Oh Don Draper, you heart breaker.
After a long and boozy night in a hospital waiting room with an antsy first-time father who’s bursting with epiphanies, the handsome enigma that is Don Draper heads right back to the office on the day Betty gives birth to their third child. A whopping half a day to exult in the arrival of the baby that saved, at least temporarily, the Drapers’ marriage. This is one of the many confounding points to ponder in this fifth seg of “Mad Men’s” third season, “The Fog,”written by Kater Gordon and helmed by Phil Abraham.
Don seemed touched by witnessing the emotional roller coaster that the younger man rode as he sweated out the birth of his breach baby. By the end, Don is serving as father-confesser to Dennis Hobart, a guy who’s paid to be professionally tough, as a prison guard in Ossining’s local landmark, Sing Sing.
“I’m going to be a better man,” Hobart swears to Don. He’s not a religious guy per se (“I don’t know who’s up there, so I’m telling you,” Hobart explains), but he needs to be heard. “Tell me you heard me,” he implores. Don’s cold but not cruel. He bears witness, and a rejuvenated Hobart goes off to see his newborn son.
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It’s not hard to discern the overriding themes of this episode — they’re worn on the sleeves of most scenes.
Birth, rebirth (more so than death, I think) and the struggle for equality. Not only the struggle for minority groups to achieve equality, but the great struggle for mainstream society to wrap its collective consciousness around the radical idea that Negroes and women deserve equal protection under the law, in the workplace, at the ballot box and in the marketplace.
And whoopdeedoo — Duck’s back! And he’s wearing a turtleneck!
