Character Meme: Mad Men's Lane Pryce
local_max asked me to do a character meme for Mad Men's Lane Pryce because apparently, local_max knows exactly what I'd like to ramble about before even I know. ;-) I miss Lane the most out of all of the characters that left Mad Men, even out-ranking Sal Romano, Francine Hanson, and Paul Kinsey. (Although, I’ll really miss Bert Cooper in the next half season.)
Why I like him and Why I don’t -
I shall combine this into one (disorganized, rambly) essay. Lane’s ascendency comes from his courage and his downfall comes from his cowardice. His ascendency and his downfall comes from his dishonesty. In standard Mad Men twistiness, his ascendency comes from his inclination to sacrifice his family’s wishes for his own happiness and growth. However, his downfall comes from his deep determination to be everything to his family and his crushing shame and depression when he fails. Lane is gloriously complex. On my first outing talking about him, I’d like to just start with a general essay.
Mad Men has a lot of mirrors for Don Draper. However, I think one can make a case that Lane is the most potent and similar one. Both came from truly horribly abusive homes. Both were deeply ashamed of the cruelty they were subjected to as children and their middle class (Lane) or poor (Don) backgrounds. Thus, they both decided to run away and re-invent themselves full-throttle by being aces at business.
They’re brilliant at what they do. Lane makes himself as indispensable as a financial wizard as Don does an advertiser. Sterling Cooper 2.0 may have grown over the last season and a half since Lane’s death- but it’s been chaotic. Mergers have been negotiated over bar stools. The partners have been in disarray. Big plans like going public have gone bust. The agency paid Don for sitting on his ass and doing nothing for months and they’ve carried serious dead weight this year in Ted and Lou, Creative Director of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood Sweaters for starters.
Perhaps, being a subsidiary of McCann will lend some order- but then, it’s a sort of defeat for the partners to be bought by McCann when running away from McCann was the whole reason why they started SCDP in the first place. Although, I can understand that defeats that net even the junior partners over a million dollars and defeat Jim Cutler look a hell of a lot like VICTORIES.
Lane got an incredibly hip 1960s mistress in a black Playboy bunny waitress much like Don makes a point out of having the hippest models of 1960s mistresses. Lane’s management style of pitting Pete and Ken to compete for the Head of Accounts position to spur them to be better and then, figure out who is the *best* is similar to Don’s management style of actively encouraging competition between his employees, most notably between Kinsey and Peggy, to figure out who is the best.
After encouraging competition between the two, Lane picks Ken over Pete at the end of S3 in the same episode before Don picks Peggy over Kinsey to take to the new agency. Pete ends up traveling with them all to SCDP at Don’s behest along with Peggy, instead of Ken, indicating one of the differences between Don and Lane. Don is the lead and the big charismatic personality. Lane and Don’s instincts may similar- but Don will be the one to actually get his way. However, Lane’s instincts do have their merit. It is not long before SCDP hired Ken because he is a talented account man with serious old money connections on his wife’s side.
Lane and Don even choose to betray PPL and start SCDP for the same reasons in Shut the Door, Have a Seat. Roger and Bert didn't to be treated and live like irrelevant, old men before their time. Peggy and Pete saw promise in the new company and were touched by Don’s very personal pitch and approval. Joan was dying to bust out of her box as Dr. Rapist’s rapidly impoverished helpmeet and IMO, she missed Roger. Harry…happened to be in the office when the operation went down. LOL.
Meanwhile, Lane and Don resented feeling like chess pawns, nailed down by a contract to be randomly placed in whatever company and job that the higher ups saw fit. They wanted to build a business where they can call the shots for once. Don leaves with a fuck you to Conrad Hilton while Lane leaves with a fuck you to Mr. Sheffield St. John Powell.
Because Lane and Don were on a journey of self-discovery and rising above their childhoods in their mind, they shared a hilarious but kind of endearing pretentiousness about what they do. It sounds cooler when Don waxes poetic about how no one else knows how to advertise and ordinary mortals just envy those who can sell because Don’s commercialism is art-adjacent. However, it’s rather similar when Lane waxes poetic about pennies becoming pounds and the person that watches the pennies is unfairly hated because no one else wants to assume that task.
However, of course, Lane and Don act like their jobs are the Most Important and their acumen is their Key Unique Ability That the Whole Population Resents Because No-one Else Can Be a Creative/Money Manager. Both guys were ruthlessly abused as children, had to move far away from their homes because it felt like their whole town/country was against them, and only forged a place in the world because of their business sense. Thus, they turn a inherently mendacious office job into a bona fide Hero’s Journey in their heads, even though their wives and even a number of their co-workers don’t get that neuroses.
However, Don is much more suited to the role of the individualist forcing his way into the upper crust for a whole mess of unfair reasons. Don’s entire talents lie in being a smooth talker. What makes Don a success in his professional life also makes Don a success at womanizing, hiding his Dick Whitman secrets, and usually mobilizing his co-workers to stand by him even when he fucks up- with the last half season as a sort of exception that ended up proving my rule when push came to shove.
Meanwhile, Lane’s talents lie in organization and managing money. His personality is unusually frank, reserved, and proper for someone trying to bust his way into another social class in a pretty frontier, cutting edge business known for its practitioners’ consumption of drugs and booze. Lane is ill-cast for the role of the rugged individualist breaking his way into another country and social class. If Lane was born higher up and attended one of England’s exclusive schools or if Lane hadn’t been abused as a child and could have found confidence and contentment in himself or if society doesn’t judge people based on whether they came from, Lane could have been a big success. He’s smart and a hard worker and he has enough moral licentiousness to survive/get ahead but not to be a sleazeball who can’t be trusted at all.
However, Lane ultimately didn't have Don's lucky streak to live like Don and Lane had too many of his own failings to carry on despite his trials. Moreover, a person can only re-invent themselves and rise from the ashes so many times- even Don. I’m not condoning Lane’s embezzlement or his suicide by any means and I do think Don had cause to fire him. Lane could have avoided pain by swallowing his pride and asking for a loan up front. However, after what’s done was done and Lane forged Don’s signature, Lane was really in a terrible spot with nowhere up.
Lane didn’t need to commit suicide. That’s never the answer and it was a selfish action especially since Lane had a wife and son to provide for and care for. However, if Lane continued to live, he’d be in for bankruptcy, losing his work visa and being forced to return to England with no opportunities, humiliation in front of his son and family, serious marital problems with Rebecca, possibly his abusive father getting involved, no real "in" to the advertising business in England after he dramatically burned his bridges with Putnam Powell and Lowe to start SCDP.
Don preached that Lane could start all over and re-invent himself at the end of the meeting to make Don feel better. I’m not even angry per se at Don for that because it was fair to fire Lane and it’s better that Don felt guilt about the decision and tried to make Lane feel better than Don to fire Lane with zero guilt or compassion whatsoever.
However, Lane really used all up his re-inventions when he clawed his way up himself from the salesman middle class to earn a management position at PPL, when he burned his bridges to PPL to start SCDP, and when he escaped the abusive thumb of his father. At this stage of his life with a wife and son to care for and decimated savings, Lane really didn’t have more re-inventions in him and some of that is because SCDP gobbled a lot of Lane's fuel- his savings, years of his life, his place with the British advertising world, put stress on his marriage, etc.
It took until this half-season for Don to painfully learn that he only has so many second acts after he fucks up at this stage of his life. It’s been a pretty surprising happy “ending” (with a half season to go!) for Don lately and Don’s tried very hard to put his life back together. However, Don primarily got by with a little help from his friends. Roger saved Don’s against the odds by orchestrating the McCann sale. Freddy Rumson was there for Don as a sobriety counselor. Sally and Peggy forgave Don even though they *could* have chosen to cut him out. Harry, Pete, and Dawn helped him in small but important ways during the season.
Lane, by contrast, didn’t even have those friends as a stranger in a strange land. Don is a study of the “American dream” of economic mobility. Lane isn’t a part of that, as an outsider, as an Englishman, as a man with the heart of a rugged individualist but the manners and proclivities of a polite, organized, thoughtful money-manager.
Moreover, Lane remains a cautionary tale for Don because they are mirrors, despite Don’s potent advantages. Lane’s suicide also highlighted that Adam’s suicide and all of the Dick Whitman pain and guilt remain with Don. Don Draper does feel a certain amount of self-hatred and indulgent self-pity that his Dick Whitman life sucked so much that he stole a new identity but then, Don made horrible choices that cause pain even with his second “should have been a clean slate” identity. Don’s coldness to hide his Dick Whitman pain drove Adam to suicide. Don’s arguable coldness as uber-Don Draper, Most Important Partner at SCDP and Wealthy Man Who Can Judge People in Dire Financial Straits, drove Lane to suicide. Don definitely connected the two suicides in his head that way as moral failures of both of his identities.
This season, Don was put in Lane’s office casting a pall of death over Don. The Mad Men credits are ambiguous- the Don like figure jumps out of a building indicating either suicide or a failure. However, the credits end with the Don-figure in repose on a couch indicating either resting in peace or finding some peace in life/breaking his own fall. Much of Don’s story is a mystery of what the credits mean and at the forefront, is whether Don commits suicide like Lane and Adam.
Favorite episode (scene if movie) - For a reserved character, Lane is at his most fascinating at his peak of life (Shut the Door, Have a Seat) and his nadir/end of life (Commissions and Fees).
Favorite season/movie - There’s good Lane Pryce material and a consistently awesome performance by Jared Harris in S3-5- but he feels too underwritten in every season. In every season, I usually would like more Lane than I get. It’s hard to pick a favorite. I think he got the most interesting dramatic arc in S5.
Favorite line -
Of course:
Lane Pryce: Saint John, how are you?
Saint John Powell: What in God's name is going on over there?
Lane Pryce: I think at this point it should be very clear.
Saint John Powell: [furious] You're fired. You're fired for costing this company millions of pounds. You're fired for insubordination.
[shouts]
Saint John Powell: You're fired for lack of character!
Lane Pryce: [cheerfully] Very good. Happy Christmas!
Also:
Don: You know what’s going on here?
Lane: What?
Don: Handjobs.
Pete (loudly): What percentage do you think?
Movie watchers turn around indignantly.
Rebecca Pryce: You like it here! The smells and the noise and the criminals at every level.
Lane Pryce: I have made the best of this. My salary is good. The company is flourishing. My wife has a beautiful gown. May I see it?
Rebecca Pryce: [shakes her head] It's not London. It's not even England.
Lane Pryce: That's true. I've been here ten months and no-one's ever asked me where I went to school.
Favorite outfit - I pretty much adore everyone’s clothes on Mad Men and Lane is no exception. I love the small British details in his clothes. Lane wears vests constantly. He has often has a watch on a chain or a slightly contrasting pocket square. Many of his suits are tweed. It gives him a slightly distinctive look from his peers say, Don and Roger. I think he usually looked good, but I think he looked best in well-cut, single-breasted dark navy suits as so many men do.
OTP - I don’t really have one? I didn’t like Rebecca until she told off Don for being complicit in her husband’s downfall for the rare protectiveness that she showed her deceased husband.
Rebecca was pretty underwritten and we saw her only from Lane’s point of view so she came off as a demanding, unsympathetic, difficult woman. However, IMO, Lane didn’t tell her important stuff- his father was and continues to be verbally and physically abusive toward him, the PPL executives treated him badly, his full emotional reasons for wanting to live in the US, his financial difficulties right up until the end, and you know, his extra-marital affairs.
However, Rebecca failed to ask deeper questions about why Lane so desperately wanted to stay in the United States or about his clear sadness towards the end of his life because she was so tunnel-visioned on her own angst at having to leave England that she failed to muster much concern for her husband. Lane did seem to tend much more to Rebecca’s sadness at feeling displaced so the relationship seemed extremely unbalanced. However, in Rebecca’s defense, she actually made Lane aware of her pain. Lane wasn’t equally honest with Rebecca- although that’s also a coping mechanism Lane developed from his child abuse. In conclusion, from what I saw, Rebecca could stand to look in the mirror when she's trying to figure out who made her husband so unhappy and desperate because she played her part as much as Don did.
I think Lane’s crush on Joan was very cute- but I can’t make it an OTP when Joan was so pointedly uninterested with nothing looking movable on that front. The best thing about that relationship is that Lane pulled a first for a Mad Man and worked with her with respect and professionalism after she rebuffed his romantic interest.
Lane’s thing with Toni was too short-lived to be an interesting hot mess and too weird and exploitative for me to get into it (Come on, “You know I love you, my chocolate bunny”….).
Brotp - I really loved Lane and Don stepping out for their guys’ night out. It was very fun to see Lane and Don plastered and making buffoons of themselves at a monster movie. However, of course, that was tinged with tons of sadness and inadequacy to be a true Brotp.
For Lane, that one night was Lane’s one night to really come out of shell and let loose and get any sympathy for his honest-to-goodness pain. For Don, that night was part of his series of drunken, casual-sex benders of self-pity through the first three quarters of S4. It’s just that Don was able to, for that one night, turn his self-destructive Bachelor 2.0 nuttiness into like, a good deed or something because Don was purchasing a whore and booze for someone else! It was Don's "I don't have the moral clarity to overrule Anna Draper's sister and tell Anna that she's dying from cancer and offer to pay for more serious medical treatment. So, I'll include Lane in my evenings of debauchery and call it my good deed of the week!" night. That's....kind of sweet and kind of infuriating- but not the stuff of a Brotp.
Head Canon - Lane was fully cognizant of the uneven financial playing field from the beginning. He knew that Don, Roger, and Bert enriched themselves even beyond their previous riches at Sterling Cooper from selling the business to PPL while Lane wasn’t a partner and wasn’t in a position to take anything. Lane knew that his family and wife were leeching money out of him by requiring him to maintain two residences and lives in England and the United States. He was well-aware that he was coming in on the tail end of the lucrative relationship with Lucky Strike.
Lane actually had some objections to putting up a capital contribution at the end of S4 because he really couldn’t afford it but he saw Pete put the contribution even though Pete also didn’t make money from the sale PPL and had a new baby at home. Lane couldn’t object since a partner in the same position was putting up $50,000 on demand (since Lane didn’t know that Don secretly covered Pete’s contribution). So, Lane held a stiff upper lip and liquidated his portfolio to put up the contribution without complaint.
Lane quietly bore how much the people around him were draining his savings and really tried to not let it bother him- even though that was a Herculean task since Lane's every instinct is to count every penny and obsess over it. However, Lane snapped when Don fired him for embezzlement. Even then when he heard himself cry about his financial disadvantages out of desperation for Don's pity, he hated himself for whining and humiliating himself as he did it. Since childhood, Lane generally walked around with a serious level of self-loathing and insecurity that he forced himself able to live with. However, his humiliation at being caught, his guilt over the forgery, and also, his self-loathing that he drew attention to his money problems and money resentments in such a tawdry, victim-like way to tower of strength Don Draper caused something to snap inside Lane. When Don advised Lane to find an elegant way to resign, it cut even deeper because Lane knew that he passed "elegant", like, twenty exits back.
Lane's shame and the elegant line stayed with Lane. The irony that Jaguar's mechanical failures inhibited Lane from even committing suicide right stayed with Lane. With increased self-loathing and big anger at himself and others, he elected to commit suicide without any elegance- a hanging in his office with a boiler plate suicide note.
Unpopular opinion - Lane was dead wrong for starting a fist-fight with Pete over taking some of the Jaguar executives to a whorehouse. Pete *is* a grimy little pimp but Lane KNOWS that. It’s been common knowledge that the account men pay for prostitutes to entertain high roller clients. Lane’s been signing off on the expense accounts for years at SC 1.0 and then SCDP. It was pretty damn hypocritical for Lane to suddenly be SHOCKED SHOCKED to find that whoring is going on in this establishment, since Lane knows that’s how they do business and Lane isn’t exactly above purchasing some tail himself. Moreover, I'll wager that Lane knowingly approved expense accounts after, knowing that account men were purchasing prostitutes. So whatever with your indignation, Lane.
Generally, Lane is more professional and courteous than your average Sterling Cooper bear. However, Lane did take civility to a new low by starting a fist-fight in a partner’s meeting.
A wish - I wish there were more Lane/Roger and Lane/Bert scenes because those relationships among the partners were unexplored. Lane and Bert have similar pragmatic, analytic, disciplined but with a big dash of quirky personalities.
However, I think it was dramatically well-structured for Lane to feel totally isolated among the partners except for Don as a kinda sorta lifeline. As Lane says, ironically, he forged Don’s signature because Don’s always been the most decent to him. It made Lane all the more vulnerable to Don doling out the punishment for the embezzlement without the confidence to try to talk to someone else. Lane knew that, given his place at the agency, none of the other partners would give him a better deal than Don.
I had also hoped when he went back to England to get his family affairs in order towards the end of S4 that we’d follow him there for an ep or some scenes to see 1960s London. London was just as, if not more so, the center of developing the mod 1960s culture that Mad Men covers as New York City and Los Angeles. I was somewhat disappointed that this didn’t come to pass.
5 words/phrases to best describe him - Desperately insecure, quietly surprising, adorkably awkward, perennially but very quietly depressed, clever.
My nickname for him - Lane will do in a pinch.
Why I like him and Why I don’t -
I shall combine this into one (disorganized, rambly) essay. Lane’s ascendency comes from his courage and his downfall comes from his cowardice. His ascendency and his downfall comes from his dishonesty. In standard Mad Men twistiness, his ascendency comes from his inclination to sacrifice his family’s wishes for his own happiness and growth. However, his downfall comes from his deep determination to be everything to his family and his crushing shame and depression when he fails. Lane is gloriously complex. On my first outing talking about him, I’d like to just start with a general essay.
Mad Men has a lot of mirrors for Don Draper. However, I think one can make a case that Lane is the most potent and similar one. Both came from truly horribly abusive homes. Both were deeply ashamed of the cruelty they were subjected to as children and their middle class (Lane) or poor (Don) backgrounds. Thus, they both decided to run away and re-invent themselves full-throttle by being aces at business.
They’re brilliant at what they do. Lane makes himself as indispensable as a financial wizard as Don does an advertiser. Sterling Cooper 2.0 may have grown over the last season and a half since Lane’s death- but it’s been chaotic. Mergers have been negotiated over bar stools. The partners have been in disarray. Big plans like going public have gone bust. The agency paid Don for sitting on his ass and doing nothing for months and they’ve carried serious dead weight this year in Ted and Lou, Creative Director of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood Sweaters for starters.
Perhaps, being a subsidiary of McCann will lend some order- but then, it’s a sort of defeat for the partners to be bought by McCann when running away from McCann was the whole reason why they started SCDP in the first place. Although, I can understand that defeats that net even the junior partners over a million dollars and defeat Jim Cutler look a hell of a lot like VICTORIES.
Lane got an incredibly hip 1960s mistress in a black Playboy bunny waitress much like Don makes a point out of having the hippest models of 1960s mistresses. Lane’s management style of pitting Pete and Ken to compete for the Head of Accounts position to spur them to be better and then, figure out who is the *best* is similar to Don’s management style of actively encouraging competition between his employees, most notably between Kinsey and Peggy, to figure out who is the best.
After encouraging competition between the two, Lane picks Ken over Pete at the end of S3 in the same episode before Don picks Peggy over Kinsey to take to the new agency. Pete ends up traveling with them all to SCDP at Don’s behest along with Peggy, instead of Ken, indicating one of the differences between Don and Lane. Don is the lead and the big charismatic personality. Lane and Don’s instincts may similar- but Don will be the one to actually get his way. However, Lane’s instincts do have their merit. It is not long before SCDP hired Ken because he is a talented account man with serious old money connections on his wife’s side.
Lane and Don even choose to betray PPL and start SCDP for the same reasons in Shut the Door, Have a Seat. Roger and Bert didn't to be treated and live like irrelevant, old men before their time. Peggy and Pete saw promise in the new company and were touched by Don’s very personal pitch and approval. Joan was dying to bust out of her box as Dr. Rapist’s rapidly impoverished helpmeet and IMO, she missed Roger. Harry…happened to be in the office when the operation went down. LOL.
Meanwhile, Lane and Don resented feeling like chess pawns, nailed down by a contract to be randomly placed in whatever company and job that the higher ups saw fit. They wanted to build a business where they can call the shots for once. Don leaves with a fuck you to Conrad Hilton while Lane leaves with a fuck you to Mr. Sheffield St. John Powell.
Because Lane and Don were on a journey of self-discovery and rising above their childhoods in their mind, they shared a hilarious but kind of endearing pretentiousness about what they do. It sounds cooler when Don waxes poetic about how no one else knows how to advertise and ordinary mortals just envy those who can sell because Don’s commercialism is art-adjacent. However, it’s rather similar when Lane waxes poetic about pennies becoming pounds and the person that watches the pennies is unfairly hated because no one else wants to assume that task.
However, of course, Lane and Don act like their jobs are the Most Important and their acumen is their Key Unique Ability That the Whole Population Resents Because No-one Else Can Be a Creative/Money Manager. Both guys were ruthlessly abused as children, had to move far away from their homes because it felt like their whole town/country was against them, and only forged a place in the world because of their business sense. Thus, they turn a inherently mendacious office job into a bona fide Hero’s Journey in their heads, even though their wives and even a number of their co-workers don’t get that neuroses.
However, Don is much more suited to the role of the individualist forcing his way into the upper crust for a whole mess of unfair reasons. Don’s entire talents lie in being a smooth talker. What makes Don a success in his professional life also makes Don a success at womanizing, hiding his Dick Whitman secrets, and usually mobilizing his co-workers to stand by him even when he fucks up- with the last half season as a sort of exception that ended up proving my rule when push came to shove.
Meanwhile, Lane’s talents lie in organization and managing money. His personality is unusually frank, reserved, and proper for someone trying to bust his way into another social class in a pretty frontier, cutting edge business known for its practitioners’ consumption of drugs and booze. Lane is ill-cast for the role of the rugged individualist breaking his way into another country and social class. If Lane was born higher up and attended one of England’s exclusive schools or if Lane hadn’t been abused as a child and could have found confidence and contentment in himself or if society doesn’t judge people based on whether they came from, Lane could have been a big success. He’s smart and a hard worker and he has enough moral licentiousness to survive/get ahead but not to be a sleazeball who can’t be trusted at all.
However, Lane ultimately didn't have Don's lucky streak to live like Don and Lane had too many of his own failings to carry on despite his trials. Moreover, a person can only re-invent themselves and rise from the ashes so many times- even Don. I’m not condoning Lane’s embezzlement or his suicide by any means and I do think Don had cause to fire him. Lane could have avoided pain by swallowing his pride and asking for a loan up front. However, after what’s done was done and Lane forged Don’s signature, Lane was really in a terrible spot with nowhere up.
Lane didn’t need to commit suicide. That’s never the answer and it was a selfish action especially since Lane had a wife and son to provide for and care for. However, if Lane continued to live, he’d be in for bankruptcy, losing his work visa and being forced to return to England with no opportunities, humiliation in front of his son and family, serious marital problems with Rebecca, possibly his abusive father getting involved, no real "in" to the advertising business in England after he dramatically burned his bridges with Putnam Powell and Lowe to start SCDP.
Don preached that Lane could start all over and re-invent himself at the end of the meeting to make Don feel better. I’m not even angry per se at Don for that because it was fair to fire Lane and it’s better that Don felt guilt about the decision and tried to make Lane feel better than Don to fire Lane with zero guilt or compassion whatsoever.
However, Lane really used all up his re-inventions when he clawed his way up himself from the salesman middle class to earn a management position at PPL, when he burned his bridges to PPL to start SCDP, and when he escaped the abusive thumb of his father. At this stage of his life with a wife and son to care for and decimated savings, Lane really didn’t have more re-inventions in him and some of that is because SCDP gobbled a lot of Lane's fuel- his savings, years of his life, his place with the British advertising world, put stress on his marriage, etc.
It took until this half-season for Don to painfully learn that he only has so many second acts after he fucks up at this stage of his life. It’s been a pretty surprising happy “ending” (with a half season to go!) for Don lately and Don’s tried very hard to put his life back together. However, Don primarily got by with a little help from his friends. Roger saved Don’s against the odds by orchestrating the McCann sale. Freddy Rumson was there for Don as a sobriety counselor. Sally and Peggy forgave Don even though they *could* have chosen to cut him out. Harry, Pete, and Dawn helped him in small but important ways during the season.
Lane, by contrast, didn’t even have those friends as a stranger in a strange land. Don is a study of the “American dream” of economic mobility. Lane isn’t a part of that, as an outsider, as an Englishman, as a man with the heart of a rugged individualist but the manners and proclivities of a polite, organized, thoughtful money-manager.
Moreover, Lane remains a cautionary tale for Don because they are mirrors, despite Don’s potent advantages. Lane’s suicide also highlighted that Adam’s suicide and all of the Dick Whitman pain and guilt remain with Don. Don Draper does feel a certain amount of self-hatred and indulgent self-pity that his Dick Whitman life sucked so much that he stole a new identity but then, Don made horrible choices that cause pain even with his second “should have been a clean slate” identity. Don’s coldness to hide his Dick Whitman pain drove Adam to suicide. Don’s arguable coldness as uber-Don Draper, Most Important Partner at SCDP and Wealthy Man Who Can Judge People in Dire Financial Straits, drove Lane to suicide. Don definitely connected the two suicides in his head that way as moral failures of both of his identities.
This season, Don was put in Lane’s office casting a pall of death over Don. The Mad Men credits are ambiguous- the Don like figure jumps out of a building indicating either suicide or a failure. However, the credits end with the Don-figure in repose on a couch indicating either resting in peace or finding some peace in life/breaking his own fall. Much of Don’s story is a mystery of what the credits mean and at the forefront, is whether Don commits suicide like Lane and Adam.
Favorite episode (scene if movie) - For a reserved character, Lane is at his most fascinating at his peak of life (Shut the Door, Have a Seat) and his nadir/end of life (Commissions and Fees).
Favorite season/movie - There’s good Lane Pryce material and a consistently awesome performance by Jared Harris in S3-5- but he feels too underwritten in every season. In every season, I usually would like more Lane than I get. It’s hard to pick a favorite. I think he got the most interesting dramatic arc in S5.
Favorite line -
Of course:
Lane Pryce: Saint John, how are you?
Saint John Powell: What in God's name is going on over there?
Lane Pryce: I think at this point it should be very clear.
Saint John Powell: [furious] You're fired. You're fired for costing this company millions of pounds. You're fired for insubordination.
[shouts]
Saint John Powell: You're fired for lack of character!
Lane Pryce: [cheerfully] Very good. Happy Christmas!
Also:
Don: You know what’s going on here?
Lane: What?
Don: Handjobs.
Pete (loudly): What percentage do you think?
Movie watchers turn around indignantly.
Rebecca Pryce: You like it here! The smells and the noise and the criminals at every level.
Lane Pryce: I have made the best of this. My salary is good. The company is flourishing. My wife has a beautiful gown. May I see it?
Rebecca Pryce: [shakes her head] It's not London. It's not even England.
Lane Pryce: That's true. I've been here ten months and no-one's ever asked me where I went to school.
Favorite outfit - I pretty much adore everyone’s clothes on Mad Men and Lane is no exception. I love the small British details in his clothes. Lane wears vests constantly. He has often has a watch on a chain or a slightly contrasting pocket square. Many of his suits are tweed. It gives him a slightly distinctive look from his peers say, Don and Roger. I think he usually looked good, but I think he looked best in well-cut, single-breasted dark navy suits as so many men do.
OTP - I don’t really have one? I didn’t like Rebecca until she told off Don for being complicit in her husband’s downfall for the rare protectiveness that she showed her deceased husband.
Rebecca was pretty underwritten and we saw her only from Lane’s point of view so she came off as a demanding, unsympathetic, difficult woman. However, IMO, Lane didn’t tell her important stuff- his father was and continues to be verbally and physically abusive toward him, the PPL executives treated him badly, his full emotional reasons for wanting to live in the US, his financial difficulties right up until the end, and you know, his extra-marital affairs.
However, Rebecca failed to ask deeper questions about why Lane so desperately wanted to stay in the United States or about his clear sadness towards the end of his life because she was so tunnel-visioned on her own angst at having to leave England that she failed to muster much concern for her husband. Lane did seem to tend much more to Rebecca’s sadness at feeling displaced so the relationship seemed extremely unbalanced. However, in Rebecca’s defense, she actually made Lane aware of her pain. Lane wasn’t equally honest with Rebecca- although that’s also a coping mechanism Lane developed from his child abuse. In conclusion, from what I saw, Rebecca could stand to look in the mirror when she's trying to figure out who made her husband so unhappy and desperate because she played her part as much as Don did.
I think Lane’s crush on Joan was very cute- but I can’t make it an OTP when Joan was so pointedly uninterested with nothing looking movable on that front. The best thing about that relationship is that Lane pulled a first for a Mad Man and worked with her with respect and professionalism after she rebuffed his romantic interest.
Lane’s thing with Toni was too short-lived to be an interesting hot mess and too weird and exploitative for me to get into it (Come on, “You know I love you, my chocolate bunny”….).
Brotp - I really loved Lane and Don stepping out for their guys’ night out. It was very fun to see Lane and Don plastered and making buffoons of themselves at a monster movie. However, of course, that was tinged with tons of sadness and inadequacy to be a true Brotp.
For Lane, that one night was Lane’s one night to really come out of shell and let loose and get any sympathy for his honest-to-goodness pain. For Don, that night was part of his series of drunken, casual-sex benders of self-pity through the first three quarters of S4. It’s just that Don was able to, for that one night, turn his self-destructive Bachelor 2.0 nuttiness into like, a good deed or something because Don was purchasing a whore and booze for someone else! It was Don's "I don't have the moral clarity to overrule Anna Draper's sister and tell Anna that she's dying from cancer and offer to pay for more serious medical treatment. So, I'll include Lane in my evenings of debauchery and call it my good deed of the week!" night. That's....kind of sweet and kind of infuriating- but not the stuff of a Brotp.
Head Canon - Lane was fully cognizant of the uneven financial playing field from the beginning. He knew that Don, Roger, and Bert enriched themselves even beyond their previous riches at Sterling Cooper from selling the business to PPL while Lane wasn’t a partner and wasn’t in a position to take anything. Lane knew that his family and wife were leeching money out of him by requiring him to maintain two residences and lives in England and the United States. He was well-aware that he was coming in on the tail end of the lucrative relationship with Lucky Strike.
Lane actually had some objections to putting up a capital contribution at the end of S4 because he really couldn’t afford it but he saw Pete put the contribution even though Pete also didn’t make money from the sale PPL and had a new baby at home. Lane couldn’t object since a partner in the same position was putting up $50,000 on demand (since Lane didn’t know that Don secretly covered Pete’s contribution). So, Lane held a stiff upper lip and liquidated his portfolio to put up the contribution without complaint.
Lane quietly bore how much the people around him were draining his savings and really tried to not let it bother him- even though that was a Herculean task since Lane's every instinct is to count every penny and obsess over it. However, Lane snapped when Don fired him for embezzlement. Even then when he heard himself cry about his financial disadvantages out of desperation for Don's pity, he hated himself for whining and humiliating himself as he did it. Since childhood, Lane generally walked around with a serious level of self-loathing and insecurity that he forced himself able to live with. However, his humiliation at being caught, his guilt over the forgery, and also, his self-loathing that he drew attention to his money problems and money resentments in such a tawdry, victim-like way to tower of strength Don Draper caused something to snap inside Lane. When Don advised Lane to find an elegant way to resign, it cut even deeper because Lane knew that he passed "elegant", like, twenty exits back.
Lane's shame and the elegant line stayed with Lane. The irony that Jaguar's mechanical failures inhibited Lane from even committing suicide right stayed with Lane. With increased self-loathing and big anger at himself and others, he elected to commit suicide without any elegance- a hanging in his office with a boiler plate suicide note.
Unpopular opinion - Lane was dead wrong for starting a fist-fight with Pete over taking some of the Jaguar executives to a whorehouse. Pete *is* a grimy little pimp but Lane KNOWS that. It’s been common knowledge that the account men pay for prostitutes to entertain high roller clients. Lane’s been signing off on the expense accounts for years at SC 1.0 and then SCDP. It was pretty damn hypocritical for Lane to suddenly be SHOCKED SHOCKED to find that whoring is going on in this establishment, since Lane knows that’s how they do business and Lane isn’t exactly above purchasing some tail himself. Moreover, I'll wager that Lane knowingly approved expense accounts after, knowing that account men were purchasing prostitutes. So whatever with your indignation, Lane.
Generally, Lane is more professional and courteous than your average Sterling Cooper bear. However, Lane did take civility to a new low by starting a fist-fight in a partner’s meeting.
A wish - I wish there were more Lane/Roger and Lane/Bert scenes because those relationships among the partners were unexplored. Lane and Bert have similar pragmatic, analytic, disciplined but with a big dash of quirky personalities.
However, I think it was dramatically well-structured for Lane to feel totally isolated among the partners except for Don as a kinda sorta lifeline. As Lane says, ironically, he forged Don’s signature because Don’s always been the most decent to him. It made Lane all the more vulnerable to Don doling out the punishment for the embezzlement without the confidence to try to talk to someone else. Lane knew that, given his place at the agency, none of the other partners would give him a better deal than Don.
I had also hoped when he went back to England to get his family affairs in order towards the end of S4 that we’d follow him there for an ep or some scenes to see 1960s London. London was just as, if not more so, the center of developing the mod 1960s culture that Mad Men covers as New York City and Los Angeles. I was somewhat disappointed that this didn’t come to pass.
5 words/phrases to best describe him - Desperately insecure, quietly surprising, adorkably awkward, perennially but very quietly depressed, clever.
My nickname for him - Lane will do in a pinch.