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

Don looked so hot last night.

the one shot of him inside the car looking up from the passenger seat was incredible

can't imagine Don will leave his sons w Henry tbh

xp

from the AV club recap. i didn't catch this so I have no idea if it's true or not

Betty’s letter to Sally is dated October 3, 1970.

I dunno if anyone agrees, but Draper dresses too fucking awesome for 1970 (the sunglasses bother me). Campbell's combover and bloated face and lazily cut suits reflect the times.

Well Don is receding further and further into the past. That's why "Everyday" was apt closing music, his road trip has taken him back to 1950s small-town America (and reminded him why he got the hell out). I don't know if that trajectory ultimately takes him all the way back to his own actual origins, or if he kind of breaks free of all of it and charges off into the future. Maybe lands in early Silicon Valley, meets some kids tinkering with computers in their garage.

or he just goes from town to town, pulling small cons and fixing soda machines

Betty’s letter to Sally is dated October 3, 1970.

Read that piece this morning. Was curious, so I checked a couple of dates: Joplin died Oct. 4, 1970, Hendrix on Sept. 18. Both have had end-credit songs. Not reading any significance into that, although Weiner has had interviews where he called "Piece of My Heart" the song that sums up 1968 best.

in any case, the constant lip-service of weiner to Peggy as the secret lead character makes me think this is mostly gonna be her and don's (separate) story
but i really am holding out hope for mutant alligators or some other spectacular fuck you

Like #2 here?

http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2015/may/11/how-will-mad-men-end-four-best-theories

Was this an actual theory, or are they just making that up?

Betty’s letter to Sally is dated October 3, 1970.

Read that piece this morning. Was curious, so I checked a couple of dates: Joplin died Oct. 4, 1970,

The Wichita State University plane crash that Easy linked to upthread happened on October 2, 1970.

It's all a rich tapestry.

surprised to see all the complaints about Trudy+Pete reconciliation upthread - this was pretty clearly telegraphed in the past few episodes, and yes while Pete was a horrible douchebag to Trudy for several seasons, let's not forget all the pre-Cos Cob seasons, where they were shown to be one of the few (only?) functional relationships where it seemed like a partnership of equals with genuine affection for each other. (they were both still horrible wasp-y douchebags, obviously, but they complimented each other perfectly)

It's all a rich tapestry.
― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat)

Could easily be the one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDm1xD_Kwyc

god that was sad.

somehow the adults still relying on sally way too much.

That was an incredible episode, all my doubts about the show have disappeared, its had rough patches but its still something I will think about and refer to for the rest of my life and the last few episodes have done it justice, give or take a misstep or two. I was in tears several times during that episode. You hear about ideas such as "A woman's medical problems would be dealt with through her husband" and it sounds appalling, of course, but to see it in action is something else entirely different and something I'll never forget.

― .robin., Monday, May 11, 2015 7:26 AM

otm. I loved everything about this episode. Except, maybe, the Duck stuff. That was just okay.

yeah the stuff with the doctor talking to henry while betty just stood there was p hard. and the letter just tore me to shreds.

saw a pic of the pete combover, that is some 1989 Rudy Giuliani shit

duck stuff was just okay (i kind of didn't understand it, what exactly is pete's new job?), but duck glancing around to figure out where he was while pete closes the door on his face was great

Yeah, the Duck subplot was kind of cloudy. It seemed like he was working about three different angles to put himself in a better position and if Pete Campbell benefited it was just a byproduct. It is funny, though, because Pete always fancied himself as enlightened and metropolitan when really he's been a displaced midwesterner all along.

I hope they spin the show off. Better Call Sal, anyone?

From what I gather, Pete:LearJet::Ken:Dow (he's the guy they have to deal with ad agencies)

That makes sense. Duck must have really worked that deal hard, though, for Pete to get roughly the same compensation he'd be getting for serving his sentence at McCann.

I think they were saying 100k a year...which in todays' money is like, $600k a year, which seems preposterous

I'd love it if he remarries Trudy and they buy a house in Wichita and then he finds out they've rescinded the offer.

But the McCann main man *really* has the hots for Lear Jet (maybe more as service for fellow CEOs than celebs, but serious opportunities for main man networking and/or social climbing either way)(and remember McCann big dudes expressed butthurtness by Cosgrove's quite open snobbery re Black Irishness of McCann). At least, Duck said etc. had the hots for Lear. We'll see.
Pete & Trudy really happy in early 70s Wichita, even with big money? What will they spend it on, the biggest house in Flatland?

"open snobbery re Black Irishness": so social-climbing might be an interest!

so I have a friend who works as a producer on the show and I guess she jumped out of some stars and stripes cake this weekend?

#namedropping

Can't find a video clip, but here's the ending to a Sept. 12, 1970 release that I think provides an excellent possible ending for Don (even if his differences with Bobby Dupea far outnumber their similarities).

http://www.isleyunruh.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/5-easy-pieces-ending.jpg

Don falls in love w/waitress who refuses to sell him toast

"I won't take any more of your smartness or sarcasm...Mind you, you are rather good-looking."

When did Don turn into Strunk & White with the grammar?
― clemenza

I read this as the first sign of Don appearing ready to help out the kid as a fellow smalltown hustler/con. By correcting his grammar he wouldn't be betraying his roots with that sort of shibboleth and maybe stand more of a chance making it in the big city if he were to follow in Don's footsteps. Also Don projecting insecurity/fear, masterminding other people's destinies under the guise of positive influence.

The increased sentimentality may have been an effort to counterbalance the excessively farcical tone for some of the characters in recent episodes. Pete certainly seemed to have become more of an object of ridicule again, more ineffectual than he had shown to be previously, but this time it was done less smirkily, less of a cheapshot deflation of pomposity, more of a revelation of deluded romantic complicity. They're the most Rev Road of all the MM characters. Pete was right about the timing in a sense, Trudy just so happened to be sympathetic to his vision and he said exactly what she had wanted to hear, even it wasn't true to how things had been between them. But his attempt to characterise the situation as some sort of destiny was his way of refusing to acknowledge that Duck had engineered the deal while he hadn't even been there to close it.

that was one hell of an episode, i really didn't see where the don story was going but i think it was more than appropriate, as was the pete and betty stuff.

so Don kissing Roger drunk in a bar was the last scene we may see between the two? i'll buy that if so!

or Roger kissing Don i should say.

it'd be kind of nice if don wasn't in the final episode at all. they gave him a nice ending, i think.

J Jones giving very subtle hints here back in March

“I know some people don’t like the end of Sopranos, and I don’t think it’ll leave people that frustrated. I definitely think all these characters deserve some sort of happy ending or closure, and for the most part, we’ll get that. But I just don’t think it is realistic to say that there’s a happy ending [for everyone].. "

http://www.ew.com/article/2015/03/11/january-jones-mad-men-farewell

Even if the episode is only 85 minutes (minus ads), I think there's plenty of time to tie up a lot of loose threads or at least give it an impactful resolution. Some 60 minutes episodes of this show have felt twice as long as that, so I know it's doable.

everybody gets five minutes, even if their story is fifteen minutes

I have things to say about Betty's death
Most of my thoughts come from v personal feelings but fuck it

She didn't "give in". Betty maybe childish & silly and vain on the surface but deep down she is practical, coldly so. What she saw in Henry's actions was those of a child, tilting at windmills to prolong the inevitable; she saw her diagnosis as a reckoning.

In death she is owning her life, the way she never got to own much else.

To be told you are dying, to hear that, understand it, be afraid ... and still stare it down cold. That takes ridiculous amounts of courage. Crazy amounts.

Beneath her coiff and her favorite lipstick she is is tougher than marble, and I love the writers for giving her that, but to show that toughness in a way that has real meaning in the context of death.

And for her to show her love for Sally in the most repressed child-of-Depression-era-parents, most Betty way possible, letter of instructions, that really drove it home for me.

Yeah, for her to trust Sally with such a monstrous responsibility after years of treating her like a toy doll was really revealing. She didn't give Henry that list. She didn't track down Don and give him the list. She gave it to Sally, and that was one of the most raw moments of emotion in the whole series for me, even if Betty was still very buttoned up and stern as it was happening.

Sally was reading the letter like, the next day, right? We weren't meant to think time had passed and Betty had died?

It certainly felt like that was the last we'll see of Betty, that scene of her walking up the stairs while Sally was reading the letter was so perfectly done, it would almost spoil it for them to show her on her death bed or whatever.

Also highly appropriate in a show that began with two scenes about the marketing of cigarettes.

My other immediate thought was "Don is going to have to stop running now".

Yeah, there's no way Sally didn't open the letter the second she got back to school.

There's been a cancer strand all the way through the series, which is more interesting when you realise Matthew Weiner's dad was eminent in oncology, and 1970 differs from earlier because at least they tell the patient she has cancer, rather than tell the loved ones who then hold back the terminal diagnosis from the patient in the belief that it's less painful that way. Cancer had only just become acceptable in polite conversation because of a few celebrity illnesses; women were agitating for equal rights and power over their own bodies *because* of things like doctors waiting to discuss a diagnosis with a husband, rather than his patient wife. My illness (and initial terminal diagnosis) came about two years after this, so I just watched this, boggling about how much noise my mother must have had to make at some very patriarchal men, and how many feathers she was prepared to ruffle on my behalf. We were lucky, but she made that luck.

She didn't give Henry that list. She didn't track down Don and give him the list. She gave it to Sally...

Hadn't really thought about that--well stated. The relationship between Claire and her mother on Six Feet Under was also very rocky, very emotional (even more so for me), and while I don't remember the exact details, they also reached some sort of closure before the show ended. Nice posts VG and Suzy, also (I figured there must have been some sort of link to Weiner's own life).

"Even if the episode is only 85 minutes (minus ads), I think there's plenty of time to tie up a lot of loose threads or at least give it an impactful resolution."

There are really very few loose threads at this point. It seems like Betty, Joan, Pete and Ken are largely wrapped up (fuck Harry). So I would think next week will focus on Roger and Peggy and Don. Feels like we could see a substantial flash forward in time too.

roger showing harry contempt one final time was the perfect goodbye for harry

"I'll make them build another floor between us if I have to." loved that.

Feels like Joan's story isn't 100% over, but mostly tied up. It's all about Peggy and Don from now on. Hoping for lots of Roger activity but it's not like he has a big story arc that needs to be tied up (although there is the small issue of the baby he doesn't know about).

The writers may have a final kick in the teeth re: Harry. Either his teeth or ours.

Feels like we could see a substantial flash forward in time too.

Yup.

I thought it was understood between Joan & Roger that Kevin is his child -- unless you're talking about some other kid? Maybe we'll get a glimpse of how Roger's relationship with Marie is working out. I don't expect to see Mona or Margaret again, but who knows?