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Mad Men on AMC (3 Viewers)

Things that Sons of Anarchy and Mad Men had in common:

1) Maggie Siff died in both.

2) That dumb kid sucks up oxygen in both.

3) A dude bites off his own tongue in both (Harry Crane deleted scene from the finale)

 
Officer Pete Malloy said:
Aaron Rudnicki said:
It was fine. Everybody hates finales.
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To use one of Cooper's lines "that's true".
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In Boise, the show has always started at 11pm. Just finished it.

There's no way this show can have a great ending due to the nature of it.

I really like how they closed all the main characters out right at the end.

Roger ordering lobster and champagne. I'm really cool with that.

The show was about Don and his struggles and he found peace at the end.

Reading this thread looks like some of you will never find it. :lmao:

 
I'm OK with Stan and Peggy but it really should have been setup in a previous episode. It was jarring. Seemed like a last minute add.

Was tearing my hair out seeing Don at the hippie retreat with 10 mins left in the series. Really? OK, if you are going to give us this ending I just ask for 2 things... show Bert there in a yoga pose and give me a final shot of Don in his suit back at McCann showing the coke ad. please. Those 2 little things would have made it good.

 
17seconds said:
I'm OK with Stan and Peggy but it really should have been setup in a previous episode. It was jarring. Seemed like a last minute add.

Was tearing my hair out seeing Don at the hippie retreat with 10 mins left in the series. Really? OK, if you are going to give us this ending I just ask for 2 things... show Bert there in a yoga pose and give me a final shot of Don in his suit back at McCann showing the coke ad. please. Those 2 little things would have made it good.
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Very solid on both points.

Stan Peggy thing didn't surprise me at all.

Bert was always in yoga pose mode 24/7. That would have been perfect.

 
Read that one of the main singers in the Coke ad had her hair almost exactly like the girl with the pigtails at the front desk of yoga camp.

 
17seconds said:
"Good said:
17seconds said:
give me a final shot of Don in his suit back at McCann showing the coke ad. please.
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JFC.
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A wry grin is enough for you? I want to see him back in his element.
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How laid out on a platter do you need things?

He stopped running (from everything) and went back. While it may be debateable that Don's re-awakening/bottoming out/change directly led to one of the most iconic commercials in history, at worst the ad transmits the information that he returned.

This is why Matt Weiner writes TV shows, and you work in a Bass Pro Shop(s).

 
Good Posting Judge said:
17seconds said:
"Good said:
17seconds said:
give me a final shot of Don in his suit back at McCann showing the coke ad. please.
Click to expand...
JFC.
Click to expand...
A wry grin is enough for you? I want to see him back in his element.
Click to expand...
How laid out on a platter do you need things?

He stopped running (from everything) and went back. While it may be debateable that Don's re-awakening/bottoming out/change directly led to one of the most iconic commercials in history, at worst the ad transmits the information that he returned.

This is why Matt Weiner writes TV shows, and you work in a Bass Pro Shop(s).
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Easy Tiger.

 
For the final time... :cry: Thanks, Seppy!

A review of the "Mad Men" series finale coming up just as soon as I translate your speech into pig Latin...

"I hope he's in a better place." -Meredith

He's not, Meredith. He's right back where he started.

Or so it seems.

I mean, there's a way to interpret the conclusion of "Person to Person," and "Mad Men," in which Don Draper's voyage of self-discovery across these United States doesn't lead to him writing the most famous Coca-Cola ad of them all. In that version, one might lean on Matthew Weiner's own words about how he would never give one of his characters credit for an iconic real-life campaign(*), and one might suggest the point of the ad is to represent the world he left behind, which would try to take this genuine moment and turn it into yet another commodity. What Don has on that cliff is the real thing, baby, while the Coke ad is a slick and phony attempt to mass-produce that feeling for every soda-buying individual with a television set.

(*) Of course, the series began with Weiner appropriating a very old Lucky Strike slogan ("It's toasted," which dates back to 1917) for a Don inspiration, so he may have felt comfortable coming full circle. Also, his "never"s aren't always absolute; at the end of season 2, he said he couldn't see himself doing a JFK assassination episode, then did exactly that the following season.

That's not an unfair interpretation of what happened, and it may be exactly what Weiner intended, even as he filled that retreat with images and sounds designed to evoke the "I'd Like to Buy the World a Coke" spot. Maybe when he makes the only public comments about the finale that he's promised to make — being interviewed Wednesday night at the New York Public Library by novelist A.M. Holmes — he'll shoot down every "Don wrote that ad" theory faster than Members Only Guy allegedly shot Tony Soprano.

In the immediate aftermath of watching "Person to Person," I wanted to think that the ad was simply there to underline the genuineness of Don's moment of bliss by showing us what a phony version — produced by the agency and business he traveled thousands of miles to escape — looked like.

And that was mainly because I didn't want the entire series, and in particular Don's cross-country odyssey of self-discovery — during which he gradually shed himself of all the trappings of the life he built by stealing the real Don Draper's identity — to build to him learning nothing besides how to write a better tagline.

Even if that ultimately feels true to both him and the series.

We forge attachments with the characters of our favorite shows. We spend years watching their stories, and we want that time to feel well-spent. Sometimes, that means accepting them for who and what they are — embracing the monstrosity of a Tony Soprano or a Walter White, or accepting the deeply flawed natures of everyone and everything on "The Wire" — and appreciating how artfully their stories are told. Sometimes, though, we want to believe the best of them: that despite abundant evidence to the contrary, they can transcend their weaknesses and destructive patterns and become worthy of the time we put into them not just as a complex and interesting character on a TV show, but as someone worthy of this theoretical, entirely one-sided relationship we've built with them.

The Don Draper we spent 92 hours watching was frequently a terrible human being. He stole a dead man's identity, drove his own brother to suicide, repeatedly cheated on both his wives, abandoned all responsibility to work and/or family whenever the mood struck him, and walked all over Peggy like she was a wine-stained scrap of carpet. But the Don we watched also had his moments of trying to be better, and occasionally achieving that goal for a moment or two before backsliding into his bad habits. The Don who showed Peggy the new Samsonite idea at the end of "The Suitcase," or the one who told Sally the truth about his upbringing, or even the one who wished his Birdie luck at school a few weeks ago — that is the Don Draper, or the #### Whitman, or the blend of the two, whom we wanted him to be. And his final hobo odyssey — particularly that wry grin on his face as he sat on the bus bench at the end of last week's episode, completely free of the burden of being Don Draper, master of the universe — seemed to be pointing him in that direction.

If Don really traversed this great land of ours, threw away all the trappings of Don Draper-hood, learned of Betty's impending death and the shaky future of their three children, and finally heard someone articulate his own deepest feelings of unlovability, and he came out the other side having only acquired the inspiration needed to buy his way back into McCann(**) and write that Coke ad — and cutting straight from the look of pure bliss on Don's face to the ad, without giving us hints of anything else he might do upon returning to New York, suggests that this is the only thing that ultimately matters to him — then that is a very cynical and dark take on a man I wanted better from.

(**) During Peggy and Stan's phone call (about which I will have much more to say in a bit), he tells her that Don will come back and be just fine like he always has in the past, and she later observes that Stan is always right.

But it also seems like an honest take on who that man actually was, and what "Mad Men" has been about.

This is a show whose opening credits — depicting an ad man who has his whole world stripped away, sending him plunging to the ground, only to end up back where he started, lounging confidently, a cigarette dangling from his hand — promised this exact journey, and whose stories time and again dealt with the tremendous difficulty of personal change. Don, Joan, Roger, Peggy and Pete weren't Baby Boomers, who would get to find themselves as Camelot gave way to Woodstock; they were adults at the start of this tumultuous decade, and though all grew and changed in different ways, the change often came at deep personal cost, and not all of it stuck. Time and again, we saw Don vow to stop cheating, to stop treating Peggy like garbage, to be more involved in his children's lives, and we saw him stick to those vows... for a little while. And then he went back to doing what was easy.

This latest journey seemed like it was going to be different. He spoke of advertising in the past tense (in the finale, he tells Anna's niece Stephanie that he's retired), got absolved of his role in Donald Draper's death and gave a would-be **** Whitman a chance to avoid committing the same kind of original sin, and seemed to be heading towards something new. There was hope there for a new, better version of Don — one that would last past the first stumble, or the first bit of temptation.

Instead, we didn't get a new Don. We got a new Coke ad(***). He didn't become a better human; just a better ad man. Which was the only thing he was consistently good at to begin with.

(***) But not a New Coke ad. That's for the reunion movie, where Peggy is now creative director at McCann, as Pete predicted, and trying like hell to talk the client out of changing the recipe.

So, no, ending on the Coke jingle didn't fill me with uplift and contentment, particularly after a finale that took both Don and the show so far out of their comfort zones in bringing him to that New Age retreat along the California coast, in a way that seemed to promise something deeper than he ultimately proved capable of becoming. But perhaps that was the point: that even a journey of thousands of miles — involving heartache and personal injury and devastating news from the homefront — and even a visit to a place this peaceful and open and lacking in guile or commerce wouldn't be enough to fundamentally alter who Don is at his core and what matters to him.

And if that's the ending Weiner was shooting for (which, again, we have to try our own interpretation), then that's ultimately true to the nature of the show and the man, even as it's disappointing to have him turn out that way, and even as parts of "Person to Person" dragged getting us to the two different groups of people on a cliff.

Now, what was happening back in New York was wonderful, even when it wasn't for the characters involved. Weiner and company had so thoroughly given every major character a great final moment (Peggy strutting down the halls of McCann with Cooper's octopus painting under her arm, Betty going back to school despite the cancer diagnosis, Roger toasting the gutted SC&P office) that there was no one I needed to see one more time if the finale had decided to focus solely on Don's journey. But many of those previous scenes felt ambiguous — Was Peggy going to come in and take over McCann, or get ground up in its gears? Was Richard really enough for Joan? — where the New York scenes of "Person to Person" gave us a clearer picture of what would happen to them in the future, even if we never got past October of 1970. (Note the Halloween decor of Peggy's office.)

So Peggy and Joan both decide that work is the most important thing of all — albeit not together, since Peggy stays at McCann, while Joan has to use both of her last names to make her production company sound impressive — but somehow Peggy is the one after all these years who finds a man who will happily go along on that ride with her, while Richard bolts the moment he realizes Joan isn't ready to retire with him. Peggy and Stan's phone call was about as sappy and wish-fullfillment-y as "Mad Men" has ever gotten, yet if there was one character I wanted nothing but good things for at the end, it was Peggy. And it's not like the show hadn't laid out every last piece of track for that relationship over the years, going all the way back to when she stripped naked in front of him on their first big assignment together. Much as my heart sang at the thought of Peggy and Joan finally working together as friends and equals — particularly at Joan's insistence that she could find another writer, but that Peggy was the only person she would consider as a partner — Peggy loves advertising more than anything, and Stan understands her more than anyone other than Don, and certainly treats her much better than Don usually has, so this seems a fair way to end things.

Though only a few months have passed over these last three episodes, Joan and Peggy's lunch, and so many of the New York scenes, had the feel of a class reunion involving people who hadn't seen each other in ages, and knew they would likely not be seeing each other again for far longer. Pete's farewell to Peggy was a marvel, acknowledging parts of their very long and complicated history without ever getting anywhere near the most important piece, with Pete demonstrating his own huge personal growth (he and Peggy are the two characters who have changed the most since the pilot) in the compliment he pays Peggy — and in his complete lack of vanity or envy in acknowledging that no one has ever said such a thing about him — and Peggy replying by quoting Pete's all-purpose exclamation, "A thing like that." They don't hug, they don't allude to the baby, or the affair, or anything that most ties them together. At the end, they are simply colleagues who have earned each other's complete respect and admiration, and that's remarkable on both ends, given who they were when they first met.

If there was one "character" I very much wanted to see in the finale — even as I knew that I could accept the dance from "The Strategy," or the shared look in the Burger Chef meeting from "Waterloo," as its farewell — it was Don and Peggy's friendship. We didn't get it in person, but we did get one last meaningful phone call, which very much evoked their interaction late in "The Suitcase." Back then, she told him it wasn't true that Anna Draper was the only person who truly knew him; here, she says the same about the idea that he made nothing of the man's name he took. As always, Peggy doesn't have all the facts, and it's somewhat remarkable that she made it to the end of the series without ever getting the full download on **** Whitman. But she knows the man, and she still, like us, sees the good in him even though she's been witness to (and victim of) so much of the bad, and the ache in the performances of both Jon Hamm and Elisabeth Moss in that scene was as powerful as any scene the two ever got to play in physical proximity to one another.

That they have a conversation so fraught unfortunately hangs over the next call she has with Stan — it's hard to invest entirely in that 'ship coming in when she's afraid Don is about to kill himself — and to an extent it colors the payoff with the Coke ad. Peggy sees more in Don than Don sees in himself, and if all he gets out of the journey is inspiration for another ad, then perhaps that faith was misplaced.

Or, given how much of her soul she has poured into this business, perhaps her smile will be just as broad when she tells him the idea.

Weiner often objected to critical attempts to link his show with "Breaking Bad," even with their shared network and roughly overlapping lifespans. And stylistically, "Mad Men" certainly has much more in common — including an ending that left much of its audience asking what on earth they had just watched — with Weiner's previous job writing for Tony Soprano and friends. But another thing the two AMC dramas have in common is the way they both took a sort of Choose Your Own Adventure approach to their final seasons, so that there are multiple points at which each show theoretically could have ended, even if there's in fact only one actual ending for each. And just as some "Breaking Bad" fans might prefer "Ozymandias" as a closing note over "Felina," I imagine there will be some "Mad Men" fans who would rather the last we saw of Don was on that bus bench in Oklahoma, looking at peace with a world of possibility in front of him, rather than a reunion with Stephanie and a week of getting in touch with his feelings. And the two or three episodes before this felt tighter and more potent in both the New York scenes and whenever we caught up with Don on the road.

But I wouldn't have wanted a "Mad Men" that didn't give me Don and Peggy's phone call, or Pete giving Peggy the cactus, or Joan laughing at Roger's new circumstances and calling Dr. Greg a terrible person. If that means I also have to go with Don's journey finally taking him to Coca-Cola, rather than being there for the kids or Betty, or finding a life completely unrelated to advertising, then so be it. Don couldn't entirely change his nature, and neither could "Mad Men." And the show was often better for it, even if its main character was not.

Some other thoughts:

* A few people have asked me if perhaps the idea is that Peggy, not Don, wrote the Coke ad. I don't think that's it. There may be some ambiguity over whether Don wrote it, but you don't cut straight from Don's face to the ad if you mean to suggest that any other character on the show was responsible.

* Don driving the hot rod through Utah's salt flats recalls his interest in fast cars from his visit to Anna Draper back in "The Mountain King."

* Nearly all of the main season 7 cast returned for the finale, save for Henry (not even to argue about custody with Betty) and Teddy (whose last scene, as expected, was watching Don walk out of the McCann meeting). Meredith also gets a farewell scene, along with some more praise from Roger, after getting to succeed Shirley as his new second secretary. (And in hindsight, I realize that Shirley got a proper goodbye, but Dawn — a far more important character in the grand scheme of things — did not.)

* More great phone call acting from Hamm and January Jones in Don and Betty's final conversation. Betty needs to be that firm in demanding he not come home for Don to not seem completely horrible for not immediately doing so, but both actors did a superb job conveying the complicated feelings the two ex-spouses have for each other at this moment in time.

* And what a lovely and sad scene between Sally and Bobby (with poor Gene again on the outside looking in) as they do their best to carry on and play the parents while one is dying and the other is already apparently mourning off-camera.

* Again, Joan's desire to team with Peggy was a nice bone to throw to all the viewers who rooted for those two to get along for more than a few minutes at a time. But McCann is where Peggy belongs, as evidenced by the earlier scene where she steamrolls Lorraine's attempt to do the same to her about the Chevalier account. She has clearly taken Roger's advice to heart and has figured out how to survive and thrive even without Don's protection.

* Richard and Joan snorting cocaine at the tail end of their Key West getaway offered us one last glimpse of a decade of decadence that "Mad Men" unfortunately won't be around to give us.

* Not sure which piece of guest casting for the retreat folk I found more amusing: Brett Gelman essentially reprising his role from "Go On" as one of the group members, or casting Helen Slater as one of the leaders, which meant that when she was talking to Stephanie, we got Supergirl giving advice to the Canary.

* As you might expect, we featured a lot of "Mad Men" coverage over the past few weeks. Here's one post which features links to all of it (including where you can find my reviews of seasons 1-3), from the relatively serious like Fienberg and I picking our 20 favorite episodes and my memories of all these late nights reviewing the show, to something sillier like my definitive annotated list of "Mad Men" rankings.

* Also, for those who have asked, there will be an updated version of "The Revolution Was Televised," to be published sometime this fall, which will involve the end of this show and of "Breaking Bad," as well as some other changes to the story of TV drama in the three years since I first published it.

I hope to have the rest and mental clarity to write one last "Mad Men" review later this week looking back over the life of the series, but this is my last episodic dissection of it. I won't miss the lack of sleep, but I will very much miss the other challenges of covering this one.
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Good Posting Judge said:
17seconds said:
"Good said:
17seconds said:
give me a final shot of Don in his suit back at McCann showing the coke ad. please.
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JFC.
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A wry grin is enough for you? I want to see him back in his element.
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How laid out on a platter do you need things?

He stopped running (from everything) and went back. While it may be debateable that Don's re-awakening/bottoming out/change directly led to one of the most iconic commercials in history, at worst the ad transmits the information that he returned.

This is why Matt Weiner writes TV shows, and you work in a Bass Pro Shop(s).
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There aren't that many Bass Pro Shops, making it physically impossible to work double-shifts at multiple locations. So it would seem the joke's on you.

 
I think there's something to how he was dressed in the final scene. He wasn't out there in hippy gear or even the polo or plaid button down he had on previously at the retreat. He was looking the most put together he has since he showed up at old home of the waitress. Shaven, hair slicked, crisp white shirt. He appeared ready to get back to work, and then he closes his eyes and we see the Coke commercial.

 
Don did the Coca-Cola ad? Please. Giving them to much credit. They had no idea what to do with Don. Like the past six episodes.

Let's just put a timely ad in there and jumble it all up because we don't know how to end it.

 
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Daywalker said:
Don did the Coca-Cola ad? Please. Giving them to much credit. They had no idea what to do with Don. Like the past six episodes.

Let's just put a timely ad in there and jumble it all up because we don't know how to end it.
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He's looking put together, he closes his eyes to meditate, he smiles and the Coca-Cola ad airs with one of the women singing and holding the bottle having her hair done with ribbons just like the woman he saw earlier in the episode. Yeah, we're making big leaps here.

 
Officer Pete Malloy said:
I'm starting to think that the biggest problem I have with the final scene was it looked silly. I'm warming to the basic idea of the scene but seeing Draper sitting there like a goon was queer. I would have gone with him grooving on the ocean or sunset or a freaking butterfly and then the peaceful smile.
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If they would have ended it there, is agree. I was about to be mad, but then cutting to the commercial made me laugh and smile. I think Don went back and was a better person than we've seen the majority of the time. I want to believe he worked in a relationship with his kids and he and Sally got even closer.

 
Shrugs said:
Daywalker said:
Don did the Coca-Cola ad? Please. Giving them to much credit. They had no idea what to do with Don. Like the past six episodes.

Let's just put a timely ad in there and jumble it all up because we don't know how to end it.
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He's looking put together, he closes his eyes to meditate, he smiles and the Coca-Cola ad airs with one of the women singing and holding the bottle having her hair done with ribbons just like the woman he saw earlier in the episode. Yeah, we're making big leaps here.
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I get the leap. It was just slop though. He could have been looking out into nowhere the past six episodes then run that commercial. You'd read into it the same way.

 
Leeroy Jenkins said:
Officer Pete Malloy said:
I'm starting to think that the biggest problem I have with the final scene was it looked silly. I'm warming to the basic idea of the scene but seeing Draper sitting there like a goon was queer. I would have gone with him grooving on the ocean or sunset or a freaking butterfly and then the peaceful smile.
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If they would have ended it there, is agree. I was about to be mad, but then cutting to the commercial made me laugh and smile.I think Don went back and was a better person than we've seen the majority of the time. I want to believe he worked in a relationship with his kids and he and Sally got even closer.
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I thought Don and Sally were never further apart then after that phone call.

 
So DB Cooper actually came up with that Coke Ad?

It does leave things open to a movie at least to see how that whole thing goes down.

 
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Other than Peggy and Stan falling in love seeming way too contrived and unnatural, I thought the finish ruled. Great ending IMO. Great show.

 
Shrugs said:
Daywalker said:
Don did the Coca-Cola ad? Please. Giving them to much credit. They had no idea what to do with Don. Like the past six episodes.

Let's just put a timely ad in there and jumble it all up because we don't know how to end it.
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He's looking put together, he closes his eyes to meditate, he smiles and the Coca-Cola ad airs with one of the women singing and holding the bottle having her hair done with ribbons just like the woman he saw earlier in the episode. Yeah, we're making big leaps here.
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The Valentines Day episode where Don takes Sally back to school after losing her purse in the city. She tells a stunned Don Draper that she loves him. This was preceded by an ice breaking bonding moment when Don opens up and tells Sally the truth about his suspension at a restaurant stop. Up to that point a recalcitrant Sally refused anything but after Don's admission she asked for one thing, The Real Thing, a Coke.

It is a show about the rise and fall and rise again of a Madison Ave Ad man, it is a show about advertising. What the hell was Sepinwal expecting?

 
Leeroy Jenkins said:
Officer Pete Malloy said:
I'm starting to think that the biggest problem I have with the final scene was it looked silly. I'm warming to the basic idea of the scene but seeing Draper sitting there like a goon was queer. I would have gone with him grooving on the ocean or sunset or a freaking butterfly and then the peaceful smile.
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If they would have ended it there, is agree. I was about to be mad, but then cutting to the commercial made me laugh and smile.I think Don went back and was a better person than we've seen the majority of the time. I want to believe he worked in a relationship with his kids and he and Sally got even closer.
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And worked with Peggy on the Coke commercial.......Peggy told a distraught Don "don't you want to work on Coca-Cola?"

After that resounding, iconic success, Peggy went on to become the Creative Director at Mcann by 1980 ( Pete Campbell).......They foreshadowed everything.

All the answers are there.

 
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I watched it again. It's not bAd. Will be interesting to see what Weiner says Wednesday since the first question is likely to be about if don wrote the coke ad.

 
packersfan said:
Ilov80s said:
packersfan said:
Officer Pete Malloy said:
I thought all of the other stories were done very well. I can't find any major faults with them.

I need to digest Don's a little more.
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That's how I feel too. I just don't buy Peggy and Stan together as a couple but I thought they nailed the scenes for what it's worth. Then again Moss can do no wrong by me on this show.
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I always thought Stan and Peggy had a thing.
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I like them much better as platonic friends.
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Perhaps overshadowed by the whole Don thing leaving narrative holes, but that whole phone conversation might be the worst scene in the entire series...Peggy goes from I don't even think about you to I'm in love with you in 30 seconds....
 
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I did find it interesting when Pete hands Peggy the cactus and says something to the effect of "don't let it die". With their shared complicated history the though of him handing her a plant that needs virtually nothing at all was sort of an interesting symmetry

 
FlapJacks said:
packersfan said:
Ilov80s said:
packersfan said:
Officer Pete Malloy said:
I thought all of the other stories were done very well. I can't find any major faults with them.

I need to digest Don's a little more.
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That's how I feel too. I just don't buy Peggy and Stan together as a couple but I thought they nailed the scenes for what it's worth. Then again Moss can do no wrong by me on this show.
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I always thought Stan and Peggy had a thing.
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I like them much better as platonic friends.
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Perhaps overshadowed by the whole Don thing leaving ng narrative holes, but that whole phone conversation might be the worst scene in the entire series...Peggy goes from I don't even think about you to I'm in love with you in 30 seconds....
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Yep

Not even sure it's a huge issue for me story line wise as much as it was so forced. 6 seasons and a phone call between Stan and Peggy has her realize she loves him in a minute or two. Hated it.

 
If Weiner intended that Don made the Coke as, and I believe he did, then he should have done it slightly more explicitly....it was just kind of abrupt from Don at peace and then aCoke ad, from which we are to infer that the ad is part of the narrative....

Seems like he left it slightly vague as a cheap trick to get people talk about it and leave just enough wiggle room for other theories to be derived....

 
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FlapJacks said:
packersfan said:
Ilov80s said:
packersfan said:
Officer Pete Malloy said:
I thought all of the other stories were done very well. I can't find any major faults with them.

I need to digest Don's a little more.
Click to expand...
That's how I feel too. I just don't buy Peggy and Stan together as a couple but I thought they nailed the scenes for what it's worth. Then again Moss can do no wrong by me on this show.
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I always thought Stan and Peggy had a thing.
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I like them much better as platonic friends.
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Perhaps overshadowed by the whole Don thing leaving narrative holes, but that whole phone conversation might be the worst scene in the entire series...Peggy goes from I don't even think about you to I'm in love with you in 30 seconds....
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Peggy actually said something like "I feel you here" while placing her hand on her heart. :wub: :wall:

 
Tiger Fan said:
Horrible. Seriously
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So I was about 8 beers deep when I posted this.....so I probably was a little harsh. I'll definitely rewatch again tonight....BUT, I'll stand by a few things:

1. The entire episode felt extremely rushed, all the jumping around and opening up new storylines was unnecessary IMO

2. The whole Peggy/Stan thing was cheap....why even bring it up at this point

And clearly, he wrote the Coke ad (IMO)

 
FlapJacks said:
If Weiner intended that Don made the Coke as, and I believe he did, then he should have done it slightly more explicitly....it was just kind of abrupt from Don at peace and then aCoke ad, from which we are to infer that the ad is part of the narrative....

Seems like he left it slightly vague as a cheap trick to get people talk about it and leave just enough wiggle room for other theories to be derived....
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I don't think that there's any wiggle room at all.

To me, the loose end is: Did Don's experience in this final season lead him to happiness and fulfillment? Or do you look at it cynically and think that his final "progression" was just like all of his others: cyclical, to be used as fodder for selling products to the disconnected masses?

I hated the episode as I watched it but in thinking it through the next day, I really like how Weiner ended it.

 
Even though the Peggy/Stan closure was abruptly handled, I still had a "How did I not see that coming?" moment.

I like that we were sort of left to write our own ending for Don. I like to think he did come back and write the commercial and be there for his kids. I'm now wondering if , cleaned up in his white shirt at the end, he was already back at the agency, daydreaming and remembering his "cleansing" and getting the inspiration for the ad. Also noticed that this is the moment they use on the AMC web site for the finale picture.

ETA-I disagree with the characterization that back to advertising means Don was back where he started, because I think he was starting over as himself, not someone else, regardless of what name he was using.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Am I allowed to think that Don being involved in the Coke ad was a good way to wrap up the series, but also think that the actual episode leading up to it sucked immensely?

 
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