Don Draper of 'Mad Men' Weeps Up a Storm

Sept. 7, 2010 — -- Don Draper's hard shell had to crack at some point, and the long anticipated Humpty-Dumpty moment finally arrived in this week's "Mad Men" episode.

Draper -- played full throttle by Emmy-nominated Jon Hamm -- let out a flood of tears and sobs made all the more poignant by the character's profound sense of loss.

In this most recent episode, Draper got a phone message that he'd been dreading.

In one of this season's previous shows, he and viewers learned the kernel of what was to come. Anna Draper had terminal cancer. Anna was the widow of the soldier named Don Draper who was killed in the Korean War and whose identity was stolen by Dick Whitman, the birth name of Hamm's character.

In flashbacks over various episodes, viewers saw how Anna -- played by Melinda Page Hamilton -- divorced Hamm's Don Draper, so that he could marry Betsy. In turn, Draper had provided for Anna, buying her a home in California, and developing a deep enduring friendship that is often the hallmark of long married couples.

Of course, Anna knew first-hand her friend's darker side. He had, after all, swiped her dead husband's dog tag while in battle during the Korean War. But she had also seen his caring nature the way few people in his life had. And she loved him unconditionally.

So, after Draper made the call that confirmed Anna had died, he was bereft. As he threw his upper body onto the desk, he shared with his colleague Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss) that the person he'd just lost was the only one in his life who truly knew him.

"When a man experiences extreme loss -- often the loss of a significant person through separation or death -- the façade cannot be held together," said William Pollack, a psychologist in private practice in Boston, and also associate clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

In Draper's case, the façade is huge. He's used his brilliant professional ad-man skills to eclipse the more sordid parts of his life -- the stolen identity, marital infidelities and insensitivity to his children.