Mad Men: Season 5 - Episode 5 "The Flood"
TAKE YOUR STINKIN' PAWS OFF ME, YOU DAMN DIRTY AD MAN
Season 6 – Episode 5
“The Flood”
Written by Tom Smuts & Matthew Weiner
Directed by Chris Manley
Setting: April 1968
I aired a criticism of Mad Men in my last episode recap that I want to address again here.
The show fails its characters of color, namely Dawn. She is always poised to have a central storyline, but feels on the fringe of things. In this episode about the effect of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s assassination on the nation, Dawn appears in only one scene where she is calm and focused on her job.
In contrast, her white coworkers are in a panic.
As much as it feels wrong for the show’s central African American character to appear so briefly after the death of Dr. King, this is the story of how white America reacted to the changing 1960s.
It is meant to be frustrating that Don doesn’t even seem to care when Megan asks if he thinks Dawn is okay. He is too focused on his mistress being in Washington D.C. than he is on mourning that the leader of the nonviolent Civil Rights movement has been killed.
As much as I wished this episode had been centered around Dawn, the show is about a white middle-to-upper class that wishes everything could remain the same. They are insulted by the whiplash of history.
Mad Men is at its best when it reminds us that, as horrifying as history can be, it is unifying.
There is a lesson for them to learn, and regardless of whether you see the show’s final episode as cynical or optimistic, Don has learned from history by the end.
Don begins Mad Men asking a black server, who is chastised for even looking at him, for advice on a smoking campaign.
Don ends Mad Men by creating his magnum opus, an ad that features various races and cultures united in peace. This would never have been allowed a decade prior.
Advertising is a powerful tool that can be used to divide people. Fat vs thin or his vs hers. Mad Men ends with unity, Don just has to get there. While he doesn’t care to become part of the solution yet, he is clearly disgusted by division and those who would exploit this tragic death.
As disgusted as he is by this exploitation, Don understands that people can’t help but make mass tragedy personal. One of the most common responses to September 11th was for Americans to look at their own cities and wonder what a terrorist would want to blow up.
It feels silly in retrospect to be so dominated by fear when things turn out okay. The lingering presence of that fear makes doom always feel just a stumble ahead. No matter what progress we make, it can still all fall apart.
Don and his son Bobby escape the chaos of reality and go to the movies. Planet of the Apes is a movie about how humanity destroys itself in the end, a fitting warning for 1968. It is also the perfect escape for father and son.
As dark and depressing as the ending is, it allows them to escape as many times as they want to stay and rewatch it.
Movies have always been Don’s escape, an escape he rarely shares with others. Simply watching and enjoying a good movie with his son opens up a beautiful connection between them.
One that Don always wished had been there.
As much as he dislikes change, Don lives by the mantra that you can’t stop what’s coming. It is a preparation for him not to be hurt by a life and world beyond anyone’s control.
In the end, he is still hurt.
No matter how prepared he was for another assassination to rock America, it still hurts. He still has to go to the movies and escape.
What Don was not prepared for was the opposite feeling. He told himself that one day he would love his children, even if he felt little for them at their births and almost left them many times before.
He would be no better than his father if he didn’t believe he would one day love Bobby.
Simply enjoying a movie together finally brought that feeling fully to Don. He knows he loves his son because he has felt it.
Knowing that you can’t stop what’s coming does not have to be bad.
There is so much coming that is good. It shouldn’t take only the bad times for good to be revealed.
Accepting the future should not negate hoping for something better.
Don now feels both hope and horror at what is to come and does not know which will win in the end.
