Maybe We Got 'Mad Men' All Wrong

The internet has been buzzing about Mad Men's Megan Draper's Sharon Tate parallel for roughly a year now, ever since last June's episode "The Better Half" where she donned a red star shirt a la the departed Ms.Tate's 1967 Esquire spread. Fans will recall that recent episode "The Monolith" revealed Margaret Hargrove, (nèe Sterling), had run away from her Manhattanite husband, child, and parents to join a cult-like commune. Conspiracy theorists, naturally saw this as a sign that Margaret was joining a Manson Family like cult that might soon find itself in Los Angeles. While that explanation seems to fit on a surface level, we'd like to introduce a new theory: the newly-dubbed "Marigold" is indeed in a cult, but not the one you'd expect.

Around the late '60s, another cult movement was brewing. A man named Jim Jones founded The Peoples Temple, a new religious movement sprung out of Indiana that later moved operations to California. Temple members would move once more in the '70s: to Jonestown, Guyana. That's right, the commune life espoused by Roger Sterling's daughter has way more in common with the group of folks who would go on to commit a mass suicide in Jonestown than the sadistic groupies that worshiped Manson and murdered a pregnant Tate in cold blood.

For one, much of Jonestown's members regarded their collective as a church. During one of her last meetings in Manhattan with her father, Margaret was already acting "strange and philosophical" per her parent's assessment. She forgave her father for the past, said love could conquer anger, and that her new church was helping her deal, (taking care to mention the "church" exists "not in any way [Roger]'d understand").

In contrast, Charles Manson's beliefs and guru status were derived from his own personal mashup of Scientology and Satan-worshipping beliefs. Manson was also obsessed with the idea of an impending race war that would spell the eradication of all white Americans. Jim Jones, on the other hand, was a proponent of integration, and specifically moved his congregation to Jonestown for the area's assumed racial tolerance. Even the massacre itself was littered with new age, comforting language, with tape of the event reflecting Jones assuring everyone that death is just "another plane" and "a friend."

That sort of "good vibes" approach to communal living makes Marigold's easy breezy, potato peeling co-op seem a ripe candidate to travel to Cali and fall under Jones' spell. Given how family-oriented the People's Temple was, we wouldn't be surprised if she went back for her baby before diving into the Kool-aid. The Manson theories won't die down anytime soon, but The Family was clearly a creepier and kookier group that stuck to the cities and dabbled in way darker stuff. Unless something big shifts over at her "church" we imagine Marigold's more of a danger to herself than wielding a knife towards anyone else.

Image: AMC, Giphy