Excellent analysis! One quibble: Do we really, unequivocally, know that "Don’s favor is motivated by his selfish desire to recapture his neighbor’s wife as a sexual conquest?" I see it as more complex than that, and as perhaps the one "favor" in the episode that is least clearly simply part of an exchange. Surely this selfish motivation is part of it, but can we not grant the possibility that, at some level, Don genuinely wants to help--partly to help Arnold (out of guilt over Sylvia but also out of the common experience of being a father, however poor a father Don is), partly to help Sylvia (because, in his own way, he genuinely cares about her)?

Thanks very much MKB and welcome to Kritik!

I had exactly the same thought at Keith--it seems to be done much more out of Don's love for Sylvia, rather than in the expectation of any sexual rewards.

Also, my favorite scene was actually the early one in the restaurant, which both humanized Pete and made him likeable for once, which I had never expected would happen.

Thanks Andrei and welcome to Kritik! I liked that restaurant scene as well.

I have some thought too on your point and MKB's but would like to hear Corey's reply first.

Unless stated outright, motive is of course difficult to ascertain for any fictional character, especially one as careful to hide his thoughts as Don Draper (who is, of course always at some level busy hiding the fact that he isn't really Don Draper). Does he love Sylvia? I don't know: what textual evidence would support that for me? Does he feel guilt regarding his adultery? I think only insofar he feels guilt about deceiving Arnold, who Don seems to have genuine respect and affection for. It does seem to me I could clarify that what Don seeks is not just sex from Sylvia, but the control he lost in that relationship, which, typically, Don views as sexual control, as Sylvia's availability on his terms and when he desires. It's harder for me to see him acting out of genuine paternal feelings: Sylvia calls him on that claim, and he doesn't protest. When Arnold asks Don what he would do, Don tellingly asks if it the question refers to him or his kids, and his response is about himself. When he notes that he's lucky his boys are too young for him to worry about the draft at the GM dinner, that sounds like something he knows he doesn't have to concern himself with than something he genuinely projects as a fear. So I'm willing to recognize complex and contradictory motives in Don's action, but not much generosity or empathy. Again, I think he is driven by attempts to control his world, and that often mainfests as sexual control.

Some typos/missing words there, but perhaps the gist of my thoughts is clear. Jump in, Lauren!

I think it is clear that Sylvia is different than Don's other affairs, and that he is at least partly seeking in this one the loving mother that he lacked as a child. In that sense, he is seeking a situation in which, for once, he doesn't have to try to be in control. [For evidence that she is a mother figure, in addition to the fact that she IS a mother and is older than his other lovers,look back to episode 6.8, which contains a complex of mother images, as when the woman in Don's oatmeal ad (the "mother" who "knows what you need") was clearly modeled by Don on the prostitute Aimee. That episode establishes Sylvia's status as a mother figure for Don, thus helping to explain his difficulty in letting go of her. Also note how Don and Sylvia, when Sally catches them, are in exactly the same position in which young Don/Dick had observed his stepmother and the bordello manager. MAD MEN loves echoes like that ...]

Corey, first let me thank you so much for joining this series! I am so very appreciative. And welcome again to those reading and posting on Kritik for the first time.

On the question of Don's motives: I would say I agree entirely with both positions! That is, Don's way of loving is entirely selfish (what love boils down to in the infantile sense). I am called back to Rachel Menken's epiphany when Don invites her to run off to LA with him in S1. "You don't want to run away with me; you just want to run away." Although he is in many ways a romantic, even noble sometimes, his way of loving the "other women" in his life amplifies the way in which all love is a kind of fantasy of what another is doing for us (cf. Bob Benson's insight).

It's a cliche no doubt but Don uses the women in his life to take the place of a core emptiness (all those flashbacks to poor motherless Dick)--an emptiness exacerbated by the traumas du jour (in this season work pressures, the pressures of aging, the pressures of the merger, the pressures of feeling guilty about and then rejected by Sylvia). When Megan broke the spell by leaving advertising for "her dream" at the end of S5 Don needed to invest some female beloved to fill his wound. So I think for him their affair is about that sensation of filling rather than the sexual gratification per se or even power for its own sake (I'd say that what Corey is calling control and what I am calling filling the wound are the pretty much the same thing.)

I do think that Don respects Arnold and feels guilty about it. He is not precisely Arnold's "friend" because Don doesn't really have any friends (as Ted intuits).

I think this season is interesting in doubling Don with some new characters who are somewhat more likeable than the usual Mad Men crew: one of whom is Arnold and the other Ted. One of the things I find interesting about Ted is how much he gets off on competing with Don. He seemed completely satisfied with himself in having been able to get Don (as he sees it) to acquiesce. Don was not aware that there was any "war" going on as such; it was business as usual from his view. But Ted is so happy, he can finally go home and play with his kids. If Don could get something that strong out of competing with men professionally he would probably be a better husband and father--and a more reliable ad man.

Others have commented this season that Sylvia is special because she is older. But Bobbie Barrett was even older (certainly in relation to Don's age at the time and probably slightly older than Sylvia is now) and was also a mother who talked a lot about her kids. To me, Sylvia's age is important because she's just about Don's age: that is to say, something like an equal. That's part of the reason why she reminds me most of Rachel. (That and because she is married to a Jewish doctor.)

Finally Don is hooked on Sylvia because she doesn't love him: because, as she admitted, she didn't feel anything with him. She used him for her pleasure in other words. She out-Donned Don. That he would want her all the more for her no loving him was Betty's insight this season.

Corey I liked your thought at the end about the 1960s. It strikes me that MM is so much better this season when it stays aloof from politics qua politics and history qua history.

I liked the restaurant scene too. I agree that Don loves other people to love himself. Thanks for the great blog (and v. good comments too).

Funny Bush reference too.

The Bush reference is not JUST funny. Remember that it was 1968 when W joined the Air National Guard ...

Yes, I agree M. Keith Booker. The date is exactly right.

This was an altogether great post—I especially appreciate that you bring in Derrida's analysis of the "impossible gift" and show how this notion structures the episode (and yet, you manage to keep it easy and straightforward throughout). I'm inclined in MKB's direction, however, in ascribing just slightly more complex motivations to Don—but then so very, very happy to see you ask what the textual evidence for believing in those more complex motivations (not just manipulation) might be. I would say that MM usually signals that kind of dramatic irony (say, one character manipulating another) pretty clearly, and that doesn't happen here; for both Don and Sylvia, the motivations behind Don's act remain somewhat ambivalent. My friend Todd McGowan and I might be inclined to suggest that this is yet another form of personal/professional suicide for Don; it's perhaps reminiscent of Pete's offer to help the au pair with her stained dress, which initially appears altruistic, and only later appears sordid and coercive. Not with Pete, but with Don, I have to wonder if the sordid follow-up is not a way for him to mask his altruism, his selflessness which is also away for him to eliminate his self.

PS. I remain convinced that Bob is a space alien or an assassin or a spy. I see him, like Milton from Office Space, simply burning down SC&Co. at the end of the season.

Funny Rob - in my house we were talking about how there are never too many additional shoes to drop on Bob B. Homosexuality can't be his only secret. There were certainly episodes that made us think he must be a corporate spy at the very least (I hadn't considered space alien but why should Ginsberg be the only Martian on the show).

Jez B. nice turn of phrase!

Rob, thanks for the kind words: I was worried that anyone familiar with late Derrida would roll their eyes at the way I simplify his subtle explorations of the gift, debt, legacies, haunting, etc. but you recognized what I was hoping to do to make this useful and accessible in this context. I am curious about all the speculation about what Don is feeling or thinking when, as you also note that I note, there's little direct evidence from the text for discerning these things. I'm intrigued by the notion that Don is committing a kind of symbolic suicide. My go-to text to help explain Don would probably be Freud's "Concerning a Particular Type of Object-Choice in Men," which might lend some indirect support along those lines ...

Yes on the symbolic suicide (something that was always a slow burn and is now an ongoing symphony of signs!).

Corey, on this interesting note of why we speculate in the way that we speculate: what makes you intuit or infer that Don used force on Sylvia (or do you mean that simply figuratively--he used his position of conferring a favor to "force" a resumption, however temporary, of the sexual affair).

My impression is that Sylvia would have offered readily enough: albeit out of guilt. This was what I took away from her saying (from memory) "You've been better to me than I was to you."

I think it's somewhat out of character to think of Don as someone who forces himself on women: but again that is possibly misreading what you may have intended more figuratively. That Don is manipulative as all hell I agree with entirely!

PS I should add (though I already said it privately) lest I sound unconvinced that this is just me thinking aloud. Overall I share Rob's sense that the analysis is great! The idea of the web of favors which shapes our sense of what love and ethics can be is spot on.

PSS If you have any time to answer my first question about the 1960s that would be great...

To clarify: yes, I only meant that Don "forces" Sylvia back into the affair because she "owes" him. My motivation for the focus of my post was the fact that the words "owe," "favor" and "gift" are all spoken in the episode. I did not mean to suggest -- as there's no textual evidence for this (again, I'm way of making guesses based on anything else) -- that Don uses physical force on Sylvia (or other women). His form of seduction may be manipulative at times, but not through physical force.

As for the 1960s -- I appreciate that most of the historical touchstones are explicitly mediated (usually by TV broadcast). That is, they don't go so far to have characters at the sites of assassinations, riots, etc. But I don't mind that these are used to ground the series in real time -- there does seem to be a veering toward and away from explicit referents in the rhythm of the season. I do wonder what leaving the 60s will mean for the show (of course popular logic is that the mythic/symbolic 60s didn't match the exact contours of the decade): we seem to be on the verge of 1969, which means Woodstock, Altamont, and Stonewall. Actually, it would seem to me artificial if these characters registered any of these except perhaps the first.

That should read "I'm WARY of making guesses ...)"

RE: Don's motivations to help the kid. Certainly the homosocial triangulation of Sylvia to the Don/Arnold relationship is relevant, as are his complex love-ish feelings for Sylvia.

But I'm surprised no one mentioned Don's own war experience as a motivator. Several characters mentioned it, and Don himself actually showed some feelings about it to Arnold. Don's war experience transformed him from Dick to Don. He said about Mitchell, but also clearly about himself, "he can't spend his whole life running."

I think that Don wouldn't have risked the GM relationship so recklessly for a woman, or even for his only friend/foil/Other Arnold. But I do think he'd have risked it for this attempt to heal himself through the pseudo-son figure's path through war.

I do mention Don's line, which obviously refers to his own history. Although Don was scarred by war, my sense is that he and Arnold are sincere in seeing their service as patriotic (another obligation in the pattern I am tracing), whereas Don explicitly states his disagreement with the Vietnam war. I just can't see his willingness to help Mitchell (when he begins the episode by prominently refusing) as based in his identification with Mitchell or his empathy as a father: it seems more about his status in relation to Arnold and Sylvia than anything else: again, I'm trying to base this on what the text itself offers me.

This is all fascinating. There's another aspect to Don's willingness to help Mitchell : Adam. Don helped Suzanne's (Sally's teacher) epileptic brother in a tiny attempt to make up for the huge burden of feeling responsible for Adam's death. Helping Mitchell could be another.

Such a fine post and set of comments. I wish that I'd managed to read the post earlier and that I had more time at the moment (I'm at work). First, quickly, thanks to everyone concerned.

Second, a quick thought on Don's motivation. Personally, I lean toward viewing it as partly selfless, but I can't point to reasons why. For the opposite view, taken in the post itself, we have first of all the evidence of the episode's title, "Favors." A favor done is typically a debt incurred, as Corey repeatedly points out; Don's act of "help" is easily regarded as a favor (with the expectation of repayment), because the title tells us the episode is all about favors.

Don't have time to review that for clarity.

Thanks to everyone for such interesting comments on this post--a pleasure for us to read!

Thanks, also Corey for your thoughts on the 1960s; I agree that these characters whom we know so well exhibit an appropriate kind of interest in the events introduced primarily via television.

I think that this has changed the show's relationship to history--that is, changed the kind of historical fiction that it represents. Doubtless we'll hear more about history from Jeremy Varon who is next week's blogger (and the editor of an academic journal called *The Sixties* for those readers who don't know Varon from previous blogs and from his chapter in *Mad World*.