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

Agree with all of that. Sally reading the letter was very moving, as was Betty's stoicism.

I almost wondered if Betty turning the corner as she proceeded to class was the last we'd see of her--it would have been a graceful last shot--but you would think they'd have to have some kind of resolution with Don and Betty in the last episode.

there's some poetic justice to don just slipping out of everyone's life for good.

yeah. i mean, Don opts out of his responsibilities and other people's lives regularly, but there is a much stronger sense of finality to it this time round. i wonder if it's particularly necessary for us to see Don tying up loose ends with the other characters, particularly given how lonely, independent and unfulfilled his journey has been throughout the show.

I think the whole point of bringing pete and trudy back together is precisely because their marriage was a farce. I think they like the farce; they have these brahmin status quo notions of what family and love are supposed to be and prob wanted to go back to that

^^ Yep. Pete's realized he's better at the farce than Draper – and he'll survive in advertising, not Don.

Betty never ever chose for herself. She was raised to allow her husband to choose for her, and to never ever do something for herself. Her final plot is her choosing the way she dies, and sending a letter to her daughter saying that she's proud of her for choosing her own life. Thematically, it makes a hell of a lot sense.

Odds on her falling out of a skyscraper in the final episode?

Trudy and Pete's marriage is not a farce at all.

Didn't really understand Don's plot this season until this week. He's lost his apartment, furniture, his passion for his job, now his car. . what's next?

Pretty sure Pete will move to Wichita, I can see that.

It's stupid but I hope we get more Peggy and Joan next week. Probably not.

Missed Roger a lot, too, but that might be it for him. Good sendoffs for him and Pegs.

Kinda feel like next week there will be no ad business stuff and strictly Draper family stuff--Betty's funeral? Who knows.

Fucking love Sally. She's the best. The heart of the show.

there's some poetic justice to don just slipping out of everyone's life for good.

If they have the nerve to try this, I think that'd be a great ending. Don out on the road, no communication with anyone anymore except his kids. (Which would be complicated by news of Betty, so I don't know if they can credibly do that.)

He's lost his apartment, furniture, his passion for his job, now his car. . what's next?

A friend suggested impotence is the last stop.

game of thrones and mad men are both shows about angry brooding men correcting people's grammar.

i can foresee this cruel show making pete the only person who has a 'happy' ending. (though maybe peggy's already had hers.) this entire episode from betty struggling up the stairs on i watched with a feeling of dread. felt sure that much worse was coming for don, but nop just a beating and on his way.

A friend suggested impotence is the last stop.

It's true, we haven't seen Don bonin' in a while

pretty sure we haven't seen the last of Roger. such a terrific character, and one of the main reasons i've stuck with the show.

remember that Pete and Trudy's marriage was a disaster long before they decided to end it. much of Pete's inner torment stemmed from his dissatisfaction with family life and the emptiness it brought him, contrary to everything he thought it should stand for. not to mention that he was a patently terrible husband and father, who behaved like an abhorrent prick time and time again. obviously Pete's newfound freedom didn't set the scene for the personal redemption he was seeking or anticipating, but i just can't imagine a plausible context for Trudy to invite him back into her life. i can imagine Pete being delusional enough to think it's worth a shot, however.

I just realized that first scene of Don being caught was a dream, not a flash-forward. Couldn't figure out why none of you guys talked about it. I'm slow sometimes.

"In three days, it'll fall off by itself"---another omen?
Seriously, I was among those who thought he might check out at the end, but now I guess having him and Betty go so close together would be a bit much. Cancer used to be TV fodder in the 70s, early 80s---like what were called disease-of-the-week TV movies---but this was short sharp shocks, and Betty may go the same way, like falling and breaking her skull (and/or other weakened bones) on those damned stairs, going even more quickly than she would anyway, maybe in that sense as mercifully as possible, for all concerned. "I watched my mother die," and she doesn't want that for Sally or the others. Jeez, looks like the kids are gonna have enough on their hands holding Henry up; he's completely collapsed.
Suppose Draper might come back to see about his kids, even--try for custody? A vision of starting over, like Pete's? Maybe Don and the kids could go West together! Although we know parenting's not been one of his great enthusiasms or skills.

Don needs to find that psychologist woman who was good w kids, the one he almost married before Megan.

Brutal show for a lot of ppl to watch on Mother's Day btw.

true, but anyone still watching the show at this stage knows that it can be pretty bleak.

Yeah, justified by the way they did it (imagine her having to wait for Henry, however long it took for him to get there from *Rocky's* office or wherever. She's there and thinking, absorbing, sitting in that office; the doctor's probably not saying anything much at all, 'til her Husband gets there). Also, she's as good with Sally, in conversation and her letter, as she knows how to be.

Don never goes back. he rides the rails hobo style all the way to Hawaii. Show ends with him calling the Francis household, talks to Bobby and tells him he's not coming home. Fade to black as Cats in the Cradle plays.

did anyone think he was going to proposition Draper?

lol yes I totally thought this too

Don't mean to be glib--thematically, why did they do this?

everybody forgot about Betty's previous cancer scare eh

love ramblin mystery man Don, could see him trying to reunite w his kids out west (he's gonna leave his kids to Francis?!). Betty was ice cold to the end.

it's a bunch of life-goes-on and people-don't-get-what-they-deserve simplicity
fuck's sake, betty literally walks up the stairs to heaven

Fade to black as Cats in the Cradle plays.

I hit upon CCR's "Someday Never Comes" yesterday, an even better "Cat's in the Cradle" (which I like).

No, I didn't forget the previous cancer scare, just why did they bring it back? I'm just trying to figure out the overriding purpose...there may not be one at all beyond the inherent drama.

betty's end was one of the stodgiest pieces of TV writing i have seen in a long time. it's a shame.

CCR--Long as I can See the light?

(xpost) I don't know, I thought it was handled very well. Little things like needing Henry there before the diagnosis is given, Sally holding her hands over her ears, Betty initially walking right past Sally, etc. Definitely going full-out for sentiment, but that's been something the show does now and again, and I thought it succeeded.

I agree the "aand... Betty's dead!" did seem a bit abrupt this close to the end, but it wasn't entirely out of the blue, it didn't strike me as unrealistic. thought it was handled well myself.

i've never found the musical choices particularly notable (and i'm not a fan of much of the incidental music either) so it's p baffling to me that it's now taking up like a third of the discussion here

betty does not strike me as the type of character who would just accept death like that. she was never that saintly. no believable character, in the face of death and having to say goodbye to her children, would be so succinct.

you forgot the part where she's an emotionless robot tho

helped immeasurably by Jones' wooden acting

Writing that stiff, correct letter to the daughter whom she's resented as an imposition for years strikes me as exactly the kind of response for which Betty was trained.

so it's p baffling to me that it's now taking up like a third of the discussion here

Basically how I feel about gifs and Megan's blue dress. Everybody takes away different things from the show.

Alfred otm. It's not saintly, she's thought about cancer before, re her mom and her own previous possibility, and she's thought about what she would do (not a lot of great options back then, even if they'd caught it earlier). This isn't her being cold, either, but characteristic stubbornness and reserve helps, in this case.
So much for sticking to contemporaneous hits eh

i think the whole cancer plot came at the expense of the symmetry and continuity that had been quietly and judiciously firming in the previous episodes, but i guess they handled it ok. last shot of Betty battling up the stairs was a bit laboured though.

Also, yeah, that Main Line training, leaving with class, in just the right dress. Via instructions to her daughter, the kind she might have gotten ( or wanted to get, at the very least)

betty may have always been robotic, stubborn, reserved, or whatever you want to cal it - but the issue here was more about how nobly and gracefully she gave into death. the betty i knew would have had something else to say about it.

that last shot was awful xp.

nothing noble or graceful about death

like I said, Betty handled it exactly as I expected.

no, there is nothing noble or graceful about death. which is why it comes as a surprise that someone of Betty's impermeable, almost child-like temperament would handle it with such nobility.

the crux of her power as both an actress and character on the show was a result of the dichotomy between her maturity and sheer immaturity. when this contrast worked, it was because it was presented with complexity. there was nothing at all complex about this ending.

for me, Betty has been a secondary character for so long that i have difficulty recalling the values that she is supposed to represent. it doesn't help that they were so complex and contradictory to begin with. most of the characters have grown more familiar to me over time to the point where their actions and responses are defined by how true to character they are. Betty, on the other hand, has grown progressively distant. i rarely feel like i have a firm grasp on what she's angling for or where she's arrived.

imo betty's like a pissed off madam bovary, more or less.

the 'pissed off' part is what i was missing. i mean, i didn't cry. i was ready to cry, and i cry at everything. it was mother's day, and i didn't cry. if that doesn't say something, i don't know what does!

actually i take that back, betty is pissed off because she bought into the whole marriage/kids/suburbs thing and was miserable anyway. she spent most of her life being the object of other people's fantasies, and rarely articulated her own.

feel like betty doesnt mind dying (maybe its a relief?) as long as her kids are going to be ok. her main concern by the end of the ep is literally leaving a good looking corpse.

i cried a little at the last line of her note to sally, tho. whoever said it upthread was right, that this is about betty having no choices in life but getting to choose how to die, whether to fight death, etc

Betty may yet revert to petulance, strained terseness etc as her illness continues, but in the scene with Sally, she managed that rare Betty balance, which the last scene with Glen may have helped her to achieve here (dovetailing with their scenes of long ago, esp. when lost boy put his hand on her knee, and she gently dissuaded him).

Gotta go to work, so no time for lists (awww), but let's be thinking about all those awesome Duckpoints in Mad Men history. We may not have seen the last of him yet!

Finale is two hrs., or did I hear that wrong last night?

Ducktales spinoff