Taking notes during episodes of Mad Men has become progressively more difficult as Season 5 develops. Last night, the inevitable came to pass, the moment set up by the entire season, but I STILL had problems jotting down every bit of minutiae, every set detail, every gratuitous bloody child vagina shot. This led to notes like, “@ the Barber meets Jed, big.” And that’s it. So I apologize for the incoherence of the following CRAZY CRAZY SUICIDE EPISODE RECAP!
We open with Don at the barbershop taking some backhanded compliments from a dude named Jed or something. What we don’t realize is that Don doesn’t need to go to the barbershop because his hair cuts itself; he only goes to keep up appearances.
Meanwhile, Lane Pryce modestly and ironically accepts an appointment as the head of the fiscal control committee of the 4A’s (the American Association of Advertising Agencies). See, it’s funny because Lane embezzled company money and all that jazz; looks like he WON’T EVER GET PUNISHED FOR HIS SINS, RIGHT?
Right. Nothing to worry about here. The corporate structure at SCDPHEVERYONE’SAPARTNER is changing, with Charlotte replacing Joan and Pete Campbell shoving it into everyone’s face that he took another call, this time from Dunlop. A miniature debate about a fee structure system versus commission ensues, which sounds an awful lot like socialism versus capitalism. Don clearly falls on the side of capitalism.
On the home front, Sally Draper continues her war of words with Betty Francis; Sally would rather hang out with Megan and her Daddy than go to a stupid boring ski lodge with the Francises. Betty’s all like, “Fuck you, Sally, go hang out with Don’s childbride if that’s what you want.”
HOMOEROTIC SIDEBAR: Don Draper has a long butt. Not a bad butt, not a strange butt – a long butt. Check it out.
Remember how Lane wanted those goddamn bonus checks, so he forged Don Draper’s signature and paid himself some much-needed cash? Well, Bert Cooper opened the company’s bank statement and found the check, so he confronts Don. Don says he’ll take care of it, presumably by forcing Lane to commit seppuku.
Before we cut to Lane Pryce bawling like a baby, can we talk about the realist deus ex machina of Bert Cooper finding Lane’s forged check? I realize that “realism” and “deus ex machina” sounds paradoxical, but in what world does the aging founder of an advertising agency on the rise open bank records? Not a sermon; just a thought.
Now we can cut to Lane killing a monster glass of whisky; Lane in denial; Lane admitting to forging the check; Lane claiming it was a 13-day loan; Lane angry; Lane working through the steps of the grieving process in a five-minute scene (Hint: Grief ends in suicide). Don continues his season-long ride on a high horse and asks Lane for his resignation, which enrages Lane, so he leaves to hit on Joan.
A distraught Don turns to the one man who can offer wisdom and perspective in troubling times: Roger Sterling. The following exchange takes place:
Don: “Why do we do it?”
Roger: “For the sex.”
That pretty much sums up life, I suppose. Don turns on the old Don Draper and starts yelling about taking over chemical agencies and seeking vengeance for all the wrongs he’s suffered over the course of his brilliant, yet inexplicably still relatively anonymous, career in a cutthroat, shameless industry that can’t even adhere to the sort of personal moral system Don finds impossible to abandon.
What was all that? Don wants to get Ken Cosgrove’s father-in-law’s chemical company, so he tells Roger to fire Kenny if need be. Instead, Roger decides to take Kenny out for a booze session, at which point Ken reveals that he wants to be put on the account and also please fuck Pete Campbell in the ass at your earliest convenience, please.
Cut to the Drapers’ modernist Fortress of Solitude. Sally shows up to surprise and frustrate Megan with her precociousness, and Megan is pissed until Don’s all like, “Christ, give me a break, I had to convince Lane to kill himself today.”
Speaking of Lane, he comes home wasted to discover his wife bought a Jaguar! With what money, honey?! The best part of this is the fact that Lane can barely stand up and form complete sentences, but his wife wants him to take her for a spin. Fortunately, we’re spared a DUI thanks to Lane’s vomiting session.
Do you think the reason Sally’s so precocious is that she hangs with Megan’s crazy redhead friend, the girl who talks about public hair to a (for now) prepubescent girl? I say yes.
Let’s get back to Lane Pryce, who clearly has no option but to end it all, most appropriately in his brand new Jag that he can’t afford. Here’s a question: How many British people living in a Manhattan apartment have access to a garden hose? I say zero. Except Lane Pryce, apparently.
Of COURSE the Jaguar doesn’t start, living up to its reputation as an expensive piece of shit. Lane Pryce is such a failure that he can’t even poison himself with carbon monoxide, but if there’s one thing we love about Lane (there isn’t), it’s that he’s a persistent, if insufferable, son of a bitch. He’s not going to let one botched suicide ruin things for him.
Returning to storyline number two, Sally invites creepy Glen, who’s now sporting a pedophile ‘stache, over to the Draper residence so they can hang for the day. Their little museum trip, which is fraught with metaphor and the continuing of cycles in which their forebears are currently trapped. Sally plays house the only way she knows how: with a budding misogynist douchebag.
But then, Mother Nature interrupts! Sally “becomes a woman,” in Betty Francis’ words, which means she got her first period in the museum. That brings us to a debate that will surely rage on message boards for a long, long time: Is the scrotal sack shot of Kevin Sterling-Harris-Holloway more gratuitous/shocking than Sally’s bloody vagina, or the other way around? Hit up the comments with your answer preferably in the following form:
Scrotal Sack/Baby Taint > Bloody Vagina/Sally’s Period, or Bloody Vagina/Sally’s Period > Scrotal Sack/Baby Taint.
Sorry for the digression, but it’s a necessary one. Don, still in his Fuck the World mode, goes with Roger to meet Ed Baxter and some Dow Chemical folks. Don tells them THEY’RE NOT HAPPY BECAUSE HE SAYS THEY’RE NOT HAPPY. Just remember, all you suckers who are in the television and/or media game: Success is a reality, but its effects are temporary. BOOM. You’ll NEVER BE HAPPY, Dow Chemical, even if you napalm all of Vietnam’s women and children.
Sally Draper, still distraught about her latest milestone, takes a cab back to Rye, and she and Betty bond over their shared womanhood. Betty also takes the opportunity to stick it to Childbride Megan, telling her Sally just needs her mother in a time like this. Meanwhile, Megan has to spend the day with Creepy Glen, who immediately demands food from his new, albeit temporary, womanservant.
So. We come to the climax of the season. Lane came into the office over the weekend, drinking again. Typing. It’s snowing. Lane contemplates the sour turn his life has taken. He’s always been the one to get fucked, yet when it’s his turn to do the fucking, he finds himself getting fucked by the one man he thought would understand. He gazes out the window, watching the snow fall on the city he loves but which has betrayed him. His soul swoons slowly as he hears the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead. Lane will join them soon. He removes a rope from his briefcase, the rope that will put him in eternal communion with the universe. The chair and the length of the rope must be just right. Lane hangs himself.
Whew! Now all that needs to happen is for his body to be found, which happens on Monday when Joan can’t get in Mr. Pryce’s office because Lane’s livid body is still hanging in front of the door. Pete and Kenny look over the divider to discover the body, but it’s not until Don and Roger return from their chemical meeting that they decide to cut the body/metaphor down. Death ain’t easy, folks.
With Lane is his resignation letter, which is standard, boilerplate stuff. Lane, in spite of his humanity, was a company man to the very end. Shows how much that’s worth.
Don returns home to find Glen hanging out with Megan; Don, distraught, offers to drive Glen back to school, but when Glen questions this crappy, no-good world full of phonies, Don is uncharacteristically touched. He atones for his perceived sins by allowing Glen to drive back to school. The universe continues.
SO. Who’s next to go? Pete Campbell? The relatively useless and unenlightened Roger Sterling? Don Draper himself? Mad Men’s modus operandi involves placing the climax in a penultimate episode and picking up the pieces in the finale (Don’s marriage followed by the final scene of him looking out the window in Season 4), but I wouldn’t be surprised if we got another cliffhanger.
What do you think? Did Lane deserve to die? He was a sneaky, dirty Englishman, so perhaps we shouldn’t be too sad. Let us know in the comments below!
SumOlogy: Yes, Lane deserved to die, and I hope he burns in hell!
Grade: A+
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Follow Anthony Schneck on Twitter: @AnthonyOlogy
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