Sorry this is yet another Tuesday. Holiday, you know. Also, spoilers!
Let me state up front that I don’t like ghost images. I don’t like the cute “is she or isn’t she real?” implications. I don’t like the ham-fisted symbolism of them. I don’t like the self-centered fantasies that ghosts would bother to haunt the living. Don’s journey was well-enough conveyed by the other events of the episode. I really wish they hadn’t included the Anna fantasy, especially since I get the strong feeling that Don is not exactly a believer. The ghost thing is the dumbest move I’ve ever seen the folks at “Mad Men” make.
However, the fact that Anna was carrying a Samonsite was funny enough that it made me forgive them just a little.
The episode was kind of a strange one, because the actual events of it were incredibly depressing, but the symbolism that pulsed throughout the episode was not. Two major symbols: suitcases and the Muhammad Ali-Sonny Liston fight. The Ali-Liston fight was possibly my favorite aspect of the episode, because it was clearly a symbol of the new tossing out the old—-swiftly but controversially—-but it was played without flashing lights or big signs. The young people are drawn to Ali (and Joe Namath), but all the old, out-of-it men stand by Liston. And when Liston loses, they refuse to believe there wasn’t a fix.
In other words, they want their country back!
Of course, it’s a credit to the writers that Don complaining that Ali is a loudmouth had a double meaning. It not only hinted at the generational tensions in play, but it also touched on one of the other big themes of the show, which is Don’s unwillingness to open up even a little bit to basically anyone. His motto of doing and not saying is clearly not serving him well. His belief that these two things are mutually exclusive is proven quite decisively wrong by Ali’s win. And so while watching him act like an idiot and an asshole and a thoughtless piece of shit was hard, I think there’s reason to hope that things might be turning a corner for Don. Old Don, when asked about the war, just refused to say anything about it. New Don confesses he saw men die and that hurt him. Indeed, the quiet, unspoken impact the wars had on the mental health of these men has always been quietly touched upon on the show, but lately it’s been roaring to the forefront. Roger losing his shit over the Japanese businessmen. Duck drunkenly freaking out on Don, threatening to kill him by suggesting that he killed 17 men in Okinawa. And for Don, the boundaries between Dick Whitman and Don Draper are beginning to fade.
Old Don also wouldn’t have cried in front of Peggy. Old Don pretended to the New York world that Anna Draper didn’t exist. New Don has her picture on his desk and tells Peggy a little bit about her. It seems small to us, but to him, it’s a revelation.