Coming at you with a special tag team post co-authored by your very own Piece and Blerg for the series finale.
WARNING: SPOILERS AFTER THE JUMP
APieceoftheContinent:
So that was the end of Mad Men. Everything was wrapped up in a nice neat way – maybe not exactly the way we wanted but such is life – and yet I still feel empty. My thoughts in no particular order…
- We leave Don on the side of the road with nothing but the clothes on his back and pick up with him in Bonneville breaking the sound barrier. How could that possibly even happen? I think this was the point where Mad Men jumped the shark for me.
- Do. Not. Like. Cokie Joanie. Glad she ditched Shooter McGavin. This is probably horrible to say but on a professional level, I would have preferred leaving her with getting screwed over by the Boys’ Club she sacrificed her morals to play into. Better than unleashing a new Pima Ryan out into the work force.
- I know. I know. PEGGY AND STAN 4EVAH. At the same time, the way it happened in that very rom-com-esque manner made it feel like a cheap throwaway to the audience. I didn’t give you ten other things you wanted but I’m giving you one thing you really wanted which you didn’t think I’d give you. Yes, Weiner. You’re right. We didn’t think you’d be that cheesy and/or that willing to set the women’s lib movement back more than a few paces. Are women really not capable of having positive professional relationships with men without it involving sex? She propositioned Don at the very beginning. She had a bebbeh with Pete. Now it turns out she’s soul mates with Stan. Hell, she probably would have had a fling with Roger if they had given them more than five minutes of screen time together. I would have rather left her focused on launching her own firm.
- Speaking of Pete – LOVED his final moment with Peggy. It was the one redeeming moment in the finale. A thing like that.
- I take that back. There were two redeeming moments. I really like the fact that Roger and Marie ended up together. She knows all his tricks and she’s not going to put up with them. Maybe she’ll actually help him grow as a person.
- So. The elephant in the room. The ending. Don reaches enlightenment, realizes his true calling is in being an Ad Man, and the revolutionizing Coke ad bursts forth from his brain. At first I thought the ending was the moment when Don reached enlightenment and the ad was a superfluous thing to tie the storyline into what was going on in the world but the general interpretation is that wasn’t the intended meaning. I suppose his having gone back to advertising was preferable to leaving him on that insane hippie commune (I seriously wanted to reach through the screen and smack that guy during the refrigerator monologue. Ugh.). Beyond that, I’m still processing that ending. It was fitting. I’m just not sure I liked it.
So that was the series. It was a pleasure sharing it with you fine folks.
MattBlerg:
At the end of the first half of season 7, I went back and read things about the end of The Sopranos, I rewatched the ending, I prepared myself for the same dissatisfaction for the end of Mad Men. (I actually half-wrote a piece that I intended to be a pre-cap for this season, but never got around to fully fleshing it out.) After Bert died and Roger sold the the company, you had to wonder “Where is this all going?” As much as we might want it to be something else, Mad Men was a workplace drama and no one works together forever. This group of bosses and co-workers were together (that we saw) for 10 years. People come and go (Sal, Lane) and some stick around way longer than you want (Harry, Meredith), but you can’t imagine them being together forever.
I tried not to put too many expectations on the finale, but I did think we would either see Betty’s funeral or the aftermath of her death. I didn’t think we would ever see Joan, Peggy, Stan or Pete again, but I’m glad we did. How do you give closure to a show that’s about people’s lives if none of them die?
Though I was never really a fan of Pete and Peggy as a couple (nor did I ever see them getting together), I loved their ending. Both were young in their careers at the beginning of the show and we’ve had the pleasure of seeing them grow together and now they are making their respective next steps – Pete is off to bigger and better things in Kansas and Peggy is on track to become a Creative Director by 1980 (which, yes Peggy, it does seem like a long time). “A thing like that.”
The first thing that TooTanMan told Joanie was a lie. I knew he wasn’t good for her from the start. She would have had to bend her life to accommodate him, and she would have hated it. Joan is what? In her late 30s, early 40s? TTM did not belong in the undeveloped property of her life. I can’t imagine Joanie in Key West doing drugs and becoming part of the cocaine lifestyle. Though, for a second, I thought that was the path she was heading down. Holloway Harris is exactly what Joan needed. I would 100% watch that spinoff.
Speaking of Joan, whenever she spoke about Kevin with Roger, I don’t remember her saying “our child” so that kind of took me by surprise. I enjoyed her and Roger’s little send off. I wish they had ended up together, but perhaps Marie Calvet was a better match. I thought it was over between the two of them when she unleashed her crazy side when they were in bed, all Roger had to do was bend to her will. Happy wife, happy life.
Just about all the reviews I’ve read and podcasts I’ve listened to are split down the middle about Peggy and Stan. I agree that it IS a bit of fan service (though what’s one bit of fan service after all these years), but what’s so wrong with Peggy finding love? And with Stan?! We all love him so much, if we can’t have him, then someone should be able to.
And last but not least, we have Don. His conversation with Betty, Birdie, was touching and heartbreaking. Don, er, Dick, always wanted to be something better than he really was, but he never got there. He thought he could be great with Betty, but that didn’t work out. He tried to start over with Megan, but that didn’t work out either. And then Diana was even more of a runner than he ever was. If you wanted closure with Mad Men, I think that conversation between Don and Betty is as close as you’re going to get. (As an aside, I love that our last vision of Betty is her sitting in the kitchen smoking that cigarette. Betty being Betty till the very end.)
I said in the Weekend OT that I would be disappointed if we spent any time with Don and his flashbacks. Though we didn’t see any actual flashbacks, we had to see Stephanie, which to me is just as bad. We spent the whole episode with Don in California and I couldn’t help but feel stuck, and not just because Stephanie took the car. Maybe Don needed that yoga retreat in order to be able to move forward, but whereas everyone else got a storyline where I could see them going somewhere Don is forever it the Lotus position with a goofy grin on his face. And the we cut to the Coke ad. That frustration of the last image of Don and showing the ad is the frustration I expected to feel with the end of this series.
This show could go on forever and I’d watch. I’m forever interested in what they do for the rest of their lives and I will miss them. I’m not sure I ever did them or this show justice in these post-mortems, but I’m glad I had the opportunity to (over) examine them with you every week.
Thanks again, folks. And thank you to APotC for writing these with me the last few years.
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