Mad Men: Season 6 – Episode 6 “For Immediate Release”

Peggy, what has a better ring for the new agency? SCDPCGC or CGCSCDP?

The change from 1960 to 1970 is so vast that most of the characters of Mad Men become unrecognizable. I’m not just talking about the sudden popularity of moustaches; Peggy becomes a different person from the shy secretary we first saw when Eisenhower was President.

Change is necessary and can be good. That’s a defining narrative of the 1960s. For everything horrible, there was still change for the better.

What about when change feels like a step back?

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. (© AMC/Lionsgate)

I am cursed only to capture the squintiest screengrabs after multiple attempts. (© AMC/Lionsgate)

After finally standing up to Don and walking her own path in life, Peggy is now once again back at Sterling Cooper (and Partners!) where she started. She’s just told that it is an improvement.

*attempting to flirt with his much younger coworker* YOU ARE A WOMAN IN HER 20s. (© AMC/Lionsgate)

What Peggy doesn’t realize is that she was already back where she started.

She’s in a passionless relationship that only continues because it would be uncomfortable to end, just as she was four years ago when she missed a birthday dinner while working late into the night on Samsonite Suitcases.

She’s also now pining for her boss’s affections when he treats her more respectfully than other men do, just like when she first started working with Don eight years ago.

Peggy fantasizes about her boss wearing a Hugh Hefner robe while reading Emerson. Season 6 is never beating the Looney Tunes allegations. (© AMC/Lionsgate)

Kind of funny that Abe has been insufferable about politics since the first second he met Peggy, and what pushes her over the edge to fantasize about her boss is that Abe says Bobby Kennedy is lame. You don’t play about the Kennedy family around a Catholic! (© AMC/Lionsgate)

Peggy sold herself on freedom and is dismayed to feel that she still carries burdens and insecurities even while climbing the ladder of success. At what point of success will she stop feeling like there are chains around her ankles?

While those who live in the past die there, we can never fully shake the dirt off our shoes. Every change is an opportunity to do good, but the merger between SCDP and CGC feels like walking backwards with a smile.

While everyone is left celebrating a lifeboat being filled with more bodies, Peggy is the one who has to explain it all.

We are pleased to announce our new agency Sterler Coopson & Drapough. (© AMC/Lionsgate)

Maintaining the illusion of change falls upon the shoulders of the one person who truly seeks it. She may not always find it, but Peggy desperately wants her job and life to be different.

To be better, because it can be.

When I first watched this episode, the explanation of the merger seemed simple. It was exhausting to switch back and forth between the two advertising agencies, one far less interesting than the other, and Peggy needed to return to regular interactions with the main cast.

Now I see that’s not the case. Peggy did need to return to work with Don, but the merger was a necessary step towards Don’s fate at McCann. SCDP was a sandcastle awaiting a giant wave. One push of the tide is all it takes to submerge the whole thing.

(© AMC/Lionsgate)

Don develops a better working relationship with Pete as the show goes on, but that doesn’t stop him from still wanting to swirl that balding head in the toilet. (© AMC/Lionsgate)

Don fires Jaguar after realizing that the account is doomed. It is an emotional and impulsive decision, but it was still the correct one. Jaguar was a client that could never be told was in the wrong. Just having to sit across from the client at dinner was a reminder that, no matter what the meal cost, a deal with the devil was made to get there. The campaign would have been a disaster, and the agency began to care more about the prestige of having a car account than about the work being done for it.

When things are truly over, no amount of pleading or begging will bring them back even for a moment. Life is a constant change, for the better and the worse, that can be one move from disaster no matter how well things are going.

In Pete Campbell's case, disaster is an old friend.

Ken comforts Pete after he goes to a brothel and sees his father-in-law with a prostitute. Surely neither will tell because it would harm them both! Wrong, Mr. Cosgrove. In Season 6, the worst possible outcome is always the most sure. Let the nukes fly. (© AMC/Lionsgate)

Each change presents the opportunity that some good can come from it. While born out of chaos, the partners still became wealthier as a result of the merger. They lose a car and then gain a better car, which will now have to go through the same trials and pains as Jaguar.

“We’re back - It’s over - We’re so back - It’s never been more over than it is right now” repeating every Monday through Friday from 9 to 5 forever until a real nuke goes.

If Don understands anything, it is that opportunity arises in sudden moments. When one thing is over, another begins.

Joan berates Don for dropping Jaguar when she was the one who suffered for them to get it. Again, look at every action of Season 6 as commentary on Vietnam. We can’t just leave after all we’ve been through! (© AMC/Lionsgate)

Now, a new agency has begun. Is it a step in the past or a leap into the future?

It’s both, actually, one leg forward and one leg back. The two are straining until, well, someone falls.

Trips, rolls forward, and crushes his skull open in front of Don. Bob Benson scoops out his brains and eats them. (© AMC/Lionsgate)