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Mad Men Postmortem, Part 2
by Jace Lacob
Jace Lacob is the writer/editor of Televisionary, a website devoted to television news, criticism, and interviews. Jace resides in Los Angeles. He is a contributor to several entertainment Web sites and can be found on Twitter and Facebook.
Breakups, breakdowns, and bloody lawnmowers: More from The Daily Beast’s exclusive interview with Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner.
Two weeks ago, AMC’s period drama Mad Men wrapped up its third season with a series of plot twists that have shaken up the series’ narrative foundations. The Daily Beast spoke to Mad Men creator/executive producer Matthew Weiner in an exclusive interview about the season finale.
Now we take you deeper into the world of Mad Men to bring you more details from that interview with Weiner. He discussed the theme of change in Mad Men’s third season; his storytelling use of the Kennedy assassination; the decision made by Betty (January Jones) to leave her husband, Don (Jon Hamm); Joan’s husband Greg (Sam Page) choosing to enlist in the army; that bloodthirsty John Deere, and much more.
“I wanted this season thematically to be about things moving really fast, and a lot of things you take for granted are disappearing.”
The Daily Beast: The Kennedy assassination was a huge part of Season 3. How were you able to mine the historical event to further the characters?
• Read Part I of Weiner’s Postmortem Weiner: I wanted it dramatically to help tell the story of Don and Betty being pushed apart. Betty is very affected by it, Betty’s father died that year, and she is emotionally very raw. And then adding to the fact that she has experienced this revelation with Don, she is using this opportunity to emotionally break down. She didn’t vote for Kennedy and she’s not a big Kennedy lover. [But she gets caught up in] the family tragedy… Jackie and those kids and this young, beautiful man. Before that, he was just a president to these people. All of that personal drama really comes into focus. And then you add [Lee Harvey] Oswald’s murder on top of that, which is a really unsettling sense that no one has control of any of this… [Roger’s daughter Margaret’s] wedding is the moment when she realizes that her marriage and everything she’s clung to doesn’t matter because she doesn’t love him anymore… For Don as well, to get hit hard personally because no matter what was going on in the world, he had a tragedy that was apart from that.
The Daily Beast: I think it worked.
Weiner: I was very scared about doing it. There’s a mythology with this that I already have been pecking away at since I started working on the show. Just reading articles in The New York Times during his presidency where they’re… criticizing him, attacking him... These events have been handed down mostly from the childhood experiences of the Baby Boomers, and I didn’t want to just recreate the childlike experience. I wanted it to feel like I would imagine it would feel to me being 44 years old. Or Don being 37. Margaret (Elizabeth Rice) is young but she is not a child bride. She is 22 years old; that’s about average for getting married then. She’s an adult. You’ve got your life and you’ve got the world. Believe me, what she cared about was not the president; it was that her wedding was ruined. It’s hard to deny that reality.
The Daily Beast: Is the assassination the event that finally pushes Betty away and into the arms of Henry Francis (Christopher Stanley)?
Weiner: Henry was the only one who could make her feel better during the assassination. Part of that is Don’s survival skills; he’s held together psychologically by his ability to believe that everything will be okay… That was not what Betty needed; she needed to be heard. There’s [also] the embarrassment. That’s part of the reason that she kicked him out with [the] Jimmy Barrett [situation]. She never knew for sure that [Don] slept with Bobbie Barrett (Melinda McGraw); it was never documented. It was just Jimmy suggesting it. Her embarrassment over Don’s behavior being public, being the last one to know and everybody being aware of it, that was the thing that really got to her. I think there’s something about finding out that Don had pulled the wool over her eyes, that she was that naïve and trusting, she could not see herself hanging in there for that. And a lot of women could. Marriages were held together with far bigger secrets than this. She could have just embraced him and said, thank you for being so vulnerable, thank you for finally being a human being, but I think that’s not her expectation of a man.
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Jace Lacob is the writer/editor of Televisionary, a website devoted to television news, criticism, and interviews. Jace resides in Los Angeles. He is a contributor to several entertainment Web sites and can be found on Twitter and Facebook.
Citroen2cv
Weiner is shape-shifting his own medium. I get a feeling that approaches envy when I read about his design for the movement of Mad Men. He is building plot and furnishing it as though it's a physical space: same access/egress constraints, proportion issues, how much light to let in. Magnificent.
Barbara416
What will be fascinating to see will be the stylistic changes the show undergoes in the sixties. There are 3. One of which has been covered. Each change is affected by cultural events both catastrophic as well as a loss of American influence in fashion and music. The baby boomers come of age and certainly will affect the ad world. Drugs, modern morality, birth control and the birth of the women's movement play out towards the seventies. Can't wait!
Susannah111
This show is the Great American Novel, circa 2009.
Wildean
What a nice surprise, I love reading about Mad Men and I've been missing Mad Men Sundays, so last night I watched "Guy Walks Into..." again, and intend to watch the season again. What a great show. I like what one of the "bloggingheads" on NYT said, "This is our Dickens, serialized weekly." Beautifully written, beautifully acted. Can't wait for more.
speekup
Jimmy Barrett called Don "The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit" and in some place that film was mentioned (perhaps by Weiner himself) as one source of inspiration for Mad Men. So, recently, I watched the film, which I'd never seen. This revealed two things: 1) that Gregory Peck really couldn't act, and 2) that the influences to MM are obvious. So many of the same themes, images (the dawn of TV) and style (office interiors) are to be seen in that film. I've become so aware recently of the overriding style and ethos of each decade or generation in the 20th C. This one we're living through now, the dawn of the 21st, is pretty sad. No wonder we're all so devoted to Mad Men...what a joyous escape!
carbine9
Only a fool would decide that Gregory Peck "can't act" based upon one film. You evidently have never seen him The Macomber Affair, The Purple Plain, or To Kill A Mockingbird. Based upon a cursory viewing, a lot of people might decide that John Hamm "can't act", since much of the time he seems so stoic and almost wooden, although we know different. Ah...the danger of a little bit of knowledge.
amapola101
What a fantastic show. !!!To MW,Thank You for the entertainment.The best.
dcnoble
I really love that Weiner gives credit to his writers and his wife for some of the most memorable lines of the season.
crewzzer
I didn't "drink the Cool Aid" on Mad Men until recently and have been watching on DVD. It is likely the best television fiction writing and acting in decades. Thank you for giving us some real thought provoking entertainment.
DEhrenstein
So glad he got Barbet to direct the Kennedy assasination episode, and the season finale was a classic -- BUT WHAT ABOUT SAL???!!!!!!!!
I see him in a Third Ave. bar that Don has stumbled into to make a phone call. He's not all suited up. Not the Sal we knew. Not completely drunk but halfway lit. And he's on the make for that's what Third Ave. bars were like in those days Weiner. His wife has thrown him out and his job prospects are slim. Would Don rehire him?
Yes I know he got canned cause he wouldn't let Mr. Lucky Strike do him, but there's got to be a way to finesse that.
What do you say, Weiner?
UncleSam
Sal's skill seemed to be a big part of the 'creative' dept. Before computer graphics, commercial artists did amazing things with pen and ink and visualizing a campaign idea seemed essential to selling it. Is Don homophobic enough to exclude Sal? In the 'new age' of the mid-60's, Midnight Cowboy, may not yet have a place.
Please get rid of Greg! He raped his wife and has little respect for her, himself or medicine! Let him die in Vietnam - his character has nowhere to go. Besides, I have a feeling Joan may yet again be a part of Roger's life once his seven year itch has been scratched raw by his latest "trollup".
Mad Men is the finest show on TV and extremely appealing if you're a baby boomer like myself. My father even had the Cadillac and was a saleman that wowed his female customers with charm and Don's stoicism! Not since Forrest Gump have I been reminded of the era never represented in any media.
I'll go into a deep depression once the series ends....
DRush76
Marriages were held together with far bigger secrets than this. She could have just embraced him and said, thank you for being so vulnerable, thank you for finally being a human being, but I think that's not her expectation of a man.
It's not mine, either. I cannot see myself remaining married to a man who had lied to me about himself for over a decade of marriage. Screw that.
Natalee
Season 3 on DVD now please...it's not show live everywhere you know!
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