Roger also reaches a moment of peace when he lies near Margaret because he is not that far removed from his daughter’s spirit. Just a few episodes ago, we saw him entangled in bed with a half-dozen women surrounding him. A few seasons ago, he went on a bizarre acid trip. He actually blends in pretty well to the farm, but he has an issue with his daughter cavorting with the opposite sex – something that he has first-hand experience with, as well.
Sure, Roger is a major hypocrite, but John Slattery does a terrific job trying to balance his character’s frustration and admiration for his daughter. That look he gives when he realizes she is being unfaithful says it all. “She is a perverse child who only thinks of herself,” Roger says at the beginning of the episode. Like father, like daughter, Mona notes.
“The Monolith” gets its title from the advanced technology featured in Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. In this hour, characters talk about the attempts to land on the moon as a symbolic progression of how far science has come. Lloyd (Robert Baker), the man at the helm of the computer’s construction, talks to Don about how the machines are intimidating because they surpass human intelligence.
When Lloyd mentions that the machines are metaphors for progress, we see Don get a twinkle in his eye – Lloyd is speaking to him in the way an advertiser tries to sell a product. It has not been long since Don tried to encapsulate something new into a metaphor for a campaign. Invigorated by Lloyd’s arrival, Don hopes to capitalize on this intriguing company. He tries to pitch to Cooper to sign the company working on the computer as a new account, but the agency head knows better than to give Don such power so quickly out of the gate. This rejection just deflates Don even more.
As for Peggy, she gets the chance to shine as the head copywriter on the Burger Chef campaign and Lou orders Don to help her out. She is both bitter and arrogant about it: she craves getting the creative advantage over her old boss, but knows that the staff put him on her team so that he can be the one who shines. She does not even force a smile or pleasant ‘thank you’ after Lou decides to give her a weekly raise, since he presents her with this bittersweet news at the same time.
“The Monolith” explores the dream and the despair associated with the changing times, as technology infringed on and inspired the spirit of man. We get a glimpse at how SC&P reacts to the overwhelming addition of a computer to the creative output, something few of us ever expected a Mad Men episode would confront. Both Margaret and Lloyd – two characters with very different views of the culture – talk about going to the moon. She looks at flying to the moon as inherent to the spirit of man, he sees it as an indication of scientific advancement. (I really wanted David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” over the end credits… would’ve been sweet.)
Levy uses the leaps forward in technology as a way to reflect on Don and Roger’s views of a world closing in on them in intriguing, intelligent and insightful ways. This may be Mad Men’s least ambitious episode, plot-wise, in quite some time, but it does offer a glimpse into the future that should make the show’s fans understand how the traditional types would respond to big changes in the 1970s and beyond.