Mad Men - "The Runaways"

What. The. Fuck.

One of the things I like the most about Mad Men is the way it occasionally breaks out of its swanky shell and just goes totally fucking nuts. This was most evident in last seasons' The Crash, a completely out of character episode that put its characters on a speed trip and watched the insanity unfold. There were also sprinkles of it throughout the show previously, such as in Don's many Dick Whitman flashbacks and Roger's life-changing LSD trip in Far Away Places. The Runaways, as a whole, was a bit more typical than those moments, but it featured several moments that completely threw me. Yes, you know which ones I'm talking about it. You know which one I am specifically talking about. So, sigh. Let's get to it first.

Ginsburg cuts off his nipple.

Seriously. I'm still processing that this actually happened. Because, I'm sorry, but what the fuck? I get that the show has been hinting that Ginsburg is mentally ill all along, from his strange Martians speech to his suggestively anti-social behavior to his blow-up at Cutler last season. And yet, while I recognized all of these pieces happening, I wondered if the show was ever going to link them together. Given how Ginsburg has been mostly background fodder this season, I sort of forgot about it, focusing instead on Don and Peggy and Megan and Roger and all of the more prominent characters of the season. And then, they just have Ginsburg show up and hand his nipple to Peggy. It's strange. It's surprising. Mad Men knows how we were going to respond to it. It seems like Ginsburg is most likely schizophrenic, a crippling mental disease that can be treated today but likely would've more or less spelled a persons' end back in 1969. Given how Ginsburg was built up as sort of a Draper replacement back when he was introduced in Season 5, it's fascinating and heartbreaking to see his story turning out this way. I don't suspect we've seen the last of him (I certainly hope not), but it's hard to imagine things looking up for him from here on out. It's hard not to be reminded of poor old Sal. Homosexuality and mental illness both had the capability to completely isolate people back in the '60s, and just as Sal's struggle with his sexual identity completely ended his life as he knew it, Ginsburg's mental struggles seem certain to put a pin into his once promising career. The shot of Peggy watching the man she hired, the man she once saw so much potential in, being wheeled out of the agency tied to a gurney was absolutely mortifying.

Nothing else in the episode matched the horror of Ginsburg's story, but there was also some notably odd behavior coming from Megan's side of the fence. We saw Anna Draper's niece Stephanie for the first time since her appearance in the Season 4 finale, seven months pregnant and in need of a home, or food, or anything. Don pawns her off to Megan, who is surprisingly cordial with him after their fallout a few episodes back. As Megan welcomes Stephanie into her hippie dream home, we find out why - Megan clearly still has strong feelings for Don despite the ruins their marriage is currently in, and she realizes that Stephanie is the only person left in this world who knows Dick Whitman and not Don Draper. That's precisely why Megan pawns her off with a $1000 check back to Oakland - I don't think Megan suspects that Stephanie and Don will ever actually do anything together, but Stephanie knows Don in a way Megan never can. And even though Megan's completely fed up with dealing with Don's knee-deep shit, there's still a a large part of her that wants this to work out somehow. Getting rid of Stephanie means that she can have a weekend with Don to herself, a weekend where she can show him that she has her own life outside of him and that she doesn't need him but that she still wants him. This is a contender for Jessica Pare's best episode yet, and the way she plays Megan's confused desperation is so brilliant that it makes the strange threeway scene between Don, Megan and her friend seem like a natural move, one that Megan has to do because she just doesn't even know what else to do. She doesn't know what Don wants. Don doesn't know what she wants. At this point, she will literally try anything, including allowing Don to be intimate with other women (while simultaneously being intimate with her). She thinks this will make her understand Don more, but then Stephanie calls the next morning and she realizes that as much as she knows Don, she'll never know Dick Whitman.

What threw me about this episode was that I wasn't sure how it all came together. The Runaways is a little shaggy in that regard - Ginsburg's descent into madness is traumatizing, but how does it relate to anything else that's happened this season? Megan's attempts to grasp Don back one last time are fascinating, but what purpose do they serve in the shows' larger narrative? Perhaps the answer can be found in the Betty storyline. Tonight's Betty storyline is one of the stronger ones she's had in a while, and I think this season is shaping up to be Betty's best season as Betty Francis yet. It's hard to feel for Betty much these days, but I truly did when Henry flipped out on her for daring to speak her opinion in front of their neighbors. Only Mad Men could make a character supporting the Vietnam War into the most sympathetic character of a storyline, but watching Betty still be marginalized by her husband even after she put some serious work into trying to better herself was really pretty rough. She may be a horrible mother who gives Bobby stomachaches all of the time, but doesn't she still deserve a voice? And maybe that's what this episode is shaping up to be - this season, even. We have so many characters who barely have a voice in anything that goes on in their lives, and we're getting to a point where they're finally ready to speak up even if their husband is telling them to shut up. Betty's going to run for office! (Except probably not. Hopefully not. That would terrible). Don is going to show he's still powerful by jumping over Lou and Cutler! And yet, sometimes that voice leads us to the wrong place - like poor Ginsburg's mental breakdown. But either way, we're reaching a point where that voice can't be quieted for much longer. And the results of that should prove to be interesting.