IT WAS RAINING BOTH
MYSTERY AND MADNESS !
The MadMen episode that
aired 4-19-2015 opened with Don Draper wrapped up in bed sheets, though I suspect
his somnolence had less to do with sleep-deprivation than it did a
sub-conscious desire not to vacate his residence just yet. He doesn't
really want to SELL; the carpeting's still stained (as the realtor maliciously points
out) and he's not sure of the future FORECAST. In other words, he knows
where he's BEEN, but he's not entirely prepared to say a final adieu to living
in the PAST. Later we see him soulfully muse..."A lot of wonderful things
happened here".
Furthermore, we cringe as
the realtor remarks that the Draper residence "reeks of failure" but
this is in starkly explicit juxtaposition to young intern Mathis' subsequent
office-rant about "the unfairness of life". He opines that Don had it
easy in life
because he was handsome. Draper summarily quips, "Everyone has
problems...some people just know how to deal with them better". He fires
Mathis. Mathis doesn't have half a clue about Draper's REAL past! It's not 1969
anymore (either), I surmise. Moreover, Peggy is no longer acting as a
"secretary". Eveyone has to say goodbye to something, don't they?
Though should anyone's GOODBYE necessarily include saying 'HELLO' to Viet
Nam? Glen Bishop has returned ... older, but not yet fully mature. He's a
boy-man of sorts, like whiskey and milk sharing the very same drinking glass.
I also noticed how many times either buzzers
or telephones rang during last week's episode. Several people had to say goodbye
in a very metaphorical sense...and hello to something else: those antiquated
communication devices drove the message home in case we blinked! The half-way
point between the goodbyes and hellos "of life" are unknown, however,
all the while everyone's "praying to God" that there's something
better on the horizon (e.g., Sally on the bus, Glen off to war, Betty off to
college, Joanie in a new relationship).
Even as
Betty tells Sally how she broke 'light-bulbs' on a similar trip when she was
her age, I think Sally gets the drift...it wasn't about light-bulbs. Those metaphors
again!!
[SIGH] I really thought I guessed what song
would be played at last episode's parting shot (particularly because of remarks
Sally made about Kent State) ... and I was sooooo wrong. I guessed that ditty
about "tin soldiers and Nixon coming [4 dead in OHIO]".So how does
one successfully tie that beautifully haunting Roberta Flack melody, the one
that DID play, to the FORECAST theme? Here is my best estimate: although
we all desire to leave behind something of everlasting value in this world, which
requires many to steadily continue on in their journey, it is still so very
difficult to stop living in the PAST. Even when given opportunities for
"second chances", the known sanctuary of the past forever holds fond memories
and, sometimes most of all, a firm measure of SECURITY. And it's the
thinking back to those beautiful nostalgic times that evokes a reminiscence of
a "first": i.e.,
actually, a first of "anything"; anything that gave us the warmest of
warm fuzzies in earlier times. I think the writers
sensed this...and THAT (my friends) is why they chose the song that they did.
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