Mad Men Water Cooler – “Mystery Date”

Mad Men Water Cooler – “Mystery Date”

Mad Men took a darker turn on Sunday night, with a feverish, hallucinating Don Draper finding himself in a metaphorical struggle with his philandering past, Sally getting scared out of her wits by the coverage of a grisly crime spree in Chicago, and Joan Holloway finally kicking her truly awful husband to the curb. It was a lot for forty-four minutes of television, and it came packaged under the title, “Mystery Date.”

Why?

Roughly halfway through the episode, Sally sees a commercial on television for the board game “Mystery Date.” Released by Milton Bradley in 1955, “Mystery Date” was a match-based game where players had to collect cards that created a matching outfit. The outfit that the player successfully collected must then match the outfit of the “mystery date” waiting behind a plastic door.

The dates could be formal, beach-worthy, ski-ready or a dud, if the date happened to show up in grungy clothes. If the clothes the player collected did not match her mystery date’s attire, then the game continued and the player had to collect a new outfit that hopefully matched her new date.

“Mystery Date” is a perfect choice for this particular “Mad Men” episode when you think about it. As Phyllis, Sally’s step-grandmother, frighteningly pointed out, the women who opened their door to a mass-murdering psychopath thought he was just a handsome man. And many of the characters in this relationship spend their time opening doors to their past, un-nerved by what they find.

In watching this episode, I noticed, more than ever, the costuming work of “Mad Men” designer Janie Bryant. The goal of Mystery Date is to match your date’s attire, and the incompatibility of the relationships between Don and Andrea (a former copywriter/flame), and Joan and Greg are underscored by their attire.

When we meet Andrea in the elevator, she’s attired in a bright yellow dress and jacket with a string of garish red beads. Her loud, flamboyant attire contrast sharply against Don’s subdued, conservative attire, leading us to wonder how they were ever a match. When she shows up unexpectedly at his apartment in a hallucinated sequence, Don is in a sleeveless undershirt and his boxers, while she is still attired in sunshine-bright hues. If there was ever a cue that these two aren’t a match, it’s all in the clothing.

Joan and Greg provide a similar sartorial narrative. When Greg is dressed, he wears his full military uniform (we do see him at one point in his undershirt and slacks – further proof that neither Don nor Greg are a match for the women they’ve met). Joan, bless her, is decked out in her happy housewife best – the claret-colored cocktail dress has to be one of my favorite Joan outfits of all time.

But while Joan dresses to please her husband, Greg dresses to please himself. He has found his new identity, and it allows for none of the personal touches of intimacy or personality. Joan, who has spent much of the last two episodes in frumpy, new-mom apparel, is reaching back into the past to try and recapture a happier time, but to no avail. Whatever was there is no longer enough to sustain this relationship.

“Mystery Date,” both the board game and the episode, are all about the clothing. Major kudos to costumer Janie Bryant’s work on this episode; she’s given the audience subtle clues that in “Mad Men,” as in “Mystery Date,” you can tell that some relationships are duds just by looking at them.