Mad Men Season 1 Episode 5

Mad Men Season 1 Episode 5: 5G

            The episode starts with Don and his wife at the house after a late night out at a party in which Don won a horseshoe shaped trophy. The morning holds a hung-over Don who is late or going to be late for work. Before lunch, Don takes a call that ends up being Midge, the lady that he is with typically when he stays in the city for the night. During this phone call, Peggy listens in and realizes what is going on and why Don leaves for lunch early and comes back late. That night, Pete asks his new wife to talk to her first man and try to get his own book published. The reason Pete wants this is out of a fit of jealousy in which a co-worker has successfully gotten his paper published in a big newspaper. His wife however is asking not to have to do this because of the old relationship and how it ended, in which Pete characteristically forces her to meet this guy.

            The next day holds the biggest surprise of all. Don gets called out of a meeting because a man named Adam Whitman was there to see him. With a shocked air about him, Don goes out to meet him and drags him aside so no one could hear the conversation. Adam then enthusiastically tells Don that he is his brother. After trying to hush Adam, Don agrees to meet for lunch later at the local diner. During that meeting, Don attempts to get Adam to forget all about the meeting and being his brother. When Don returns to the office, he finds his wife and kids waiting to go to the family photo shoot and Peggy apologizing for not being able to remind him of the shoot. That night Don drops off a lot of money at Adam’s apartment in order to keep him quiet and from talking about who Don really is. At the house, Don agrees to going to Cape May as a summer vacation with the family on bequest of Betty, because he admits they don’t have enough money to buy a house on the cape.

            A theme that we see throughout this episode is that secrecy. How keeping secrets or at least not talking about the things that concern you creates issue with others. An example of this secrecy and how it creates problems in this episode is when Peggy listens in on the call between Don and his mistress. Peggy has to hold this all in while she talks to Betty in the office. The other major example of this is how it visibly rips both Don and Adam apart when Don wants to keep things private by paying Adam off, Adam is crying after the encounter.

            In relating this to a Christian life, we can make the connection that secrecy is not the best policy, trying to hold things in and cover for other people breaks them apart. We see the bible address this issue when it says not to let the sun set while you are still angry (Ephesians 4:26). We know as people that in letting anger be slept on, we tend to become angrier or more upset which causes issues that we may or may not be able to control. I think that the lesson from this episode that we can take away and apply biblically is that as Christians are we willing to cause other people issues by hiding our own problems?