DownWithTyranny!: TV Watch: To celebrate Mad Sunday, we have an inside look at Season 7 of "Mad Men"

Don Draper: Then and Now

by Ken

I know the post title promises an "inside look" at Season 7 of Mad Men, the first half of which premieres tonight on AMC, and I wouldn't kid around about something like that, so trust me, we'll get to it. I assume you already knew that in this run we're only getting the first half of the final season, which is being split in half the way the final season of Breaking Bad was: We get seven episodes now, and another seven -- well, some other time.

Personally, I'm going to be in blackout mode on Season 7 for a while, having not quite completed my homework, which was to rewatch all of Seasons 1 through 6. Actually I was doing pretty well on this project timewise, until my life was taken over by Gilmore Girls, but that's another story. Suffice it to say that, despite devouring those seven seasons in possibly record time, 153 episodes later my Mad Men schedule was shot to hell. Nevertheless, with a strong push last night I reached the end of Season 5. But at that I did better than series creator and overlord Matthew Weiner. (If you merely dabble in the abundant audio commentaries, both his and those of other series participants', you discover that exercises what seems like pixel-by-pixel control over every moment of the show.) Here's his confession from a new online Q and A:

Q: A lot of fans are re-watching the entire series to get ready for Season 7. What did you do to prepare?

A: I planned to watch the entire show before I started writing Episode 7 [the finale of Season 7: The Beginning] and did not make it. It is a lot of hours.

Q: How far did you get? And how did it strike you watching it back again?

A: I made it through the end of Season 4, and my children are watching the whole thing right now, which is interesting because Martin, who’s in it, and Charlie’s been in it too (two of my boys), they hadn’t really seen it because it wasn’t really appropriate for them. I’m really proud of it . . . I’m proud of the commitment to change on the show . . . There’s a respect for the audience. If Sal gets fired, Sal is fired. Don is starting a new agency, we’re going to build a new set. If Betty has a new life, her husband is going to be a character.

Wimp! For that matter, star Jon Hamm wasn't exactly tethered to the DVD player either. Here's what he says in his new Q and A:

Q: Did you do anything different to prepare for filming the final season?

A: No, but obviously we are all different people because ten years has happened since we started this show. I was 35 when I started this thing, and I just turned 43. It’s been a chunk of our lives, a quarter of our lives. It’s a part of us. And I’ve made some incredibly close friends that I hope to have for the rest of my life, and it’s given me a career. And I can only look back on it with a respect and awe and pleasure.

Q: How are you documenting the end of the process?

A: I think what people are doing is marking things they’re going to steal. I think there is a lot of nostalgia happening. I’m not a big believer in that, though. My memories are good enough for me, and I have some very, very good memories of the show. Hopefully we’ll have some more from this final chunk [of episodes].

As we all recall, Don imploded in that Hershey's pitch at the end of Season 6. What did Jon think about that?

Q: In the Season 6 finale, Don reveals — to the Hershey reps — what his childhood was like. Did that moment feel like a long time coming?

A: It is kind of the revelation of a pretty significant piece of his history to people who probably haven’t really heard any of that stuff. And it comes in an outburst; it’s a strange way to reveal something like that. So, you know, you go “Whoa, whoa, what’s this guy doing?! He’s blowing himself up.” I think it’s a very in-character moment. I think Don can be impetuous in that way and it has consequences.

Q: What was your reaction when you read the script for that scene?

A: We were all like, “Whoa, this is happening.” Because not only does that happen, but Don essentially gets fired at the end of that episode. And I felt probably like Elisabeth [Moss] felt at the end of Season 5, like, “Wait, I’m quitting? What’s going to happen to me?” I realized that I probably wasn’t going to be off the show, but there is a moment of, “Oh boy, what are we doing?”

Q: There must be some anxiety about potentially not shooting your scenes on a familiar set, as you’ve been doing for so long?

A: It’s definitely a shift and now basically all of us have a version of that. [Peggy] had a moment at CGC, and Joan’s situation [at the department store], and even my situation. And it is different. You want to be together with the gang, and sometimes that’s not the way the story goes, but we’ve all been really trusting of Matthew Weiner to tell that story — and he’s rewarded that trust.

And here's Matt looking back at Season 6:

Q: Season 6 had some hilarious, absurdist moments. Were there any cast members who surprised you with their sense of humor?

A: All those actors — whether you realize it are not — are really funny. It took the world about two years to realize how funny Jon Hamm was, but they are all really funny, and they play the stuff straight, and it’s funny. I’ve always tried to make the show funny… I look at Pete Campbell returning the chip ‘n dip, and it’s a comedy scene. Him waiting in line and coming back with that gun. I feel that same way about Danny Strong (who plays Danny Siegel), when Roger went out there and got punched in the balls by Danny…. But a lot of the things that I think are going to be funny, turn out to be very sad. [Laughs]

Q: Can you give us an example?

A: People who’ve been in advertising always run into me and tell me some stories from the business. And the most repeated story — besides the story of what happened with Joan and the Jaguar guy . . .

Q: Wait, Joan sleeping with the Jaguar client was based on true stories of women who actually did that?!

A: Oh, yeah. This is the world we live in. And a lot of people started telling me that it was still happening now, after the episode aired. Anyway, so the story that I hear most is about somebody peeing in their pants at a meeting. We wrote the scene for Freddy Rumsen, and I just thought it was going to be hilarious… And we shot it, I was like, “Oh my God, this is the saddest thing I’ve ever seen.” [Laughs]

Hmm, Danny Strong is a Gilmore Girls alum, and for that matter one of my incentives to get to and through Season 5 of Mad Men was to reencounter Beth, the wife of Pete Campbell's fellow rail commuter Howard the insurance salesman, with whom Pete has that brief, desperate fling. When Season 5 of Mad Men originally, I had no acquaintance whatever with Alexis Bledel. It turned out to be deeply weird indeed watching Rory Gilmore kiss Pete Campbell (and then do a lot more than kiss), especially since I saw it the same afternoon I happened to rewatch the Gilmore Girls episodes containing Rory and Dean's first kisses. And I also knew now that Alexis and Vincent Kartheiser got engaged last year. Rory marrying Pete -- yikes! (I had intended just to take another look at an episode or two of Gilmore Girls. Since I'm even more blown away the second time, I suppose now it's just a matter of Episode 153 or bust. But that's part of that other story.)

By the way the sort of revelation Matt Weiner offers about the Joan-and-the-Jaguar-guy plot line is characteristic of his audio commentaries, which are incredibly rich in tales of how scenes came to be, what he had in mind, where (and whom) ideas came from and even specific objects (e.g., the toolbox with which Pete tries to fix his sink in the episode where he and Trudy have the Drapers and the Cosgroves over for dinner was Matt's grandfather's toolbox).

Now, as to that inside look at Season 7, let me say that I personally want to know as little as possible about what's going to happen, so I can take the fullest advantage of my one opportunity to watch it without any foreknowledge. (With a show like this it can be fabulous to rewatch and do so repeatedly, but we still get only one shot at watching for the first time.) Luckily, Matt W runs a really tight ship when it comes to disclosing advance plot information. I for one am deeply grateful. Here, however, is his own preview of the new season. I haven't read it myself, but I'm sure when you read it, you'll feel really illuminated.

Q: You’ve said that you’ve known how the series was going to end for a while. Is that still true?

A: Every season, I come in, and I know basically what the last images of the show are going to be of each season… But the process that I don’t reveal is that when I get to the finale, I usually don’t want to do it anymore. Like you want to fire Don, really? Betty wants to divorce Don, really? You want to leave Sterling Cooper and start a new agency? You want Pete and Trudy to end in shambles? It’s pretty scary trying to commit to those things. I usually start to try to back out of it, obviously, and I get talked into doing it again. [Laughs]

Q: Last we saw Don, he was put on leave from SC&P. How different is his storyline going to be for this season?

A: There are consequences to what happened last season. That’s all I can say. Just because Don had a breakthrough with his daughter and that office, doesn’t mean that the world is going to jump up and say, “Hurrah for Don.” There are consequences to the last six seasons of what he’s done… So let’s say you want to change, what does that have to do with everybody else?

Q: What else can you tell us about Season 7?

A: Last season to me was about anxiety and about the world being in revolution and telling the story of someone whose anxiety was overwhelming them because they could not maintain their façade anymore. The United States could not maintain its façade, and Don could not maintain his façade… I was showing that the culture was like Don. It was carnal, it was anxious, it was having a huge self-confidence problem… And now I want to look at the material and immaterial world. Things that are of this world — ambition, success, money, and time to some degree — and the contrast of what we can’t see, the spiritual, the internal life… When your needs are met, when you have a roof over your head, things that Don Draper doesn’t take for granted because of where he’s from, and at a certain point those needs are met, what else is there?