"Mad Men" on AMC (US) - (Spoilers Within)

[MrBern]

Elizabeth Moss on LIVE! this week
[video=youtube;EVZX1m_qLyg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVZX1m_qLyg[/video]

 

[plain old dave]

I have been watching the marathon, and will probably watch the last episode this evening. I'm going to be a "wet blanket", but here goes. From what I saw yesterday afternoon, Mad Men is the most singularly cynical program to be on television in maybe more than a decade. I don't remember the last time I saw a TV show that so completely epitomized the old Hank Williams quote, "Don't never worry about nothin' because it ain't never going to be all right nohow."

Don is in free fall, and IMO the opening sequence is the entire series in a few seconds. It wouldn't surprise me if he took a dive out a window of a tall building somewhere and that be the end.

 

[AmateisGal]

From what I saw yesterday afternoon, Mad Men is the most singularly cynical program to be on television in maybe more than a decade. I don't remember the last time I saw a TV show that so completely epitomized the old Hank Williams quote, "Don't never worry about nothin' because it ain't never going to be all right nohow."
.

Have to agree that it's incredibly cynical. I actually haven't been watching the last episodes because it's more of the same and honestly, I'm tired of it. I will probably watch the last episode just to see what happens to Don, though.

 

[tonyb]

Yes, the show is cynical, if by that one means that its characters operate as though they expect other people to act in their own self-interest. But, alas, that's usually the most realistic perspective. Such has been my experience, anyway. Yes, people can be quite generous and open-hearted, but even in doing that they may well be operating from a cynical perspective. Pondering selflessness has me questioning if there really is such a thing.

 

[HudsonHawk]

Well that was absolutely one of the worst episodes in television history. It's an hour of my life I can't get back.

 

[plain old dave]

Well, it might be said that good TV engages, informs and inspires the viewer. THIS episode did just that; not quite a "they all lived happily ever after", but probably as close as we're likely to see in the 2010s.

 

[HudsonHawk]

Well, it might be said that good TV engages, informs and inspires the viewer. THIS episode did just that; not quite a "they all lived happily ever after", but probably as close as we're likely to see in the 2010s.

I can't imagine being inspired by that garbage.

 

[Barbigirl]

I really enjoyed the finale. I thought they did well tying a bow on each story even if it wasn't "happy ever after" for each one.

Don's make peace with Betty as well as people who don't talk about their feeling are able. Sally is going to hold them together through Betty's death while Henry and the kids need it, then the boys will move on to the Uncle. Peggy and Stan surprised me, but I loved that they are happy and don't care that they are at McCann. Pete and Trudie try again. Joan doesn't get her guy but starts her business...she was one who seemed most upset about the dissolution so she got what she wanted. Roger and Marie are happy and Roger finally starts acting his age. Don goes through his hobo grief find himself phase and gets his epiphany for the coke advert.

 

[Wire9Vintage]

I think I liked it, but with all Mad Men, I'm going to have to think about it a while.

I just wish we could know what happened to Ginsburg...

 

[Ernest P Shackleton]

Great episode, and the two before it could have each been great endings as well. It didn't feel like an ending until the very end. I like that.

As for Joan, she never truly wanted a relationship. She was playing a role she thought she was supposed to play. She was ill-equipped from her parents' model, but she felt societal pressures. In truth, she was always most happy being single. She always loved her job, and everyone made her feel bad about herself for loving her work. Her conundrum was having all that sexual power. To feel guilty for using it like a modern woman or to alleviate the judgment for not using it and forming a traditional family? And let's be honest. It must be very confusing to her, living on the cusp of change, and feeling pressure to ignore something that comes naturally and with instantaneous reward with little effort...until it turned her into a prostitute. That trauma of her old standby, her sexuality, was the turning point. Understandably, she went through a period of self-loathing, and from that, she changed. That gift was no longer an ally. It freed her up to get down to work, so when the chance presented itself, via Cutler*, she was ready to take advantage of it.

"Life. Art. Mad Men.

The first two are brought together so poignantly and richly by the third."
-Matt Zemek

*used the wrong partner name. fixed.

 

[HudsonHawk]

The worst part about last night's snoozer...they STILL don't have the guts or the good sense to finish off Betty.

 

[plain old dave]

It didn't feel like an ending till the end. I like that. They didn't start really tying up loose ends til 11 eastern time, and it was much less ambiguous than The Sopranos.

Sent from my SM-G386T using Tapatalk

 

[HudsonHawk]

It didn't feel like an ending till the end. I like that. They didn't start really tying up loose ends til 11 eastern time, and it was much less ambiguous than The Sopranos.

Sent from my SM-G386T using Tapatalk

But they didn't tie up the only loose end that mattered...Don and Peggy. They left them hanging on the phone. Blah.

 

[Ernest P Shackleton]

You basically did get Betty's death. She couldn't even make her kids a sandwich for lunch. Bedridden and likely only days from the grave.

At that point in Don and Peggy's relationship, the phone call was more than sufficient. They barely spoke anymore. She had stopped relying on him. He wasn't playing the role of her mentor or confidant. They were family, but like some key relationships in life, they don't receive, or demand, day-to-day maintenance. Sometimes it gets to the point that even when you think to call or include someone, the thought is enough to satiate that need. "I should call them" is the call. You don't actually make the call. We always think we can take care of it later. In my experience, that phone call was true to life.

 

[Wire9Vintage]

Don will always be the most important man in Peggy's life--even Stan encourages her to let him go. But as her mentor and work-father figure, she will always see him as the main role model--she is the one who tells him to come "home"--not Betty nor Sally, and Anna's niece reminds Don that they aren't family.

That phone call also leads her to realize she had hurt Stan and that wasn't ok.

Joan's storyline was great. She finally got to the point of being needed for her skills--and that trumped anything Mr. Smooth could offer.

For those of us of a certain age, that Coke commercial holds a very important cultural touchstone. While the real story behind the ad is very interesting, I love this new myth about it. All of Mad Men was the build up to this amazing ad--about love and unity and peace--with that cynical twist of those things being used by a monster conglomerate to sell us unhealthy soda. Weiner captured something very important there.

 

[HudsonHawk]

You basically did get Betty's death. She couldn't even make her kids a sandwich for lunch. Bedridden and likely only days from the grave.

At that point in Don and Peggy's relationship, the phone call was more than sufficient. They barely spoke anymore. She had stopped relying on him. He wasn't playing the role of her mentor or confidant.

That doesn't mean the relationship ended.

They were family, but like some key relationships in life, they don't receive, or demand, day-to-day maintenance. Sometimes it gets to the point that even when you think to call or include someone, the thought is enough to satiate that need. "I should call them" is the call. You don't actually make the call. We always think we can take care of it later. In my experience, that phone call was true to life.

But this isn't real life, this is a TV show, and the last one at that. There is no tomorrow. You have to punctuate the story right now. They didn't do that last night. Very disappointing.

 

[Ernest P Shackleton]

That doesn't mean the relationship ended.

I know. That's what I said. It's also what Wire9Vintage just posted.

 

[Doctor Strange]

I'm still processing my feelings about the finale.

While I cheered while watching, Peggy and Stan's rom-com resolution was awfully close to fan service - satisfying, but not entirely believable. The ambiguity about the classic Coke commercial at the end hurt my head (was it just an ironic comment on how sixties idealism and self-improvement sensitivity training were coopted to sell soda? was Don inspired to create the ad himself, or do so in combination with Peggy? something else?) I was pretty happy with the other plots: Joan's starting a business and dropping nice-but-limiting Richard; Roger providing for Kevin's future and seemingly happy with Marie; Pete graciously praising Peggy and jetting off to Witchita, where he and Trudy will be big shots in a way they couldn't be in NY or CT; Sally stepping up to the situation and being more of an adult than Don... as Betty continues smoking.

I thought it very clever that Don's westward journey brought him to Stephanie, the only person who calls him Dick. It managed to fulfill the "he's dropping all his Don aspects and becoming Dick again" storyline without his actually calling himself Dick Whitman. And his realizing, after his conversations with Sally and Betty (not to mention his "confession" to lapsed Catholic Peggy), that running back to NY to be a father to the boys would be out of character. Whether he returns to McCann to be involved in creating the Coke commercial, or remains in CA with only limited connections to his family and former comrades, Don does seem to have gained some wisdom and insight, and JUST MAYBE he'll be a more integrated, less destructive individual going forward.

A fascinating ending to a remarkable series.

 

[plain old dave]

On reflection, I will have to cordially disagree with the Accepted Wisdom about Don. The ending completed the circle for him. As I said, IMO he had been in free fall for at least the second half of Season Six and all of 7. But he started taking ownership of his past at the American Legion and with the call to Peggy. He didn't go to Betty, and I get that.

But

What is missed is that Don is Don and will always BE Don. He couldn't go see Betty. Everybody else changed and Don didn't. Don Draper is the one rock in the tumultuous 1960s; the waves may have taken some of the edges off, but the polished rock is still a rock. all that changed is by the final episode he wasn't wearing a suit in camera. He found his groove in California, went back to New York and played a key role in one of the most iconic ad campaigns of the 1970s. They STILL play a version of that ad on TV.

 

[Wire9Vintage]

Did anyone else notice that, while Don basically looked/dressed/behaved the same from day one while everyone else around him moved with the times, in the last few episodes he had sideburns?

That was no accident... It's a tiny change for Don, but a change nonetheless. So I see the ending as a positive for him--not that he becomes perfect husband/dad/friend/employee, but that he figures out something about himself. However, the Coke ad, as I said,...while it might be a major professional accomplishment, for all its feel-good world-peace vibe, is still pushing poison--while Don may come to see that is is "ok" from the roadside billboard, advertising hasn't changed from the old Lucky Strike days. Just like in those days, where they were trying to advertise around the science, so are sodas today. Weiner gave us change even as nothing changes. Which is the world we live in--human nature remains a constant even as a few individuals may see the light.