriage with Megan (Jessica Paré) and the firm's work, guiding the ship, prior to that he is shown as a sort of numb robot. The season premiere returns Don to that unhappy state, not connecting with the others around him.

We don't know why Don is this way. Obviously, the advertising agency he helped found is doing well, so there aren't professional woes. And Megan is still in love with him, despite her successful career as a TV star, presumably working on a soap opera, so he's not neglected at home. Could it be that Don only functions well when there is a crisis that he must solve, and once that goes away, he returns to his old self? Could he be spurred to go introspective after witnessing his doorman's heart attack, and didn't like what he found inside himself?

I think there is a clue when Don participates in a wedding ceremony on the beach, one he doesn't tell Megan about, but which we see affects him deeply, even after they return from vacation. Something about that young soldier bothers him. Does he represent lost promise? Remind Don of his somewhat shady past? Who knows?

Don brings this attitude back to the office with him, and it's here where we realize that he may not himself understand how unhappy he is. The Hawaii trip is a working one, and he pitches an ad idea for the hotel he stays in. But his vision is one interpreted by many as invoking suicide. Don sees escape as a pleasant thing, but there's a gray area when considering how big of an escape he might actually want to make. A permanent one, perhaps?

The sign of hope we see for Don is his friendship with his new neighbor, a Jewish doctor (Brian Markinson, The Killing, Caprica). We've never seen Don have a friend like this, an equal who is not connected with him professionally. They seem to understand one another and have mutual respect for the work that they do. This looks to be the makings of a wonderful outlet for Don to be Don, and help him cope with disappointments in other areas of his life.

Unfortunately, as we find out at the end of the hour, Don is sleeping with the good doctor's wife. I can't decide if I feel the betrayal more deeply on behalf of Megan or the doctor. After all, Megan knows the kind of man Don is before marrying him, and Don has a history of cheating when he gets restless, as he is now. The doctor, on the other hand, has no reason to suspect Don's activities, which makes it doubly bad. It also means that their friendship will never last.

All of this points to a very dark ending for Don. With only two seasons left, it is doubtful he will be content to stay where he is. Will he end up running away, taking on a new identity again, as he did when he became Don Draper? Or might he decide it's better not to live at all?

Roger (John Slattery) is just as unhappy as Don. He has never found peace in the arms of a woman for long, and professionally he does have a purpose, but it is not an obvious or constant one. In "The Doorway" we see him hamming it up around the office, but not doing anything of note.

Until he gets the news that his mother has died. Those around him are upset by this, Roger's secretary bawling, and Don getting wasted and puking at the funeral. Roger is more frustrated, as he tells his psychiatrist, that he feels nothing. He is fully numb, unable to work up the sadness he thinks he should feel, and regretful of the way he has lived his life, as his mother's passing forces him to face his own mortality.

Roger isn't actually emotionless, of course. Once he gets over the shock, a near-stranger's death sends the tears flowing. But it's one of those defining moments in life, where one takes stock of oneself, and like Don, Roger doesn't like what he sees. Roger doesn't have anyone close to him to share himself with, or to mourn his passing. Not even his daughter, Margaret (Elizabeth Rice), cares, only wanting his money. This starts to affect him negatively, more so than we've ever seen before.

While many show up for Roger's mother's funeral, including ex-wives Jane (Peyton List) and Mona (Talia Balsam), the latter of whom actually offers sound advice, there is a glaring absence: Joan (Christina Hendricks). They may no longer be lovers, but Joan knows Roger better than anyone, and likely has cared about him more than anyone. Why does she not come to him in his hour of need? Have things deteriorated that much between them? How incredibly sad!

The third character that gets much focus in "The Doorway" is Betty Francis (January Jones). Betty identifies with one of her daughter, Sally's, friends (Kerris Dorsey, Brothers & Sisters), who has lied about getting accepted to Julliard, but still wants to run away to New York City at the ripe age of fifteen. Betty, who lived the poor life as a model in the big city when she was young, tries to talk the child out of it, then goes in search of her when the kid disappears.

This plot may show Betty being a good mother figure to a child who is not her own, but it's also about Betty's past and missteps. She is in a good place now, with a loving husband and a nice house, but she definitely has her rocky times. She has a lousy first marriage, has trouble connecting with her own daughter, Sally (Kiernan Shipka), which is still an issue, and has a hard time finding the right path for her life. Betty wants to not only spare the young teen from making the same mistakes, but also seems to hope it will make up for her own spotty past. And she's willing to go into a truly scary area of town to do it.

Peggy (Elisabeth Moss) has less to do in the season premiere, but we do get to see how she has adjusted to her life away from SCDP and Don's shadow. She is flourishing, her genius shining through, though she is still struggling with managing others, as she doesn't see herself in a position of power, and doesn't have full confidence in herself. She looks and acts like a grown up, and it's pretty clear that, while she does still have a few professional skills to hone, she is well on her way to being a strong, independent woman, the breadwinner for her household, the kind of woman that little girls look up to. It's nice to see someone doing well!

In the office of SCDP, many changes have happened. The layout is totally different, and while "The Doorway" doesn't show us much of the upstairs, it does seem that all the young guys are up there, leaving Don and Roger down in the old section, which makes obvious a distinction. Has the firm somewhat split into two pieces? Are the new guys becoming more relevant than the old, or at least staking their claim as an equally important element? The separation is tangible.

We are also introduced to a new employee (James Wolk, Political Animals), who kisses the butts of the partners enthusiastically, earning him the resentment of Ken (Aaron Staton). Is the newbie earnest, or manipulative? Are his motives pure, or selfish? Should we admire his drive, or does he only have his charm, lacking the talent to back it up? I admit, I am immediately intrigued by him, much more so than the smattering of other fresh faces we see around the building.

Overall, it's hard to say that I truly enjoyed "The Doorway," since it is quite depressing, but I did very much appreciate it. I am interested in the direction the characters are going, and intrigued by the slow and steady departure away from who they were.

Mad Men airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on AMC.