The Suitcase is an example of everything that is so great about Mad Men. It's a tremendous character piece, it effectively creates a vibe that is completely unique to both the show and the episode itself, it takes place in a world where comedy and tragedy exist side by side, often overlapping, and it can work as both an individual short story and as a part of a larger whole.
Mad Men was a show that always tried to take advantage of TV's episodic structure, Matt Weiner and co. making sure that each episode felt different than the others. It's an approach that worked wonders, and is not seen enough these days. But generally in the middle stretch of each season Mad Men would get a bit more inventive and experimental than usual, giving us iconic episodes such as The Jet Set, Guy Walks into an Advertising Agency, and The Crash, just to name a few. And The Suitcase is perhaps the best of these episodes.
The Suitcase acts more like a two-character play than as an episode of television, putting together the show's two main protagonists Don Draper and Peggy Olsen, whose relationship up to now has been largely professional, and giving each of them a chance to see each other for who they really are, the person those in their personal lives don't see.
That's part of what's so fascinating about Don and Peggy's relationship in the show. Though you can only periodically call them friends, they know each other better than any other characters. Don sees that what Peggy cares about more than anything is the work that they do. And Peggy is maybe the only person who has seen Dick Whitman, the man Don really is, when he visited her in the psych ward after her baby was born.
And so throughout the episode we see just how comfortable they are around each other, whether they're insulting each other, shouting at each other, or telling each other personal details they don't tell anyone else, like when they're in the Greek diner and Don tells her how his father died. The casualness with which Don talks about his past in this scene is unlike anything we've seen from him up to this point in the show, and it's beautiful.
It's no coincidence that Don and Peggy are interrupted by two men that don't really know Peggy; Duck and her boyfriend Mark. Duck arrives at the office in a drunken stupor, embarrassing himself trying to get Peggy (though he can still take down Don in this state), and Mark arranges for Peggy and him to have dinner with her family, something that we know and Don knows but Mark clearly doesn't know that she would hate. And so she chooses to remain with Don in both cases, because there's probably nobody else in the world who knows her better.
Don spends the episode afraid that he's about to lose the one person in the world that he can be himself around. When the phone rings his face goes white, fearing and knowing that it's Stephanie calling to tell him that Anna has died. It all culminates in perhaps the show's most powerful scene, beautifully acted by Hamm and Moss, as Don breaks down crying at the news of Anna's death, showing more vulnerability than he ever has before.
This episode seems to take place in a bubble, feeling removed from the rest of the show, where both characters can be themselves for a little while. There's an element of surrealism to the whole thing, from the appearance of Anna's ghost (which I always forget about, only to be reminded of it whenever I re-watch the episode), to the weird humour.
Speaking of the humour, this episode is hilarious. Duck's visit to the office is played with just the right amount of silliness (he almost defecates in Roger's office!) that the sadness underneath isn't forgotten, and Don and Peggy listening to Roger's memoirs is maybe my favourite bit of comedy from the entire show.
It's also the rare episode of Mad Men that concludes on a note of hope. The titular suitcase is brought up constantly, and is associated with the idea of running from your life, the life you built. Maybe Don, thinking that nobody truly knows him, was considering packing a suitcase and going, leaving behind a career he seems to enjoy and excel at less and less. But when he learned of Anna's death he showed himself to someone else, and him leaving his door open at the end suggests that maybe he can change, that maybe he can be better. Who knows?
