Mad Men: The Final Season | Page 3 | The Boneyard

Mad Men: The Final Season

Dogdeacon said:
No doubt, I've got Roger right up there with Henry Blake, Dietrich from Barney Miller (had to look up Steve Landesburg to get that name) as HOF most likeable & funny supporting comedic characters.
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How do you not include "Coach" Ernie Pantuso?
 
Lou getting bitchslapped was great. Everybody that everybody likes ended the season on a high note, everyone that everyone dislikes got shut down a bit. I only like Pete because he is on Team Don until at least it no longer is to his benefit.

5 year contracts with McCann? Don basically selling out in order to keep his job and win the war? It seems obvious where this is going, but that would be too predictable. We're probably in for something good NEXT YEAR WTF!

They might as well have given us two more full seasons.... FU AMC.
 
Husky25 said:
How do you not include "Coach" Ernie Pantuso?
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Nice catch, I was struggling with Blake as he's kind of half dumb half smart. Adding coach sets up a nice continuum of brains Deitrich-Sterling-Blake-Coach.

I think Pete Campbell AND Harry Crane are also in a slightly lower pantheon of supporting characters you love to hate.
 
ZooCougar said:
I only like Pete because he is on Team Don until at least it no longer is to his benefit.
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That's what I tried to explain to my wife last night when she increduously asked me, while catching up on the series, why I liked Pete too. I disliked the little weasel when he was trying to shake down my boy for a promotion early on in the show, and I like the little sycophant now that he's sucking up to Don. It's all about being on the right team. Cooper explained it well to Roger in their last chat about the Don-Cutler brouhahaha.
 
Spartacus said:
That's what I tried to explain to my wife last night when she increduously asked me, while catching up on the series, why I liked Pete too. I disliked the little weasel when he was trying to shake down my boy for a promotion early on in the show, and I like the little sycophant now that he's sucking up to Don. It's all about being on the right team. Cooper explained it well to Roger in their last chat about the Don-Cutler brouhahaha.
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Exactamundo. I can like Pete in his current state and root for him to f--- his way out of it with his new girl while still siding with Trudy when Pete briefly reverts back into his caveman pig-ish core self.
Pete's lines in that last episode were so great;
"Marriage is a RACKET"
"This is a sensitive piece of horseflesh we are dealing with"
I really like the way he's brokered himself an acceptance of Don's talents and via that last quote still clinging to some sort of class based superiority. I hope we get a scene next year where Pete has to woo Buick and therefore Bob Benson. That would be the best. "NOT GOOD BOB!"
 
So when Cooper appeared and began serenading Don, did anyone else think that Don had died too?

Also, what about Cooper's sister? Could she figure into anything if he left his shares to her?
 
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ZooCougar said:
So when Cooper appeared and began serenading Don, did anyone else think that Don had died too?

Also, what about Cooper's sister? Could she figure into anything if he left his shares to her?
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I over thought the story line on the voting interest, but here's my conclusion based on everyone's acceptance of the notion that Cooper's death screwed Don: the partnership agreement must have had a provision that compels the partners to buy out a deceased partner's shares on his death. That's the only way to account for the change in votes. Otherwise, Cooper's estate would be able to vote in any major partnership decision and Don could've defeated a renewed motion by Cutler to remove him.
 
Loved the midseason finale. Great stuff. Especially loved seeing Peggy become that great pitch artists Don has always been. Cooper was a real drag, but, you know.. last season and all. Sterling basically killing the "kill Don" plot was awesome. Love that he did anything he could to keep them together. Wouldn't be the same without them both.

Can't wait to see the last few episodes a bajillion years from now.
 
Just finished watching online on the AMC website. I hate Nationwide and will never buy insurance through them again because their annoying commercials in the online vids were making me homicidal. AMC really has to mix up their advertisers.

I thought the season got off to a rocky start, but finished strong. I actually didn't want a happy ending to the show, and I thought they were going down a road that infighting, and Cutler's, Cooper's and even Sterling's general uselessness were going to sink the agency. Lou Allen was a freaking idiot, and creative was revolting against him. I would have much preferred that they got rid of Ginsberg by having him say something so obnoxious to Allen that there was no way to get past it and he would have to be fired. Still, the ending was all right.

In season 6, I thought Ted Shaugh was very much becoming the conscience of the agency, and then they basically wrote him off the show for the whole season. Strange. Beyond just Peggy's crush, he was the one guy on the show that you could really root for.

In real life, someone like Cooper, who doesn't do anything but pull out a ton of cash and act judgmental would eventually be hated by everyone in the agency that mattered. I had no problem with the show killing him off.

I like the Cutler character. He is like Roger would be if Roger cared. He made a very credible adversary to Roger and Don.

I thought Megan broke up with John in 7.3, but then he comes back out to LA in 7.4. I was very confused by that, and the subsequent 3 some. As cool as a scene like that was to watch, even in PG-13, that kind of activity was much more Roger than Don. I fully expected Don to be really offended by it, particularly since it was pretty obvious that this wasn't the first time that Megan was with her buddy.

Betty is becoming a waste of screen time. She is a shallow, nasty little B whose kids will eventually hate her. I fully expect Henry to leave her, because it already stretches credibility that someone like him would put up with her nonsense as long as he has. I don't get the point of any of her storylines any more, other than to fight with Sally.

Campbell is such a dork that I don't think he could ever get a girl like he had this past season, although she got fed up with him and appears to have dumped him.

I don't get why Joan hates Don so much. Sure, Don is a massive jerk, but so is everyone else in the office so why focus on Don?
 
nelsonmuntz said:
Just finished watching online on the AMC website. I hate Nationwide and will never buy insurance through them again because their annoying commercials in the online vids were making me homicidal. AMC really has to mix up their advertisers.

I thought the season got off to a rocky start, but finished strong. I actually didn't want a happy ending to the show, and I thought they were going down a road that infighting, and Cutler's, Cooper's and even Sterling's general uselessness were going to sink the agency. Lou Allen was a freaking idiot, and creative was revolting against him. I would have much preferred that they got rid of Ginsberg by having him say something so obnoxious to Allen that there was no way to get past it and he would have to be fired. Still, the ending was all right.
LOU AVERY ;) A GREAT BUFFOON
In season 6, I thought Ted Shaugh was very much becoming the conscience of the agency, and then they basically wrote him off the show for the whole season. Strange. Beyond just Peggy's crush, he was the one guy on the show that you could really root for.
TEDDY WAS ESSENTIALLY RELEGATED TO A PUNCHLINE ALL SEASON, PREVIOUSLY HE WAS HEADED EXACTLY WHERE YOU SAID SO I THINK BY PUTTING HIM OUT TO PASTURE THEY SAID THE SHOW IS STILL ABOUT ITS CENTRAL CHARACTERS AND HE WAS BECOMING TOO STRONG AS THAT MORAL CENTER. THAT WAS KEN COSGROVE'S JOB TO A LESSER DEGREE (KEN SIMPLY ALWAYS CHOSE FAMILY OVER WORK).
In real life, someone like Cooper, who doesn't do anything but pull out a ton of cash and act judgmental would eventually be hated by everyone in the agency that mattered. I had no problem with the show killing him off.
AGREED BUT BETTER CHARACTER THIS WAY, THEY DID GIVE HIM THIS TREATMENT EARLY IN THE NEW AGENCY WHEN HE HAD NO OFFICE BUT THE CHARACTER WAS BETTER AS THE ALMOST GOD-LIKE WISDOM GIVER
I like the Cutler character. He is like Roger would be if Roger cared. He made a very credible adversary to Roger and Don.
AGREED, LOVE TO HATE HIM. BE INTERESTING IF HE STAYS ON AS ROGER WAS TRYING TO GET HIM OUT. I COULD SEE HIM JUMPING TO A LEADERSHIP ROLE AT MCCANN AND REMAINING A THORN IN ROGER'S SIDE.
I thought Megan broke up with John in 7.3, but then he comes back out to LA in 7.4. I was very confused by that, and the subsequent 3 some. As cool as a scene like that was to watch, even in PG-13, that kind of activity was much more Roger than Don. I fully expected Don to be really offended by it, particularly since it was pretty obvious that this wasn't the first time that Megan was with her buddy.
THEY DIDN'T SAY TOO MUCH IN THAT 'BREAKUP' NOR ACTUALLY IN THIS LAST ONE, BUT AFTER MEGAN SENT HIM HOME SHE DID TAKE THE PHONE CALL AND DON SPOKE LOVINGLY TOWARDS HER SO CLEARLY THERE WAS SOME EFFORT UNDERFOOT TO SAVE THE RELATIONSHIP.
Betty is becoming a waste of screen time. She is a shallow, nasty little B whose kids will eventually hate her. I fully expect Henry to leave her, because it already stretches credibility that someone like him would put up with her nonsense as long as he has. I don't get the point of any of her storylines any more, other than to fight with Sally.
I DISAGREE, THOUGHT FAT BETTY WAS THIS WAY, BUT THIS SEASON HER EVOLUTION ON SEEING HER FRIENDS WORKING AND HAVING AN OPINION OUTSIDE OF HER HUSBAND'S WAS INTERESTING. SHE IS CAPABLE OF BEING SMART BUT TOO EMOTIONALLY IMMATURE AND SET IN HER 50'S DECORUM TO EXECUTE. PLAYING BETTY'S USELESSNESS VS SALLY'S EMERGING SENSE OF SELF IS RICH CHARACTER JUXTAPOSITION.
Campbell is such a dork that I don't think he could ever get a girl like he had this past season, although she got fed up with him and appears to have dumped him.
YEP, PETE IS A LOVABLE CREEP NOW THAT HE'S FIRMLY IN DON DRAPER CAMP
I don't get why Joan hates Don so much. Sure, Don is a massive jerk, but so is everyone else in the office so why focus on Don?
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Joan was still pissed over Don single-handedly deciding to dump the Jaguar account that Joan literally prostituted herself for AND costing Joan 1.5M in the going public plan that losing Jaguar squashed. So every day when she deals with her annoying mother and trying situation it is pretty easy to blame Don for her not having a private Mary Poppins to solve that problem.

The changes in Don were really evident in those last two episodes. He was willing to take one for the team on a number of occasions and I think really talked Teddy into doing just writing/creative - no business because he believed this was better. Don's over-involvement on the account business side all started with Connie Hilton in a season where Bert was telling him he was about to be a major influencer in the world. Don clearly sees his limitations and preferences now professionally. I've no idea what he does with that knowledge personally and/or how being a part of a corporation will change things. I did love Roger's journey this season and stepping into the leadership vacuum when Bert passed was perfect. The half-season was almost as much about Roger as anyone else.
 
The ads for the rest of Season 7 make me sad. They all looked so sharp in the beginning of the 60's, and now they look like jackasses. The 70's were an absolute fashion disaster.
 
nelsonmuntz said:
The ads for the rest of Season 7 make me sad. They all looked so sharp in the beginning of the 60's, and now they look like jackasses. The 70's were an absolute fashion disaster.
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Yes & no for me, I find the 70's styles comical & its a really interesting evolution for me to watch as I became cognizant of the world in the 70's so to watch these characters evolve into what is my defacto world starting point should be fascinating. I hope like the show did for the 60's it provides insight into why/how we (US culture) got there & how it felt. For me the early 60's episodes were almost like learning the secrets of a foreign country, now they are coming to my America.
 
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I don't give a crap about clothes, but I wanted to dress like Roger and Don after Season 1 and 2. But I would walk around in a garbage bag before I would wear the nonsense that people wore in the 70's.

Basically, other than great music and a few good movies, the 70's were a cultural disaster.
 
I don't give a crap about clothes, but I wanted to dress like Roger and Don after Season 1 and 2. But I would walk around in a garbage bag before I would wear the nonsense that people wore in the 70's.

Basically, other than great music and a few good movies, the 70's were a cultural disaster.
 
nelsonmuntz said:
I don't give a crap about clothes, but I wanted to dress like Roger and Don after Season 1 and 2. But I would walk around in a garbage bag before I would wear the nonsense that people wore in the 70's.

Basically, other than great music and a few good movies, the 70's were a cultural disaster.
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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.
 
Dogdeacon said:
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.
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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.
 
Yep having Don back as Don again is huge. The side burns on Sterling can go please though :rolleyes:
 
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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.
 
Ts5034 said:
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.
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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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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?!
 
Dogdeacon said:
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?!
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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".
 
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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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
nelsonmuntz said:
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.
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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?
 
nelsonmuntz said:
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?
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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.
 
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