Collaborators (S6x03)
Airdate: 14 April 2013
Written by: Jonathan Igla Matthew Weiner
Directed by: Jon Hamm
Running Time: 48 minutes
Much like other distinguished long-running dramas, Mad Men established a rather agreeable tradition of allowing its prominent cast members to try their hand behind the camera. The precedent was set in the fourth season when John Slattery, who portrays the irrepressible Roger Sterling, took the directorial reins for The Rejected—an episode that demonstrated his keen visual eye and understanding of the show's rhythms. Slattery would subsequently direct four more episodes, proving himself a natural fit for the series' aesthetic. Following in his colleague's footsteps, Jon Hamm—whose performance as Don Draper forms the very backbone of the programme—was granted his own directing opportunity in Season Five with Tea Leaves. That episode, whilst somewhat uneven, suggested genuine potential behind the camera. Collaborators, Hamm's sophomore effort as director, arrives with considerable anticipation, offering a chance to see whether his initial foray was mere beginner's fortune or evidence of genuine directorial capability.
Written by Jonathan Igla and series creator Matthew Weiner, Collaborators is situated in late January and early February 1968, a particularly turbulent juncture in American history. The episode is structured around three major narrative threads, each exploring different facets of betrayal, professional compromise, and the increasingly porous boundaries between public and private life.
The first storyline centres on Pete Campbell, whose suburban existence in Cos Cob, Connecticut, provides the setting for one of the episode's most uncomfortable sequences. During a social gathering with neighbours, Pete finds himself in one room whilst his wife Trudy entertains guests in another. The scene is charged with unspoken tensions: two men shamelessly flirt with Trudy, who does her utmost to deflect their advances with characteristic grace, whilst Pete engages in similarly brazen flirtation with two of their wives. The contrast between Trudy's demure resistance and Pete's enthusiastic pursuit of extramarital distraction speaks volumes about their deteriorating marriage. One of these women, Brenda (Collette Wolfe), agrees to a tryst at Pete's Manhattan flat—a decision that will have devastating consequences.
Trudy learns of the affair in the most humiliating manner imaginable. One evening, Brenda appears at the Campbells' door wearing nothing but a nightgown, bloodied and beaten, whilst her husband yells from the outside that she is "Campbell's problem now." It is a grotesque spectacle that transforms Pete's private indiscretion into public scandal. Trudy responds with characteristic dignity, driving Brenda to a local hotel despite Pete and Brenda's objections to involving the authorities. Her subsequent confrontation with Pete is masterfully underplayed—she informs him calmly that she will no longer tolerate his adulteries occurring within her vicinity and promptly expels him from the family home. It is a watershed moment for the character, one that Vincent Kartheiser and Alison Brie play with devastating restraint.
This domestic catastrophe is deliberately juxtaposed with Don's continuing affair with Sylvia Rosen, which grows increasingly complicated when Megan accidentally encounters Sylvia in the laundry room and confides that she has suffered a miscarriage. The situation escalates when Megan, claiming illness, declines to join the Rosens for dinner, leaving Don in the excruciating position of dining with his mistress and her husband. When Dr. Rosen is summoned to the hospital, Don and Sylvia find themselves alone at the restaurant—a moment fraught with illicit possibility that culminates in another sexual encounter. Later, Megan confesses her miscarriage to Don, prompting a conversation about whether they actually desire children. The scene is handled with Weiner's characteristic refusal to provide easy answers; these are two people speaking past one another, their marriage sustained by performance rather than genuine connection.
The third narrative strand concerns Peggy Olson and the increasingly cutthroat world of New York advertising. At SCDP, the firm maintains a successful and lucrative account with Heinz, specifically advertising their Baked Beans. The expectation is that this relationship will expand to include Heinz Ketchup, but Raymond Geiger, the Heinz executive overseeing Baked Beans, makes plain his opposition to this development. His animosity stems from personal dislike of Timmy Jablonski (Kip Pardue), the young Heinz executive responsible for Ketchup. Don, much to his partners' frustration, sides with Geiger, unwilling to risk alienating a valuable existing client. The conflict reaches Peggy's ears at CGC through Stan Rizzo, and when Ted Chaough learns of the situation, he sees an opportunity to poach the Heinz account. Peggy's resistance to this scheme—she views it as both unethical and a personal betrayal of her former SCDP colleagues—demonstrates how far she has travelled morally since her early days at the firm, even as it places her in an impossible professional position.
A fourth storyline involves Herb Rennet, the Jaguar sales executive whose unsavoury arrangement with Joan secured SCDP the life-saving Jaguar account. Herb's arrival at the office, proposing a shift from national to regional advertising strategy to bolster his own sales figures and corporate influence, creates immediate tension. Don's barely concealed contempt for Herb—knowing full well how the account was truly won—makes for excruciating viewing. During their meeting, Don appears to accept Herb's proposal and even offers to pitch it, yet he does so in a manner deliberately calculated to repel the other British Jaguar executives, effectively sabotaging Herb's plans whilst maintaining plausible deniability. It is vintage Don Draper: ruthless, strategic, and morally reprehensible.
The episode incorporates flashbacks to Don's youth as Dick Whitman, depicting his life shortly after his father's death when his pregnant mother was forced to seek employment in a brothel. These sequences, the first set in this period since Season Three's Babylon, feature Brandon Killham reprising his role as young Dick. The actor's visible ageing creates unfortunate continuity issues—he appears substantially older than he did three years prior, despite playing the same character at roughly the same age. It is a rare misstep in a series usually meticulous about such details.
Weiner and Igla anchor their narrative firmly in its historical moment through references to the USS Pueblo incident, the Tet Offensive, and Johnny Carson's interview with Jim Garrison, the Louisiana district attorney who claimed to have uncovered conspiracy in the Kennedy assassination. More intriguing still are the references to Hair, the counterculture musical that the seemingly conventional women of Cos Cob profess to admire even as they flirt with Pete. This enthusiasm is ironically juxtaposed with hints that their husbands harbour desires to skinny-dip with Trudy in the pool—suggesting an appetite for the Sexual Revolution's new freedoms that apparently extends only to male prerogatives. When one of those husbands discovers his wife has exercised similar liberties with Pete, his violent response exposes the hypocrisy underlying this supposed liberation.
In terms of long-term narrative significance, it is telling that both Pete's and Don's adulteries occur within their immediate neighbourhoods, and that one of these transgressions ends catastrophically for a cheating husband. The episode suggests that the walls between professional and domestic spheres are collapsing, with consequences that none of these characters can fully anticipate or control.
Collaborators is, ultimately, a very good episode indeed. Hamm demonstrates considerable growth as a director, handling the multiple storylines with confidence and extracting strong performances from his cast. Whilst he lacks Slattery's natural visual flair and occasionally stumbles with the flashback sequences and non-linear narrative elements, he delivers a thoroughly satisfying piece of television drama. It is rather a shame that he did not pursue further directing opportunities on the series; on this evidence, he had genuine potential that went largely untapped.
RATING: 7/10 (+++)
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