Television Review: Nixon vs. Kennedy (Mad Men, S1x12, 2007)

Nixon vs. Kennedy (S1x12)

Airdate: 11 October 2007

Written by: Lisa Albert, Albert Jaquemetton & Maria Jacquemetton
Directed by: Alan Taylor

Running Time: 48 minutes

When Matthew Weiner, having cut his teeth on the late, groundbreaking seasons of The Sopranos, unveiled Mad Men in 2007, critics were quick to recognise the profound influence of HBO’s pioneering drama on his own creation. This extended beyond mere aesthetic or thematic borrowings to a fundamental narrative architecture: the habit of reserving the most consequential plot developments and character revelations for the penultimate episode of a season, rather than the finale. In its very first season, Mad Men adhered to this sophisticated structural principle with remarkable confidence. The twelfth episode, Nixon vs. Kennedy, is the season’s true dramatic pivot, a masterfully constructed hour that defines its protagonist more sharply than any before it and irrevocably sets the series on its course. It is an episode where history happens in the background, personal betrayals unfold in the foreground, and a man’s entire fabricated existence is laid bare, only to be validated by the most cynical of philosophies.

The “wham” event that gives the episode its title and temporal setting is one that the protagonists observe with a mixture of professional interest and personal bias, but over which they exert no control: the 1960 United States Presidential election. In the nostalgic memories of the Baby Boomer generation and subsequent Hollywood myth-making, this election defined the dawn of a new, optimistic decade and altered the course of world history. Yet in the world of Sterling Cooper, it is merely the backdrop to an office party, a topic for boozy speculation, and a symbol of the entrenched establishment being nervously challenged. The staff, largely staunchly pro-Nixon, gather around the television on the night of 8 November 1960, convinced of the Vice-President’s imminent victory despite the polls’ closeness. The election night coverage becomes an excuse for yet another bacchanal, fuelled by copious alcohol. In this loosened atmosphere, subplots simmer: Ken Cosgrove discovers Paul Kinsey’s pretentious play manuscript, leading to an impromptu, drunken performance with Joan Holloway drafted into a role—a moment that underscores the performative nature of identity that permeates the series. Meanwhile, the alcohol also facilitates a reckless coupling between Harry Crane and Pete’s secretary, Hildy (Julie McNiven). Their fumbled, regret-filled encounter the next morning—Harry wracked with guilt over infidelity, Hildy ashamed of her unprofessionalism—serves as a microcosm of the era’s shifting sexual mores, where liberation is often followed by immediate remorse.

The professional stakes are raised earlier that day with the arrival of Herman “Duck” Phillips (Mark Moses), a former Y&R executive with London experience and British contacts. Don Draper, ever the instinctual talent-spotter, is keen to install him as the new Head of Account Services. This position is the very one Pete Campbell, despite his youth and grating entitlement, desperately covets. Feeling thwarted, Pete unleashes his secret weapon: the parcel from Don’s half-brother, Adam Whitman, which contains artefacts that could unravel Don’s meticulously constructed identity as “Don Draper”. In a tense confrontation, Pete attempts blackmail, demanding the job in exchange for his silence about Don’s true past as Dick Whitman and the mysterious circumstances of the real Don Draper’s death in Korea. Don’s response is a masterpiece of controlled panic. Outwardly, he dismisses Pete with icy disdain; inwardly, his entire world teeters on the brink. This insecurity manifests in a desperate, romantic flight of fancy—he visits his lover, Rachel Menken, and proposes they abandon everything and reinvent themselves in California. Rachel’s refusal, grounded in her responsibilities to her department store and family, is a sobering reminder that not everyone is willing or able to shed their skin so completely. It leaves Don isolated, forced to face his past.

That past is revealed in a series of stark, economical flashbacks to Korea in 1950. The sequence is a testament to the show’s ability to achieve profound narrative impact without a lavish budget. The chaos of war is conveyed through bureaucratic farce: Lieutenant Don Draper, expecting twenty men to build a field hospital, is sent only one—the hapless Private Dick Whitman. The ensuing shelling and catastrophic gasoline explosion are depicted with brutal efficiency. The charred, mangled corpse of the officer is the most graphic violence the series has shown to this point, a shocking visual counterpoint to the episode’s other adult content. In this moment of chaos, the wounded Whitman seizes his opportunity, swapping dog tags with the dead officer. He awakes in a hospital, awarded a Purple Heart under a false name, and is tasked with delivering the coffin containing “Dick Whitman’s” remains to the fallen man’s family. His refusal to disembark the train, and the fleeting, haunting glimpse of him caught by his young brother Adam, is a chilling moment of self-annihilation. The subsequent scene on the train, where a sympathetic, attractive woman mistakes his trauma for noble guilt and offers sexual comfort, is pivotal. It teaches the nascent Don Draper a fundamental lesson: the image he now projects—the dashing, wounded officer—is a powerful currency that can elicit desire and compassion, cementing his skills in deception and manipulation.

The following day, a humiliated and furious Pete decides to execute his threat. He marches into Bertram Cooper’s office, with Don in reluctant tow, and unveils the secret. The resulting scene is one of the series’ most brilliantly ironic twists. Pete, expecting shock, outrage, and Don’s immediate ruin, is met instead with Cooper’s bland, dismissive “Who cares?” Bert, an ardent devotee of Ayn Rand’s objectivist philosophy, is not appalled but delighted. He admires the sheer, audacious self-invention Don has accomplished. In Cooper’s worldview, Don is the ultimate Randian hero, a man who created himself ex nihilo through will and opportunity. Pete, the scion of old money who plays by the perceived rules of lineage and tradition, is suddenly revealed as the anachronism. Cooper, the elderly patrician, is philosophically more attuned to the emerging, meritocratic (and morally ambiguous) 1960s than the ambitious young climber. He coolly suggests Don could fire Pete, but also notes that such ruthlessness might be an asset to the firm. The crisis is over; Don’s façade is not just intact but validated by the highest authority in his professional life.

This resolution is underscored by the episode’s final irony. Don returns home, his career and identity secure, only to watch Richard Nixon concede defeat to John F. Kennedy on television. The world he and his colleagues assumed would continue—a Nixonian world of quiet, conservative certainty—has been upended. Yet, as Bert Cooper muses earlier, if Kennedy bought the election through fraud (a popular conservative grievance at the time), he will need the services of pragmatic, amoral men like them. The 1960s, with all their upheaval, have truly begun, and Sterling Cooper is ready to profit from them.

Nixon vs. Kennedy is a superlative piece of television writing and a defining episode for Mad Men. It employs an intensely economical approach to complete the foundational arc of Don Draper’s background, answering the “how” and “why” with devastating clarity. The episode is also notably graphic for the series to that point, juxtaposing the horror of a burnt corpse with the discreetly shot but evident nudity of Hildy—pushing boundaries, albeit less aggressively than its HBO forebears. Its masterstroke is the deployment of dramatic irony on multiple levels: the audience’s historical knowledge of Kennedy’s victory plays against the characters’ Nixonian certainty, and Bert Cooper’s reaction subverts every expectation of how such a secret should be received. The season overall doesn’t have much of a plot, serving instead to introduce setting and character. Nixon vs. Kennedy is the glorious exception, the plot-heavy, character-defining crescendo that justifies the slow burn of the preceding eleven episodes. It proves Matthew Weiner learned the most important lesson from The Sopranos: that the deepest truths about people are often revealed not when they are making history, but when history, indifferent to them, is happening just outside the window.

RATING: 9/10 (++++)

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