Mad Men Season 5 Episode 12 recap

These past few episodes have been hard to handle. The drama! The revelations! The feelings they make me feel! Spoilers abound.

This episode opens with Don and Lane being congratulated on their respective career successes. Following the signing of Jaguar, Don is not satisfied with the current direction the company is going in. He wants bigger, better, more. With Roger's help, they arrange a meeting with Firestone, where Don gives a pitch that's beyond assertive. It is in a bold, self-assured tone which proudly declares that he "won't settle for 50 percent of anything." There are more than a few references to consumerism in his pitch, which stands in stark contrast to Kinsey's hippie antics in the last episode. This pitch reeks of capitalism; strong ideas unwelcome in today's 99 percent world, perhaps. 

In a dramatic plot point, Lane is called out on his embezzling, and Don forces him to resign. Due to his failure at work and a rather detached relationship with his wife, Lane is pushed to suicide. Lane's marriage plays off Don's rather nicely; when Don comes home from work, he is comfortable telling Megan about Lane's misdemeanour, and she immediately sympathises with Don, to the extent of putting her own grouses on the back burner. Lane's wife, however, has bought him a new Jaguar, ignorant of the fact that Lane was very much in debt. She makes him take her out to dinner, and there is a marked disconnect in the way they communicate. Lane fails to have an open relationship with his wife, and he is unable to confide in her, while she incessantly places demands on him.

There is also a sad irony when Lane initially tries to gas himself out in a Jaguar, the very account that SCDP just signed. He fails at this, resorting instead to hang himself in his office. Work was all he lived for, and yet it was also his undoing. It's a rather macabre, vengeful move of his, to ensure that his colleagues discovered his body. The graphic depiction of his dead body underlies this fact. War veteran Don insists on carrying down the hanging corpse, and Lane's dead body literally physically confronts Don about its death. Obviously Don feels guilty, and it's very rare that this confident ad man shows remorse. He keeps a dead man's secret, though, and does not reveal to the rest of the office that Lane stole from the company. It might be to keep the dignified memory of Lane intact, but it is also partly to save himself from blame. 

Sally also does her share of personal growth in this episode, and establishes herself as a pre-teen who knows how to get what she wants. She stubbornly refuses to get out of a family ski trip and gets sent to her father's house for the weekend, only to come running back home when she gets her first period. Betty tells Megan that Sally "needs her mother" at this time, clearly marking her territorial boundaries. It establishes, for Betty, that there are some things that Megan cannot handle. Betty fulfills her nurturing role quite well, cuddling Sally and giving her daughter a hot water bottle. 

We are nearing the end of the season, and this episode has been pretty eventful. The writers have a lot to live up to for the season finale. Maybe another death? The SCDP offices have been quite the battleground this season.

gay stuff again.

so what that I'm not out to my parents?
why am I made to feel long-suffering and less-than for being closeted? I don't think it's a sad thing. I'm not sad. It's my own bloody decision not to tell my parents that I'm gay ok. It doesn't mean I live any less of a life. Thanks for your condescension.

I hate it when people pity me. Don't do it if you are at all intelligent, please.

Ever heard of cultural relativity?

aka do you know how screwed I would be if I came out to my parents? I don't necessarily want a rainbows and unicorns relationship with my parents. I don't think it'll ever happen. You can't force something to happen even if you want it to happen. The only way I know how to get along better with my parents is to listen to them and argue less and be a "better daughter", whatever the fuck that means. That usually works. This would mean not going to leakycon, taking summer classes in london, not going out with friends, not drinking, not doing anthropology and doing law or medicine or engineering or architecture instead, not reading fiction, applying to every fucking university my mum wants me to apply to, regardless of COUNTRY the university is in, (last week she was like, "oh, why don't you transfer to the university of chicago next year? why don't you transfer to SOAS next year?") not staying out after dark, not volunteering, not life modeling, not uploading videos of myself to youtube.

If I told them about my personal life and if I was gay, they would get angry, it would be something else for us to fight over, = not productive, yes? The less they know about me, the less they would get angry over, and the less stuff in my life not concerning them I would have to compromise over.

It just feels that every little thing that I enjoy doing and I do a lot of, my mum has to step in and tell me not to do it, or that it's bad to do it. Every time I have to make a decision concerning them, I have to have my mum to agree, then my dad. It's exhausting and annoying and troublesome to have to discuss everything with both of them, so I don't.

My therapist has said that like anything, my parents would need time to adjust to a change in my life, if I were to come out as gay. It is true, to a certain extent. For example, my parents took time to adjust to the fact that I'm mostly vegetarian, and six years on, they're okay with it, and my mum even looks out for food that I like to eat. She's tried food that she has been hesitant to try before, and buys food home even if my sister or my grandparents won't eat it.

But for other, I guess more crucial career/academic decisions, my dad especially is stubborn. When he came to visit me last, he kept asking me to "do something professional" and to "do something useful", and hasn't come around to me studying anthropology. I don't think he'll ever come around. It just feels very hurtful when it is implied that what I'm studying isn't useful, or that the 3 weeks of production running and stewarding is useless and a "waste of my time". bullshit. To feel that the hard work you do is seen as "nothing" is horrible.

I hate talking to my parents, now that I don't live with them. It makes me feel anxious and stressed. I don't want to make matters worse by bringing up something that will make conversations even more tense.

I'm also... scared to tell them about my personal life. I feel like I might get in trouble for it, and they'll be mad at me.

I don't want to feel forced to come out; I hate it. It's fucking ridiculous, though. This "coming out" shit is not even brought up when I hang out with other gay people in singapore. It's understood that parents are conservative, and there are just some things that some parents prefer not to know about their kids. Gayness is not usually something you'd talk about with your parents. I only feel forced to come out to my parents here in london/ when I was in the US for a while.