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Don Draper Returns for One Last Shot at Salvation

Will Dick Whitman be able to save his persona's soul?
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After Sunday night’s premier of season seven of “Mad Men” aired, the critics agreed: this first episode of the final season, “Time Zones,” is a foil of the very first episode of the series, “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.” It’s January of 1969, the nadir of bohemian ennui, a stark departure from Camelot’s straight-laced glamor at the top of the decade. But in “Mad Men”’s world, the emphasis isn’t on what has changed, but what hasn’t. Don’s is still tensely married to a (admittedly different) statuesque woman; Peggy is still frustrated at the office and in her personal life; Joan’s loneliness still undercuts her book-balancing, man-taming acumen. All these tropes were present in the very first episode, and nine years later, we can see how far these characters haven’t come.

But this season, there have been significant changes under the guise of sameness; the largest is that Don’s leave from his firm is an involuntary one. Don has played hooky before, but always on his own terms. Less and less of Don’s life, as we see, is within his control. Gone is the lean, mean advertising machine. He’s been replaced by a sallow sadsack, a shell of his halcyon days. Ashley Fetters at The Atlantic contrasts the Don from the first season and with this one in season seven:

The last shot of “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” is of Don’s home life, complete with a pretty young wife and children—which reveals that Don spends his days lying to and fooling other people. “Time Zones,” however, finds Don lying to everyone about how he “has to get back to work” and remaining somewhat deludedly optimistic about returning to SC&P, then ends with a closing shot of Don’s home life. This time, he’s sickly-looking and miserable, out alone in the cold with just his muddled thoughts. This time, it looks more like he spends most of the day consciously fooling himself.

In spite of Don’s unraveling, the culture critics at Slate feel Don’s self-deception can still work, at least at work, at least for a little while. One of the episode’s highlights is the “Accutron” pitch, delivered on the lips of Don’s former colleague Fred Rumsen, but with all the punch and power of a Don Draper masterpiece.

Regardless of whether or not Don still has the “it” factor that gets him out of every jam thrown his way, the cornerstone in Don’s rootlessness is Anna Draper’s absence, whose maternal guidance was an essential component of Don’s confidence. She was his horizon, a fixed point in Don’s shifting life. Much ink has been spilled of the high-profile women of the show, vying for the spotlight and column inches—Joan, Peggy, Betty, and newcomer Megan—but little has been said of Anna, the real Don Draper’s widow, who keeps Don’s secret in California as he builds his family and fortune in New York. She dies of cancer in the fourth season leaving Don bereft, and he hasn’t been able to center himself since. Though Don has always been the platonic ideal of a postwar masculinity: lantern-jawed, unrivaled in his powers of persuasion that ensure him women’s beds and corporate accounts—he knows his greatest advertising pitch is his own life, a lie that eats at him as the seasons pass.

Anna was promise of an earthly paradise, respite from the debauchery that sucked the life out of him. He doesn’t dare expect salvation, but he settled for the hope of it in the form of Anna. In the second season, Don took spontaneous leave on a trip to California and threw himself at her feet in the throes of an existential crisis. Anna was Don’s priest, granting him absolution for his infidelities, his callousness, and above all, for stealing her husband’s identity and using it to mask the ugliness of his upbringing. Don was always able to find his “mojo” on the margins of his existence and bounce back stronger than ever, but without Anna, he’s sinking deeper into the circles of hell. We’ve already had a gimmicky foreshadowing of Sharon Tate’s murder that may or may not involve Megan. Don’s life has disintegrated to varying degrees before, but he was always able to redeem himself through believing in Don Draper, the iconic creation that always manages to dazzle. But this time, disaster is looming, and there may not be a way to escape it.

This final season, only seven episodes long, carries a whiff of doom under the California malaise. Don Draper has spent six seasons running from Dick Whitman, marking the distance with alcohol, women, and success. Those things may deliver the final blow from which Don may not recover. Perhaps Whitman, who has been waiting patiently in the wings, will choose this season to make his appearance and provide Don with the salvation he so desperately needs.

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