This just in: It’s true. Robin Veith will not be back for season four of “Mad Men.” The assistant who was with Matt Weiner nearly a decade ago when he was writing the pilot on spec has decided to leave the nest. Robin’s segs include some of “Mad Men’s” best, including “The Wheel” (season one finale), “The New Girl,” “A Night to Remember” and “The Mountain King.” Good luck and godspeed to Robin.
Struggle seems to be the overriding theme of this seg of “Mad Men”: The struggles of a changing society, the emotional struggles of men and women, of the powerful and the subservient and the classic id-superego struggle to balance impulse and reason. (As voiced by Harry Crane when he finds himself in a pickle: “I’m not going to panic and do something stupid like I usually do.”)
There was a fair amount of plot movement to digest in “Wee Small Hours,” even if at first blush it didn’t seem so. Betty takes a big step forward with Henry Francis but then turns on a dime and jumps three steps back. (Run, Henry, run!)
Our beloved Salvatore gets battered and bruised, professionally and sexually, and we’re left with a big hint that he’s heading into the wilds at a moment when he’s wounded and vulnerable.
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Don’s weird power tango with Conrad Hilton continues at a feverish pace, and I think his frustration with that relationship has a whole lot to do with how demanding he becomes of the coltish Miss Farrell later on. And we see that no one at Sterling Cooper is running hotter under the collar these days than Roger Sterling. He’s reduced to yelling for recognition of what value he provides to the agency these days. (Roger: “What do you think accounts does besides limit your brilliance?” Don: “I’d tell you but I don’t want to hurt your feelings.”)
Perhaps most intriguing to me in this episode, penned by Dahvi Waller and Matthew Weiner and helmed by exec producer Scott Hornbacher, was the advancement of the Hilton-as-Don’s-father-figure storyline. Where the heck is this going? Beats me, but I don’t mind. I love watching Chelcie Ross work. The exchanges between those two after Don delivers his trademark killer sales pitch for the international Hilton campaign, when the batty cowboy is criticizing Don for not giving him “the moon,” as he’d asked, was such a father-son encounter that they didn’t even try to mask it.
“What do you want from me, love? Fine, your work is good,” Connie says in a patronizing, fatherly tone. “But when I say I want the moon I expect the moon!”
