'Mad Men' Recap: Waldorf Stories
“Waldorf Stories” focused largely on Don’s relationships with two people: Peggy and Roger. Both relationships are founded on mutual respect, but they tend to boil over intermittently due to an ad dispute or a ballsy personal choice (*cough*Jane*cough*). They also tend to say more about Don than his interactions with anyone else. Their dominance in this episode thus further complicated Don’s identity – now at its most fractured and muddled in series history – leaving us wondering if even the showrunners know who Don Draper is anymore.
The episode begins with a disastrous interview with Danny, a cousin of Jane’s. Danny hasn’t really found a range yet; all his ads are variations on the Alka Seltzer “cure for the common cold” slogan. He also has some ads he didn’t even write in his book. “It’s a relief to see someone worse than me. Really know it,” Peggy says after he leaves the office. Don immediately laughs about it with Roger, who’s in the midst of composing his memoir. (Sidenote: Why isn’t this biography real?!) But mere minutes later, we see a flashback to Roger and Don’s first meeting. Don is still a fur coat salesman and Roger is shopping for a present for Joan. Roger notices an ad on the wall (featuring Betty as the model) and learns that Don made it himself. Jumping on Roger’s bored query, Don tries to get an interview out of it. Roger brushes him off, and is annoyed to later discover some ad samples in the gift box. This is only the first of three desperate Don flashbacks.
Meanwhile, Peggy is dealing with slights left and right. She’s already hurt that she wasn’t invited to the Clio Awards – the Glo-Coat ad she worked on is nominated – and now she has to deal with the new art director, Stan Rizzo. Rizzo is perhaps the most chauvinistic and offensive character to walk the halls of SCDP, which is obviously saying something. Instead of contributing to projects with Peggy, he talks incessantly about sexual liberation and throws crude insults her way. It all comes to a head when Don, drunk off the Clio Awards win and fed up with Peggy, forces them to spend the weekend in a hotel in order to get their cough drop ad finished. Peggy calls Rizzo on his “chickenshit” and starts stripping, challenging him to get liberated, too. He complies, but is clearly distracted as they continue their cough drop discussion. Eventually he caves, putting his clothes back on and thus conceding to Peggy, who smiles at her title of “smuggest bitch.”
Backtracking to the Clio Awards, SCDP pulls a victory in spite of Ted Chaough’s taunting and Duck’s drunken cameo. When Pete, Don, Joan and Roger learn that the Life cereal reps are waiting for them at the office, Don opts to do the pitch now rather than reschedule. The Life people aren’t impressed with Don’s “Eat Life by the Bowlful” campaign, but Don won’t settle for another pitch meeting. He wants this account now. So he rambles off some slogans, including Danny’s “cure for the common breakfast.” They love it, but Peggy is aghast. When she tries to confront Don about it, she’s banished to the hotel room with Rizzo. It’s only later when she visits Don, recovering from a weekend of heavy partying (he told a one-night stand his real name!) that she convinces him to fix the Danny situation.
Well, Danny won’t accept freelance pay, so Don hires him much to Peggy’s ire. For the kicker, we see that Roger also reluctantly hired Don way back when. In fact, he didn’t even remember his drunken job offer and was none too happy to see his fur coat salesman in the Sterling Cooper elevators the next morning.
Here’s the thing: we all know that Don was not always Don Draper. It’s an enigmatic persona he has forged for himself over several years. Still, it was hard to buy him as a clingy pest in those flashbacks. The one consistent Don/Dick trait has always been aloofness: he was a quiet child who turned his back on his family without a second thought, his ex-wife never really knew him and his children know even less. Sure, he fought to escape Dick Whitman, but the effort was never unflattering until now. Given his cringe-worthy attempts at seduction this season, which would have been unfathomable previously, it all makes for one seriously contradictory character. With “Waldorf Stories,” Don now seems poised on the brink of becoming an incoherent mess. Also, it’s forced us to deal with Danny. And Danny, like his cousin Jane, really sucks. So let’s refrain from any future Waldorf Stories. Please?