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Unpacking Last Night's Mad Men: Time Zones And Timepieces

Jen Carlson

Published Apr 14, 2014

Modified Apr 14, 2014

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Jen Carlson

Published Apr 14, 2014

Modified Apr 14, 2014

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[SPOILERS SPOILERS EVERYWHERE!] Last night Mad Men returned for the first half of its final season (the second half will air next year). We re-enter the world in January 1969, with some of the main players living on the West Coast (Megan, Ted, Pete, and sometimes Don), and the others still operating out of Manhattan. While things appear fine, by the end we see Don, Peggy, and Roger alone and falling apart in their respective homes. Below, we unpack some of the real life references throughout the episode (and more on LA's part in the episode can be found at LAist)...

BRACKEN'S WORLD

Megan moved out to Los Angeles without her husband, and without her soap opera gig. While Don is visiting the two have dinner with Megan's agent, who tells her that she's basically all but cast for a new NBC pilot, called Bracken's World. This was a real show, albeit a short-lived one—it ran from September 19, 1969 to December 25, 1970, and was canceled half-way through its second season. The drama was about Hollywood, fame, and disillusionment.

LA VS. NYC

Goodbye Sneaky Pete, Hello California Pete

We've now got a West Coast and East Coast agency, with Ted and Pete running things out in LA. To speak in advertising hues, California Pete is the best thing to come along since sliced bread.

While at Canter's Deli with Don—which he admits he found during a homesick moment—Pete fills him in on his life: "I have an apartment by the tar pits. It's one-bedroom but two-stories. The city is flat and ugly, and the air is brown... but i love the vibrations. The New Yorkers here, they brought everything we need [but] the bagels here are terrible."

Don is living the bicoastal life, and is out visiting Megan for the first time—he's turned off by the bohemian house in the hills she chose to rent, where it's desolate and you can hear coyotes howling in the darkness and there's barely room for a giant television set. He tells a realtor (who also appears to be Pete's new fling), "I wanted to be by the ocean, but my wife rented a house in the hills." It's unclear to everyone if these hills overlook the city or the valley, so it's tough to place where exactly Megan is living. Probably Manson Family adjacent?

Meanwhile, Peggy pretty much puts this LA vs. NYC thing to bed: "Well you're in an office there, you're in an office here, what's the difference?"

CULTS

The series has dabbled in cults in the past—most notably when Paul Kinsey went Hare Krishna. Roger, while not in a cult, has been immersing himself in the LSD lifestyle, and seems to have set up his own swinging sex colony commune at his home.

But what's up with his daughter? She tells him, in an almost empty vacant Stepford-wife way, "I've been searching, and with a little help have found that anger can be vanquished by love." When asked if she's going to church, she tells him, "Not in a way you'd understand." Is it self actualization therapy? It's all so vague! But it seems Margaret has joined some form of a cult, perhaps the Human Potential Movement, or the Unification Church? Followers of the latter were eventually dubbed "Moonies" by the media in the 1970s. It's probably only a matter of time before we see Pete or Megan dining at the Source Family restaurant in LA.

NIXON

Nixon has been in the background of the series since season 1, and at the end of last night's episode we see Don watching his inauguration on January 20th. Read Nixon's full speech on that day here—the part highlighted in the show reads: "We are caught in war, wanting peace. We are torn by division, wanting unity. We see around us empty lives, wanting fulfillment. We see tasks that need doing, waiting for hands to do them. To a crisis of the spirit, we need an answer of the spirit. To find that answer, we need only look within ourselves." You can watch the inauguration from that year in the above video.

MISC.

Don is looking at the February 1969 issue of Playboy at Megan's house, which featured Playmate of the Month Lorrie Menconi on the cover. (She uses the cover image as her Twitter background.)

The 1937 classic Lost Horizon is on Megan's television—Don appears to be watching it as she falls asleep. After the opening credits these words appear on the screen: "In these days of wars and rumors of wars, haven't you ever dreamed of a place where there was peace and security, where living was not a struggle but a lasting delight? Of course you have. So has every man since Time began. Always the same dream. Sometimes he calls it Utopia... Sometimes the Fountain of Youth... Sometimes merely 'that little chicken farm.'" So where is Don's utopian, idyllic Shangri-La?

The closing song, where we finally see some of the characters fall apart (Peggy, Don, Roger... and poor ol' Ken with his eyepatch and heavy workload) is "You Keep Me Hangin' On," performed by Vanilla Fudge.

THE ADS

The main focus is the Accutron ad—the agency is still trying to finalize their pitch, and Peggy is pushing for Freddy Rumsen's idea (which we find out is actually Don Draper's idea, filtered in to the agency through a Cyrano-esque scheme). The pitch: "It's not a time piece, it's a conversation piece." The competing pitch is a play on the word "accurate," and it seems they'll go with that—above is the 1969 ad campaign for Accutron watches.

WHAT ABOUT BOB?

In the beginning of the episode, Ken gets a call from Bob Benson, though we don't see or hear from him during this episode otherwise. Is Bob in Detroit full time now, working on the Chevy campaign?

Meanwhile, Joan Harris is still trying to prove her worth as a partner, and is educating herself more about the business with the help of a local professor.

Also: Neve Campbell! Seated next to Don on his return to NYC, she tells him she just scattered her husband's ashes at Tom Sawyer Island in Disney World. The story seems to be the final fuel in getting Don to his Rock Bottom destination—he died from thirst, she told him.

Tagged

mad men

unpacking mad men

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Jen Carlson

Jen Carlson is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.

Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations

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