Geroni-no

We weren't even 24 hours clear of Don Draper showing his kids the whorehouse where he grew up when the latest Internet theory about Mad Men hit the ether: Don Draper is D.B. Cooper. And while this is much more cogent than all of the Megan Draper as Sharon Tate nonsense, how likely is it that Don will end the series by going into free-fall over the Pacific Northwest? Let's unpack this theory.

All of the airplane imagery points to this. Yes, airplanes feature prominently in the show. But this is also the period where air travel began to open to the masses, and you see the start of the growth curve in air operations.The 1950s and '60s also saw double digit growth in US commercial aviation. As mentioned on the show, having an airline in one's portfolio, even a regional airline like Mohawk, was second only to a car company in terms of profitability and status. It would be unusual if an airline didn't figure prominently in the show.

Air imagery in other areas worked to drive other plot points. Having Pete's father die in the American Airlines Flight 1 sets up a decade of failure for Pete. Ted Chaough's plane gives him a form of power over Don (remember how nervous Don was during their flight) and furthers Ted's relationship with Peggy when they're socked in during a visit to Ocean Spray. And North American Aviation served as a wedge between Pete and Don due the background check Don would need.

I'm thinking all of this is selection bias. If you want Don to be D. B. Cooper, you're going to start seeing planes everywhere, and give them more significance than intended.

Did this season really mirror the first season? Critical to this theory is that this past season brought characters back to season 1, and as season 2 started with the AA1 crash, this final season would also include a historically pertinent airline-related story line. I think there is something to this season sending characters towards their origin, but with a significant difference:

• Don is cheating on his increasingly restless young wife, but with Megan the cheating isn't serial (as far as we know it's limited to Sylvia), and her restlessness is as much about her career than it is about her marriage.
• Peggy's feeling for Ted are much deeper that what she had for Pete, and has now become incredibly relevant at work as she's the highest ranking creative person in New York (for now, at least)
• Joan has more real power at work as a partner, but has less influence based on the open secret of how she earned her partnership and on her stagnant career path (compare her position to Peggy's).
• Pete's knowledge of Bob's identity has done more to actively hurt him than his knowledge of Don's identity. By not exposing Bob, Pete lost the Chevy account, lost his mother to Bob's partner in crime, and is heading to California in whatever counts for shame in his head.
• Betty looks like her old self, but now has a protector-husband in Henry, enjoys the glamor of being a politician's wife, and is even Sally's preferred parent.
• Duck Phillips is "around," but is unlikely to still be around once a new creative person is installed at SC&P. His initial meeting with Pete makes it clear that his work as a headhunter fits him better than advertising ever did.
• The agency is Sterling Cooper & Partners. And the partners may be making all the difference here. If it were just up to Roger and Bert, they may have found a way to keep Don on board in the wake of the Hershey's pitch. But you throw in Pete (who has never liked Don), Joan (who is likely still angry with Don for firing Jaguar), Cutler (who was suggesting a coup back when Don and Roger were in California), and Ted (whose relationship with Don is, at best, rocky), and Don's ouster is much easier to rationalize.

Where this leaves Don, then, is back before we ever met him, Don Draper the unemployed. And instead of trying to burnish his Draper persona to make it more real, he's opening up about his past and potentially creating something new. What we have in this list (and with Don in his new open about his past persona), is a 2.0 version of the characters and institutions that frame the show.

The shedding of Don Draper. There's the idea that Don has been shedding his assumed identity since Anna's death in season four, and there's something to that. He was up front with Megan about who he was, and he's made references to growing up on a farm and in Pennsylvania. But it could be that the shedding and the death references - from the Royal Hawaiian ad to Don winding up in that pool in the Hollywood hills - were showing Don where he was heading if he did not open up. Which leads to...

The two Don Drapers print ad. My interpretation of the ad, then, is that the Don with his back to us is the Don we've seen up to now, protecting his fake identity and heading the "one way" that path leads (to the cops who are arresting him, or waiting for someone to claim his body after he jumps from his apartment balcony?). The Don that's facing us is looking askance at that Don, and is being led in a different direction by the woman whose hand he's holding. It could be Megan leading Don to California (by way of separation and firing), Sally leading Don to be more open about his past, Betty leading Don to realize his emotional deficits, or even Joan leading Don to realize that his impulsive decisions cause more harm than good (I'd list a Peggy variant here, but Peggy would only wear something that sheer for Ted). The ad, then, rather than showing a Don who is disappearing, is showing a Don who is taking a different path (or is showing Don 1.0 disappearing to allow Don 2.0 to emerge).

But Don looks like D. B. Cooper! And acts like him! Well, they do dress similarly, and both keep their hair slicked, but it's hardly an unusual look for the period. And I really don't think the Cooper sketch looks much like Don at all. As for how the two men act, based on the accounts of the skyjacking both are cool under pressure. But is it enough to get Don to skyjack a plane? It seems like a bridge too far. Also, would Don ever cut his bourbon with soda? In any case, whatever similarities the two men have, I think there's still a major obstacle to this theory.

The Cooper skyjacking took place in 1971. While I don't think it's a stated parameter, Mad Men is about the '60s. It starts in March 1960 and uses historical events to anchor the timeline or directly influence the plot. Jumping into the 1970s would be a disruptive narrative shift out of tone with the rest of the series. It's much more likely that the series would tie its end to something like Altamont, the concert whose violence and disorder is informally considered the end of the '60s. But even if we overlook this, there would still be a lingering question.

Why would Don hijack an airplane? The piece suggests that both Don and Cooper exist in an isolated emotional state, and that both need to do something dramatic just to feel something. That's possible (though it's a complete assumption with regards to Cooper, and suggest a deeper void in Don than we've seen), but it would completely go against Don's nature to disappear in such a public fashion. He's much more likely to take a cue from his Royal Hawaiian poster and disappear into the sea, literally or figuratively. Assuming he's cashed out of his partnership, he'd have enough money to live on if he chose to disappear for good.

We have no idea what sort of Don Draper - if any - we're going to wind up with at the end of Mad Men, but I think the signs point more towards Don 2.0, a synthesis of Dick Whitman and Don Draper whose ultimate disposition will be written in this final season.

Three Up, Three Down: Mad Men

Three Up


3. Peggy Olsen.  She's in place at CGC and riding her copyrighters hard, expecting better work. She does get saddled with some work to test and name a new woman-focused cigarette (what will become Virginia Slims), but rolls with it pretty well. She has a chance meeting with Don at a movie, and while their talk is a little strained, you do get the sense that he's proud of her and that she's proud of herself for taking the step she did. And while she doesn't get to go to Paris to film that Chevalier Blanc ad, she does get to go to Richmond - where her hotel view is a couple of dogs going at it. So, yeah, not all wins.

2. Megan Draper. There is a lot of difficulty here - she continues to have the argument with Don about her choice of acting and her "hate" of advertising. She also has issues with her mom, who is frank in her assessment of Megan's chances. But when she asks Don to get her a part in a commercial, he declines but later relents when he watches her reel, which appears to make him fall in love with her all over again. She gets the ad and is incredibly happy, especially with Don. We'll see how long that lasts.

1. Roger Sterling. He hooks back up with Megan's mom, and builds up enough courage to try LSD again, this time on his own (which includes standing in his hotel window naked, which really dashed the hopes of what was to come when the nudity warning came up at the start of things). And with the money rolling into the firm, Roger's in as good a place as he can be considering where he was to start the season.


Three Down


3. Beth Dawes. Beth and her husband run into Pete on the train, and they say she's going to visit her sister. Turns out, though, that she suffers from depression and is getting electroshock therapy, which she tells Pete during an assignation at the same hotel Pete had planned for earlier in the season. She also mentions it's not her first time, and she's hoping their coupling will persist through the "fog" that the therapy causes in her brain. Turns out it doesn't, as when Pete visits her afterwards she has no idea who he is. Which may be for the best, as remembering that you had sex with Pete Campbell may not be the best thing for long-term mental health.

2. Don Draper. Don has a bad tooth, and lets it go until it gets to the point where he can't bend over without it causing pain. When he goes to get it extracted, he has a vision of his brother Adam. It's not his first for the episode, and the parallel with Lane is clearly playing tricks with his head. Don and Adam talk briefly, with Adam saying he'll see Don again, as he'll be "hanging around." It's not helping that Don met with Rebecca Pryce to give her money that Lane had previously put into the firm. She's hostile, to be charitable, and gives Don an earful. Don also squabbles with Megan and Marie over Megan's career, and while he continues to be resistant his work to get Megan a role after watching her reel is promising. That is until he's at a bar and a blonde asks him - for her equally attractive brunette friend - if he's alone. The episode ends on Don's face, and while he's not answered the question his past suggests he's going to give the answer that we got used to in earlier seasons.

1. Pete Campbell. Things are typical for Pete - what with his reacquaintance with Beth and his continuing desire to not stay in Cos Cob with his wife and child - but it's when he visits Beth in the hospital that he really exposes his despair, as he says the friend he's visiting (a construct to explain to Beth why he's at the hospital, as she doesn't know they know each other) is losing this great thing, but has also discovered that his permanent life also isn't right, that the "friend" is stuck and failing fast. All of this comes out as resentment towards Beth's husband, with whom Pete fights after he suggests they get off the train and go find women. When Pete throws the hospitalization in his face they fight, and the husband says Beth always winds up sleeping with someone when she gets out of the hospital. A conductor breaks up the fight, but winds up having to punch Pete as well when Pete starts getting physical with him (which built up from the conductor saying Pete needed to apologize to Beth's husband). Pete manages to pass of his injuries as a result of a car accident. and Trudy takes this as the final sign that yes, Pete does need an apartment in the city so he doesn't kill himself driving home. So Pete finally gets his love nest, just with no one to love in it. Seems fitting, really.

New on TV: Pan Am

It's 1963. The jet age has dawned, and we're going around the world with the crew of a Pan Am Clipper. That crew is made up of a captain searching for his gone-missing stewardess girlfriend, his co-pilot who appears to be Pan Am's version of Pete Campbell, and four stewardesses. Two are sisters, one the black sheep of the family, the other the golden child who bolted from her own wedding and wound up on the cover of Life magazine after joining Pan Am. One is a burgeoning feminist/free thinker, as we're shown by her living in the Village and having some guy at her apartment using Marx as an excuse to not answer the phone. The fourth is a Frenchwoman who was apparently sleeping with a married man, which she learned when he brought his family on a flight.

Oh, and did I mention that the black sheep has been recruited by the CIA at the suggestion of the stew who went missing?

Ridiculous espionage subplots aside, there is a certain charm to this show. The sisters have a troubled relationship, but they're secure enough with each other to be honest and have each other's backs when their manipulative mom shows up on a flight. The captain, as much as he's trying to project the alpha male characteristics expected of someone in his position in 1963, is clearly hurting, and his dedication to find his girlfriend is a welcome vulnerability.

The other characters, well, I'm not so sure where they're going. They may be a little to tightly defined as horndog/bohemian/French, and it'd be nice to see them get some range.

As for the show's ability to capture Mad Men's vibe, well, no. They try very hard, certainly with the costumes and music, but try too hard by inserting incidental dialog that sounds like a forced attempt to remind us that it's 1963. The writers do not have Mad Men's ability to come up with dialog that sounds like it would be spoken by people in the 1960s but not sounding like they're trying to prove that it's the 1960s.

Still, this is a pleasant enough show, and the airline setting does allow for a broad range of locales and potential plots. I don't know how much of a chance we'll have to explore the world with this crew, though, as the show's ratings are dismal, thanks in no small part to the anemic numbers put up by Desperate Housewives, whose last season is, almost unbelievably, stupider than any of the previous seasons. I also don't see a good time for them to move the show to without possibly making the show weaker, ratings-wise.

So while this experiment in ripping off basic cable is going better than The Playboy Club, I wouldn't actually call it a success. It's likeable enough, but it doesn't keep me from hoping that March 2012 would just get here already.

Making it Better - The Walking Dead

While it attracted a huge audience, the start of the second season of The Walking Dead did remind me of some of the things I didn't particularly like about the first season. Unfortunately, they're mostly about the acting. Still, in the interest of improving things, here are my five suggestions for making the show even more zombieriffic.

1. Actually use the word 'zombie.'  While I understand (to some extent) the use of the term "walker," I have hard time believing that no one has used that term to describe what, culturally, we've known as zombies. I can only assume that the world depicted on the show never considered zombies as a concept, or did and called them walkers from the start. Anyway, the occasional dropping of the z-word would be a nice touch, if just to remind us that the show putatively takes place in our present.

2. Less chat, more splat. AMC is developing a bit of a rep for shows that are slow-moving and very talky (I think the last episode of Rubicon is just wrapping up now). That's an unfortunate tendency when you have a show whose hook is zombies and the killing of zombies. It seems like most interactions with the undead happen off camera or from the zombie point of view. We get to hear the kill, but not to see it, which is a shame. If we've learned anything from recent zombie movies, it's that we want to see the Zs dispatched in a gruesome fashion. The direction this show is taking makes the Foley artists happy, I'm sure, but zombies are more of a visual thing, and the show should open things up.

3. Use the chaos to your advantage, cast-wise. Look, this show doesn't have the strongest cast, and on top of that a number of characters are downright annoying. With a show like this, it should be easy to correct such things; annoying cast member gets eaten, less annoying cast member is found along the road or something. I think most fans have at least one character they'd gladly sacrifice in the hopes of improving overall quality. And while we're on the subject...

4. Bring back Merle Dixon. If you're going to have stereotypical characters, you might as well have ones that are maximally stereotypical and, if possible, crazy. Merle Dixon hits on all cylinders, and probably moreso now that he's down to one hand. Michael Rooker made Merle a mesmerizing figure, and it's a shame we got so little of him. I'm hoping he does return soon as the king of the zombies or something.

I would also appreciate a reunion with Morgan Jones, if only so we could have...

5. An end to the walkie-talkie monologues. I don't need to hear Rick fill the first minute of the show with exposition and half-baked suggestions (for example, telling Morgan to stay off the roads when Rick and company are just about to get on the road). I also blame these for the torpor that the pace of the show is stuck in. Start with some action and keep the pace up.

Still, all of this takes a back seat to what may be the real problem with the show: turmoil amongst the staff. Between the plan to fire all the writers and use freelancers and the parting of the ways with two executives (including Frank Darabont), the mess in this part of the show must have an impact on the actual product. Get your house in order, folks. We want to see some good old fashioned zombie killin'.