Television Review: The Arrangements (Mad Men, S3x04, 2009)

The Arrangements (S3x04)

Airdate: 6 September 2009

Written by: Andrew Colvile & Matthew Weiner
Directed by: Michael Uppendahl

Running Time: 50 minutes

Mad Men is often celebrated as a meticulously crafted window into 1960s America, a series obsessed with a nation nervously facing its future. Yet, some of its most penetrating episodes are those that grapple with the past, illuminating historical periods that were as alien to its protagonists as the 1960s have since become to a contemporary audience. The Arrangements, the fourth episode of the third season, is a prime example. It deftly exposes the deep generational fissures that existed even within that seemingly cohesive post-war society, rifts reflected most painfully in the starkly different styles of parenting and the fraught transfer of responsibility from one generation to the next. Directed by Michael Uppendahl from a script by Andrew Colville and Matthew Weiner, the episode has great tonal balance, weaving together tragic family drama, sharp business satire, and poignant personal awakenings into a cohesive whole that captures the peculiar anxiety of mid-1963.

The episode advances the season’s timeline significantly, picking up more than a month after the events of My Old Kentucky Home. It is clearly set around 11 June 1963, a detail that becomes quietly crucial. 1963 was a relatively uneventful year until its cataclysmic end in Dallas, forcing the narrative to build tension through character development and mundane crises. This temporal setting—early summer, before the heat of impending history—allows the episode to explore its themes of arrangement and inheritance without the overshadowing spectre of national trauma, making the personal tragedies all the more resonant.

The episode’s various storylines all orbit this central theme of negotiating new terms between generations. For Peggy Olson, the generational conflict is one of ambition versus tradition. Concluding that her lengthy commute from Brooklyn is a professional hindrance, she decides to move to Manhattan. This practical decision is met with visceral outrage from her mother, who views it as a moral betrayal, condemning Peggy as becoming “one of those girls.” Peggy’s attempt to mitigate the cost by finding a roommate leads to a humiliating prank call after her ad is posted on the Sterling Cooper bulletin board. The scene is a small, brutal lesson in the office’s latent misogyny. Following Joan’s characteristically pragmatic advice, she eventually finds a roommate in Karen Ericson (a pre-Bones Carla Gallo), securing her foothold in a new, independent life her mother’s generation could scarcely comprehend.

In the professional sphere, the generational clash is framed in terms of wealth and wisdom. Pete Campbell introduces Don Draper to Horace Cook Jr. (Aaron Stanford), a feckless, spoiled heir who wishes to spend a million dollars promoting the obscure sport of jai alai. Don is immediately wary, recognising the folly of the venture and the delicate politics involved, as Cook’s father is an associate of Bert Cooper. In a partners’ meeting, Horace Cook Sr. (David Selby) reveals his own cynical parental strategy: he will allow Sterling Cooper to take his son’s money, believing a spectacular commercial failure is the only way to teach the arrogant young man humility. Don, in a rare moment of ethical clarity, attempts to warn Horace Jr. directly, but his counsel is dismissed as a mere negotiating tactic.

A parallel business, with worse financial outcome for Sterling Cooper, provides the episode’s more comical thread. The agency’s attempt to create a Patio Cola advertisement as a carbon-copy remake of the opening number from Bye Bye Birdie hits a snag. The film functioned as a glittering time capsule of pre-assassination America, its hyper-energetic performance by Ann-Margret symbolising a new, commercially sanitised femininity. When the hired director becomes unavailable, Salvatore Romano seizes the opportunity, throwing himself into the work with fastidious passion. This professional obsession bleeds into his barren domestic life, further disappointing his wife, Kitty. In a moment of devastating dramatic irony, Sal jumps from his marital bed to enthusiastically reconstruct the ad for her, playing the role of the seductive young woman with an authenticity that finally grants Kitty her first, chilling glimpse of his true sexuality. The professional conclusion is bitterly ironic: the Patio executives reject the ad not on its technical merits, but because, as Roger Sterling bluntly puts it, the girl simply “isn’t Ann-Margret.” Don’s consolation—that Sal can now add “commercial director” to his resume—is a hollow prize for a man whose authentic self must remain forever uncredited.

The episode’s unsung hero, and its emotional core, is Gene, Betty Draper’s father. Portrayed with magnificent depth by Ryan Cutrona, Gene is a man going through the fog of dementia. His behaviour is erratic—teaching his young granddaughter Sally to drive his car is a terrifyingly poor decision—yet he proves to be lucid, witty, and profoundly loving company for her. He represents the “Lost Generation,” a repository of lived history, shown when he unsettles Don by showing his grandson Bobby a German helmet from the First World War, complete with a bullet hole. In his most clear-sighted act, Gene, sensing his mortality, presents Betty with meticulously detailed plans for his funeral, arguing that the funeral industry preys on grief-stricken families. Betty dismisses this as morbid, but Gene’s pragmatism is proven tragically correct when he collapses and dies while shopping, leaving Sally devastated. His death is not just a family loss; it is the passing of a worldview—practical, seasoned, and intimately acquainted with hardship.

Uppendahl’s direction handles these disparate storylines with remarkable skill, ensuring the episode feels cohesive rather than fragmented. The acting is uniformly superb, with Cutrona’s performance standing out for its ability to blend pathos, humour, and dignity, making Gene’s departure deeply moving. The episode’s conclusion showcases Uppendahl’s flair for potent symbolism. In the final moments, Don sits on Gene’s now-empty bed, next to the crib awaiting his and Betty’s unborn child. The composition is a perfect visual metaphor: Don is literally positioned between the disappearing world of the past and the utterly uncertain world of the future. This theme is underscored by the use of the famous First World War song “Over There” over the end credits—a symbolic farewell to the Lost Generation, whose experiences were as alien to the Baby Boomers as the Boomers’ own coming tumult would be to Generation Z.

The episode’s most chilling nod to the future, however, is reserved for Sally. Sent to watch television to distract her from her grief, she is confronted with the now-iconic news footage of Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đức self-immolating in Saigon in protest against the South Vietnamese government’s religious policies. This image, one of the first truly global television atrocities of the 1960s, is a brutal intrusion of coming history into the Draper living room. It is a precursor to the flood of violent imagery that would define the Vietnam War era, a frightening glimpse of the new world Sally and her generation will have to live in. In this moment, The Arrangements transcends its specific domestic and professional concerns to connect the personal passing of one man with the violent birth pangs of a new historical epoch.

The Arrangements is a standout episode that fully earns its critical acclaim. It succeeds not through grand plot twists but through nuanced character study and a profound understanding of its historical moment. It captures the quiet, often painful negotiations required when one generation makes way for the next, whether in a family home, a corporate boardroom, or the broader sweep of culture. By juxtaposing the death of a World War I veteran with the first televised flames of Vietnam, it masterfully illustrates how the personal and the historical are inextricably linked, all while maintaining the series’ signature blend of sharp wit and deep humanity. It is a testament to the show’s creative team operating at the peak of their powers.

RATING: 8/10 (+++)

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