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

No I think the ad is his. The ending wouldn't make much sense if it wasn't.

Otherwise the Coke song is a commentary on the entire show--would just seem weird.

The fridge guy section was amazing. Pretty sweet ending, I think.

Time's got a thing on Bill Backer, the guy who created the Coke ad. His words would seem to contain Don's smile at the end nicely:

"In that moment I saw a bottle of Coke in a whole new light...as more than an invitation to pause for refreshment. They were actually a subtle way of saying, 'Let’s keep each other company for a little while.'"

http://time.com/3882313/mad-men-finale-coke-ad/

Yeah, but Weiner cheerfully acknowledged that lift, and some others, I think. And you can take it, in part, as his punchline, Weiner as one more online Mad Men nutter (somebody on Twitter was offering to buy her friend with a Coke, for having guessed the final song, and odds are that others called it too, somewhere).

I come here to high-five many otm comments here over the years, incl. Vegemite Girl and tipsy re Don and Therapy Guy waiting for the door to come open and the light to go on---also to high five myself (ouch) for getting it right about the New Age Cali connection (and even about Anna's niece) being in there at the end. I imagined her getting busted, being pressured to give a name, figuring Don's ancient identity theft and military desertion might be just enough, and not *that* big a deal--but it was, because somebody wanted to make an example out of the smarty-pants who wrote that full-page open letter to Big Tobacco, a pillar of our republic. He gets out of jail, goes to California, becomes something like used car dealer Jack Rosenberg-->Wernr Erhardt, founder of EST. But later I realized Whitman-->Draper would never put himself out there like that, despite any breakthrough: he's a star of the office suite, not the big rooms. This was right/plausible for him, at least at this stage, as Peggy's professional choice was for her. Personally, agree she's realizing and selling herself on being in love with ol' Stan---and yeah, she may well love him, in a way, but the office romance may not last, any more than her previous relationships---but Weiner leaves us to speculate about lives of characters after the end, as he indicated he would, in one of my recent posts.
Also called it re Joan going into ad-related business, and even getting Peggy into it (working late, maybe on another script, when Stan comes up behind her---interesting look when he starts messing with her shoulders).
Could see Draper continuing his New Age tour on weekends, maybe, as many did, with the handiness of TM, Transcendental Meditation instead of those office naps (come to think of it, saw an article in which brainwaves of TMers and nappers turned out to be p. much the same).
See also Powers of Mind, by Adam Smith, the 20th Century financial writer/novelist/Public TV host/Wall St. & Zurich financier, who went looking for enlightenment in the 70s (met Rolfe, Feldenkrais, Lars Ulrich's tennis guru Dad, many others).

offering to *buy* her friend a Coke," not "buy her with"! Guess somebody else noted Joan and geezer "sniffing" the other coke eh

don draper achieves spiritual enlightenment by realising he's don draper, sure why not.

more like "don draper achieves enlightenment by realizing he loves big brother"

there was also another nice callback to Peggy realizing his shtick about walking away from things will be as if they never happened -- he tries to pull that, again (and about walking away from a child!), and gets called out on it as bullshit

don't really think that it is bullshit. People walk away from their kids all the time. P sure not all of them are all conflicted about it.

(xpost)Stephanie calls him out on that too.

Two writers I've liked a lot the last few months:

http://www.vulture.com/2015/05/mad-men-recap-season-7-episode-14.html
http://www.vox.com/2015/5/18/8619419/mad-men-finale-recap-review

It's not as if it never happened, though!

Don's kind of been wallowing in the stuff he walked away from for years. The entire "I'm going to walk away from New York and McCann and occasionally talk to my daughter on the phone to acknowledge I have family" thing fell apart the moment he found out Betty was sick. Her calling him out on never visiting his sons was kind of the end of that.

clemenza, that's what I meant -- Stephanie's baby.

Don Draper is the persona that sells Dick Whitman's emotional needs and suffering back to America, consumerism as panacea.

em326 16 minutes ago
The notion that Don may have created the Coke ad went right over my head. I blame the 8 Manhattans I had before the finale started.

"do you have any liquor I've been drinking beer all night"

oh god that line

he basically just said "I am the man who drinks" multiple times in the episode

I really was hoping that the circle of people talking it out after Stephanie left would have him saying "I'm Dick Whitman, yowza!"

I'm probably grasping at straws there: thinking back on bigger developments, though, there just seemed to be things that happened or were said that paved the way for the conclusion that Don comes up with the Coke ad. I think that's the ending that Weiner and Hamm started crafting four years ago.

― clemenza, Monday, May 18, 2015 9:26 AM (42 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

fwiw, the original idea for the ending was what ended up being the season 6 don story arc and finale - that with happiness (megan) just in his grasp he would backslide, as he did, into cheating and the abject alcoholism he had cut back on, go through that whole mess as that season progressed and then finally purge at the hershey pitch, and then finally be honest with sally and bobby by showing them where he came from. that said, i'd believe this ending probably began taking shape in weiner's mind (and hamm's), fairly quickly.

fairly quickly into development of the final season (or seasons, depending on how you view 7A/7B), that is.

the opening with don soaring across the desert reminded me of

https://40.media.tumblr.com/f513900f843adbfc15253c6e0200bd92/tumblr_ncw5md5LnT1rllo7mo1_500.png

Another take on the ending is that, just as Don's habits came from being part of a certain era, the ending showed that he was in sync with the new era. He just doesn't have a job anymore that gives him the detachment to analyze it from afar, so he's just in sync with the times and the ad.

spinning that counter-cultural straw into gold

I read last night that Weiner indicated he'd always had a vague image of how it would all end, and this particular ending came to him several years ago. Hamm: "I said that's great, then I asked him how he was going to get there," and Hamm so glad that he wasn't the one who had to write his way to that.

tbh ending the show by connecting to a big, real advertising campaign has been in the cards ever since they wrote mccann in as the sc&p buyer

the way the mccann guy said "coca-cola" in that meeting with don and co drifts into my mind quite often

work is a lousy hero in any context

Thing about Megan was he realized that the only way really to please her was to help her find a way to go where he couldn't, off into the world of acting and maybe stardom, that kind of necessarily self-involved careerism, not so different from his own (and the California move for them both was his decision. also the decision to stay behind, which was more than helping Ted--he wanted to stay on his own professional turf, in his own shell, I think).

I think they even put the coca cola thing into the 'previously on' segment at the beginning. Obviously the ad is his, reading it any other way doesn't make any sense.

also nice that they finally mentioned Manson.

i am astonished people are trying to suggest the ad wasn't his.

The only thing that didn't work for me: I didn't understand what he was doing with the racing guys in the salt flats. What did they mean, "you don't have to come with us but you promised to ..." what did they say?

he promised to fund the trip to cali

yah to stake them

a friend texted me just now hopefully positing the theory that the ad was his, with a sense that he'd been thinking this through all morning.

xpost i think it was "sub us" or something synonymous - or "front us", basically i assumed they were gambling on racing and don was going to put up the cash.

n p sure it was stake in that they can't beat those riverdale punks w/o the cash

"Stake us." Are these maybe the car guys he met while he was carrying groceries back to Anna's, before he walked into the Pacific?

Megan's Mom last night said Canada was where her "children" were, incl. millionaire Megan now?

"Holloway-Harris" is the way Joan's secretary answers phone---who's Holloway? Sounds familiar.

it's joan's maiden name

Holloway is Joan's maiden name.

sorry, i wasn't correcting "stake us" - that was definitely it - should have edited after the xposts.

I loved that Joan's babysitter was now her secretary.

Receptionist at retreat was in commercial---maybe some others too?

That commercial holds up over 40 years on imo. Didn't Coke try to redo it at some point? They should just keep airing the original every once in a while, just a week at a time.

i don't think the receptionist was in it, just a similar outfit wasn't it?

Same or very similar face too!

Maybe he becomes a big benefactor of that place; he's really into that sort of seeding now.

(Eventually meets Jobs & Woz, etc.)

everybody in that ad is 60+ years old if they're alive

Coke has re-cranked the ad at least 3x

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%27d_Like_to_Teach_the_World_to_Sing_%28In_Perfect_Harmony%29#TV_commercial

another one for the conclusion that the Coke ad is Don's: in the meditation scene, he's back to wearing his white work shirt. if there's one thing we know from Mad Style, it's that there are never any accidents in the show's costuming.

I loved that Joan's babysitter was now her secretary.

― Johnny Fever, Monday, May 18, 2015 10:41 AM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this and meredith's cheerful firing were my favorite random moments of the episode

also nice that they finally mentioned Manson.

Don't forget, the Manson Brothers were immortalized in an earlier episode.

I love the original Coke commercial. I'll admit it--I even love the jingle/song.

"Holloway-Harris" was a nice joke on Joan's contention that you need two names at the top before anyone takes you seriously (dovetailing with all the permutations of SC&P).