MAD MEN on AMC - Seasons 7(a) & & 7(b)

don's consciousness expanding until it becomes one with the universe in the form of a coke ad is a pretty amazing ending. don literally making the coke ad is less amazing but also acceptable.

stan-peggy was a little hasty, which is why it made me think of the cocaine scene earlier. it certainly fits thematically with everything else in the episode. it was worth it for moss's performance in that scene though.

If Don didn't go back, then what is your take on it? All of the characters remarking "Oh he does this, he'll be back", Peggy making it clear that he would be welcomed back, etc. Don finding inner peace wouldn't mean he would have to go travelling or live on a hippie commune or something. He could be content and secure in his person and his position in life and bring that back to the only place he has ever really felt at home.

I don't think it matters whether the character of Don Draper did the Coke ad or not! It's one of those things where people forget that fiction is a line of thought as much as it is a narrative of events.

Don Draper didn't create the Coke ad. The idea of Don Draper, broken advertising man who experiences spiritual enlightenment, created the ad.

after taking a few years off from the show it was noticeable how much more confident peggy was, like her off handed sarcasm "anything for a friend" when joan offers a ton of money for that side work was so not the old uptight peggy

Roger flopping back in bed in the last ep was a genuine *fans self* moment.

ryan seems to know what I'm saying

the spirit of Don is with the spirit of all those other advertisers in the fictional advertising land in the sky

did tony get whacked/did don write the ad

don's consciousness expanding until it becomes one with the universe in the form of a coke ad is a pretty amazing ending. don literally making the coke ad is less amazing but also acceptable.

― ryan, Monday, May 18, 2015 1:46 PM (39 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

feel like its both its neither its all its nothing its... mad

in last week's episode roger said something about ken being willing to stay with them because he liked pete's nose in his ass too much to leave, and i missed it the first time but the expression on pete's face, a kind of resigned nod, just killed me.

sorry, two weeks ago.

The character doesn't go travelling or live in a hippie commune or return to advertising, he ends when the credits roll.

One thing I've read a few times today about Peggy/Stan: that it only worked because so much goodwill had been invested in Peggy (i.e., that outside of that, it wasn't particularly well done or believable). So I don't think you're alone, shakey. I'm a case in point: I liked it fine, and because I like Peggy so much, don't feel the need to question it.

like even if he did make the ad it had to start with the universal unconscious thats just life man

otm^

if it was deadly important that it be explicitly one way or another then i imagine they would have made it more explicit.

xxp its total fan service but so the eff what.

why can't writers just end things on ways that ~make you think~ without audiences asking them what literally happened

I never watched The Sopranos but I have heard they ran into the same prob

Nobody is saying it is deadly important. Certainly there is room between "This is what happened after the show without a doubt" and "The character ends with the ends credits, it's only a show, LOL".

if it was deadly important that it be explicitly one way or another then i imagine they would have made it more explicit.

― ryan, Monday, May 18, 2015 1:50 PM (45 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

maybe it was secretly explicit like the sopranos and we wont know til someone writes multiple 10k word blog posts on the topic

He could be content and secure in his person and his position in life and bring that back to the only place he has ever really felt at home.

it's p clear he never really felt at home anywhere. he's not Dick Whitman (he can't be, for obvious reasons) and he's not Don Draper anymore either (as Stephanie's "you're not my family" remark lays bare, in addition to no one in his old life, including his former wives, children, coworkers, having any need for him, as was also explicitly stated). at the end of the show, to me he's nobody - reflective of the true meditative state - he's cast it all off, and that enlightenment takes the form of... a coke ad.

I don't really care what happens to him after the same as I don't care what happens after the screen went black in Sopranos. it's just speculative, to no end really.

xxp

in the sopranos tony died tho thats a fact

It's a pretty seamless and poetic transition. Saying "what if...?" doesn't rob it of it's essence. Great way to end a show.

I would love to read an interview w the team that actually created the Coke ad, I'm hoping one will surface soon.

If it's unimportant then why do people treat it like it is a real question and not an uncertainty? I understand speculation about what the character would have done, sure, but people who don't get that plots can end with open-endedness or uncertainty bug me

Was the song that the show ended on a coke jingle

i guess the question is whether it was intended as open ended

iirc the actual Coke ad was a bargain with Satan and all the people in the ad were sacrificed after the filming to pay for that ridiculously catchy song

entertainment weekly interviewed the coke ad guy. he said he didn't give a shit and he stopped watching the show when it became about the characters personal lives.

lol

The oral history of yesterday

that is... perfect

I love series finale threads

why can't writers just end things on ways that ~make you think~

my clue would be it's the same answer as for "Why does advertising work?"

people who don't get that plots can end with open-endedness or uncertainty bug me

breaking bad and the miniseries boom are in part to blame for this imo, the newfound interest in totally closed endings - not because theyre bad but because they're /definitive/ or whatever

people who don't get that plots can end with open-endedness or uncertainty bug me

I don't understand this sentiment. You are in favor of an open-ended plot that allows for room for conjecture ..... yet when someone makes their own conjecture you look down on them for not getting that it is "open-ended"? It seems the point of having an open-ended plot is allowing for people to run w it, not shame them into watching TV the wrong way.

I said I don't mind conjecture about what could be, I just don't like when people insist on a definitive answer. If people are asking Matthew Weiner not whether it was meant to be ambiguous, but instead questions like "Did Don make the commercial?" it is irritating

if you want to write some stories on your own website about Don making commercials and going back to NYC and whatever else, more power to you

if you are intent on explaining why you are /right/ about whether a fictional character did or did not do something in an unscripted event, whoo boy

but yes, if it was meant to be ambiguous
(or hell, even if it didn't, it works better ambiguous)
then we can say that saying Don Draper made an ad for a little old cola company is just as true as the cosmic advertising zeitgeist creating the ad, as far as the fictional world of Mad Men goes

Some people think an open-ended ending is a puzzle waiting to be figured out, that there's an absolute, correct answer if they keep analyzing what they've seen. THAT kind of conjecture bugs me.

in the sopranos that was true tho it cld be here too (prob not)

without audiences asking them what literally happened
..as I opened with, yeah, the "literally" meaning people thinking there is a correct version and they will somehow unlock it by getting the show creator to make eye contact with them and wink after spelling out their theory

Dennis Perrin @DennisThePerrin
If Don wrote "Buy The World A Coke," then Peggy must have conceived Iron Eyes Cody crying at pollution.

http://i.ytimg.com/vi/8Suu84khNGY/hqdefault.jpg

someone a few weeks ago mentioned that mad men doesn't get enough credit for being really funny and i was reminded of that with this episode a few times. one of the funnier episodes over all, even. especially the peggy scenes.

i think this is probably true of most successful television drama, due to the form. i think it would be interesting to compare not-so-funny 'prestige' programming to not-so-funny long-form network serials (like i dunno 'ER'? something less procedural would be good too though), i suspect the 'prestige' programming gets its cachet partly from being able to exploit more conventional modes of 'seriousness' (death is looming, everything is gloomy, etc.) and not having to suspend them indefinitely slightly-removed episodic stories which are hardly ever e.g. tragically bad for the main characters (who go on).

xp Inspired by Stan's nightly White Castle runs.

I want a loop of Stan saying random things into the phone and Peggy responding with "what?!" to each of them

Well hopefully nobody will ask him what the ambiguous end of his massively popular TV show means.

that is not what I said, but I can rephrase it a few dozen more times if you like

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XvFb_tvkJg

Eh I didn't mean that as a barb towards you. Just meant this kind of thing is to be expected, given the facts.

video otm

A+ awesome

I mean, Weiner could say it is completely unambiguous but he is too busy to explain his television show to people and I would enjoy his subtle trolling