'Mad Men': Many masks

Don’t you love it when the TV universe grants your wishes? I’ve been cheering for “Mad Men” since that first, full-lunged pull on Draper’s Lucky Strike, but I’ve also been demanding rewards for my loyal viewership. In no particular order, I asked for more sexy scenes sans girdles, more sassy ‘60s humor, less wretched sexism, and will you finally please get the whole “Salvatore is gay” plotline up and running because that thing’s been lingering so long it’s starting to smell.

Shiny presents were torn open on all three points, and ribbons strewn around the most powerful of “Mad Men” themes: Everyone’s identity is mutable. Nothing is what it seems. We love our masks, and if you try to rip them off, or even move them aside to see a little bit of our real lips, our real teeth, we might scratch your eyes out. Or at least deliver a tear-jerking swipe at the nose.

 

So, about Salvatore’s near run-in with, um, an amazing view of Central Park. Before we dig in, allow me to air a minor grievance. Why is it that TV, even smart, HBO-prepped TV, portrays gay men the same way? Must they all be natty dressers? Show me a gay man in rumpled Old Navy and I’ll show you progress.

Anyway, back to that view. That scene couldn’t have had its grip-your-wineglass impact without some Salvatore backstory. We know from Lois’ creepy spying on the operator lines that Salvatore calls his Italian mama every day. From the art department peons (who seemed more graphic-novelist-geeky than failed-novelist-tortured, a la the account/copywriting guys), we learn that Salvatore’s always fending off the ladies.

Maybe these elements collude to keep Salvatore sexually inactive –- he gets some attention (it feels good to be noticed, even by the wrong gender), it’s a convenient cover-up, and he stays under Mama’s wing. No big shocker that he didn’t take Elliot’s offer; Salvatore’s been practicing a lifetime of restraint. It’ll take a bigger connection than what can be forged over Sambuca, but make no mistake -- someone eventually will because this is TV. There is fantasy to keep aloft, not to mention ratings.

While Salvatore was keeping his silk tie fastidiously in place, Pete and Peggy were pushing up skirts and ripping collars. When a show’s been keeping our pulses sluggish for this long, we need the steamy details like an EMT’s thump to the chest. “Mad Men” got busy in the first five minutes. How joyously indecorous! We got a peek at Peggy’s garters and some silhouetted high heels -- in the air, nonetheless! For most other shows, silhouetted sex would equal stylistic excess, but for “Mad Men,” it’s just another signature touch, like those candy-colored purses or cat-eye glasses.

After the early morning rendezvous, Peggy seemed enlivened. Her shrinking violet baby voice when she’s at her typewriter, more than ever, seemed a sham. The budding copywriter is in possession of a dark intelligence that’s in continual, evolving vicissitude. Pete’s haunted by it, but he can’t have it. He’s too smart and hungry to be satisfied by cheating on his wife; sex is merely part of the equation. He wants something more – to feel merged with a person, to have his strangest impulses understood. He finds that in Peggy, but it’s more frustrating than relief. Here’s this intellectual, emotional peer, so close but in a culture dictated so stringently by social institutions like marriage, she may as well live in Alaska.

The last time “Mad Men” toured Draper’s past, it felt like lazy parenting, like sticking a pacifier in our mouths. There was an urge to placate with scenes hinting at some kind of unspeakable horror, but this week’s episode presented Don’s childhood as something more steadily and minorly choked off. The drifter was a stroke of brilliance for what he revealed about Don’s young world. Maybe the drifter recognized a kindred spirit or maybe he gave birth to one right in that moment, but he shared with Don his code --scratches left on fence posts that tell the next drifter what to expect at this home: good food; dishonest man; watch out for dog; tell a sad story. These strategies, these codes, are still rich ideas for Don. And we learned the basis for his ultimate code: isolation. The drifter describes how he once had a marriage, kids, the whole works, but “I couldn’t sleep at night tied to all those things… but now, I sleep like a stone.” Don won’t ever desert anyone, but he’ll never attach too deeply either.

--Margaret Wappler

P.S. Later, Midge. You were fun but let’s face it, you’re a Living Theater, bongo-circle, beat poet kind of girl. You didn’t belong with that pasty ad exec.

(Photo courtesy AMC)