Season 3: Episode 9: Wee Small Hours
Hard to "Have a Dream" when Conrad Hilton won't let you sleep.
Season 3: Episode 9
“Wee Small Hours”
Written by Dahvi Waller & Matthew Weiner
Directed by Scott Hornbacher
Setting: August - September 1963
For fans like me who got into Mad Men due to an interest in history, this episode is going to feel intentionally unsatisfying. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s iconic “I Have a Dream” speech plays on the radio and Don tries to turn it off. He may be living through history but Don Draper does not realize that he is also a part of that history.
The only problems these characters are concerned with are their own.
Betty cruelly tells Carla that “now may not be the time for Civil Rights” after they listen to the funeral service for the four girls killed in the 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing in Montgomery, Alabama. This is not done to belittle Carla or all that she believes in, Betty is just selfishly saying what comes to mind. The issue isn’t that innocent people are being killed, it is that Betty’s comfortable world has been intruded upon by the pain of others she will never know.
The world beyond her front door does not exist and when it appears through party chatter or newspaper headlines, she creates a different reality. Betty rejects change. This is why it has taken her so long to confront and even begin to think about leaving Don.
In this respect, she and Don are a perfect match. Two selfish people who either ignore or push away change when it begins. Change is necessary and avoiding the obvious necessitates more painful change in the future.
Stay in the past to suffer in the future.
The worst example of this mindset is displayed through one of the most detestable decisions made at Sterling Cooper — the firing of Salvatore Romano.
After Pete refuses to take no for an answer when harassing his neighbor’s au pair in the prior episode, we now see the consequence of what happens when someone says no.
Sal is working on a Lucky Strike commercial for Lee Garner Jr. who then makes a sexual advance on him. When Sal declines, Lee retaliates.
With the cheers of the March on Washington still echoing in our minds, we see an established power destroying a man without a voice. No one comes together to help Sal, it is simpler for his coworkers to forget he existed than to understand him.
This episode is about the necessity of an event like the March on Washington. Immortality is achieved by serving your fellow man. In only focusing on yourself, you carve the gravestone for a funeral no one will attend.
Sal’s firing is a make-or-break moment for Don. He could have defended a valued coworker he has a good relationship with and moved him to a different account to lay low. Don knows Sal is gay and he assumes that makes him a selfish liar, only out for himself as he is lying to everyone else from the moment he meets them.
Like Betty pushing away Civil Rights, Don wants to blink and have Sal gone. He is kinder than most would be knowing that Sal is a homosexual but this does not right the wrong of firing Sal.
Don has chosen success over humanity and will pay the price.
He has deluded himself into believing that he deserves good things because he is Don Draper and failure is not in his language. Conrad Hilton introduces him to a worse feeling than failure, disappointment. A feeling that affects both his business success and emotions as a man.
When Connie displays disappointment with Don’s Hilton Hotel pitch because it does not include “Hiltons on the Moon” Don reacts like a rejected son. This is one of the best pitches this season and Don knows how good it is.
Believing in success is not enough when it is the only thing a person believes in. That becomes a belief in delusion, the comfort of always being on top even when you rule over a garbage heap.
Conrad Hilton asks for the impossible and never should have been a client of Sterling Cooper. There was no scenario where Don did not fail him because, in the end, the only one who could satisfy Conrad Hilton was Conrad Hilton. He feels chosen by God to make hotels whereas Don feels chosen (and then rejected) by Hilton.
Don loses a father figure for the second time and reverts to childhood. At a low moment in business and life, Don comes to the arms of an elementary school teacher. He is an adult man who wants her physically but also finds comfort in the presence of an educator who knows how to speak to a scared person who does not understand the world.
Abandoned by a father figure, Don now reaches out for a mother figure. He desires love and acceptance so much that he does not care who it hurts for him to obtain it.
Betty is the same, angry and delusional when Henry Francis will not attend her Republican Party fundraiser. An appearance would make it obvious that they are talking to each other more intimately than a married woman should, but Betty doesn’t care.
Her world should not have complications or troubles, it should be what she wants when she wants it. Don was excellent at lying to her and making Betty believe her life was perfect. She still believes a perfect life is possible and that she deserves it.
In Conrad Hilton and Suzanne Farrell, Don seeks the parents he never had.
In Henry Francis, Betty seeks the husband she never had.
Both are chasing phantoms and would be happier in accepting reality. The world moves forward and while a dream may be perfect, the journey there will be flawed.
“Wee Small Hours” is a plea for a more loving America founded upon the words of Dr. King and not the momentary desires of one individual. Our futures are not perfect but become more so when we share them and work together.
Life is about others and we are left with a sad, last image of Salvatore Romano calling his wife from Central Park. He is there for a gay hookup and still lying to his wife. We never see him again on Mad Men and can only look for comfort in imagining a future where he is accepted and loved.
We’ll never know if his future is better but we like to imagine that it is.
That’s the dream of tomorrow and it is always possible.
