“You’re not Don Draper.” – Anna Draper
“The Gold Violin” is the seventh episode of Mad Men Season 2. What’s new and what’s happening?
- Prompted by Roger, Don visits a high-end Chevrolet dealership. By the episode’s end, he pays for a brand-new Coupe de Ville in cash and drives it home.
- The car stuff leads to a flashback from 1950, where Don is a young, hustling used car dealer in smalltown Pennsylvania. This is where Anna Draper, the “real” Don Draper’s widow, enters Dick Whitman’s life. She recognizes immediately that “this Don” is hiding something about her husband, and our guy pretty quickly comes clean… or at least a version of coming clean (read = our guy has a way of selling everyone around him on versions of his life or pitches he’s trying to sell) about what happened during the Korean War and afterward. Incredibly, Anna and Don eventually enter into an incredibly warm and close platonic relationship.
- Back at Sterling Cooper, Roger begins to get into a flirty relationship with Don’s “new girl,” Jane Siegel (Peyton List).
- Harry brags to the gang that he’s going to meet one-on-one with Bert Cooper to talk about accounting matters, and immediately is confronted with the dilemma that Bert’s new painting, a Mark Rothko, is rumored to be worth $10,000 (over $100,000 in today’s dollars). Jane then organizes a little mischief – sneaking into Bert’s office after hours to simply look at the painting – that ends up having somewhat drastic repercussions: 1) Joan fires Jane when she finds out 2) a teary Jane says goodbye to Roger, “box of things” in hand, which leads to Roger reversing Joan’s decision… and eventually leads to Roger leaving his wife, Mona, to marry Jane.
- Sal agrees to read Ken’s latest short story (which gives the episode its title) and in exchange invites him over to have dinner with him and his wife, Kitty (Sarah Drew). The dinner scene and its aftermath is painful because we know that Sal is a deeply closeted gay man who is clearly under the spell of the charming, oblivious Kenny. And we also realize that while Kitty may not know exactly what’s going on with her otherwise good-natured, well-mannered husband, she knows something’s up.
- Bert and Roger reward Don (but not Duck) for winning the Martinson account: he’s invited to join the board of the Museum of Early American Folk Arts. Bert explains that Don will be “wearing his tuxedo a lot more” to help represent Sterling Cooper among New York City’s high society. “Philanthropy is the gateway to power,” Bert adds.
- Don takes the family out in the new Chevy for a side of the highway picnic on a gorgeous day. What should be an idyllic scene becomes one of the most shockingly hilarious scenes in Mad Men’s entire run. When Don rushes the family back to the car to head home, he hurls his empty beer can onto the pristine field (and who knows how many he’s put down before getting behind the wheel, only a few episodes removed from almost killing himself and Bobbie Barrett in a major DUI incident) and Betty literally tosses their trash on the grass before leaving. The camera lingers on the now trash-strewn scene, and we’re left to consider that every roadside scene was pristine once upon a time.
- Jimmy Barrett calls Betty to invite her and Don to The Stork Club to celebrate Grin & Barrett getting picked up for 39 episodes. At the event, it’s the happiest we’ve ever seen Betty as she’s proud of her husband and feels like she’s starting to become more integrated into his life… right up to the moment when Jimmy proverbially gut punches her with his strong suspicion that Bobbie has been having an affair with Don.
Mad Men, “The Gold Violin”: do we meet anyone new?
- Wayne Kirby, the Chevy salesman, is played by Drew Wicks, a terrific character actor.
- Anna Draper is played by Melinda Page Hamilton, and she’s spectacular in every moment she gets on the show, sprinkled across Seasons 2 through 4.
Mad Men, “The Gold Violin”: other doings on the advertising side of the show
- Martinson Coffee has dropped the “s” from their brand, and is looking for new creative. Enter young Kurt (Edin Gali) and Smitty (Patrick Kavanaugh), who come in with a Latin-flavored jingle. It’s quite catchy – and bursting with early counterculture vibes. The younger generation “doesn’t want to be told what to do; they just want to be,” Smitty proclaims. “It’s a song and mood and a feeling,” he later says during the pitch, which ends up helping to land a new client for Sterling Cooper.
Things you notice after watching the entire Mad Men series a bunch of times
- Don and cars is a running theme and relationship that runs throughout the series. There are even times when you see Don either sorely tempted to bail out of his current circumstances (in Season 4) or flat out become immersed (near the very end of the series) – both times in California – in a completely different lifestyle that involves cars.
- As I often note, I would have loved to see more about Don’s life between the point he meets Anna through to his meeting and entering into a relationship with Betty.
- Roger tells Jane that he’ll handle Joan with regard to getting her job back, and then does zero to follow through on this. Jane does retain her job based on Joan’s awareness that Roger got involved though. A very similar scenario happens much later in the series involving Roger, with Don as the one looking to reclaim his job.
- Roger can be professional and focused… when he chooses to be, as with handling Don’s upgraded status with the firm.
- When Ken forgets his lighter in Sal’s apartment, Sal holds onto it as a keepsake of sorts. In Season 6, a lighter becomes a significant prop again, related to a Vietnam serviceman that Don meets in Hawaii while on a business trip for Royal Hawaiian.
Mad Men, “The Gold Violin”: odds and ends
- Although her stint on Don’s desk doesn’t last that long, it seems like Jane was handling her secretarial duties quite ably – extracurricular activities not withstanding, of course.
- Bert’s Asian-themed office is pretty spectacular.
- We find out that Ken lives in Murray Hill, a Manhattan neighborhood that would later become a hangout for finance bros.
- Jimmy and Betty are terrific together. It’s sad that Jimmy’s time on Mad Men is growing short after this episode. “The drunker you are, the funnier I become,” he tells her.
- The episode ends on several bummer notes: Sal staring at Ken’s lighter longingly, and Betty gets sick in the car driving home with Don (a bookend to her tearing up and saying “I’m so happy” to Don in the car a few episodes earlier.
Mad Men, “The Gold Violin”: fun quotes
- “You’re not Don Draper.” – Anna Draper
- “Call me from jail.” – Paul Kinsey
- “You’re not like everyone else around here.” – Ken to Sal
- “Stick to numbers and avoid thinks that will give you a headache.” – Bert to Harry
- “It’s time for the horse to catch the carrot.” – Bert to Don
- “Jane on Jane St. That’s a pretty picture.” – Roger
- “It’s perfect in every way, except that it can’t make music.” – Ken, on the gold violin
- “Are we rich?” – Sally
- “Do you even see me here?” – Kitty to Sal
- “You people are ugly and rude.” – Betty… “What people, you mean comedians?” – Jimmy
- “You’re garbage, and you know it.” – Jimmy to Don
Some stats and info about Mad Men, “The Gold Violin”
TV SHOW – Mad Men
SEASON/EPISODE – Season 2, Episode 7
AIRED ON – September 7th, 2008
NETWORK/STREAMING SERVICE – FX
GENRE – Drama, Relationship Shows, Office Culture, Period Shows
CREATED BY – Mathew Weiner
CAST – Jon Hamm, Elisabeth Moss, Vincent Kartheiser, January Jones, Christina Hendricks, Aaron Staton, Rich Sommer, John Slattery, Kiernan Shipka, Robert Morse, Christopher Stanley, Jessica Pare, Jay R. Ferguson, Michael Gladis, Bryan Batt, Alison Brie, Jared Harris, Kevin Rahm, Mason Cotton, Ben Feldman, Mark Moses, Anne Dudek, Maggie Siff, Joel Murray, Harry Hamlin, Talia Balsam, James Wolk
This review originally appeared on TV Geek Army.