Mad Men recap: Trouble in Shangri-La

(Image credit: (Justina Mintz/AMC))

last updated 6 May 2015

Last year, Mad Men's season 7 premiere featured a quick scene in which Don Draper flipped on the TV and caught Frank Capra's 1937 movie Lost Horizon. Through his eyes, we got to read the film's brief introduction:

"Haven't you ever dreamed of a place where there was peace and security, where living was not a struggle but a lasting delight? So has every man since time began."

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Don's first day begins with a warm welcome from McCann Erickson head Jim Hobart, whose speeches invariably cast the company as a kind of corporate paradise for anyone who's lucky enough to be chosen. Hobart, who unsuccessfully attempted to hire Don for a decade before finally acquiring him along with the rest of SC&P, calls him a "white whale." He means it as a compliment — that Don is a valued and elusive prize, worth the years of painstaking effort it took to win him. But the Moby Dick reference has a nastier implication, too; the white whale is a dangerous and destructive creature, and the unflagging pursuit leads to horrible consequences for both the whale and his pursuers.

Don's cautious optimism about his future at McCann Erickson goes out the window during his first big meeting later that day. As he sits at a large table, surrounded by at least a dozen proto-Drapers, corporate researcher Bill Phillips launches into a pitch about the kind of drinker they'd like to target for Miller's new diet beer. It's the kind of speech Don has given a thousand times, but without the showmanship, grandiosity, and panache — the very things that have allowed Don to cultivate an air of purposeful, artistic mystique while spending his career making it easier for corporations to push products on people.

Whatever the trigger — insecurity, existential malaise, the distraction of a plane flying past a nearby window — it's enough to make Don walk out of the meeting, hop in his car, and drive off. (And while we're on the subject: Matt Weiner isn't the type of showrunner who bothers with fan theories, but it's hard not to read two distinct scenes in "Lost Horizon" as tongue-in-cheek tweaks on two popular theories about the ending. Early in the episode, when Don tests the glass window in his new office, it feels like a direct nod to those who believe the series will end with Don, like the man in the opening credits, falling from a building; when he later tunes out the Miller meeting by staring out a window, looking at an airplane flying by, it's easy to imagine him indulging in a fantasy similar to the real-life 1971 hijacker D.B. Cooper.)

Don's latest escape from the stultifying New York advertising world takes him to Racine, Wisconsin, where he successfully tracks down Cliff, the ex-husband of his troubled (and M.I.A.) ex-lover Diana. Introducing himself as Bill Phillips — and stealing another man's name, as he did when he first launched his advertising career — Don attempts to ferret out Diana's location with an elaborate story about a prize-winning contest entry. But Cliff isn't fooled; not only does he dismiss Don's cover story, he dismisses the second cover story Don invents after his first cover story has been dismantled. "You think you're the first one to come looking for her," Cliff sneers. "She's a tornado, just leaving a trail of broken bodies behind her." Despite the warning, Don doesn't put his tail between his legs and head back to New York. Instead, he lets fate dictate his next destination, as he picks up a hitchhiker heading for St. Paul.

Jim Hobart's outrage over Don's disappearance is a clear sign that he didn't do enough research before betting the farm on Don Draper. Don has spent the past few seasons of Mad Men on a long, slow downslide from the creative apex of his career, but he still has enough clout to disappear for days, without any explanation, without immediately being fired. Peggy is also absent from her first week of work at McCann Erickson, but for the opposite reason: Despite her obvious talent, she's such an afterthought in the deal that McCann's H.R. department failed to assign her a personal office, assuming, based on gender, that she was a secretary.

For all its bleakness, "Lost Horizon" goes out of its way to show just how far Peggy has come. Mad Men's premiere episode, "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes," opened on Peggy's first day, as she nervously learned the ropes from Joan while staving off the attention of the office's leering men. "Lost Horizon," which ends with Peggy confidently strutting into the offices of McCann, paints a strikingly different picture. When Peggy learns her office at McCann isn't ready, she rejects an offer to work in the secretarial pool, choosing to work out of the rapidly emptying SC&P office instead of accepting a desk that implicitly undercuts her professional prowess.

Peggy and Roger's interactions provide plenty of comic relief — starting, as always, with Roger's ridiculous mustache — but with so many endings looming on the horizon, the episode is tinged with a feeling the wavers between nostalgic and elegiac. "Lost Horizon" literalizes this sense of lost history by giving Mad Men fans a few visits from the ghosts of episodes past. The ghost of Bert Cooper pops in for a quick chat with Don. Conrad Hilton is mentioned by name. When Peggy goes off to investigate the eerie organ music playing in the SC&P offices, I thought the specter of Lane Pryce might jump out to say a final goodbye.

That "one step forward, two steps back" version of "progress" in Mad Men extends, unfortunately, to Joan. It's no great surprise that she would be faced with sexism and harassment at McCann Erickson (her previous interactions with McCann employees were unpleasant, to say the least). When her sleazy colleague Dennis botches a client phone call, Joan appeals to Ferg Donnelly, a top-ranking McCann executive, to intervene on her behalf. But Ferg turns out to be even worse, relentlessly insisting that they take a trip to Atlanta to appease a client — a suggestion that's about as subtle as him just openly saying they should have sex.

Despite her considerable talents, Joan was only given the opportunity to rise to an elevated position at SC&P by prostituting herself for a powerful client. But the move to McCann has reconfigured the power dynamics again; when she complains to Jim Hobart, he snaps back. "Joan, it may not have sunk in, but your status has changed," he says. "I've tried to be patient, but I don't care about your SC&P partnership." To her credit, Joan plays the hardest of hardball, threatening a costly and public lawsuit over McCann's treatment of women. But the game is rigged in favor of wealthy, powerful executives like Hobart. Once it becomes clear that Hobart would rather take the hit than give in, Joan reluctantly relents, accepting half of the $500,000 she is owed so she can walk away clean.

It's unfair, but at least Joan is out — and, we can hope, moving on to a better life. It's "always the same dream," continues that old, resonant Lost Horizon quote. "Sometimes he calls it Utopia — sometimes the Fountain of Youth — sometimes merely 'that little chicken farm.'" Mad Men's own "Lost Horizon" leaves its characters searching for their own version of paradise: Peggy, building her career at one of the biggest firms in the world; Joan, escaping to a happier life with her family, her money, and her new beau; Don, wandering aimlessly in the Midwest as he attempts to decide what's next. With just two episodes of Mad Men left, it won't be long before we get to see how close they come to finding it.

Scott Meslow is the entertainment editor for TheWeek.com. He has written about film and television at publications including The Atlantic, POLITICO Magazine, and Vulture.

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