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

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yeah - excuse me. but very glad he left. not surprised - you could see something would happen. he wanted joan to be anything and build any kind of life she wanted, except it had to be exactly what he wanted, only.

His "cool, open-minded, retired millionaire" act was always self serving.

They seemed to get every major character in...I think you have to go down the list to Henry and Ted to find someone who wasn't. (Harry's 15 seconds seemed apropos.)

Megan was absent too, but her story was done.

Way too much Brett Gelman in this episode for my tastes.

saw brett gelman by gf was all "BEVERS!"

the behavior of people actually at this ashram or whatever is not 100% peace love harmony at all and it's kind of a frustrating place, but we can def imagine this idealized version of it in a commercial for people who weren't there, to sell you things

I really did think that last guy's three minutes in the chair were great. There were similarities to Don in his story, but mostly he struck me as the complete opposite of Don; through the entire show, Don was the complete focus of everyone he came into contact with, while this guy's family didn't even look up when he got home. I understand JF's point, but my preferred ending would have been a close-up of Don looking at him as he broke down, everyone interpret as you will.

Great moment: when that old woman shoved Don during the encounter session.

i suppose it's a little too obscure to be immediately apparent to everyone, but Don was at Esalen:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esalen_Institute

a great book on it:
http://www.amazon.com/Esalen-America-Religion-No/dp/0226453707

I could've lived with 60 more seconds of Don Draper flooring a Chevelle across the salt flats and zero seconds of morning meditation.

lol @ wikipedia edit: "The Mad Men finale featured Don Draper staying at Esalin in 1970. It may have inspired his masterpiece."

ha!

Just watched the ending again, and I think there's a strong suggestion in Don's smile that the Coke ad is being envisioned by him. Whether or not it matches the historical record.

I don't understand why Don would go back to advertising after all that, but I've never really understood why Don does anything.

http://i.imgur.com/As5Wt3h.jpg

That's great!

It's the smile that seems to be the giveaway to me, like he's just had this great flash of insight--immediately cut to Coke commercial. And he's forever telling people in the show that you can move past anything; he says that again in the last episode to Stephanie. They also seem to make it a point (via Peggy) that he'd still be accepted back at McCann.

I find the idea of him living his life out in encounter sessions and new ageism harder to envision.

Here's my non-ilxor friend's hot take: "Don's been going on an epic hero's journey trying to discover his humanity. But he can't commit. He's shattered after his telephone conversation with Peggy. But I believe he is eventually at peace with the fact that Dick Whitman doesn't exist anymore; he mourns the death of Dick Whitman as he embraces that lonely man in the therapy session that confesses to feeling unseen. It's cynical to think that Don takes this experience back to McCann, but I believe that's what he does. He fails at his hero journey, sells it out, and gets his job back with the greatest pitch he's ever given: Coca Cola."

It makes more sense the more I think about it, because Weiner has never let the advertising business play a villain in this series. Companies, owners, bosses, colleagues, yes, but the business...no. Advertising is the fucking hero!

A key moment in killing off Dick Whitman once and for all is when Stephanie says "You're not even my family."

Agreed.

i mean, he'd go back to advertising because he the creative part of it matters to him - he has great ideas and gets to see them produced

i could call it really cynical if he's using this meditation retreat to become more enlightened about better advertising narratives but hey, if that is who you are, why not do that, why is that bad

the show doesn't make us think it's cynical for joan to realize that actually, what she really wants is not some rich guy, it's to build her own business

Yes--if you see the Coke ad as his, he comes by it honestly, like how he drew upon his own life for the Kodak campaign.

I'd never thought about how central Stephanie was to keeping Dick Whitman alive until this episode--it made sense to bring her back, even though her seemed to have been brought to a close.

"her story"

tbh I really wanted more for Sally. I mean, she stopped being a brat and started looking out for her brothers, both in taking care of them and keeping Don away from them, so I guess my expectations were unrealistic.

I'd never thought about how central Stephanie was to keeping Dick Whitman alive until this episode

I hadn't either. Roger knew, Pete knew, Betty knew, but those were all people who only knew "Don Draper." Stephanie actually knew Don Draper.

(xpost) Yeah--Sally's ending was appropriate, but I always felt the show never quite followed up on arguably its greatest moment:

http://ak-hdl.buzzfed.com/static/2014-04/enhanced/webdr08/10/17/grid-cell-24857-1397165680-8.jpg

There seemed to be some epiphany for Sally at that moment, but I don't think their relationship really changed much after that.

honestly thought this was brilliant but I understand why it makes people mad or shrug, I guess

I'm hoping Letterman will end his last show cross-legged in the chair chanting "Om."

"On the next episode of Mad Men..."

A line that didn't get subtitled: Roger ordering Champagne pour ma mere.

Roger exits on an A+ quip.

Anyone else think the Roger-Marie romance might be a tad...messy?

so someone on Slate guessed the ending

http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2015/05/13/how_will_mad_men_end_critics_predict_the_events_of_the_final_episode.html?wpsrc=fol_tw

Considering the two players involved, absolutely.

I loved it when Roger called Kevin a rich bastard.

plenty of callbacks that weren't too heavy handed IMO ("Birdie.." "move forward" "a thing like that", etc) and also a few Weiner lols at the audience's expectations again (Roger saying "are you trying to kill me?" etc). somehow it felt like the real 'ending' happened weeks ago. not sure why. still taking it all in.

it reminded me of the Hill Street Blues finale, don't ask me why.

lol at “He acts like we’re the Three Musketeers. We’ve never had lunch”

Disappointed that Harry Crane made it out of the series alive.

One of the funniest lines tonight came from Joan: "That's spectacular...what a mess!"

So that WAS Helen Slater at Esalen. I thought it looked a little bit like her, but shrugged it off. Of course, the last time I saw her in something was probably 25 years ago.

http://i.imgur.com/J00zGU9.png

The irl McCann twitter account has been occasionally really good during the back half of this season.

gotta say the Peggy reaction to the Stan conversation was increds; that scene was amazingly acted and written.
did remind me of the Julia Roberts / Bruce Willis ending of The Player though.

kinda rolled my eyes at the ending at first but now i'm coming around to it. don draper achieves spiritual enlightenment by realising he's don draper, sure why not.

lots of funny stuff to go out on, e.g joan deadpanning that her ex-husband is a terrible person. a good counterpoint to the dread i was feeling re don.

I have semi hate-watched this for a while, as mentioned prev it always bugged me how laconic & stand-offish it was

But I have to say I really liked this. They wrapped up sooooo much stuff, like ridic levels of bow tying...but it was good to see those characters in various states of joy for a goddamn change instead of crying & staring out windowx

Don was the total opposite of the fridge guy, but...and maybe i am a dork for saying this when everyone is like WE GET IT...but they were both fridge guys because there was no...idk...light inside them when no-one was around. Not having a model of love, they didn't know how to receive, or give it to themselves. I found that incredibly moving

And peggy & Stan could have cheesed out full Officer & A Gentleman & i still would have grinned like an idiot, that was so rad

The coke commercial .... Don's best ads have all been harvested from genuine human moments, why would this be annnnny different. It's right! And it cracked me up, it was so corny

My immediate inclination was to look for a deeper reading of the slight smile and then the Coca-Cola ad, because it's Mad Men duh, but I'm 110% convinced now that there was no deeper reading. Don went right back to work like he always does. Anything less would've been dishonest. Like I said above, advertising itself was always the show's hero.

That last image of Betty sitting at the kitchen table smoking while Sally did dishes in the background was genuinely sad. Betty was the only character tonight who didn't get her final moment of grace--although I realize she got hers last week, and that the last image and her earlier phone call with Don were extensions of that.

And Sally being there and helping her was maybe hers...Anyway, it was a great image.

Young people on this show were always running away or tuning out or going nuts. Sally grounded herself and assumed some pretty heavy responsibilities.

In a shocking twist, the partner who finally pulled in coke was Joan