Mad Men - S5E13 - The Phantom

With two huge episodes before this one it is not surprising that “The Phantom” lacked a lot of big moments that we expect from the season finale of “Mad Men.” Instead we get a nice character piece. A large portion of this episode focused on Pete and his continued adventures with his mistress. It turns out that she is going to get shock therapy to help with her depression. She believes that she has found a kindred spirit in Pete as someone else that cannot be happy. But she’s wrong as he believes that he can be happy if he is with her. After the shock therapy, she no longer remembers Pete though. It is revealed later that her husband makes her do this every time she cheats on him. The ensuing fight on the train leads Trudy to let Pete get what he has wanted, an apartment in the city. Finally Pete gets what he wants just to have something that he actually cared about ripped away.


We also get a nice little check in with Peggy. It’s quite a different experience with her boss who wants her to do anything to land a client instead of Don who would look at the merit of the creativity as a means of landing a client. She is of course put on what will be named Virginia Slims and their future tagline, “You’ve come a long way baby.” Something that Peggy can relate too. The closing shot at the end shows that even though she has moved forward she still has a long way to go before she’s truly arrived and sees an Eiffel Tower out her window instead of two dogs having sex.

Roger had a minor story as well as he was able to bed Megan’s mother and tried to convince her to take LSD with him. She refused, but he was insistent on regaining the clarity and optimism that he had lost since last taking the drug. The ending shot clearly indicates that he has again tried the drug. Meanwhile Megan was being exceptionally pouty about not landing any acting gigs. She wines and complains until she finally gets Don to help her, sacrificing her marriage to help her career.

As for Don, he continued to struggle with Lane’s suicide since it so closely mirrored what happened to his half-brother during the first season. In fact it affected him so much that he began to see his brother everywhere. After trying to make things right with Lane’s wife and refusing to help Megan, with a perfectly reasonable explanation, all while suffering with a tooth ache he finally visits the dentist and while he is under sees his brother again who promises to help him remove the pain, but also promises that he will still be ‘hanging’ around. The whole experience and a quick meeting with Peggy that helps him clear out the cobwebs, inspires him to help Megan. But as Peggy told him, when you help someone they move on, and once Don helps Megan with her career, she will move on. As he walks away, you can see that their relationship is now over. She may still be around, but it won’t be the same any more. And if him walking away from Megan isn’t enough, the smile he gives when the young ladies hit on him should be more than enough to signal that Don is back on the market looking for someone new.

This season on “Mad Men” has been different. I’m used to a nice slow burn from a television series that doesn’t feel like TV. This year more than any other felt like regular television. Maybe it’s just that they’ve been away for a while and the bar has been raised, but I don’t feel like this was the same as previous seasons. That doesn’t mean we didn’t get great character development or great stories. It was just easier. I’m used to working to enjoy “Mad Men” and I liked that. We have a year to wait to see if this is a pattern or something that Weiner had planned to bring into focus how the final two season will need to play out.