Season 5: Episode 2 - "A Little Kiss Part Two"
Lordy Lordy Look Who's 40
Season 5: Episode 2
“A Little Kiss Part Two”
Written by: Matthew Weiner
Directed by: Jennifer Getzinger
Setting: June 1966
Finding new meaning from my favorite show is the greatest joy of writing for Mad World. Oddly, I went into “A Little Kiss” with low expectations. I can close my eyes and play out all of Season 5’s two-part opener. Don’s 40th birthday party and its aftermath are iconic. A disaster that is always fun, the perfect description for Mad Men. What more could I do listening to “Zou Bisou?”
My takeaway is that “Zou Bisou” is not the takeaway. It is what you remember but not what means something about “A Little Kiss.” I’m now approaching the entire show with a new mindset. Season 4 was the show’s high point and every story that came after had to live in the immense shadow of “The Suitcase.” This episode shows the viewer how the rest of the show will reckon with that.
The lives of Don Draper and company are unimportant in the grand scheme of America in 1966.
However embarrassing a man’s birthday party may be, change marches in the street and new challenges arise. This is the decade of change.
The opening of “Part One” is about protest and the closing of “Part Two” is about progress.
This progress happens because those in power do not treat it as a serious outcome. SCDP’s call for a more diverse workplace is published as a joke meant to rub salt in the wound of another firm. They only realize they have to hire a person of color when that firm sends an African tribal statue with a racist note attached and Meredith is seen bringing it in.
Two entirely white agencies play petty jokes on each other and, as a result, one consents to hire African American employees. Mad Men is often about failing upward and this failure finally benefits others who need it.
Does it matter how you get through the door so long as you are through it?
What the characters are going through in this episode does not matter:
Pete demands a bigger office without a column in the middle that he routinely crashes into like a Looney Tunes character.
Harry hides in shame after inappropriate comments about Megan.
Don and Megan have their first big fight as a married couple.
Lane develops an insane fixation with the woman from a wallet photograph he found in the cab.
These stories do not matter. Some of the characters are realizing that. Pete may have a new office but won’t feel he earned it because of how the exchange was handled.
These characters are either alienated from their jobs or treating them as much more important than they are. Peggy becomes frustrated after her “Bean Ballet” pitch gets shot down by Heinz and Don does not attempt to defend it. Perhaps she envisioned the ad going on to become something iconic. When people think of beans, they think of her work. Not anymore.
Throughout Season 5, look at these problems and realize how small they are. You’re meant to feel in the shadow of Season 4 because these characters feel in the shadow of the world. It continues forward whether they like it or not.
Joan’s baby is comically handed off from busy employee to busy employee as she speaks with Lane. In the walls of SCDP, that child becomes an orphan who will never be as important as the work is.
In the aftermath of “Zou Bisou,” where do these characters go after realizing they may walk a doomed road?
The disconnect is apparent precisely because no one wants to acknowledge what has gone wrong. While justified in many of her feelings, Megan became angry and mean to Peggy who tried to make amends for a rude comment. Had Don liked the party, Megan would have accepted the apology. The whole well of SCDP is poisoned for her.
Any reminder of that party is a deep pain. Megan’s later decision to abandon advertising in favor of an acting career is a response to Zou Bisou. She could go her entire life without seeing Don’s coworkers again because they would remind her of when she realized her marriage might be doomed.
Megan seeks an escape from reality that only her husband can provide and she is happiest when she can pretend. She sadly needed to live how bad her marriage would get to believe that it could ever happen.
Whatever pain each character is living to believe, the world keeps on.
The important work does not begin inside the offices of SCDP but instead in its lobby. The world is bigger than just Roger Sterling but don’t tell him that.
