Mad About ‘Mad Men’ season 7, episode 9: The Megan – Diana dichotomy

The ladies in Don Draper’s life are enough to fill an entire season on “The Bachelorette.” Some of them we have come to know a whole lot about, whereas others are little more than a face, a name, some sort of atmospheric presence that represents a certain time in his life.

Diana is something different. She would have to be in order for us to get the chance to meet her this late in the “Mad Men” endgame, which is around the time when you would think that they would be devoting more of their time to trying to tie up loose ends than they would be introducing someone new into the world? Diana is different than most. Betty was someone who tried to hide her insecurities and her pain, and they would mostly manifest through the worlds and perceptions of other characters. You would see through Sally, for example, how terrible a mother she could be. Megan, meanwhile, is someone who shows almost no pain at all. Even in her early days she was put-together, and holds herself to a reasonably high level of self-esteem. The most embarrassing thing we’ve seen her do was “Zou Bisou Bisou,” but that may have been cool at the time.

So where is Diana in all of this? The waitress is almost entirely pain. She owns it, expresses it, and shows how little she has. She lost one child, abandoned another, and is willing to have sex for a price and shows up to a stranger’s house. Heck, any stranger now can be involved in a wine-spilling incident without repercussion, and not chastised in any manner.

The obvious question here is why. Why would millionaire Don Draper be interested in a woman already so hung up on despair? The only answer we can muster here is that perhaps he is hung up on his own despair, and he looks at her almost as his escape. It is akin to when you watch a trainwreck movie to forget about the problems in your own life. Don wants to forget; with Diana, he has a focus. In a way, you saw this in how little he seemed to care about dishing a million dollars to Megan, in comparison to doing almost everything in his power to make Diana stay. Despite her protests, we do think that we will see her again. When we do, we will just have to figure out who is the one truly in need.

(Note: We produce these “Mad About Mad Men” pieces every Saturday in lieu of any new, substantial scoop on the show’s upcoming episode. You can head over here to read more “Mad Men” updates, or sign up to get other TV news via our CarterMatt Newsletter.) (Photo: AMC.)