'Mad Men' recap: 'The Quality of Mercy'

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In last night's Mad Men, we saw a new side of Ted, and it looked a lot like Don.

(Jaimie Trueblood/AMC)

The most common reader response I’ve gotten this year is that Don Draper is getting so dark he’s no longer fun to watch. He always had affairs, sure, and he always had that creeping sense of dread. But this year, amid the chaos and violence of 1968, he has let the darkness consume him. And he’s kind of a bummer now. Those brilliant pitches and last-minute saves have been almost completely absent, and his business-uber-alles mentality seems long gone. Last night was an exception. Last night showed Don at his finest, keeping an eye out for his favorite co-workers while keeping his head with the clients. But based on that final shot, I wonder if that’s the last glimpse we’ll ever get of the ‘old Don.’

It’s no surprise that the first time we see Don in “The Quality of Mercy,” he’s lying on a child’s bed in the fetal position, considering the tsunami that is his life of late. And, based on the increasingly dark tone of the season, it’s no surprise that he ends the episode in the exact same position, this time on a small sofa. What surprised me was the 53 or so minutes in between, in which Don, for the first time all year, acts like a decent person.

Coming off the shock of having Sally walk in on his affair last week, Don is a pale, disheveled mess. Megan, looking downright adult, makes him take the day off of work, and it seems to snap him into place. The two go to see the film Rosemary's Baby — the very same book Sally was reading in "The Crash" when the burglar snuck in — and there they spot Peggy and Ted, on an afternoon date away from the office, though they claim it's research for a spot for St. Joseph's. Don has seen this romance coming all year, undoubtedly, but suddenly it bugs him. He's out with his wife on an honest day off, sporting a turtleneck, doling out judgmental stares and earnest concern for the quality of the firm's work, while Ted galivants with a young lady and lets himself slack off in his creative duties, as if the two managed some sort of Freaky Friday body swap.

Harry Crane “on the coast” calls to tell Don that Sunkist wants a color TV campaign -- to the tune of $8 million, multiple times what Ocean Spray could pay out. He brings the figures to Ted and Cutler, and even apologizes for something or another, as he pleads for SC&P to take a more coherent approach to business. After a season of throwing justified fits over Don’s lack of effort, suddenly Ted finds himself bested by the brilliant man he’s been waiting so long to see in action.

When it comes to the St. Joseph's commercial though, the one Peggy constructed based on Rosemary's Baby, Ted is holding fast to the plan. The two giggle their brains out as they look through headshots, and Ted plants a hand firmly on Peggy's hip when they act out their spot, one that Joan warns Don will more more than double its original budget because of the large cast. Don calls the client to let them know, and for once this season, it seems like his motivation is not to screw Ted over, but to prevent a potential business catastrophe. For sure, Ted is thinking of more than just letting Peggy do what she pleases — he sees the commercial as a real winner, one that could earn her a Clio. But he's putting his own carnal desires over those of the clients (sound familiar?), and Don is forced to save the day again when Byron, the St. Joseph's rep, comes to the office to visit. Although Don tortures the couple a bit during the meeting, letting a pause linger too long after telling Byron that this project is "personal" for Ted, he eventually redeems it by saying it was the final idea from the late Frank Gleason. An act of mercy, in the same way 'classic Ted' would likely spare his cohorts were he in the same position.

Don earns an extra $10,000 for the ad with his sly move, and we see him standing tall in the boardroom, directly in the center of the frame, as Ted hangs his head meekly off to one side. “Everybody sees it,” Don informs him, back on top of the food chain. “Your judgment is impaired. You’re not thinking with your head.” All of this is hypocritical, as Don always gets when he sees someone doing the very same deplorable things he does. But in this instance he’s right to bring Ted back to Earth. His level-headed and pennywise approach not only saves the commercial, it gets the team some more cash to work with.

But Peggy doesn’t see it that way. She thinks Don hates Ted because Ted’s a “good man,” the same naive perspective she often takes when she isn’t demanding that the two are exactly alike. Ted’s not virtuous, Don tells Peggy, he’s just in love with her. Peggy’s got love-blinders on, but it also can’t be easy to suddenly trust a guy who has been a barely-functioning heap of sadness for the past 7 months. So instead she tells him, "You killed him. You killed the ad, you killed everything. You're a monster." It’s this last line that sends Don into the fetal position, cowering and weak, torn down by a woman for whom he feels a fatherly sense of love and respect. He lost his real daughter by being a sleaze; now he’s lost his work daughter trying to atone for that.

I have a feeling I’m going to be in the minority with this analysis. Don has constructed such an evil persona that it’s easy to chalk his actions up to sheer manipulation. But we’ve seen Don manipulate and defeat people before, and I don’t think that’s what was happening here. Losing Sally broke him on a fundamental level, and in his attempt to rebuild the parts of his life that aren’t totally frayed, he stumbled onto an undesirable situation with his co-workers. He could have blasted Ted right up front, or scolded Peggy, or told the whole world. But he didn’t do any of that. He used mercy as his weapon of choice, and it did more damage than he probably imagined it could. It’s just too bad Peggy had to damage him back.

Sally is through with Don after last week, so she tells her mom she wants to go to boarding school — something her guilt-ridden father will gladly pay for. She heads up to Miss Porter’s School, an elite academy that loses some prestige (but gains teen cool points) when we meet Millicent and Mandy, two mean-girl students that take almost no time to convince 14-year-old Sally to invite boys over so they can smoke pot and drink. Sally invites Glen — Glen! — who is now rocking mean sideburns and a pin-covered jacket. Glen supplies the booze and his buddy Rolo — ROLO! — brings the pot. Sally takes a swig, but turns down the pot, and is clearly upset when Glen heads into the bedroom with the bad-girl blonde and she’s stuck outside with Rolo. She doesn’t seem ready to go along with Rolo’s advances, instead getting her kicks by calling out for Glen’s help and then smiling on as her protector whoops up on his buddy in her honor.

On her way up to the school, Sally had told her mom that she wanted to be a grown-up, unaware of what the evening had in store. But on the car ride home she looks out the window, her teen attitude replaced by a thousand-mile stare. Betty, clueless to what her daughter just experienced, offers her a cigarette, justifying it by saying, "I'm sure your father's given you a beer." Sally accepts, and takes a drag before coldly responding, "My father's never given me anything." Every experience Sally’s had with adulthood has shown her how scary it can be, no matter how much she insists she’s ready.

But maybe I’m burying the lead here. Maybe you only read this recap to hear about Bob Benson, who we thought we had all figured out last week when he “came out” to Pete. It turns out we only knew half the truth about Bob. After Ken gets shot in the face on a hunting trip with Chevy — the same people who recently sent him to the hospital in a car wreck — he decides to hand the account off, and Pete jumps at the opportunity. There’s only one problem: Bob Benson has been involved with Chevy, and the partners decide his expertise will benefit Pete. The two finally confront one another during an uncomfortably long handshake, and Bob cracks after Pete insults him one too many times. The look in his eye goes from calm to crazy, and he gravely warns Pete, "You should watch what you say to people."

Pete and Bob each make a phone call — Pete to Duck Phillips, in an attempt to lure Bob away from SC&P, and Bob to Manolo, where he calls Pete a “snotty bastard” in Spanish. Duck calls Pete back before long, letting him know that the life Bob brags about — Wharton degree, prestigious firms, important family — is a fabrication. He’s a nobody from West Virginia with a history of simply disappearing from jobs, and his most notable career accomplishment was being a man-servant to a senior vice president. When the Bob Benson madness seemingly settled last week, the reaction to him simply being gay was a resounding “meh.” That red herring got us all pretty good, and it makes this payoff all the sweeter. "I have learned not to tangle with your kind of animal," Pete tells Bob later, after announcing that he’s onto his ruse. Fans had speculated that Bob could have been Don’s son, but I don’t think anyone predicted that he would be just like Don, a man with no past, no name, who is determined to make it through sheer willpower and an employer that doesn’t ask too many questions. Pete lets Bob stay on the project, rejecting his request to give him one day to run away.

Don may have been acting mercifully, but for Pete, this is strictly business. Months and months of emotional beatdowns at home and at work left him miserable about his future. He had been threatened by Bob for a while now, but never so intensely as after their knee-rub last week. So when he finally scores Chevy, it brings back a confidence in him that we haven’t seen since the merger. He figures out Bob’s secret, but instead of treating it like a burden, he uses it as a tool. Pete owns Bob. Who needs mercy when you’ve got blackmail?

NOTES:

• Tom's Music Corner: The ending credits song was The Monkees' "Porpoise Song," the theme from Head, their 1968 film in which they decided to go against the image that had been cultivated for them over many years by making a psychedelic mind-freak of a movie where they try fruitlessly to escape a fate that's been predetermined for them, and eventually jump of a bridge and commit suicide together to escape -- though even that doesn't free them. Anyone want to take a stab at what it means? (Fun fact: Head was co-written by Jack Nicholson.)

• The episode's title comes from a speech by Portia in Act IV, Scene I of "The Merchant of Venice." "The quality of mercy is not strained. It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed: It blesseth him that gives and him that takes. 'Tis mightiest in the mightiest. It becomes The thronèd monarch better than his crown." My dad looked that up for me. He's the best! Happy Father's Day, dad! Now if only you and mom would actually watch this show...

• This is most likely the final episode written by the husband-wife team of Andre and Maria Jacquemetton, who have been with the show since the very beginning and are leaving after this season to work on their own projects. In the past three years they've only written one episode each season, and it's always the 12th. They were Emmy-nominated for "Blowing Smoke" (season 4) and "Commissions and Fees" (season 5), and though I don't expect that again this year, the writing last night was sharp and funny and right on character. Their scripts will be missed.

• In the choice between Sunkist and Ocean Spray, it seems Don is a Tropicana man (with a splash of vodka).

• Sally’s boarding school is Miss Porter's School, an exclusive and storied all-girls school in Connecticut that has educated countless famous authors, artists and politicians — along with a president’s wife (Jacqueline Kennedy), mother (Dorothy Walker Bush) and daughter (Nellie Grant).

• Roger: “Lee Garner Jr. made me hold his balls.”

• Ginsberg: "Cranprune sounds like a glass of diarrhea."

• Betty: "Jackie (Kennedy) did well twice. " Don: "So did you." He's got ya there, Betts!

• I thought Ken Cosgrove was dead when he got shot. Imagine my joy when I realized it just meant he has to wear an eyepatch now!