The Rejected (S4x04)
Airdate: 15 August 2010
Written by: Keith Huff & Matthew Weiner
Directed by: John Slattery
Running Time: 48 minutes
The fourth season of Mad Men arrived with considerable baggage. Following three seasons of near-flawless television that had redefined the prestige drama landscape, the show’s return in November 1974 found the creative team attempting to venture into the new landscape at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce while simultaneously dealing with the narrative consequences of Don Draper’s increasingly self-destructive behaviour. The season’s early episodes maintained the generally high standard of craft that Matthew Weiner’s series had established, but something was subtly amiss. The “wham bang” classic moments—those indelible scenes that fans rewatch obsessively, the episodes that appear on every “best of” list—were strangely absent. The Rejected (S4x04) exemplifies this problem perfectly. It is an episode that generally works, that advances character arcs competently, and that contains moments of genuine insight. Yet few fans would remember it at all if not for the offscreen fact that it represented the directorial debut of John Slattery, one of the most beloved members of the cast. That an episode’s primary claim to memorability is a piece of production trivia speaks volumes about its place in the Mad Men canon.
Written by Matthew Weiner and Chicago playwright Keith Huff, The Rejected announces its thematic concerns through its title, which operates on two distinct levels within the narrative. The first and most emotionally resonant meaning concerns Allison, Don Draper’s loyal secretary, who finally breaks down over his mishandling of their one-night stand in Christmas Comes But Once a Year. Her rejection is both professional and personal—she has been discarded as a lover and, when she attempts to maintain dignity, finds that her position as his secretary has become untenable. The second meaning is more literal and is introduced through the new character of Joyce Ramsay (played with brittle energy by Zosia Mamet), an assistant photo editor at Life Magazine who meets Peggy Olson in the elevator and shows her some nude photographs that her friend submitted and the magazine rejected. This dual meaning is clever in conception, but the execution feels somewhat forced. Joyce’s function in the episode is primarily to serve as a gateway into Peggy’s burgeoning bohemian social life, and the “rejected” photographs are more a plot device than a genuinely integrated thematic element.
The main storyline, however, belongs to Pete Campbell, and it is here that the episode finds its strongest material. Lane Pryce gives Pete the rather unpleasant task of informing his father-in-law, Tom Vogel, that SCDP must drop the Clearasil account because of a conflict of interest arising from their new campaign for Ponds. The meeting does not go as planned, but the disruption comes from unexpectedly good news: Tom blurts out that his daughter Trudy is pregnant and that Pete is going to be a father. Pete, caught off guard, initially does not want to spoil the man’s happiness by delivering bad news. Later, following a conversation with his old friend and former colleague Ken Cosgrove, he decides to leverage this strengthening family connection to make Tom bring him all the other accounts from Vicks. This is vintage Pete Campbell—ambitious, calculating, and utterly incapable of experiencing genuine emotion without immediately converting it into professional advantage. Vincent Kartheiser delivers a performance that manages to make Pete simultaneously sympathetic and repellent, and Slattery’s direction allows the actor the space to find the nuances in the character’s conflicted response to impending fatherhood.
The Ponds account, on the other hand, indirectly leads to Don losing his secretary. Dr. Faye Miller has decided to use the young secretaries at SCDP as a focus group to determine how women assess their beauty. The session collapses into rants about men and marriage prospects, and Allison breaks down, being painfully reminded of her affair with Don. Peggy tries to console her, but this only makes Allison hostile, as she assumes that Peggy has also slept with Don—an assumption that reveals much about Don’s reputation within the office. Allison finally comes to Don’s office and announces that she cannot work for him any longer, leaving for a new job at a woman’s magazine. Don’s attempt to smooth things over only leads to a violent outburst, and he is later punished by Joan, who finds a replacement for Allison in the form of the elderly Ida Blankenship (Randee Heller). The incident also makes Don hostile towards Dr. Miller, whom he accuses of focusing her research on marriage, dismissively calling it “1925.” This subplot is effective in its deconstruction of Don’s character, but it also feels somewhat rushed. The focus group scene, while dramatically potent, relies on a degree of coincidence that strains credulity, and Allison’s departure, while emotionally justified, happens so quickly that it lacks the weight it might have carried with more careful pacing.
The news about Pete becoming a father makes Peggy reminisce about their past relationship and realise how much they have changed over the years and how different their paths have become. Peggy gave up her child to focus on her career, earning success and the freedom to indulge in beatnik parties. Joyce brings her to one such gathering, where she makes her smoke marijuana and, being a lesbian, makes a pass at her. Peggy instead sets her sights on Joyce’s friend, an aspiring writer named Abe Drexler (played by Charles Hofheimer), with whom she shares a kiss while hiding from police during a raid. The episode ends with the close of the day at SCDP, where Peggy and Pete take different paths—she goes to a party with her bohemian friends, while he socialises with elderly and powerful businessmen. This contrast is well-drawn, but the beatnik party sequence feels somewhat clichéd, as if the writers were checking off a list of “1960s counterculture” signifiers rather than creating a genuinely lived-in milieu.
John Slattery does a solid job in his directorial debut. Obviously having learned a great deal from observing directors during his years in front of the camera, he allows the otherwise pedestrian plot to move smoothly and incorporates a few innovative shots and attempts at humour—such as the scene when Peggy tries to spy on Don through his office window. He also draws a strong performance from Vincent Kartheiser, who continues to make Pete Campbell one of the most fascinatingly awful characters on television. Slattery’s direction is competent rather than inspired, but for a first effort, it demonstrates a solid understanding of the show’s visual language.
The episode is notable for its continual deconstruction of Don Draper. Allison lashes out at him for “not being a good person,” and this is an assessment with which most audience members would agree at this point in the series. The episode, however, suggests that Don might attempt some sort of redemption, and this is shown in the scene where he types an apology letter to Allison. But the inspiration, due to his emotional and alcohol-fuelled issues, fails him. The letter remains unfinished, a testament to his inability to follow through on even the most basic gestures of human decency.
Finally, the episode suffers from being set in a period in the middle of the 1960s that was somehow stuck between the iconic Camelot years and the chaos near the end of the decade. There is a lack of grand historical events that could be used as time-setting anchors, and the closest Season 4 comes by this point is the use of the Malcolm X assassination in February 1965. The Rejected feels adrift in time, a competent but ultimately unremarkable episode that advances character arcs without ever achieving the transcendence of the series’ best work. It is the definition of a solid, forgettable entry—and for a show of Mad Men’s calibre, that is perhaps the harshest criticism of all.
RATING: 6/10 (++)
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