TV in Review: Mad Men, “Dark Shadows”
May 15, 2012 11 Comments
I’m back in California with a stack of papers that ain’t grading themselves, but I can’t think straight any more. True, Mad Men isn’t a show where one can turn off the ole noggin’, but I’m gonna try. What could be a better pick-me-up than an episode titled “Dark Shadows”? That will lift my spirits, right?
Guess who’s back, back again? Betty’s back, tell a friend.
I was glad to reconnect with Betty. She’s been gone too long. There continue to be moments where I really identify with this woman…
…although honestly, the Weight Watchers meeting creeps me out, and its not just he pablum uttered by the woman in charge. It’s simply too obvious by now how much damage our collective weight obsession wreaks, particularly on women of the female persuasion.
Of course, when Betty manipulates her daughter in order to hit out at Don, she loses me again. There’s no excuse for that. Okay, so Betty is frustrated. So is everyone.
PEGGY: Am I the only one who can work and drink at the same time?
There are some moments spent in the light. Don and Megan and kids really look like they’re out of a catalog. You know, like from an ad or something…
…whereas work doesn’t seem as much fun…
…while Betty and Henry’s life appears to involve honking horns and circling the block. Betty enters Don’s apartment and reacts as if she’s seeing the lost domestic comfort she could have opted for, rather than the more sterile upscale world of Henry Francis.
Don’s apartment, on the other hand, is not looking so sterile.
Don is having a hard time getting the creative juices flowing, but he does still have some of his old touch, even while Michael continues to be a promising new star at the office. Who knows where he gets his creativity?
STAN: Why a pig?
MICHAEL: I don’t know, but everybody laughed.
My favorite moments in the episode probably surrounded Michael, both with his creative ideas, and with his brewing resentment.
MICHAEL: I feel bad for you.
DON: I don’t think about you at all.
This wasn’t an episode where one or two plots dominate. Instead, lots of smaller baby plots seem to circle each other. For example, Roger and Jane have one last (?) fling, indicating that their relationship hasn’t fully run its course yet.
ROGER: Jane and I are getting divorced.
BERT: Already?
Pete is in the background, keeping a boil on his anger. You know how occasionally Mad Men will slip into a dream, and fool the viewers with a few seconds of fantasy? Well, sometimes the fantasy is so obvious that we immediately recognize it as a dream.
PETE: I thought you were done with me.
BETH: I forgot you, and then I saw you in The New York Times Sunday Magazine.
“Dark Shadows” is a Mad Men about secrets and not keeping secrets. My secret is that it felt subpar to me, like a placeholder episode. (I guess I’m not good at keeping secrets.) Although whenever I express disappointment, someone comes along to point out why they still liked the episode. I’m fine with that. Sweep those clouds away!
AMC first broadcast Season 5, Episode 9 of Mad Men on May 13, 2012.
SEE ALSO
Polentical: TV in Review, “Lady Lazarus” (Season 5, Episode 8)
Suspended, by Suspenders: Mad Men Season 5, Episode 9: Suicide Sweepstakes
Deer in the Xenon-Arc Lights: Mad Men – Dark Shadows
A Crowded Bookshelf: Mad Men recap: Dark Shadows
Sweater Manifesto: Green-Eyed Monster Runs Amok in Mad Men Episode Nine
About Matthew
Wow thank you for the shout out! That really made my day.
Ginsberg’s taking this very personally, maybe because he has no life outside the work, like he said in the interview with Peggy. If this is all he has/is, then not being recognized for it must really deflate him. Especially because he knows he’s more talented than Don and Peggy, but they will never admit that. If someone commits suicide, I think I will look back on this season like “Oh, how could I have missed the signs?” But Weiner and Co. are doing a good job of dropping signs for multiple characters.
Hey, I loved your review! The suicide sweepstakes has definitely been puzzling me, and you break it down really well.
And if someone does commit suicide this season, I’m hoping that it will be organic. Not necessarily obvious or out-of-the-blue, but something that makes sens.
Interesting read, but this is the best stuff I’ve read on Mad Men to date:
http://dividablewatts.blogspot.com/2012/08/madmengoesdownpttwo.html
You’re right, that’s a really interesting post. Mad Men has some deep links to older myths, and I very much agree that it’s often a cautionary tale, even if people get seduced by its aesthetics and charisma.
Pingback: Mad Men recap: Dark Shadows | A Crowded Bookshelf
Matthew, Weight Watchers was ground breaking when Founded in 1963 by Brooklyn homemaker Jean Nidetch. She took a Board of Health standard diet menu and used it as a basis of a weight loss and maintenance program that taught women, many of whom were from immigrant families and only used to eating their cultural foods, how to plan a healthful menu. She also gave women a voice for many feelings that women were routinely expected to repress at that time. It wasn’t creepy and it wasn’t trite and it was a big deal in NY in 1966.
I hear you Judy and definitely appreciate the historical context. I think for me the creepiness is not necessarily in anything the leader of the meeting was saying — the show seemed to go out of their way to make her wise and sympathetic for the times — but because I know how huge the weight loss industry got and how much damage it has done, even if some of it helps and is healthy. I think of all the women at the time taking diet pills, but you’re right, that’s not Weight Watchers’ fault.
Weight Watchers is part of a multi-billion dollar industry that feeds of the insecurities of women. While it probably promotes healthier lifestyles, it still contributes in constructing an unattainable ideal of feminine beauty. In the episode, it provided an outlet for women to express their frustrations and desires, but people would only clap for you if the leader announced that you lost some pounds; it seemed like it was primarily focused on the number.
The problem with beauty norms (like thinness for women) is that by the time we grow to realize how insidious and unfair they are, we have already internalized them. Plenty of committed feminists struggle with their body size. That’s the culture we live in, and that’s one of the paradoxes of being a woman. And that’s why WW seems both creepy and helpful.
I think that of all the mainstream diet plans out there, it’s the healthiest, but I don’t think that says much about WW in Mad Men.
I really hope that the show can deal with this stuff with the same complexity they use for other social issues. So far, though, Betty seems to be reinforcing stereotypes about sad fat women. That’s why I’ve tried to be more generous about her in my posts about the show. But I’m not all that confident that MM/MW will treat her character as respectfully as they treat the others.
I have no connection to WW, but I do have friends and family who have benefited from the groups. In the 60′s , and even now, WW goals are realistic and moderate as is the food program and research has shown that the weekly weigh in and group support do help people lose weight. WW sells many products, that’s true, but from the beginning they have been healthful and helpful for a busy person trying to lose or maintain weight. Our culture, and especially visual media, promotes an unattainable ideal of feminine beauty and business has cashed in on it.
Viewers and reviewers make fun of “Fat Betty”. Then as now, fat people are disparaged either as unattractive or unhealthy and made to feel less than. People laugh because Betty took that mouthful of whipped cream and then gained control of herself and spit it out, but feelings of desperation are not funny.
I do know people who have done WW and really appreciated it (their iPhone app seems to get a lot of praise) but I also know a couple people who did it and regretted buying into the pressure to reduce weight (but again that’s nothing against WW in particular). For me personally, I like those moments when Betty eats and spits out whipped cream because that’s when I identify with her the most — desperation may not be funny, but it’s familiar!
I do think it’s clever of the show creators to use January Jones’ pregnancy in this way. Rather than trying to simply hide the change in her body or write a pregnancy into the script, they’ve used it to get us thinking about weight issues in our culture and what’s similar and different in the past fifty years.