6.8 The Crash Enter the pharmaceutical get-out clause, a temporary crisis that lets Draper escape his closed off personality and allows us to see something of what’s underneath. It’s the plot device that forces Draper to become uncharacteristically voluble and turn to face the camera for once. The Crash used a workplace amphetamine shot, but past glimpses into Draper’s mind have been provided by flu hallucinations, dental nitrous oxide, and that old Mad Men favourite, the drinking binge ‘n’ blackout. Draper’s previous holidays from sanity have zoned in on his guilt over Lane’s and his half-brother’s suicide (The Phantom), his anxiety about being discovered a deserting imposter (Hands and Knees), and his fear of repeating a cycle of misogynistic adultery (Mystery Date). Like a class assignment in Intermediate Freudian Analysis of Messed-Up Dudes, the character’s ampheta-mania in The Crash took us back to Dick’s childhood brothel, and showed us the genesis of his warped relationship with sex and women. The child is the father of the man? You can say that again, Peggy. The rest of the firm’s men weren’t faring much better under the influence of the needle, from tap-dancing Kenny (David Lynch meets Ally McBeal) to maudlin arm-wrestler Stan. The shots brought in by the new Roger – who, unbelievable as this may sound, is proving even less scrupulous than the old Roger – didn’t have the desired effect of pepping up a workforce whose creative juices had been drained by the unsatisfied giant of GM. Instead, they landed the team with a weekend of misspelling, debauchery, and cod-philosophical bullshit. Business as usual then for anyone who’s spent time around ‘creatives’ on coke. Winning the Chevy account has turned out to be a pyrrhic victory for the newly merged firms, which may have gone into the pitch together, but have yet to coalesce, or even give themselves a new name. GM is following in Jaguar Herb’s footsteps by throwing its weight around and making unreasonable demands. Don’s solution? The same as his answer to any tricky situation: get out of there, and leave someone else to pick up the pieces. Without Peggy and Dawn’s quiet sense providing a counterpoint to the episode’s drug-induced chaos though, this week’s dark tale would have been even darker. The theme of decay that’s come to the fore of Mad Men’s last two seasons was present in the death of Frank Gleeson, and the gradual sense of a world unravelling continued in the episode’s erratic, violent, and chronologically telescoped goings-on. Sally Draper’s thief situation didn’t exactly make for light relief either, a scenario that, like Don’s attack in Seven Twenty Three, walked the line between tension, threat, and unnerving amity. Grandma Ida’s blag seemed tailor-designed to work in the Draper household, in a family where the father is so unknowable, people from his past could well come out of the woodwork to make midnight eggs for his kids. So wide is the gap in our knowledge of Dick Whitman’s childhood, we were right there alongside Sally, smelling a rat, but with a shard of doubt telling us that we had little but instinct to prove that the interloper wasn’t really who she said she was. We’re more than halfway through Mad Men’s sixth season now, and its world continues to darken. The Crash began with a literal collision, referred back to a time of national financial crisis during Dick’s childhood, and ended with yet another collapse from Don Draper. It was layered, atmospheric, and most impressive of all for a show this far along its lifespan, surprising. We’re left with a couple of questions to ponder between now and next week, the first (show of hands, please) does anyone love Don Draper? And the second: just how much darker can things become? Read Frances’ review of episode six, For Immediate Release, here. Follow our Twitter feed for faster news and bad jokes right here. And be our Facebook chum here.
