Season 2: Episode 12: "The Mountain King"
Anna Draper is here and the crowd goes WILD for a S2 supporting character
Season 2: Episode 12
“The Mountain King”
Written by Matthew Weiner & Robin Veith
Directed by Alan Taylor
Setting: October 1962
I had almost none of Mad Men spoiled on my first watch-through. I knew Don’s marriage to Betty would not last and that was it. There were surprises in store, the most unexpected and ultimately wonderful of which was Anna Draper.
I never considered that the original Don Draper had a wife who would enter the story. Once she did, I assumed the worst as one does with so much of Don’s life.
Does he try to sleep with her?
Bribe her?
Lie to her too?
Anna Draper represents an absolute good, a best friend who is there for you in the best and worst times. We have seen Don Draper truly happy for once because he is not Don Draper.
Around Anna, he gets to be Dick Whitman.
Her and Dick’s friendship is one of my favorite storylines on the show because it is so unlike the rest of Mad Men. Most of Don’s relationships carry a feeling of dread and doom. The future weighs heavy on Don even if he says it doesn’t. Careless fools like Bobbie Barrett live only for the present. This makes it harder to answer for the past.
Anna Draper doesn’t believe in answering for the past, only in living for the future.
When she talks of the future, it is not dread and doom even as judgment looms. She is an optimist who has been given every reason not to be.
Anna Draper is a standout on the show as a character who will not see the end of the 1960s but celebrates the good to come. For the rest of Don’s life, he will see good throughout the years and think of Anna.
As Don disassociates from the world after abandoning his California business trip, Anna appears to be waiting for him like destiny. True friends feel like that. With her around, Don is where he needs to be even if he’s afraid and vulnerable.
She represents friendship and living for the future. Don made a great mistake by not involving her in his new life. His need to cheat and lie comes so naturally from living a lie the moment he meets someone and introduces himself.
Anna was the only person he did not lie to and she never lied to him.
This is happiness, a life neither of them knew before or since.
You can understand the past while at the same time embracing the future.
Peggy utilizes this by drawing her “ritual” popsicle pitch back to her Christian faith and childhood. She’s been having issues with the church but understands the power of tradition and exactly how to pitch it
The popsicle pitch is one of her best because it focuses on what we share. In an age of individualism, Peggy sees the importance of community through tradition.
As much as you can learn from the past, it can haunt you if you try to reshape it.
Joan’s fiancé Greg is tortured by her past. She tells him that he is the only man she has been with and Greg lets this comfortable lie fester in his thoughts. Their relationship was doomed from the first moment we saw them and they are only together because it appears perfect on the outside. They live a lie together every day.
In one of the show’s most despicable character moments, Greg rapes Joan inside Don’s office. He does this as punishment after picking up on her past relationship with Roger.
Both Roger and Greg are not good men but Greg finds power in desperate control while Roger finds power in losing himself. Greg has convinced himself that he has to prove his manhood to Joan by taking her sexually. If her pleas to stop are answered then he believes this makes him less of a man.
While some viewers clung to the hope that Don and Betty could repair things one day, Joan’s life with Greg is a curse you must not forget. Even in later scenes where they appear happy together, you are asked never to forget this horrific assault he commits against her.
As an answer to the past, he doomed the future.
These characters thrive by understanding the 1960s they live in but also realizing that those days have to end, to evolve.
Life is about change and that doesn’t just come from the finality of a Cuban missile strike. There are the little moments that feel mighty and profound over time, a lazy day at home with just a smile shared can be immortal.
Think of your best friend and all you’ve shared. They have made your past beautiful just by being in it and the future awaits with your loved ones there to guide you and share life.
You are not alone in life.
The right person makes a beautiful life to remember and share together.
Dick Whitman finally gets to live again, if only for a moment before Don Draper returns.
All images © AMC