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| Left to right: John Slattery and Christina Hendricks |
Welcome to Mad Cap: a daily rundown of every episode of the acclaimed AMC series Mad Men. During this time, I will be compiling my thoughts and highlights as we travel through every moment and season of the Emmy-award winning drama that has come to define modern TV. The goal is to be a refresher on every moment for Don Draper and his band of advertisement executives leading up to the final season. Stay for all of the shocking moments and the brilliant acting performances, and make sure to chime in with your thoughts and criticisms on why the show means something to you.
Season 1, Episode 10
"Long Weekend"
"I know people say life goes on, and it
does but no one tells you that's not a good thing."
- Betty Draper (January Jones)
Plot:
Everyone is getting ready for the long Labor Day weekend ahead. While working on the Nixon vs. Kennedy election, the people at Sterling Cooper begin fantasizing about their frivolous weekends. Betty Draper (January Jones) is already waiting for Don Draper (Jon Hamm) to get off of work so they can go. However, Roger Sterling (John Slattery) insists that Don stick around and enjoy the company of two women. Meanwhile, Joan Holloway (Christina Hendricks) and her friend Carol McCardy (Kate Norby) decide to frivolously pick up men at the bar and flirt with them. Everything backfires when Sterling has a heart attack and causes everything to focus around taking care of him and his lamenting ways. As the weekend continues, Don decides to meet up with Rachel Menkin (Maggie Siff) and have some passionate love. During this time, he opens up about his childhood and the weekend continues.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
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| Jon Hamm |
MVP:
Don Draper (Jon Hamm)
While Sterling wins the episode for having a heart attack that ruins the weekend for those closest to him, Don pulls the final punches. He wants to spend time with his family. He eagerly wants to escape, but instead is wrangled into taking care of his sick boss. The reliability of him continues to fade as the series continues and here he shows who his friends are. If chosen between a Nixon and a Kennedy type, he is a Nixon: a man who worked his way up and made something of himself. Maybe the comparison could be on the nose later down the line with his corrupt nature, but this is Don making the most of his weekend and doing everything in his power not to spend it with Betty and the family. It is just coincidental that it involved Sterling.
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| Left to right: Hamm and Maggie Siff |
Best Scene
While it did appear that everything was going to focus around Sterling, Don manages to make things more complicated by making the final reveal of the episode. We have been following his slow identity reveal for quite some time now and yet we hardly know the man who became Don Draper. In this scene, after getting intimately close and feeling passionate, he opens up more about his dead mother and father and a brief summary of how he was raised. He was the son of a whore, though he never knew her. The nomadic personality begins to make sense and I am enjoying how slowly everything pops out and becomes something crucial and intriguing. It took a couple watches to fully understand the entirety of his life, but it makes sense and the fact that we don't get this through conversation with Betty is even more telling of what his real tendencies are.
UP NEXT: "Indian Summer"
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