‘Mad Men’ season 6, episode 12 reflection: Jon Hamm on Don ‘humiliating’ Ted

If Don Draper is unhappy, then no one can be happy. If there is one thing that we could take easily from Sunday night’s “Mad Men” episode, it is this. While the character could have easily found another way around addressing the budget problems with the St. Joseph’s ad that Ted and Peggy have designed, he decided that not-so-desperate times call for drastic measures: Basically, he nearly set Ted up to fall on his face during a discussion with a client.

So why do this? As Jon Hamm explains in the video below, it comes from a number of places. On one side of the coin, it’s a place of frustration over watching his own life fall apart. Sally Draper is leaving for boarding school to get away from him, and he is the only person who knows why. He tries to justify this pain at work by saying that he is “looking out for the agency,” when instead it’s really yet another attempt to put someone in place and claim some sort of a power position for himself.

As for some other subjects tackled in the video, they include Betty coming to the realization that Sally hates Don way more than she hates her, Pete’s submission to the no-longer-as-mysterious man known as Bob Benson, and the issue of how these characters will process everything emotionally leading up to the finale.

It’s an interesting position that we find ourselves in right now as we haven’t loved this season, but yet we still find ourselves very excited to see what happens next week. Maybe it’s just evidence that even a subpar “Mad Men” is still better than 95% of the shows that are currently on TV.

Why do you think Ted remains the office punching bag, and is there any way that Don can redeem himself without disclosing his secret? If you want to read our full review for Sunday’s episode, all you have to do is click here.

Photo: AMC