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

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.

I didn't think the old vet's story was ambiguous at all - they shot the Germans even though they were surrendering because they didn't have enough food for themselves as it was. The dialogue is something like "We made them dig a big hole, it took them all day. They were so thin, you could see their bones. They were crying..." then he gets cut off when someone shouts for more whiskey.

Anyway, I'm really satisfied with the way this is coming to an end. There was always a big ensemble cast and them getting their closing stories was never going to happen in one, or even two episodes. I think the only people not closed out are Roger and maybe Peggy - although tbh her owning the new job in McCann and reinventing herself as the hot independent woman is arguably enough. I don't think they'll resist revisiting Don though; my guess is right at the end we'll see him get off a bus and walk into a diner with Diane behind the counter. Fade to black. "The Long And Winding Road" plays.

I enjoyed reading this:

http://fashionandgrammargripes.blogspot.co.uk/

Obviously some of the points (notably Betty) ruled out after E13, this was written after E12. But weirdly prescient tying the conclusion into The Hobo Code, which others didn't do until after E13:

http://www.vulture.com/2015/05/mad-mens-hobo-callback.html

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.

this is exactly the opposite of how i feel

I go back and forth on what kind of ending I'd prefer. I suggested above I want some kind of closure, or implied closure, for the main characters. I'm again not sure. The one quibble I have with Betty's diagnosis--which, again, I thought was handled beautifully, was fully justified, had a historical point to make about women circa 1970, and even circled back artfully to the first episode--was that it also felt conventional. I'm sure we all love the weirder Mad Men detours, and it didn't have any of that.

I think I'd like the Boyhood/No Country for Old Men non-ending best, if that makes sense. That often works really well for me with movies, and I think it would work well here.

as noted, i want non-sequitur but i bet we get a THE WIRE style lope through everyone's life for a few second peek in

I think I'd like the Boyhood/No Country for Old Men non-ending best, if that makes sense.

same

Head-scratching non-sequitur, preferably with some humour, could work for me too.

About the only thing I remember five years later from Jacques Rivette's 12-hour Out 1 was its head-scratching non-sequitur of an ending--loved that.

a THE WIRE style lope through everyone's life for a few second peek in

there's no way they'll close with this imo

maybe it'll end like resnais's wild grass

feel like there's two broad types of ending that the show has been building towards: california or new york? that's don's central dilemma, isn't it? and it would certainly make a lot of sense to either choose one or for don to find some way to integrate them. my guess is on the latter because i dont think the show has ever posited "california" as a real solution for don, and we know "new york" isn't working--on the other hand maybe california works this time because don seems more in command of himself than ever before, less running away than setting out on a journey.

how does On the Road end? embarrassed to say i've never read it.

it just sort of stops

the road ends

feel like there's two broad types of ending that the show has been building towards: california or new york? that's don's central dilemma, isn't it? and it would certainly make a lot of sense to either choose one or for don to find some way to integrate them. my guess is on the latter because i dont think the show has ever posited "california" as a real solution for don, and we know "new york" isn't working--on the other hand maybe california works this time because don seems more in command of himself than ever before, less running away than setting out on a journey.

― ryan, Wednesday, May 13, 2015 10:32 AM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

clearly the answer is... illinois.

don settles in st Louis and becomes....jon hamm

how does On the Road end? embarrassed to say i've never read it.

― ryan, Wednesday, May 13, 2015 11:33 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

"And that's when I knew that the time had come for me to get off.. the road."

In one of the Molly Lambert pieces she makes a case for Don to set up in Las Vegas.

xxp final shot is him sitting alone at a cardinals game

on the road sucks

would love Mad Men to end with a close-up of Draper's uncomprehending face dissolving into Daniels and Pearlman having intense sex .

i thought the breaking bad ending was totally in line with the way the show ended, for better or worse. sopranos ending still the best, though justified's last scene is (im)probably the most eerily moving ending for a show that i've seen lately. sort of in line with the 'no country' ending somehow too.

Don gets run over. Driver shouts "hey buddy, you shouldn't have been... on the road!"

that is actually the ending of Sons of Anarchy

breaking bad finale was the biggest melodramatic j/o session i've ever seen, let's never speak of it again

I will yield it was not peak-BB, and that the show could've ended after season 4 and I would've been very happy. But this isn't the Seinfeld finale here.

breaking bad's ending was good but mechanically so and the show didn't seem to have a heart in the last half season, except for a cold black one. which is okay but it felt forced on occasion. still a great show for most of its run and the couple of episodes before the finale were peak level despite my caveats.

this comment:

a parody of what i imagine really macho "quality" cable to be like.

is OTM for 'sons of anarchy', which exists as a cautionary tale to those who would let MRA dudes run shows in the future.

See also whoever greenlit the Entourage movie.

sons of anarchy is a garbage program written by a comically hypermasculine lunatic

i figure it's got the be the same people who negotiated to keep Arli$$ on the air for seven seasons xpost

admittedly im kind of interested in that southpaw movie sutter wrote but i'm a sucker for boxing movies and jake gyllenhaal

I have seen one half of one episode of Entourage years ago, and it was right before my girlfriend of the time came over. I think I got shit for years as the guy who strongly insists he does not watch Entourage.

there were about five compelling 'sons of anarchy' characters and they were either killed off or marginalized so we could spend more time with juice

obviously the best character on the show, apparent only to the writers

An arbitrary etc ending could be good, but in that interview quoted upthread, January Jones contrasts the MM ending w Sopranos, so prob not meant as something oh so tricky (although Weiner has said that, as a viewer, he always likes to imagine the lives of characters after the end, so we'll prob get some implications).

I think I got shit for years as the guy who strongly insists he does not watch Entourage.

you have unpleasant friends and/or acquaintances if they attempted to make you feel bad for that lol, entourage fuckin sucked & was egregiously chauvinistic in a way that never came close to passing the "depiction is not endorsement" test

He's even said something like, "I always think, 'They *might* have dodged that collapsing building at the last second, it just got in the way of the camera.'"

we're going to betty's funeral for the finale, right? i don't expect all the loose ends to be tied into a neat little bow but i'd be surprised if don & sally's final scene was a phone conversation about her selling her field hockey equipment

nah, they thought Entourage was horrible, too, but I was so adamant that I was just watching a little to see what it was like that they were able to tease me about being a secret Entourage lover

she really should sell that field hockey equipment, if for no other reason than to pay for her Spain trip. I guess she might skip out on Spain if her mom might die while she's gone, though.

finale is just 65 minute static shot of abandoned field hockey equipment

in the last minute of the shot, don draper parachutes down with 200k and jumps into roger sterling's waiting car.

^^Soundtracked by a loop of Sinatra crooning "Summer Wind".

if Don moves out west and starts a brothel I am turning off the tv

I am turning off the tv

Steady on, that's a bit strong.

I lost my cool