Mad Men: The Final Season

[nelsonmuntz]

Those are two funny contradictory statements.
What are your objections to the 70's other than clothes? What defines 70's culture other than clothes & music?

Arguably the 80's was worse, just as much bad clothes & bad music but it was less about trying new things and pushing limits and more about everyone embracing stupid crap like leg warmers and ballads. 70's miscues (disco) weren't as widespread & the stupid clothes did push forward more leeway in how people dressed.

Television was pretty awful prior to cable. The 3 major networks had gotten lazy and were churning out milquetoast garbage. Baretta was nominated multiple Emmy awards. Think about that. Comedy was starting to come around, with All in the Family and the Jeffersons, but for every one of those shows, there were 10 Different Strokes and Facts of Life.

The Towering Inferno was nominated for Best Picture. Have you seen that movie? It was like the Love Boat with fire. I think Chinatown is one of the most overrated movies in history.

I actually think disco is a positive. The pure escapism and surrender to excess of the music is a metaphor for the whole decade.

 

[Dogdeacon]

Great start to final season. Opening scene was perfect exclamation that the best show in TV is back.

 

[mauconnfan]

Yep having Don back as Don again is huge. The side burns on Sterling can go please though

 

[Ts5034]

I got into this show a couple years ago once I got Netflix. I binge watched the first five seasons because I was hooked. I just dont like how they split the final season into 7 episodes each. We have 6 left and I have no idea where this season is going after the first episode.

 

[Dogdeacon]

I got into this show a couple years ago once I got Netflix. I binge watched the first five seasons because I was hooked. I just dont like how they split the final season into 7 episodes each. We have 6 left and I have no idea where this season is going after the first episode.

Yeah, the split was BS and it is essentially two very short seasons. But that likely means they'll pack a lot in. I liked how we jumped 9 months into spring 1970 and got past a lot of late 1969 bs (such as the Sharon Tate murders that the internet had conspiracy-Megan theories about). So now time marches on and our characters are trying to but still stuck being who or how they are deep down. Its a fitting end because it was never just about the 60's, its about us.

 

[Scalito]

The first episode was well done. Don got laid by 2 different women. A strong signal that I can once again vicariously live through my hero's exploits.

 

[ZooCougar]

Watched the first two episodes so I am all caught up now.

I have this feeling of dread that Don is going to jump off that balcony before too long.

The way the whole Dow chemical thing went down had me rolling. I love Roger and I love to hate Pete but they deserve whatever pain is coming although with Roger being a lucky general it should all backfire in his favor.

 

[Dogdeacon]

After that last episode I really do think Don leaping out the window is in play. My stance has been that sure he's falling but he ends up in the chair coolly smoking away. I was more worried last episode that Pirate Ken was going to run through a 20th story glass window.

1st episode was great, 2nd a little too bleak & I didn't really like the excessive time we spent with the waitress or all the time we spent with the French Canadian moving follies. I wanted to see Pete try to golf!

So Don has a modicum of guest fathering going on, but other than that Don has been completely stripped bare of everything in his life despite having all the money he could ever want (Bert did tell him the best things in life are free @ end of mini-season, is he starting to get it?). There did seem to be a glimmer of understanding in Don when the waitress was dumping him that he was repeating his pattern of grasping for flawed & ultimately vacant attachments. So does he try to cure himself of his attachment issues or build some real relationships. We see him on a couch in the never enlightening 'scenes from next week', maybe he gets some counseling from Dr Fay?!

 

[ZooCougar]

After that last episode I really do think Don leaping out the window is in play. My stance has been that sure he's falling but he ends up in the chair coolly smoking away. I was more worried last episode that Pirate Ken was going to run through a 20th story glass window.

1st episode was great, 2nd a little too bleak & I didn't really like the excessive time we spent with the waitress or all the time we spent with the French Canadian moving follies. I wanted to see Pete try to golf!

So Don has a modicum of guest fathering going on, but other than that Don has been completely stripped bare of everything in his life despite having all the money he could ever want (Bert did tell him the best things in life are free @ end of mini-season, is he starting to get it?). There did seem to be a glimmer of understanding in Don when the waitress was dumping him that he was repeating his pattern of grasping for flawed & ultimately vacant attachments. So does he try to cure himself of his attachment issues or build some real relationships. We see him on a couch in the never enlightening 'scenes from next week', maybe he gets some counseling from Dr Fay?!

The other thing is that he keeps seeing dead people.

Of course the less morbid prediction is that he reboots his life like he did when left Korea. Seems like the theme of that last episode was about "living the life you want to live".

 

[nelsonmuntz]

I have to re-watch Episode II because I was responding to emails while watching it so I think I missed some things.

Other than looking like the department store lady, I do not get the attachment to the waitress. She is in a nosedive herself, so I don't understand why Don would try to get on that plane. In hindsight, Don made the right move in driving Betty off. She is a stupid, shallow, nasty, entitled B. I grew up in a town where there were a lot of women like this, and most of them ended up divorced once their looks started to fade. Megan was a trophy, but not much else. Maybe the message with Don is that he makes really bad choices of women.

Roger and Megan's mom getting busted by Megan was a great scene. Roger paid Megan's mom to steal Don's furniture so he could get laid in the middle of the afternoon when he was supposed to be at work. That is a great Roger-move.

 

[Dogdeacon]

Yes Don makes bad choices, but why? I think it is;
1. Don can't help but turn all of his wives/girlfriends into prostitute type relationships, Roger pd his $100 for the waitress, Don pd $1M for Megan etc.. Its the only type of relationship Don understands because...
2. Don is too emotionally detached from himself (pretending to be someone else) to be truthful and emotionally available for a relationship. Losing his Mom & being ashamed of her plus a lousy father who made him ashamed of himself make it difficult for him to be himself and expect to be loved.
Too trite maybe to say he needs to accept himself to be accepted by others. Maybe also part of it is Don can't help himself but continue to put on the Don Draper suit (even when waitress shows up at 3AM) to continually 'advertise' and sell the unwitting consumer a false promise. Maybe Don just needs to meet a nice girl after a swim looking disheveled.

 

[Fishy]

I'm going to trust that they have a good reason for spending two of their very last episodes focusing on a weird diner waitress.

Whatever it is, I don't see it yet.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

Something was off with last night's show. The Joan storyline was like something out of Love Boat. A guy bumps into her because he went in the wrong door, and Joan not only bangs him, but then they fall in love with each other, but then have this big hysterical fight because she calls home, all within one episode? How did that plot arc happen on this show?

The Don storyline was good. I like Roger better when he is drunk and lazy, but they are still doing a good job with him. I must have missed something, but what happened to the waitress?

I fully expected Betty to bang Sally's friend. Betty's judgment is that bad, and it would have at least made her character more interesting.

 

[ZooCougar]

Something was off with last night's show. The Joan storyline was like something out of Love Boat. A guy bumps into her because he went in the wrong door, and Joan not only bangs him, but then they fall in love with each other, but then have this big hysterical fight because she calls home, all within one episode? How did that plot arc happen on this show?

The Don storyline was good. I like Roger better when he is drunk and lazy, but they are still doing a good job with him. I must have missed something, but what happened to the waitress?

I fully expected Betty to bang Sally's friend. Betty's judgment is that bad, and it would have at least made her character more interesting.

This season it seems like Don and Roger are doing actual work now. Roger reviewing stacks of paperwork, Don's not always sleeping off lunch. It's like everyone is acting grown up.

I have thought all along that Joan would end up running the whole place. Maybe this is part of it?

 

[Fishy]

Something was off with last night's show. The Joan storyline was like something out of Love Boat. A guy bumps into her because he went in the wrong door, and Joan not only bangs him, but then they fall in love with each other, but then have this big hysterical fight because she calls home, all within one episode? How did that plot arc happen on this show?

I have no idea.

I guess they had to replace the suicidal diner waitress and that's what they came up with.

They are just flinging s--- at the wall right now.

Here's my advice - bail on Don's former families. No one cares. Have Betty and the kids die in a carbon-monoxide accident involving a squirrel blocking the furnace exhaust.

Kill off everyone who is not Don, Roger, Joan or Pete or the girl from Get Him to the Greek whose name I always forget. Take five minutes at the begining of next week's episode and just massacre 'em all.

 

[Dogdeacon]

I have no idea.

I guess they had to replace the suicidal diner waitress and that's what they came up with.

They are just flinging s--- at the wall right now.

Here's my advice - bail on Don's former families. No one cares. Have Betty and the kids die in a carbon-monoxide accident involving a squirrel blocking the furnace exhaust.

Kill off everyone who is not Don, Roger, Joan or Pete or the girl from Get Him to the Greek whose name I always forget. Take five minutes at the begining of next week's episode and just massacre 'em all.

But this shows always done this, it indulges in the bit players and occasionally people go insane imagining a bigger picture (i.e. Bob Benson or Megan wears a t-shirt & everyone thinks she's a Manson victim). Last night was good although a bit indulgent of Matthew Weiner.
1. He and everyone else love looking at Christina Hendricks, so personally I bought into the LA love boatride b/c it meant staring at her. I'm sorry, was the plot blocking ya'll's view or something?!
2. Glenn (Sally's friend) is played by Weiner's son. I think Weiner only hired January Jones to look at her and then fed his child as surrogate for his crush. Nice of him though to send the kid to the killing fields.
3. Clearly Don's search for a mission statement was a parallel to Weiner's quest to write a meaningful end to the series.
Despite all this the episode was great due to:
A. Pete & Peggy arguing with Don in middle, Don's WTF look when they went back to their corners was tremendous
B. Peggy; "Why don't you tell me your dreams so I can s__t all over them!"
C. Pete; "We've got a "Peanut Butter Cookie Problem!"
D. Sally's retort to Glenn saying he enlisted "ARE YOU BLEEPING STUPID?!"

 

[Dogdeacon]

Time and Life was a great episode - definitely top-10 Mad Men all-time for both little things (a knowing look as Roger gives Don the layup laxative 'move' joke) and big; the Peggy & Stan scenes were tremendous. I was really freaking scared for a second that the melancholy waitress was coming back when Don tried a drunk hook-up, but thank goodness she'd moved. Don is left with nothing even as he gets the biggest whitest whale of Co..ca - Col-LA. Don is alone in the abyss, what is next?!

 

[ZooCougar]

Time and Life was a great episode - definitely top-10 Mad Men all-time for both little things (a knowing look as Roger gives Don the layup laxative 'move' joke) and big; the Peggy & Stan scenes were tremendous. I was really freaking scared for a second that the melancholy waitress was coming back when Don tried a drunk hook-up, but thank goodness she'd moved. Don is left with nothing even as he gets the biggest whitest whale of Co..ca - Col-LA. Don is alone in the abyss, what is next?!

Still digesting what happened. I have slight anxiety over this show ending. Sort of the same feeling I used to get when I was a kid and a neighborhood friend moved away.

Getting absorbed and being handed titanic accounts sort of feels like everyone is being forced to finally grow up. Also I have to wonder if they are happier with the smaller accounts than the politics of dealing with the big boys.

 

[Dogdeacon]

Still digesting what happened. I have slight anxiety over this show ending. Sort of the same feeling I used to get when I was a kid and a neighborhood friend moved away.

Getting absorbed and being handed titanic accounts sort of feels like everyone is being forced to finally grow up. Also I have to wonder if they are happier with the smaller accounts than the politics of dealing with the big boys.

Yes, for Don, Roger & Pete it has almost always been about acquiring or keeping the account, rarely simply servicing which is probably 90% of advertising but far less dramatic and equally 90% of the time less rewarding. So have they died & gone to advertising heaven or just died?

I'm steeling myself by knowing Netflix exists and I can always re-watch previous seasons. Weiner once said his original ending was the season finale where Don got the leave of absence and then showing his children the dilapidated whorehouse he grew up in while Joni Mitchell's 'Both Sides, Now' (I've looked at clouds...) plays in the background. Given that it is 1970, odds could be the ending is set to either of that year's best songs; "Let it be" or "Bridge Over Troubled Water" .

 

[Gretchen]

I haven't viewed a single episode of 'Mad Men.' Notwithstanding that fact, it seems like "...This is the final season of 'Mad Men' " has been going on for something like three years now. What did I miss... other than the show?

 

[ZooCougar]

I haven't viewed a single episode of 'Mad Men.' Notwithstanding that fact, it seems like "...This is the final season of 'Mad Men' " has been going on for something like three years now. What did I miss... other than the show?

Everything. Nothing.

 

[Husky25]

Everything. Nothing.

Profound.

 

[storrsroars]

St. Paul is a long way from NYC by car. Dying to see how they tie that loose end up.

Loved the use of Major Tom when the hitcher got in the car and they headed west on the open highway.

 

[junglehusky]

Peggy is badass.

 

[Dogdeacon]

St. Paul is a long way from NYC by car. Dying to see how they tie that loose end up.

Loved the use of Major Tom when the hitcher got in the car and they headed west on the open highway.

Eh, I think they jump to next month. They are killing me with the waitress plotline, I'm getting close to wanting Dick Whitman to jump out the window versus watching him chase what is essentially his own flawed & ugly 'tail'.