Wee Small Hours

Wee Small Hours is a good story of characters suffering at the hands of those with power.

The plot involving Sal is the most impactful and disturbing. The writers have been setting him up with slow burning dread towards a moment of tragedy and it is a difficult watch. I like how it's done in a way that no characters actually speak of the elephant in the room.

Don is central to several storylines where he is depicted plausibly lashing out at others and dealing with his unhappiness in unhealthy ways. The pressure he is under from Hilton and other work problems links well to the cracks you see appearing on the surface. This is the most unlikeable he has been portrayed since that final scene with his brother Adam.

Betty has a number of good scenes where she appears to be unreadable in her interactions with the character Henry Francis. It is reminiscent of her unpredictable behaviour with Glen, but in a different circumstance. This plot line feels like it has reached the point where something meaningful needs to happen soon or it risks going stale.

What works exceptionally well in the background is the media coverage of the civil rights movement. So many characters are either pushed from pillar to post or simply stepped on by those who have the means to do so, it feels relevant. The scenes with Carla are fantastically done. You know exactly what she is thinking by Deborah Lacey's mannerisms and body language.

Visually it is excellent as always and the performances are top drawer from all.

Avoiding spoilers, this episode tackles several issues: people cheating and wanting to cheat, someone grappling with their sexuality, someone taking rejection badly and using their power to ruin someone's career, the ethics of taking money rather than standing up to a client who does the wrong thing, a rich, powerful client bordering on megalomania, with a strange mixture of religion and imperialistic endless business growth as a way to spread the joy of American culture all around the world and even into space. What an episode. It was quite disturbing. I felt like I was watching House of Cards. The show certainly wasn't this intense in Season One. I've seen others describe the series as a 'slow burner.' I imagine there's a lot more to come. The way the show writers develop plots and characters is brilliant. As is its relatedness to the real world. We know we're seeing a fictional portrayal of the 1960s and corporate culture, however, there are so many connections to be made to the real world as it was back then, and to today's world too. That's why so many love this show.

Darren Pettie, who plays Lee Garner Jr., of Lucky Strikes, is a brilliant actor, very mellow yet extremely scary, just see the final season of Sneaky Pete for more of his subtle intensity... and here he's the cause of the loss of one of the great original characters, Sal, whose closeted homosexuality was never forced or preachy on a series that could have easily treated the 1950's and 1960's as an evil era because it's not so open-minded as today...

Although, you can get so open-minded all creativity is lost, and no one is defined by anything but cliches... Which makes MAD MAN so great: it's about yesterday yet with the pulse of today... Anyhow, Sal's loss is the beginning of, not long after this, the loss of another original character, and here we're still in an era that doesn't resemble a flower-power costume party, so that's good...

Meanwhile the affair with Don and the extremely cute teacher is interesting.... and many of Don's affairs are rushed and dull... The best soap operatic trysts happen between two opposites and take time to build... Meanwhile Betty and Mr Stern Nose have a bit of chemistry as well, but there's something spooky about him, like the Lucky Strike guy... outwardly mellow but there's something sinister deep down.

"Wee Small Hours," the ninth episode of Mad Men's third season, directed by Scott Hornbacher is a clinical, emotionally devastating study of betrayal, isolation, and the irreversible damage caused by emotional distance. The title, borrowed from the classic Frank Sinatra song "In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning," immediately establishes a mood of late-night melancholy and loneliness, a time when the characters are forced to confront the wreckage of their lives without the distractions of the day. The episode is built around the disintegration of the Don and Betty Draper marriage, precipitated by Betty's deep connection with Henry Francis and the sudden, career-ending betrayal of Sal Romano. Hornbacher's direction utilizes darkness and silence as potent dramatic tools, making the characters' isolation feel palpable and underscoring the profound difficulty of honest communication in 1960s American life.

The central narrative is driven by Don Draper's professional trip to Baltimore to court the Ritz Crackers account, a trip that quickly spirals into a disaster of both personal and professional consequence. Don's decision to bring his latest lover, the teacher Suzanne Farrell, on the trip is a careless act of emotional recklessness that underscores his growing disregard for discretion, a trait that once defined his meticulous facade. More crucially, the trip leads to the firing of Sal Romano. Sal, acting on the client's aggressive sexual advances, compromises the Ritz Crackers account, but it is Don who ultimately ensures Sal's termination to protect the agency's contract. This act of professional betrayal is morally complex; Don sacrifices Sal, the one man at the agency who shares his secret life, to preserve his own status and the agency's stability. Don's actions here are a chilling display of self-preservation, demonstrating that his loyalty is strictly conditional and that his own life's grand lie necessitates the silence and sacrifice of others, further isolating him from the few people who might understand him.

The domestic plot focuses on Betty Draper's quiet, determined pursuit of Henry Francis. Their relationship, marked by Henry's genuine interest in Betty's personhood and his open desire for commitment, stands in stark contrast to the emotional void of her marriage. The scene where Betty meets Henry at a cheap motel, framed by Scott Hornbacher with a sense of claustrophobia and desperation, is crucial. It is not an act of fleeting passion like Don's, but a cold, calculated move toward securing a future free of Don's emotional cruelty. However, the emotional climax occurs when Don confronts Betty after receiving the anonymous letter about her activities, an event he had previously dismissed. Betty, instead of denying the accusation, chooses this moment to confront Don with the evidence of his own infidelity, demonstrating that her search for independence is rooted in years of silent suffering. The final image of the Drapers sleeping in separate, isolated corners of their vast bed visually confirms the irreversible decay of their marriage, which has become a formal arrangement devoid of intimacy or trust.

The emotional tragedy of "Wee Small Hours" belongs to Salvatore Romano. Sal's firing is not the result of a single mistake, but the inevitable consequence of living a suppressed identity in a homophobic corporate environment. His attempt to indulge his true desires during the Ritz Crackers trip is immediately punished by the client, and subsequently by Don, who views Sal's failure to manage the situation as a personal and professional threat. Don's chilling line to Sal during the termination-"You're a professional. You have a job"-is a subtle but devastating reminder of the performance required to survive at Sterling Cooper, and the heavy penalty for dropping the mask. Sal's quiet, defeated walk out of the office, captured by the camera with a sense of lonely finality, underscores his profound isolation. He has been sacrificed on the altar of corporate stability, and his termination, motivated by both the client's homophobia and Don's self-preservation, serves as a harsh social critique of the era's intolerance.

The episode contains a critical, subtle development for Peggy Olson and her relationship with Pete Campbell. Peggy, demonstrating her growing professional authority, successfully executes a crucial pitch for the Clearasil account, a victory that reinforces her value to the agency. However, her storyline is primarily focused on the loss of her male mentors. With Sal gone, and Don increasingly unavailable and emotionally distant, Peggy is left to navigate the corporate landscape relying solely on her own talent and judgment. Her conversation with Don about her raise, where he dismisses her need for praise and instead advises her to "Be grateful for the work", is a harsh but necessary lesson. Don's advice is a veiled reference to his own traumatic, work-obsessed life philosophy. Peggy's reaction-a quiet, determined acceptance of the professional reality-shows her resilience and underscores her trajectory toward becoming a self-defined, independent woman who is no longer dependent on male approval for validation.

Scott Hornbacher's direction, supported by the episode's strong visual design, utilizes the principles of film noir and psychological drama to emphasize the characters' loneliness. The lighting is often low-key and shadowy, particularly in the scenes involving Don and Suzanne, and Betty and Henry, visually representing the moral ambiguity and secrecy of their actions. The use of the empty space in the Draper bedroom-the vast distance between Don and Betty as they sleep-is a powerful visual metaphor for the chasm in their relationship. The motel room where Sal is compromised and the sterile hotel room where Don betrays Sal are framed with a sense of claustrophobia and ugliness, contrasting sharply with the aspirational glamour of Madison Avenue. The technical execution masterfully uses the environment to communicate the psychological state, ensuring that the visual aesthetic reinforces the central theme of isolation.

"Wee Small Hours" is a devastating, necessary episode that meticulously dismantles the remnants of the Drapers' marriage and exposes the moral compromises necessary for survival at Sterling Cooper. The creators argue, with chilling clarity, that in the competitive, intolerant world of 1963, survival is often predicated on the betrayal of others. Don's sacrifice of Sal, while professionally expedient, is a profound personal failure that further isolates him, confirming his status as an island of ambition. The final, sober message is that when the distractions of the day fade and the characters are alone in the "wee small hours," they are left not with romantic hope, but with the silence of their own irreversible, devastating choices.