A total solar eclipse arrives midway through "Seven Twenty Three," and characters are warned repeatedly to not look directly at it. Betty tries and feels faint. Don puts on his sunglasses and waits for the sun to pass a bit before looking up, while Sally and Miss Farrell watch the eclipse from the safety of a cardboard camera obscura. And at other points in the episode, both Roger Sterling and Francine's husband Carlton talk about looking at the normal sun without any ill effects. And all throughout "Seven Twenty Three" (the title stands for the date on which Don signs his contract), characters are given the opportunity to directly face something they want, or something they fear. Some choose to stare into the sun, while others try looking indirectly, each with varying degrees of success.
The episode itself starts with the indirect approach, as we get glimpses of Betty, Peggy and Don in situations that won't explain themselves until much later in the hour. It's not really necessary - I'm not fond of non-chronological storytelling, or in media res openings, unless they reveal something that wouldn't have been apparent had the episode been told in a traditional way - but it at least sets the tone for another intense, unsettling episode.
"Seven Twenty Three" doesn't have the macabre comedy of "Guy Walks Into an Advertising Agency," nor does anyone lose a foot (and the ability to golf). But by episode's end, we may have witnessed a murder, because it feels like when Don signs that contract on 7/23, Dick Whitman dies.
And if that's the case, good riddance to bad rubbish.
Because most of Dick's appearances in the first two seasons were in situations where Jon Hamm got to play him as vulnerable, even tender (think Don-as-Dick in Anna Draper's house), it's easy to forget just what a bastard he is. He's the one who coldly stole the real Don Draper's life without thinking of the consequences, the one who chased away his own brother to protect his secret, the one who makes Don hold himself at such a crippling distance from his wife. And Dick Whitman is the one whose first impulse at a sign of trouble is to bail on everyone who cares about him. As Jon Hamm put it to me, "When Don's in trouble, Dick runs."
And in "Seven Twenty Three," forces conspire to keep Dick from running, maybe ever again. Sterling and Cooper have always indulged Don's refusal to work without a contract, looking the other away and allowing him to make his power play against Duck. But Conrad Hilton's lawyers force the firm to look directly at this particular quirk, and they realize that it's no longer acceptable. Cooper won't let Don avoid the confrontation, and when Don tries, Roger tries going around Don to Betty, who calls out her husband for his wanderlust - where, she rightly wonders, does he plan to be in the next three years that this is such a burden?
Don-as-Dick is not pleasant to watch in this one. Cornered, he lashes out in ugly fashion at Peggy (who's devastated by it) and then at Betty (who has learned how to fight with her husband), and I'm not sure the character has been any more unappealing than he is in those two scenes. Then he tries going hobo, but he can't even do that well anymore, as his getaway is interrupted by visions of Archie Whitman calling him out for what Don fears is an empty life ("What do you make? You make bulls--t!"), and as he winds up getting rolled by the two hitchhikers. Dick's supposed to be the hustler, not the victim.
The man Dick Whitman turned himself into is a master of the universe, capable of playing all the angles and finding a way to win the unlikeliest of victories. But here, we see other men sitting in Don's chair, putting him ill at ease and telling him how his life is going to be. Connie makes it clear that, however they bonded at the country club, he's going to dictate the terms of this relationship. And Bert Cooper turns out not to be the doddering eccentric we've taken him for, but an absolute killer. He's had the Dick Whitman card in his pocket since the end of season one, but he's declined to play it until now, going straight at Don with it, yet being elegant enough to phrase his attack in an oblique way. (He paraphrases a line he used on Don in last season's "The Gold Violin" about how he knows a little about him, then asks, "After all, when it comes down to it, who's really signing the contract, anyway?")
With no contract, Don has always had the ability to walk away from his job, and even from his life. That's gone now, at least for the next three years. He completely loses this fight, able only to divorce himself from Roger (who poked his nose into Don's private life one time too many), and he's stuck. Throughout "Seven Twenty Three," we see how Don/Dick behaves when there's even a threat of taking away his freedom. Now that it's gone, will things get even uglier? Or will rooting him to one place - and therefore making Dick Whitman irrelevant - allow him to finally accept that this is his life, and to maybe be content with that?
Whatever happens, we can now forget about the idea of Don leaving Sterling Cooper to open his own shop anytime soon (unless Weiner decides to throw us a curveball and opens season four sometime in 1966, as Don's contract is coming to an end). This is where he is, and he, the show and the viewers need to make peace with it.
Getting back to the direct vs. indirect approach, the episode's three lead characters each try a different strategy in dealing with business and with potential romantic partners.
Betty, having realized that the baby isn't going to fix her marriage, is eager for the opportunity to do business with the very interested Henry Francis (who touched her belly at the same party where Don met Connie), and she and Henry flirt with each other without either one coming right out and admitting that they want to jump the other's bones. The closest they come is when Betty calls Henry out for knowing in advance that he wouldn't have time to see the endangered reservoir, and he cleverly changes the subject to the fainting couch in the furniture store window. And Betty, interested but maybe not ready for another affair just yet, can at least buy the couch so she can lie on it and fantasize about him (while looking like a character out of a Renaissance painting).
It's unclear whether Don is actually trying to flirt with Miss Farrell or if he's just making conversation, but things get frosty when she cuts right through all the talk about vacations to accuse him of hitting on her like every other dad. Between her behavior in the classroom, the drunk-dialing episode and now this, sometime tells me that Abigail Spencer is once again playing a role that needs to be measured on the Crazy/Hot scale. But even if she's as cuckoo bananas as I fear, her forthrightness clearly appealed to Don; if he wasn't interested before their conversation began, he is now. And this won't end well for anyone involved, least of all poor Sally.
Peggy tries the indirect approach with Don about the Hilton account, and he sees right through it. This is the second time this season she's had the bad timing to go see him after he had a bad meeting with one of his bosses, and it's just brutal to see Don be that cruel to Peggy, even if he does have a point about her ambition.
And just as Don chewing out Pete in last season's "Flight 1" (after a similar case of poor timing) drove Pete to become Duck's acolyte, Peggy goes to Duck's hotel suite. Duck - who has never had a problem being direct - tries to give her a glimpse of "what opportunity looks like," but she has to look away. And having never looked in Peggy's direction during their time at Sterling Cooper, Duck finds he can't stop looking at her now. Though the Peggy/Duck hookup comes from out of the blue, it makes sense in the moment. Peggy has only ever been with boys like Pete and the college kid, who don't know what they want and/or need Peggy to take the lead. Duck is a man, one who knows what he wants and can describe it in detail to Peggy. As with the Don/Miss Farrell flirtation, this will not end well - Duck is always too impulsive (he sees what he wants and goes after it), and the way he talked about loving the taste of liquor on Peggy's breath doesn't speak well to the long-term prospects for his sobriety - but at the moment I'd prefer not to look straight at that probability for the time being, and instead look around to the more immediate questions. Will Peggy be smart enough to realize that taking the Grey job now would be a big mistake? Will she feel so close to Duck now that she won't be able to resist it? And either way, how will Don and/or Pete react when they find out?
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Recap courtesy of What's Alan Watching at http://sepinwall.blogspot.com
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