For this blogger Mad Men: The Suitcase was a study in the collapse of the professional masks of two very damaged people, and Don Draper's mainstream racist view of Muhammad Ali (which I explain in this link.)
Don Draper's got nothing but his work; Peggy wants to be seen as more than just an office tart. But at the end of the day, literally, both get scrubbed up and go back at it again. With Draper finding creative inspiration from a fight he took the wrong bet on.
Mad Men and Ali v. Liston 2: May 25, 1965
To put things in perspective, I was born August 4, 1962. What's great about being alive now is that there are shows like Mad Men that reach back to my very early years, but I'm contemporary such that I can express what I was seeing then, now using a blog. By then I was barely three years old, but I remember the buzz about this Cassius Clay guy and how some people in Chicago said he was Muhammad Ali.
A lot of people, black and white and whatever, wanted Ali to lose that fight; not true for my parents, who never communicated a negative thought about Ali. But it was all over: neighbors talking to my dad. On radio. On television (we had one.) Ali was this bad guy who talked too much.
Ali kicked Liston's ass. I was happy then, and happy to see Don Drapers face sag as he drove his cigarette into the ash tray.
Buzz for Mad Men: The Suitcase
Of course, the accounts of Mad Men don't even focus on Ali v. Liston, but they're worth noting, none the less. The LA Times Meredith Blake blogged:
"Mad Men" can be a lot of things, but one thing it’s usually not is a tearjerker. The show always packs an emotional wallop — you'll laugh, you'll cringe, you'll want to throw paperweights at Don — but good, old-fashioned lumps in your throat are hard to come by. Sunday night, however, there wasn't a dry eye at my house. Granted, I watched the episode by myself, but still: If the image of Don, drunk, heartbroken and curled up in Peggy’s lap, won't get you a little misty-eyed, then your name must be Betty Draper.
Hmmm. Reading between the lines, I'd say Meredith Blake's trying to tell us she's single and ready to mingle, but I digress. Here's the Entertainment Weekly's Mad Men Central:
...And there kicked off one of the finest two-player performance pieces I can remember from TV history. (Hyperbolic? So what. I'm drunk on feelings of love and goodness. And from pressing repeat on ''Bleecker Street.'') It was like watching a play unfold, as Peggy and Don circled one another, spitting out long-held accusations — he's a drunk, she's a child — and sharing revelations from their similarly traumatic childhoods. Elisabeth Moss had so many brilliant moments.
I'm waiting for the Mad Men fan sites to kick in with their take. It's going to be interesting. But I'm still thinking about Ali vs. Liston.
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