"Every week, WIRED takes a look at the latest episode of Mad Men through the lens of the latest media campaign of advertising agency Sterling Cooper & Partners." That's this column's tagline each time out—but man, some episodes make it easier than others. "Freeze frame as our stallion runs through the background," Peggy says, narrating over a picture of a literal dark horse. "Chevalier Noir: More horsepower." And with that note-perfect description of Don Draper, "Field Trip," the very funny, very suspenseful third episode of Mad Men's final season is off to the races.
Yes, Don Draper's in freeze frame at the moment, backgrounded as the world of SC&P moves on, but he's still that stallion. For all that Mad Men is a show about Don Draper's increasing obsolescence, the dude's not in the dustbin yet, not by a long shot. To begin with—and continue with, and return to at every conceivable juncture—women throw themselves at him. And can you blame them? Look at Jon Hamm, goddammit! (If there comes a day when you don't thank your higher power of preference for the casting director who picked him and Christina Hendricks to be on our television screens for the better part of a decade, may that deity strike you down.) What's more, agencies jockey to add him to their stable—not in a partnership pole position, perhaps, but that's to be expected. Even a professional smooth-talker like Alan Silver calls Don to talk Megan out of a career-tanking confidence tailspin, ironically enough. Don still looks, acts, and thinks like he's got the horsepower to get the job done.
But no one who truly knows him particularly wants more horsepower, at least not as the firm's own dark horse delivers it. Surprisingly, this includes Peggy—sure, she's miserable working under a wet fart like Lou Avery, but at least when she butts heads with him she knows who the smartest person in the room is. Less surprising among the no-voters is Joan, who at last has an office and a set of accounts to match her de jure partnership, soured on Don's capricious rocking of everyone else's boats last season and has no desire to invite him back aboard.
Bert Cooper's all for a little bit of creative disruption here and there: remember the riddle of his postmodernist painting; note his many Eastern affectations. But as letting Joan keep her boots on since they'd be an enormous pain in the ass to remove indicates, the emphasis is always on the creation half of the equation, not the disruption. For Bert, bringing Don back into the fold is like insisting everyone take off Joan's boots.
The most vocal "no" is Jim Cutler, which is to be expected: He's still white-knighting on behalf of his best friend Ted Chaough, who Don nearly destroyed out of pique. Here comes the fun part, though: Jim covers his Machiavellian motives by continuing his streak of benevolently bestowing unexpected gifts on unsuspecting coworkers. In this case, he argues for the computer that the much-hated Harry Crane legitimately needs for his media department to remain ccompetitive…which just so happens to be a reason they can't afford to keep Don. He'd rather partner with Harry Crane—to whom he said, with genuine awe, "You have stiff competition, but I believe you to be the most dishonest man I have ever worked with"—than with Don Draper.
Who wants to let the stallion roam free? Roger, who rolled into work baked on the day of the crucial vote and didn't even bother to tell anyone else it was going to take place. Living a life utterly free of consequences, he invites Don back for the simplest of reasons: "I miss you." His professional and creative arguments for bringing him back, to say nothing of the raw fiscal and competitive ones that ultimately win the day, are all sound, but they're also all beside the point. More solidly in Don's corner are his gaggle of underlings, led by Stan and Ginsberg. For all their generational differences, they've always seen Don as a kindred creative spirit, a genuinely inspiring influence, and a dude with a self-destructive streak that could put any mercurial genius of the counterculture to shame. Ditto closeted writer Ken Cosgrove, so impressed by Don's legendary "Carousel" pitch (now nine years old!) that it's what he thinks of when he's playing with his newborn son.
Betty Draper Francis, on the other hand, has a whole different set of associations when it comes to Don and sons. I wonder if it's the nature of poor Bobby's culinary betrayal—a sandwich exchanged for the approval of another woman, or at least a prepubescent equivalent—that triggers such the savage shutdown she subjects him to as their field trip heads south. Certainly the relentless and unnerving crosscutting between the Draper boys' respective "field trips" makes the connection for us. But beyond that, between the farmer's daughter's cleavage and the Freudian field day that is the consumption of milk from a freshly squeezed udder, sex was already in the air, to put it mildly. In cracking jokes at the teacher's expense, Betty was able to feel in charge, but that went out the window the moment Bobby (knowingly! Cruelly! Unlovingly!) traded a mother's love for some sweet young girl's candy. It's warped, and it's cruel, and it's likely Betty has no idea that it's either of these things, as the dismayed Henry Francis could tell you—but given her history of actual, honest-to-god betrayal and deception at Don's hands, worrying that people who say they love her won't behave accordingly is not without reason. Betty doesn't need to go to the farm to know what it's like to clean up after a stallion.
Unlike his dad, Bobby lacks the freedom to break free of the freeze frame—all he can do is ruefully say "I wish it was yesterday." Don, however, can leap obstacles and keep running forward. Forced by his clumsy attempt to career-coach Megan into defending himself against accusations of infidelity, he can reveal the painful truth that it's his own career that's in freefall. Rejected by Megan for his dishonesty, he can channel his need to act decisively into forcing meetings with both his prospective new employer and his old ones at SC&P. Presented with a list of conditions and caveats that would have left the old Don bucking, he accepts them with a simple "Okay." Cue "If 6 Was 9," Jimi Hendrix's ode to a world turned upside down. "If the sun refused to shine, I don't mind," Hendrix sings. As Ginsberg could tell you, that would just make it noir—that's night, or black. Either way, that's our dark horse's time to shine.
