Quick Take: Mad Men, "The Summer Man"
Don Draper and Mad Men reach a strange and wonderful new plateau in the summer of 1965. 
Review: Mad Men, "The Summer Man"
(S0408) "They say as soon as you have to cut down on your drinking, you have a drinking problem." We hear Don Draper's (Jon Hamm) voice say these words as the episode opens as we see him diving into a pool. The words alone are striking stuff, coming from a guy who has been drowning in booze all season long (and for years, really) and who has seemed to get by through means of denial and compartmentalization and flat out dishonesty, honed by a horrid childhood and polished to a fine finish after taking on a false identity and persona during the Korean War.
Later, during a staff meeting, Ken Cosgrove (Aaron Staton) pours a glass of liquor (rye, we imagine) for "el jefe" and we see him stare at it longingly and with newly self-aware eyes. The meeting's participants fade out, and we feel Don's new stranger in a strange land existence. In four seasons of Mad Men, we've seen dozens of these office scenes with casual guzzling of booze as creative and accounts and financial matters are hashed and chewed over.
And now, it's different. Everything's different for Don and for Mad Men this season – we're seeing what feels like a horde of departures and radical shakeoffs of the past to something new and unfamiliar and at times unsettling. It's truly extraordinary to see this kind of creative level being achieved during the fourth season of what has long been the best show on television… and as fan boy-ish as it is to say, it keeps getting better due in no small part to the bravery with which it continues to stride into new territory.
Meanwhile, we see more of Betty and Henry than we have in weeks. Instant tension is provided when they bump into Don and Bethany out on a date at a small and fancy restaurant, made no easer as Henry is there on political business. On the ride home, Henry instructs Betty that she "is not allowed" to demand a drink like a common wino, and we get some insight into Henry's blue blood background. This is exactly the kind of man that Betty thought she wanted, but we see that she's as miserable as ever. "I hate him." Betty (January Jones) says of Don. "Hate's a strong word, Betty. I hate Nazis," Henry (Christopher Stanley) replies.
The flipside of hate is love, and sometimes there's a fine line there, as Henry clearly recognizes. "He's taking up too much space in your heart," he says, and muses about whether they rushed into marriage (answer: that would be a yes). And, later, we see that Betty clearly hopes that Don will show up for baby Gene's birthday party, though she protests the opposite of course. At the end of the episode, when Don does show up with a gift, she seems pleased, though for the moment she has reconciled (or sold herself) with the belief that she "has everything" with the house and kids and Henry. It would seem to be the same dream she sold herself onto with Don however until the bitter end of their marriage.
"So, are you a Felix or an Oscar?" Bethany (Anna Camp) asks Don during their date, which in an odd way emphasizes the season's theme of identity. I think Don's courtship of Bethany is an attempt to do "what's right" and has the potential to unfortunately lead him right back into a marriage with a woman who barely knows the real him/Don/Dick. And while Bethany clearly would love to be the second Mrs. Don Draper (see: her eyeing Betty from across the restaurant and her moves in the cab ride later), Don feels he already knows her, and isn't overly excited or challenged by that knowledge (he likely sees her as a young Betty type, and he's likely not wrong).
Therefore, it was refreshing and exciting to see a Don who is seeming to pull himself back from the brink (for now) pull off getting Dr. Faye Miller (Cara Buono) to go out on a date. Don is more himself around her, more relaxed, more challenged, and more at ease to be closer to a real version of himself, complex and messy as that may be.
I also enjoyed Don's voiceovers in the form of his writing a diary in longhand (though he laments feeling like a little girl who is writing down what happened that day) as we're getting close to a Don who is finally starting to reckon with himself.
Let the reckoning continue.
More thoughts on this week's Mad Men:
Video: Mad Men, "The Summer Man"
Head inside the episode, from AMC:
