If this season of Mad Men has a concurrent theme running through it, it's the characters lost in swirling darkness. They step into the water and instantly get sucked into the undertow. It's been a dark season themeatically for the characters and the story. The place that it's in is certainly not the place that we were in way back in season one. This is a place of cutthroat antics and bitterness. To quote Lost, "this place is death."
Take Don Draper for instance, he's in a loving marriage with a much younger woman than his previous wife. She epitomizes everything he didn't have with Betty Draper-Francis. He felt liberty. But his growing dread that he would break his monogamy and return to his lecherous ways have hung over him like a dark cloud. He fears this. In the episode, "Mystery Date," he hooked up with an old fling and strangled her to death to when she said she wasn't going to leave and walk away. Except, the murder was part of a fever dream he was trapped in. The earlier Don was cold-hearted. When Dick Whitman's brother showed up and tried to be with his brother again, Don shrugged him off. He isn't Dick anymore. So, Dick's brother hung himself and further threw Don down the well of sorrow. He's had his moments of violence towards Megan, especially in "Far Away Places," but those moments are few and far between and most of that resentment stems from her leaving the firm, but they do love one another.
Joan's in a dark place. Once, she was the bombshell of the office, the woman that everyone else looked up to. And now? She slept with the scuzzy fat guy from Jaguar to help them land the account. And they did, but at what cost? So, she can be partner? Now, Joan's uncomfortable with the slightest advances from a drunken Lane Pryce.
And Lane. Poor Lane. He took a gamble and help Sterling Cooper move into their new offices before the strike of the sword sent them out into the uncaring streets. Recently, he came into troubles with his taxes overseas. So, instead of asking the other partners for help, he extended the company's line of credit and foolishly forged Don's signature on a check. And once Don finds out, where does that leave Lane? Despondent. He drinks as heavily as he always has and the final straw being that he finds that his wife has bought a Jaguar. He's had it. He wakes in the middle of the night and tries committing suicide in the newly bought car. In one of the blackest humored jokes, Mad Men has done...the car wouldn't start. That's a running joke and it pops in right as he snaps his glasses in his attempted last moments. Lane goes back to his office for the last time and hangs himself. And Don realizing that he has driven another man to suicide, while inadvertently, still has to burn him deep.
The scene where they find Lane was traumatizing to me. Don's cries that they can't leave him that way just broke my heart. It stings me deeply. Everybody just sitting there at the table drinking whiskey with their thousand-yard stares plastered on their faces rang so true. And when they read aloud his suicide note, all these questions unanswered, they just stand there shocked. Where do they go from here? I loved the other parts of the show, Sally getting her period and running back to Betty, who used that to get back at the current Mrs. Draper. I've always felt cold towards Betty, except when her and Don had their little Parisian adventure back in season two or three, I think. That was the first time I think I saw them in love. And quite possibly the last time. But that last moment where she crawled into bed with Sally and actually acted like a mother and not the ice queen she's so apt to be, I melted towards her a little bit. This hasn't been an easy season for her.
Frankly, I've loved this show for a long time. It's grown on and on as the years have passed and yet I don't think I've ever really picked up on the symbolism. Don referencing the Devil in an ad pitch, talk of life insurance policies, the empty, foreboding elevator shaft, it's all there waiting to be discovered. Death is the concurrent theme of the season. My only question is, can they make it out of the darkness before anyone else suffers like poor Lane Pryce?
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