‘Mad Men’: ‘The Fog’

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Phew, what a relief that was. Eugene Scott Draper, the newest addition to our Ossining family, was born with all his fingers and toes. All season long, “Mad Men” has worried us about Betty’s bun in the oven. Not only was she not sleeping well, but her little fetus had to endure that strange man’s flirtations at the Derby party the other week. Little Eugene’s already seen so much of the sordid, seedy adult life. But, despite the healthy birth, don’t you still feel on edge? Perhaps it was witnessing so much of Betty’s tripped-out labor. Imagine it: Your husband whisked away the moment you get to the hospital, hallucinations about your recently deceased father, wrestling with a portly nurse, abandoned by your regular doctor, slipping into a narcotic haze… this did not look like a pleasant, easygoing delivery. And how could it when it all kicked off with the following blood-chilling words -- “I’ll shave you and give you a quick, low enema” -- from Nurse Ratched, er, Elaine? Good heavens, Demerol, take this woman away!

In the fifth episode of the season, aptly named “The Fog,” we hunkered down with the Drapers in a way we hadn’t so far, as well as Peggy and Pete. As juicy as the side storylines are, from Sal to Joan, it’s the Drapers and Pete and Peggy who are at the soul of the show. So as we’re nearing the halfway mark in Season 3, we needed to center on them. Still aloft from momentum that started in episode 3, it was another strong show, though different from the last two. “The Fog” was a tonal melange of dream and reality – slippery and fraught.

Betty and Don each had their subconscious play commanding roles this episode. For Betty, her father was fresh on her mind – his distance from her in death belied by his recent proximity to her in real life. She saw him mopping in the hospital hallway as soon as she was wheeled in, and later, the hallucination bloomed in her own kitchen, where her father (with strangely huge biceps, I might add) continued to mop a smear of blood on the floor. “Am I dying?” she asked him. “Ask your mother,” he answered. In the corner, her mother stood with her hands on the shoulders of a black man whose suit collar was soaked in blood. Ruth Hofstadt told her daughter to shut her mouth or she’d catch flies. Betty immediately complied.

It’s the kind of thing we remember about our parents in dreams – those little needling quips. At the end of this interlude, Gene gave Betty some advice, “You’re a house cat. You’re very important and you have little to do.” The notion of “house cat” has many pop-feminist ramifications. For Don, Betty is mostly a kitten who curls up in his lap. To her children, she’s a tiger, who lashes out at them quickly and sometimes cruelly. To herself, she’s maybe a panther, stalking in her cage, ready and waiting to get out.

And then she woke up with a baby boy in her arms. Don was finally there – “he’s never where you expect him to be,” Betty had wailed mid-labor – back from his own waylay in the gentlemen’s lounge. His partner in waiting, prison guard Dennis Hobart, played into Don’s guilt so much it was almost like a ghost conjured from his mind. They drank Scotch whisky and smoked cigarettes, mainly to distract Dennis from his baby’s complicated breech birth.

But let’s backtrack for a moment. The episode started with Sally’s sensitive teacher telling the Drapers that their daughter had been acting out. The conversation was awkward – Miss Farrell had good intentions but bungled a few things. For one, she shamed them for not sending word that Sally’s Grandfather had died. When Betty rushed out of the room to use the restroom (due to a full bladder, not emotions, she clarified), things really got uncomfortable but it also afforded Don and Suzanne a little time alone, in which the young teacher intimated that she lost someone close to her.

Later on, with drink in hand, she gave the Draper household a call. And lo and behold, Don answered the phone with Betty seemingly missing in action. You could practically see his eyes sparkle with the next conquest practically flailing herself upon his storied altar of extramarital debauchery. When Betty showed up, he barely managed a kindly but curt exit.

So when Dennis heard the news that his baby boy was safe and sound, his first reaction was to ask Don to be his witness in his promise that he’ll be a better man. Don certainly understood the intention, has certainly made these promises out loud and to himself, but will he be making and keeping that promise himself this time? One thinks not but it doesn’t stop Dennis’ sincerity from cutting Don to the core. Same goes for the moment when Dennis asked if Don tossed the ball with Bobby. “Not enough,” answered Don and then guilt quietly ruined his face.

At Sterling-Cooper, hungry account executive Pete Campbell had a few ideas about tapping into the vast African American market. In general, whenever Pete has an idea, it pretty much spells career gaffe. But take it out of the context of Sterling-Cooper -- where the management admonished Pete not for thinking of the black market, exactly, but for riling up his Midwest clients -- and it suggests some noteworthy contours to Pete’s personality.

For starters, none of this is about Pete’s feelings toward the African American community. He simply sees an opening to exploit. When he asked Hollis, the elevator worker, what kind of TV he has, and continued to pry with questions about why Hollis bought that particular brand despite Hollis’ disinterest in the conversation, it was simply Pete’s staggering sense of entitlement at work. Presumably he’s never shown a spark of interest in Hollis before, but now this guy should tell him everything about his buying mentality, just because Pete is asking. But, it’s important to point out that it’s hardly malicious on Pete’s behalf. While he’s far from healing the racial divide, he’s not one to actively further it either. At worst, he’s negligent to those issues, too wrapped up in his own privileged dramas to see outside of himself.

It was fun, if predictable, to see Duck Phillips back, one of the best pseudo-villains on “Mad Men.” And it was 100% predictable that he’d be back on the sauce. Like Campbell, Duck is hungry and always searching for an opening, so he called on the two most ambitious members of Sterling-Cooper to see if he could poach them. Pete bristled the moment he saw Peggy in the booth but negotiations really hit a brick wall once Duck laid in with his ideas about their “secret relationship.” Oh, Duck, you don’t know the living, squirming-in-a-bassinet half of it. Pete stormed out soon after, but Peggy entertained Duck’s spiel.

Which propeled her into Draper’s office, festooned with baby gifts, to ask for a raise. Mentioning offhandedly the freshly codified Equal Pay Act of 1963, Peggy was forthright in what she wanted, as Don had advised her to do in the first season, but it didn’t get her the desired results. It was not the right time, Don told her, what with the British penny-pinching boss breathing down their necks.

The show ended with another dark, mysterious image, much like the end of episode 3. We saw the barest scrap of Betty’s nightgown in the window’s moonlight as she paused in the hallway, on her way to feed her new baby. What was that pause? Reluctance? Sadness? An acceptance of life’s dull repetitions? So much was suggested in so little.

--Margaret Wappler