"Who is Don Draper

Mad Men Season 4, Ep. 1

Ah, falling man credits, I have missed you, you with your reference to Saul Bass and -- I insist -- 9/11.

Cut to a too-tight close-up of Don Draper's face, and a disembodied voice asking the winky question, "Who is Don Draper?"

It's a reporter from Ad Age doing an interview at a table for two. Draper recoils just a bit at the question with an "Excuse me?" and then asks "What do men say when you ask that?" (Biblical echo, Jesus to Peter: "Who do men say that I am?")

It's clear that Draper is not giving a great interview. How could he, when he has as little idea who Don Draper is as we do?

Roger Sterling and Pete Campbell break up the non-interview. (Missed you, Roger! Not so much, Pete!) The reporter is revealed to have a wooden leg, prompting Roger to launch into another of his weird family tales, this one about a peglegged uncle. (Missed you, tales of weird Sterlings!)

The trio saunters over to the Sheraton, where they are part of a cattle call pitching the family-friendly Portland swimwear maker Jantzen. The Jantzen guys (including the adorable Paul Bartholomew, late of UT) are in awe of Draper, who has apparently achieved rock-star status (not that such status existed, exactly, in late 1964) off a cinematic TV ad for Glo-coat floor polish. It doesn't go great. Don clearly thinks this "family company" is a bunch of stiffs unwilling to own up to the salaciousness of their itsy-bitsy product, and he's impatient with being a small-fish agency in a big-fish world.

They go back to the new offices of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce at the Time-Life building -- the background music sounds very Route 66 -- which look attractive and modern (and a giant step up from the suite at the Pierre) but are too small for Bert Cooper's taste. He's embarrassed by the cramped space (which doesn't look cramped) and the lack of a conference table. It's all on one floor, but there's a ruse that they also have a second floor. Pete perpetuates the ruse; Bert won't.

OK, now we're easing into The Subplot Involving Peggy, Pete and a Ham. Except for Peggy's new bubble-cut hair, I have no interest in the Ham Subplot. Here's what you need to know about it: Peggy, Pete and her new, cute stooge Joey hatch a stunt involving two Rude Mechanicals -- without telling Don -- to get the Sugarberry Ham people to spend more money. It backfires, but the ham people increase their budget anyway. Takeaways: Peggy and Pete are still a little hapless. Don is still a bully. Peggy still adores him. Can we be done with the ham now? Cuz it's stupid. Thanks.

Don's Lawyer of Exposition explains to him that, now that he and Betty are divorced, he's a fool for letting her stay in the Ossining house. She was supposed to be out Oct. 1, and now it's November.

Roger, for his part, fixes Don up with one of new wife Jane's friends, Bethany (Anna Camp). Chicken Kiev, anyone?

Back at Don's new, depressing apartment, he watches his iconic Glo-Coat ad, featuring a little boy in a cowboy outfit. It's OK, but it sure doesn't scream 1964 to me.

Next we see Don getting ready for his date and then actually out with Betty the Lesser Bethany. Yuck. I'm not happy with this. Her simpy dialogue! "I want to lift a shadow off this evening ... I'm breaking a lot of my rules." Ugh. That must have been what Betty sounded like at that age. Isn't this a little Hey, Nineteen, Mr. Draper? In other words: Run, Don, run! Instead, he likes her, and tries -- and is thwarted -- following her into the Barbizon. No good will come of Betty the Lesser Bethany, I predict.

In the office, Harry and Joan have a brief, inconsequential scene. Missed you both, especially you, delicious Joan.

Roger and Lane are upset at how bad Don's Ad Age interview looks in print. Roger berates Don over it -- "Who knows who you are!" he wails. One fallout of the disaster is that SCDP will lose the jai alai account, leaving, as Lane glumly notes, Lucky Strike as 71 percent of their billing. When Don protests, he's told "Turning creative success into business is your work. And you failed." Big owie, Don!

Ready for the worst Thanksgiving since Squanto? That would be at Betty's new daddy Henry Francis's mom Pauline's house. Betty is all batty-eyed at Henry, seated at table with her, Sally, Bobby and extended family. The imperious Pauline sees that Sally isn't eating, and Sally fesses up to not liking the food. At this point Betty crams some sweet potato into Sally's mouth, Sally spits it out, and the audience gasps in horror. Sally is dragged pinchily from the table. Glad to see your parenting skills are intact, Betty!

Back in Greenwich Village, Don celebrates the holiday by bringing in a prostitute -- a very Joan-like prostitute! Really, Don?? In bed, he tells her -- they're apparently a repeat transaction -- she knows what he wants. So she slaps his face. And again, harder. Oh, Don! This is a side of you we didn't expect.

Back in Ossining hell, Betty (in the prettiest pink nightie ever) is in bed with new daddy Henry when she hears Sally on the hall phone. She goes to the hall and grabs the phone, threatening Sally if she tattles to her dad.

Back in bed, Henry suggests that when Don has the older kids the next day, they ditch Baby Gene with poor Carla and drive to the Griswold Inn in Essex, Conn. (Been there, Betty! You'll love it!)

Next day, Don acts like a decent parent and returns the kids to Ossining at the appointed hour of 9. No Betty and Henry. So he sits at night with no lights on, watching TV.

Betty and Henry totter in, three sheets to the wind. Don tells her she has to get out of the house soon. When Henry insists it's temporary, Don zings him. "Believe me, everyone thinks this is temporary," he says. Good on you, Don! After Don leaves, Henry tells Betty he's right, but she has no intention of leaving.

Back at Pauline's Henry's mom scolds him for marrying Betty (they're married!). The kids are terrified of Betty, she notes. "She a silly woman," she says.

At the office, Don pitches Jantzen with a peekaboo ad of a woman in the bottom half of a two-piece :"So well-built, we can't show you the second floor." (Get it? No second floor, just like SCDP!) The Jantzens hate it. Don petulantly throws them out.

To repair all the damage, Don takes an interview with the Wall Street Journal. This time he gets it right. Cut to the credit music: Tobacco Road by the Nashville Teens.


Cultural notes:

1. The first football game Don watches is Princeton vs. Cornell. Old Nassau had a perfect season that year with Pete Gogolak as kicker. Pete and his older brother Charlie, who went to Cornell, virtually introduced soccer-style kicking to college and pro football.

2. The John! Marsha! (I originally wrote "Marcia" -- wrong) game Peggy and Joey play dates from a 1951 Stan Freberg routine. Why they're doing a 13-year-old act is beyond me.

3. Peggy has a photo of John Kennedy on the wall of her apartment.

4. Bethany makes reference to the June, 1964 killing of Goodwin, Schwerner and Cheney in Mississippi.

5. Sally and Bobby watch Sky King on TV, a '50s show that was in reruns at the time.

6. What's missing? Well the Beatles, for one. It's impossible to imagine a week in the life of people in 1964 with no mention of the Beatles, who pervaded the culture. Also, the kids might want to watch the new TV show Bewitched, in which a witch married another Mad Man.

7. Note the lyrics to Tobacco Road.

8. One possible mistake: Roger tells Don that icky Bethany was on the gymnastics team at Mount Holyoke. I'll bet you a fin that there was not a gymnastics team (perhaps a gymnastics class, yes) at Mount Holyoke in the early '60s.

9. Where have you seen Anna Camp (Bethany) before? As Sarah Newlin, the evil twin of Victoria Osteen, on last season's True Blood.

10. Where have you seen Paul Bartholomew (Bob from Jantzen) before? In this great commercial: