Mad Men Finale: Take Note, Ladies!

This season of Mad Men has been filled with moments of heart-wrenching emotion.

Tonight’s finale, though, it was the engagement. Left in the lurch by Betty’s precipitous firing of the nanny Carla, Don enlists his secretary (and sometime-bedmate) Megan to accompany him and his children to California. During that trip, Don and Megan spend a couple more nights together. Don believes he is in love, and he asks her to marry him. When they return to Sterling Cooper Draper Price, they announce their impending nuptials to the office staff.

What’s sad about Don falling in love? Nothing... if it seemed based on actual love. There’s also the issue of his girlfriend, the smart and compassionate Faye Miller, who is waiting for him back in New York. There is the disappointment plain in Peggy’s face, when she says of Megan, “She’s very... beautiful”--the implication being that beauty is pretty much the extent of Megan’s contribution. Don counters by telling Peggy how much she (Megan) reminds him of Peggy. “She’s got that same spark,” he says. The difference is, of course, that Megan is merely beautiful, though it was Peggy who had just landed a new account in the wake of the Lucky Strike departure. (I find it amusing that I keep typing Don’t instead of Don’s. Yes, Don Draper is clearly a don’t!)

Megan is also young and in awe of Don. He watches her interact with his children, and it becomes apparent he is softening toward her, a definite contrast to Faye’s awkward interactions with them earlier in the season. She shows interest in whatever Don is working on around the office. She unfailingly supports his work, even when others are against him. Unfortunately, that’s about the extent of her character development.

Happily, Joan (recipient of the title-only promotion to “Director of Agency Relations”) and Peggy manage to bond over their mutual disappointments, which is a welcome change from the divisiveness of their dispute over the handling of the sexual harassment a few episodes ago.

Why is Don marrying his secretary so discouraging? Primarily, because no matter how much his character appears to have evolved, nothing really changed. Although Don has the pick of any number of women, he chooses the one who most closely resembles a schoolgirl with a crush, a benevolent babysitter. She is less assertive and more traditionally seductive. She uncritically supports Don. She’s already stepping into the mommy role with his kids. She is certainly not shown to be his intellectual equal, nor is she on equal footing with him at work, being his secretary and all. And that is precisely how he wants it. Because regardless of what Don might say (or think) he wants, regardless of who he sleeps with or dates or promotes at work, only a beautiful and pliable girl who's good with kiddies gets a ring.

All you ladies who think Don is the cat’s, take note. Or more precisely, take dictation, if you want to marry him.



Bitch magazine offers a thoughtful analysis of the finale in the context of the whole season here: http://bitchmagazine.org/post/tube-tied-notes-on-mad-mens-fourth-season. While I don't agree with their entire assessment, I do concur on many points, particularly their disappointment in how Betty is written.