Editor’s note: This is the first installment of our insanely detailed analysis of the entire Mad Men series. It should go without saying that spoilers abound.
Plot Synopsis, Critique, and Footnotes:
The now famous falling Don Draper intro
We start with an interesting title card. White text on a black background, the words “MAD MEN” written in capital letters and italicized. Below this, in a much smaller font size, is the following definition:
“A term coined in the late 1950’s to describe the advertising executives of Madison Avenue.
They coined it”
The font choice and the white on black writing are reminiscent of newsreels from the 1950’s
Madison Avenue has long been identified as the center of the advertising world, much in the way Wall Street (also in New York City) is the center of the financial world and K Street (in Washington D.C.) is where lobbyists reside. It does not necessarily mean that all advertising agencies are on Madison Avenue, which is a north-south street in Manhattan running between Park Avenue and 5th. Madison Avenue has existed since the 1830’s, but it was not synonymous with the advertising industry until the 1920’s.
The opening scene of the series is set in a smokey restaurant. The camera slowly pans over Don Draper’s shoulder as he scribbles on a napkin. A black busboy (played by Henry Afro-Bradley) lights his cigarette. Don notices (I assume from the matchbook) the waiter smokes Old Gold cigarettes, and asks him why. A white manager comes over and asks if the waiter, Sam, is bothering Don.
Don Draper and his Old Fashioned
So much information is conveyed through this simple encounter. For one, we can assume the time period is pre-Civil Rights even without knowing anything about the background of this show. The black busboy is clearly a powerless servant who gets bossed around by a white manager and can’t do anything about it. Just talking to a white customer (and it was Don Draper who started the conversation, and Sam hasn’t even given his response) gets the manager over to Don’s table to ask if he’s being bothered, and he notes that Sam can get a little chatty.
Random thought that went through my head: Sam is the name of the black piano player in Casablanca. Was this name chosen because we associate pre-Civil Rights Act well-dressed black men working under white managers with that name?
The first drink we see Don order: an Old Fashioned. This will be Don’s go-to drink many times, and in a later episode he’ll actually make one himself. It’s at least his second at this particular establishment. An Old Fashioned is made by muddling dissolved sugar with bitters (the brand name most associated with bitters is Angostura) and adding liquor, generally whiskey. A twist of citrus is added, usually an orange. Often a cherry is added. The drink is served in a tumbler glass which is actually called an Old Fashioned glass. This drink is one of the oldest cocktails, and it’s considered one of the “six basic drinks”. Every self-respecting bartender should know how to make one. If you find one that doesn’t, move on to a different bar.
Don Draper: Why Old Gold?
Sam: They gave ’em to us in the service. A carton a week for free
I wonder how the anti-smoking lobby would feel if cigarette companies continued to use the military to get young men hooked on tobacco.
Sam: I love smoking.
That’s some refreshing honesty. I’m so used to hearing people say “if only I could go back to before I had that first smoke…”. Sam smokes, and he enjoys it. He knows it’s bad for his health and he knows his wife hates it, but it’s something he enjoys and he’s not going to stop.
Don looks around the room and see everyone talking and laughing and smoking. The cigarette companies are under attack from the likes of Reader’s Digest, but everywhere Don looks he sees people enjoying this product they are supposed to hate because it kills them.
Don goes to visit an illustrator, Midge Daniels (played by Rosemarie Dewitt), the first woman he hooks up with in the series. They seamlessly mix business with pleasure, talking about the difficulty in promoting cigarettes in a climate that is quickly becoming hostile toward tobacco advertising. Midge reminds Don that the industry was under attack five years earlier, and they survived that by promoting healthy cigarettes and testimonials from doctors. Don says they can’t do that kind of thing anymore.
Midge is clearly cynical of both Don’s work and her own, and life in general. She mentions that she’s been working on drawings of puppies for a newly-invented holiday: Grandmother’s Day. She doesn’t have a passion for her work, but she knows she has to play the game to get by.
Midge is an independent woman who will clearly fall right into the anti-establishment crowd that is not yet a major part of American culture — but we all know it will be because we paid attention in history class. Midge will not be a regular character on the show, but we will see her several seasons later in a much different situation.
Don and Midge do their thing and suddenly it’s morning. Don reminds her that he still has nothing for the tobacco people, and Midge reminds Don that people love smoking, the same message he received at the restaurant. Don is worried about losing his job — a notion that will seem impossible as we move forward with the series.
In the next scene we are introduced to the office of Sterling Cooper, the advertising agency that will be the primary setting for this first season. The cinematography is incredible in the first few establishing shots, starting with a view from outside a high office window looking down at the street below (at about 6 minutes, 27 seconds). The shape and color of the cars and the style of the people below (all the men appear to be wearing dark suits and hats) gives away the time period, even though we’re looking down from a great distance. This might be the view the falling Don from the opening credits would see if he looked down.
It’s a nice view — unless you’re falling
Some young men cram into an elevator behind a young woman. The men are Paul Kinsey (Michael Gladis), Ken Cosgrove (Aaron Staton), and Harry Crane (Rich Sommer). The woman is Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss). A comment is made about not starting the elevator right away, as the men are enjoying “the view”. This work environment is clearly going to be hostile for young women, living in an age before sexual harassment lawsuits and with a firmly-installed glass ceiling keeping them from positions of power.
Peggy Olson, the new girl
Overheard in the elevator: first mention of Campbell’s bachelor party.
Campbell is on the phone with his fiance. He reassures her that things won’t get too crazy at his bachelor party. When he gets off the phone he mentions what a great gal she is while looking at a picture of a woman we assume is her. It turns out to not be her, or at least not the actress who plays the future Mrs. Campbell (Alison Brie). I can only assume this episode was filmed before the role of Trudy Campbell had been cast.
Who is this woman?
Peggy gets the lay of the land from redheaded secretarial leader Joan Holloway (Christina Hendricks). She receives some very blunt advice about what is expected of her. This is clearly not the kind of thing she was taught at secretarial school. Joan basically tells her the men she’ll work for want more than just someone to type up notes and file documents. She is expected to not just look professional, but sexy as well.
Peggy gets the tour (and some advice) from Joan
Joan also makes her intentions in this office very clear to Peggy: she wants to find a rich husband so she can spend her time relaxing out in the country and not working. Despite her oozing sexuality, Joan is very much the conventional young working woman for that era, and although Peggy seems like she’s headed in the same direction, we’ll see later on in this season how their paths diverge and how Peggy ends up being the more progressive female.
Quote:
Joan – “Now try not to be overwhelmed by all this technology (as she uncovers a typewriter). It looks complicated, but the men who designed it made it simple enough for a woman to use.”
Roger Sterling walks into Don Draper’s office. Don opens a drawer in his desk and pulls out a clean white dress shirt from a stack of identical shirts. Don has come to the office directly from Midge’s apartment, and now it becomes clear this is a typical thing in Don’s life. He can go from the office to the restaurant/bar to the mistress-of-the-moment’s apartment and then back to the office the next morning without any complications, except perhaps an irritated wife.
A clean and pure white dress shirt each morning for Don Draper
Roger Sterling asks a serious question: Have we ever hired any Jews?
Don Draper: Not on my watch
Don goes on to note that they’ve got an Italian guy, Salvatore. That would be a joke about large noses, for those of you who aren’t fluent in racial humor.
This little exchange of off-color humor has a truth hidden beneath it: the advertising business is still segregated into Jews and Gentiles. Roger asked the question because Sterling Cooper is looking to do business with a Jewish-owned business, but they aren’t sure how to get that account by schmoozing a client whose religion and culture they know nothing about. They are ignorant, but they are also aware of their ignorance and the damage it could do in their line of work. Don jokingly asks if he should go grab someone from the deli.
Roger leaves and Don reaches for his preferred piece of exercise equipment: long springs that you’re supposed to stretch to increase arm strength. Large rubber bands are more common these days. Don drops a medal on the floor and he picks it up and puts it back in its case. We see it’s a Purple Heart, and the case has his name on it (oh, and he was a Lieutenant). It’s obvious foreshadowing, and a rather weak attempt at that. I’d prefer the writers not make it so obvious.
A Purple Heart. Gee, I wonder if they’ll delve deeper into that storyline.
As he works out his arms with his springs while wearing his suit jacket I can’t help but wonder if the springs would damage the jacket over time. It’s rubbing right across his chest. Wouldn’t that cause the lapels to become frayed? I guess Don Draper has enough suits to not care about such things.
The aforementioned Salvatore Romano enters Dons office, and it doesn’t take someone with finely-tuned Gaydar to realize Sal has a thing for men. What’s surprising is that nobody in the office (including Don) seems to notice. Sal is in the art department, and he shows a mock-up for a cigarette print ad. It’s a young man relaxing with a smoke. His wistfully mentions that his neighbor posed for the drawing. Don notes that the ad needs a sexy girl next to the guy. Apparently that just slipped Sal’s mind. The conversation turns to sexy ladies and Pete’s bachelor party. Sal tries to mirror Don’s feelings for such things, overcompensating to hide the fact that he’s not attracted to women.
Quote:
Sal – “If a girl’s going to shake it in my face I want to be alone so I can do something”
Dr. Greta Guttman enters Don’s office with ideas for the meeting that day with Lucky Strike. She presents her “death wish” strategy for tobacco advertising. The fact that she’s German/Austrian (with a thick accent) is intentional. Her uncaring attitude is supposed to remind us of the German doctors who conducted gruesome research using prisoners in concentration camps as their subjects. She’s also supposed to remind us of the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, who was Austrian and whose work she references. Don dismisses her death wish idea and the entire field of psychology. He takes her report and throws it in the garbage.
With his office cleared out, Don attempts to relax before his big meeting with Lucky Strike, having struck down the one new advertising approach the agency had for them. He stares at a fly making a futile attempt to escape a ceiling light and closes his eyes. He feels trapped, just like the fly. He hears bombs exploding, and once again we have memories of a past event that is actually foreshadowing some future events that will unfold in Don’s story. We are also reminded once again that Don is haunted by time he spent in a war zone.
Peggy wakes Don to tell him Pete Campbell is waiting outside. Don asks if Pete knows he was sleeping in his office. Once again this is where the early first season differs from the rest of the series, as Don generally doesn’t care what anybody thinks he’s doing in his office, especially someone like Pete Campbell. At this early point he was actually worried about Pete trying to take his job.
Pete enters the office before Peggy even has a chance to send him in. He’s young and full of confidence. He makes some crude remarks at Peggy and calls her “honey”.
Quote:
Don – “Sorry about Mr. Campbell here, he left his manners back at the fraternity house.”
Don and Pete walk and talk. Pete asks if he can “have first crack” at Peggy and claims there is a rumor she’s “took down more sailors than the Arizona”. Don gets serious and tells Pete he’ll never advance to the level of management he clearly seeks if he continues to malign the reputation of secretaries on their first day. This is the first chance we get to see Don assert his superiority over Pete.
Don walks into the meeting with Mencken’s (the Jewish-owned department store) and attempts to shake hands with the unfamiliar male in the room, only to have the unfamiliar female standing next to him introduce herself as Rachel Mencken.
Quote:
Rachel Mencken – “You were expecting me to be a man. My father was, too.”
Roger Sterling tells Don the unfamiliar male is David Cohen, from the art department. As it turns out he’s really from the mail room. Roger actually found a Jewish person on the payroll. The lengths they’ll go to impress a client…
The next scene has Peggy Olson at the gynecologist’s office. She’s there to get birth control. The gynecologist is there to give her advice and lecture her in a way that would be considered very inappropriate today. Also, he smokes while examining her.
Quote:
Dr. Emerson – “There’s nothing wrong with a woman being practical about the possibility of sexual activity. Spread your knees. Although, as a doctor we’d like to think that putting a woman in this situation is not going to turn her into some kind of strumpet. Slide your fanny toward me, I’m not gonna bite.”
Back to the meeting with Rachel Mencken. Roger and Don pitch a commercial during “The Danny Thomas Show” and a coupon in select magazines.
“The Danny Thomas Show” ran from 1953 through 1965 and starred Danny Thomas as dad Danny Williams. Thomas was born to Lebanese parents, but he did have Jewish ancestry and his show was popular in the Jewish community.
Rachel Mencken is put off by the suggestion of offering a coupon. She sees coupons as something beneath her department store, which she notes shares a wall with Tiffany’s. Tiffany’s sells jewelry and silverware, and since 1940 their flagship store has been located on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 57th Street in Manhattan. Despite the title of the movie starring Audrey Hepburn and the hit 90’s pop song by Deep Blue Something, they do not serve breakfast there.
Pete Campbell asks Ms. Mencken why she didn’t go to an advertising agency that could better suit her needs. What he’s really asking is why she didn’t choose one of the Jewish agencies. She’s looking for more “outside the box” thinking that she wasn’t getting from the ad agency her father preferred using.
Quote:
Rachel Mencken – “I’m not interested in housewives… I want you’re kind of people, Mr. Draper”
Ms. Mencken wants the kind of store that people will shop at because it is expensive, like Chanel. This concept goes against Don Draper’s preferred method of advertising and rebranding. In this scene we see that Sterling Cooper is far more than just an advertising agency, as they are clearly trying to influence some very key business decisions for Mencken’s department store. What they produce for consumers is advertising to get them to buy something, but what they provide for clients is the business insights that will make that advertising most effective.
Don Draper: Mencken’s is not Chanel.
Rachel Mencken: That’s a vote of confidence.
Pete Campbell: What Don’s saying is Chanel is a very different kind of place. It’s French, it’s continental, it’s…
Rachel Mencken: Not just another Jewish department store?
Pete Campbell: Exactly.
Pete is perhaps still too young an naive to see how his matter-of-fact statement could offend a client. Rachel Mencken is offended and Don Draper walks out on the meeting, upset with the way Mencken is blowing off their suggestions.
Don Draper (to Pete Campbell): Well Roger’s not going to be happy, so I guess that’s good for you.
Pete Campbell: I’m not going to pretend I don’t want your job. But you’re right, I’m not great with people… I’m kind of counting on you to help me out. There’s plenty of room at the top.
The idea that Don Draper and Pete Campbell would be fighting each other for positioning at this agency will seem preposterous in later episodes as Draper establishes himself as a cut above the likes of Campbell, but in this first episode we find a Don Draper who is clearly concerned about his standing at Sterling Cooper.
“Let’s take it a little slower, I don’t want to wake up pregnant”
As Don walks away, Pete mutters an expletive under his breath. Despite the friendly, “team player” facade he put on for Don, their rivalry is as strong as ever.
Peggy is back in the office (from her trip to the gynecologist) and Joan is once again showing her around. Joan insinuates that she’s been to the Dr. Emerson’s house in South Hampton. Dr. Emerson had also made remarks to Peggy indicating he and Joan had fooled around. We’ll add their names to our hook-up chart.
Joan introduces Peggy to the “nerve center” of the office, which is three female operators at a switchboard. She is warned not to snap or be sarcastic with them. You might recognize the middle one as actress Kristen Schaal, who is a correspondent on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and had a recurring role on Flight of the Concords. When the operators ask what happened to Draper’s previous secretary, Joan responds that she moved on because Draper wasn’t interested. Once again, it’s made clear Peggy is expected to be much more than a secretary.
Now we see a meeting with Lee Garner Sr. and Lee Garner Jr. of Lucky Strike, Sterling Cooper’s most important client, for the first time. Lucky Strike was the most popular cigarette in the United States in the 1930’s. The company is now under pressure to reinvent its brand after the government has put restrictions on how they can advertise and released reports indicating that cigarettes cause cancer. Don Draper, creative director, is expected to clean up this mess, but he’s got nothing for them.
As Don stalls among awkward silences, Pete Campbell offers a solution pulled directly from Don’s waste bin. It’s the death wish idea that Dr. Guttman had presented to Don earlier in the day.
Lee Garner Jr.: That’s very interesting. I mean, if cigarettes were dangerous that would be interesting.
Lee Garner Sr.: Except they aren’t.
The Garners clearly hate this idea and decide to leave. Lee Garner Jr. remarks that if they have this problem, everybody (meaning all the other tobacco companies) have this problem. That sparks an idea in Don’s head.
Quote:
Don – “This is the greatest advertising opportunity since the invention of cereal. We have six identical companies making six identical products — we can say anything we want.”
Don asks the Garners how they make their cigarettes. As Lee Sr. explains the process, Don focuses on the part about the tobacco being toasted. He writes “IT’S TOASTED” on a chalkboard. Everybody else’s cigarettes cause cancer, Lucky Strike cigarettes are toasted, he explains. In real life, the Lucky Strike brand started using the “It’s Toasted” slogan back in 1917.
Don and Roger celebrate their triumph in the Lucky Strike meeting with some whiskey in Don’s office.
Don: For the record, I pulled it out of thin air. So, thank you up there.
Roger: You’re looking in the wrong direction.
Roger and Don discuss the possibility of a presidential advertising campaign. Before mentioning his name (to us, the viewer), Roger describes the candidate as young, handsome, and a Navy hero. We can now guess the year is 1960 and the candidate he’s talking about is John F. Kennedy. In fact, he’s talking about Richard Nixon. This is one of those things the writers like to sneak into Mad Men to show how perceptions change over time.
Pete Campbell’s travelling bachelor party enters Don’s office and starts raiding his booze. Don tells them he won’t be joining in on their fun. Pete is the last to exit and Don tells him he rejected Dr. Guttman’s research for a reason and implies that he knows Pete went through his garbage and used what he found there to attempt to undermine him during their meeting with the Garners.
Peggy enters the office in a happy and thankful mood. She places her hand on top of Don’s and is clearly coming on to him, although it seems forced enough so that we know she’s only doing it because she’s basically been told that’s what is expected of her. Don removes her hand and explains that he’s her boss and not her boyfriend. Then he scolds her for letting Pete Campbell into his office when he wasn’t there, instantly changing Peggy’s mood to scared and apologetic.
In the next scene the bachelor party has moved to some sort of burlesque club. Pete asks Sal if he has a girlfriend. He replies “Come on, I’m Italian!”. Even at this early stage it’s clear his answer is forced and he’s trying to project an air of masculinity among “the men” to hide his homosexuality. A few young ladies come and sit down with the men (Pete, Paul, Ken, and Sal).
A not-so-subtle hint about Sal’s sexuality:
Random woman sitting next to Sal: I love this place. It’s hot, loud, and filled with men.
Sal: I know what you mean.
Pete comes on strong to one of the women and she rejects him. He’s no longer having a great time at his own bachelor party.
Now we see Don Draper and Rachel Mencken at a classier club/restaurant. A waiter delivers a Mai Tai (for her), which consists of rum, Curacao liqueur, and lime juice. The drink was invented at a Trader Vic’s in Oakland, California in 1944. It’s often served with a decorative paper umbrella and associated with Polynesian influences (think “tiki bar”). Don’s drink is a whiskey neat, which means just whiskey on its own and not with ice (which is generally called “on the rocks”).
Don is trying to make up for his behavior at the meeting with Mencken earlier in the day. He also shows a romantic interest in her. He asks her why she isn’t married. Mencken reveals that she’s never been in love. Don shows his cynical side by saying he used the idea of love to sell nylon stockings. He reveals that he doesn’t really believe in love. Maybe that’s true, or maybe he’s just never been in love.
Don proceeds to drop a bunch of memorable quotes on us:
Quote:
Don Draper – “It doesn’t exist. What you call love was invented by guys like me to sell nylons.”
Don Draper – “You’re born alone and you die alone and this world just drops a bunch of rules on top of you to forget those facts but I never forget.”
Don Draper – “I’m living like there’s no tomorrow because there isn’t one.”
Rachel Mencken, who insists on calling Don “Mr. Draper”, makes a deep connection with his cynicism and says she understands it’s not as easy to be Don Draper as it seems. He’s forced to play a role, just as she is. Of course, we’ll learn later on in this series that playing the role of Don Draper as opposed to actually being the man himself is something that Don is quite aware of every day of his life.
Rachel decides to give Sterling Cooper another shot — a decision that is sure to make Don look good with Roger Sterling.
Pete Campbell is knocking on a door. A girl we haven’t been introduced to answers it. It’s Peggy’s roommate, Marjorie. She retrieves Peggy. They talk in the hallway. Pete reveals that he’s getting married on Sunday (this conversation is taking place on a Friday evening). Pete is looking for one last fling. Peggy obliges. Unbeknownst to Pete until several seasons later, this encounter will leave Peggy pregnant.
The final scene has Don making his way home. He takes the train to his car and then drives home to his seemingly perfect little home in the suburbs (we’ll later learn this is Ossining, New York). The light is left on for him, but inside the house is dark. His wife, Betty (January Jones), is already in bed. She left him food in the oven, but when she called to the office they said he had already left, so she assumed he was staying in the city again. This establishes that not coming home every night after work is routine for him, just in case anyone was wondering how he could get away with trysts like the one with Midge Daniels the night before.
Don goes to check on his children (a daughter and son), who are already sleeping. Despite his infidelities, he’s clearly a loving father and regrets not being able to see them more. The episode ends with the song “On The Street Where You Live” by Freddy Einsford-Hill, a song that was featured in the Broadway musical My Fair Lady.
