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

Don's never coded gay; he seems like a typical guy from any era who's seen and done terrible shit, doesn't care to judge, but don't dare put your hand on his thigh.

Next episode will see Don being chased by a crop duster plane.

In something I read, they compared the North by Northwest imagery of the last episode to the Hitchcock/Bass-like opening credits. I also thought of "if I could get Betty in the ground" the other night--added some extra poignancy to Sally's reaction.

Especially resonant since the occasion for the "Betty in the ground" comment was her roommate's mother dying.

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

^^^this. it is kind of odd how the last episode was all about how unnecessary Don was to everybody in his life, so he abandons them, and then the next episode sets up a situation where his kids definitely need him. Said it upthread but I really can't picture Don realistically leaving his kids behind to be raised by fucking Henry Francis, who he has always hated.

North by Northwest opened the Weiner-curated movie series in Queens.

My sister remembers our grandma whispering "cancer" about friends in the '70s; she had grown up in the era of silence, of course.

I know how this ends now, don is going to move to oxnard and become my dad

has anyone's kids become full-blown radicals, or even touristy ones?

(I will probably be watching season2 in about a month)

yes

several seasons down the road there's a kid in Paris in '67

another goes full hippie commune, and there's a couple others that probably qualify to varying degrees

There are a very small number of grown up kids in this show, but I would say that most of the one's that are grown or near grown have been very influenced by the counter culture.

There's a trailer for the last episode:

http://bcove.me/u7npykmu

Vox's headline promises "This exclusive trailer for the Mad Men finale will make you tear up." No.

Didn't recognize the song at all--Paul Anka, "Times of Your Life," 1975. Fits perfectly in some ways: "Kodak created an advertising campaign in 1975 that featured Anka singing a jingle entitled 'Times of Your Life.' While the tune was being heard across the United States in a commercial, Anka decided to record and release it as a single in late 1975."

The problem is it's terrible, completely negating everything else about the trailer.

the last episodes a clip show

trailer was fine imo

btw, how obvious was it in the flashback way back when that dick whitman was responsible for don draper's death? coz i had totally forgotten that element of it, i just recalled it as the two of them getting shelled

Don recounted it as if it was intentional, which I def don't remember

looks like an accident to me (at about 29:00 here):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXDcpOh_0kE

I didn't take it as Don saying that he did it on purpose. They were talking guilt, he still feels guilty, though it was an accident.

yeah I just couldn't remember and it wasn't entirely clear

tbf I didn't entirely understand the other guy's anecdote either

That clip clarifies something I was confused about the other night too (when Don told the Legion guys he killed his C.O., for a second I wondered if that meant he intentionally killed Draper precisely so he could steal his identity--had I forgotten that?). Totally an accident. But interesting, in retrospect, that it's again predicated upon cigarettes.

Pete was such a little weasel ratting him out. Surprised Don ever forgave him.

lotta water under that bridge

will never forget cracking up at bert's reaction when pete came to him w/that

it was one of bert's most ayn randish moments

"a man is the room he is in" is so perfect

Check out the kiss Sal plants on Joan earlier in the episode (2:00).

Wow. Don, Peggy, and Pete's voices have changed since 2007.

I'm looking forward to re-watching this entire series tbh

Starting tomorrow night at 6, AMC is running the entire series from the beginning.

(of course, it's already on Netflix, so...)

tbf I didn't entirely understand the other guy's anecdote either

― Οὖτις, Tuesday, May 12, 2015 5:00 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i think it was written to be more than a bit elliptical and open to interpretation. that said, if you ate a bunch of german dudes, would you really tell anyone about it, even your VFW buddies after a few whiskeys? i suspect it's more that they just shot the krauts rather than take them prisoner. which is bad enough.

the scene in the last episode that got to me (emotionally) was when henry told sally it was OK to cry, and then proceeded to break down in tears. poor guy.

btw i have a terrible memory and it's been so long between season. can someone remind me of the circumstances by which McCann bought out SCDP? obviously a major plot point many seasons ago was the main characters breaking away to avoid being swallowed up by McCann, so their eventually absorption by the larger company is supposed to have a huge ironic resonance. but since, like I said, i tend to forget these long-term plot developments, I think some of that has been lost on me...

Bert dies and rather than let Harry Hamlin force Don out, Roger engineers a deal to sell SCDP to McCann making the partners mostly rich.

so basically he appeals to Harry Hamlin character's greed over his vanity?

whatever happened to that character, then?

Fairly recent, so I think I remember it well enough. It was basically Roger going to McCann so he could save Don's job via a buyout--Jim Cutler wanted Don out, and figured he could make that happen because of Don violating his contract. It's more involved than that, but I think that's the basic outline. (Still no explanation of what happened to Cutler, who in the end did vote in favour of the buyout. Great line: "It's a lot of money!")

btw who was the other Korean War vet in that last episode--I mean who was the actor? he looks/sounds crazy familiar.

hankies out gang

http://www.vox.com/2015/5/12/8593701/mad-men-finale-trailer

it's interesting how for a long-running show like this there are such intense expectations built up for the ending.

whereas for a 120-minute movie, we're perfectly content with a "good" ending, whether that be a conventional ending that's well-prepared-for, or a unconventional ending that seems apt somehow. but because we see it all in one go, we don't have quite the same intense set of expectations.

weiner has so many choices. he can do a kind of in-medias-res thing (a la sopranos), or he can try to have things "settled" in a contingent way, or he can have a balls-to-the-wall conflagration a la breaking bad (which i doubt, given the kind of show it is). in fact, the recent history of long-running "quality" cable TV endings itself weighs heavily on expectations for the show.

anyway i'm not saying anything interesting sorry.

Hamlin got bought out but mccann didnt want him - mccann wanted (primarily) draper and chough

by the way for anyone still confused over the business dealings side, this is an amazing rundown of all the buyouts, mergers, partnerships hoo ha since the beginning of the show. and it's more fun than it sounds.
http://www.vulture.com/2015/05/history-of-mad-mens-sterling-cooper.html?mid=twitter_vulture

(xpost) When was that actually clarified? I believe you, I just must have missed it altogether. (Probably something Roger said in passing--he says a lot of stuff about the company's inner workings that I sometimes miss.)

btw i have never watched breaking bad and have no interest in doing so so take this with a few hunks of salt but someone showed me the cataclysmic ending on youtubes and it seemed really embarrassingly cheesy to me, everything from editing to camerawork to musical choices was like a parody of what i imagine really macho "quality" cable to be like.

xp this was all right at the end of 7a, right? hamlin eventually agrees because "it's a lot of money"

my thoughts exactly re the ending of The Magnificent Ambersons

xpost

One of the vets was David Denman (Roy from The Office).

my thoughts exactly re the ending of The Magnificent Ambersons

xpost

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, May 12, 2015 7:18 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

have you ever read v.f. perkins's book on t hat film? if not, i'd recommend it.

https://twitter.com/NickPinkerton/status/598192618439319553

With all due respect, stfu about Breaking Bad unless you're willing to actually watch it.

Forreals. Heisenberg 4 Lyfe.

this last ep seemed a throwback to the early seasons -- fast moving and "writerly" like a compendium of miniature short stories/character studies, all disintegrated and diffuse. the betty and don plots especially so -- set pieces with a sort of "people acting particularly in the face of adversity" vibe -- in keeping with the fiction of the time even.