Eh I didn't mean that as a barb towards you. Just meant this kind of thing is to be expected, given the facts.
― ©Oz Quiz© (Adam Bruneau), Monday, 18 May 2015 18:30 (eight years ago) link
video otm
― ultimate american sock (mh), Monday, 18 May 2015 18:31 (eight years ago) link
A+ awesome
― ©Oz Quiz© (Adam Bruneau), Monday, 18 May 2015 18:32 (eight years ago) link
I mean, Weiner could say it is completely unambiguous but he is too busy to explain his television show to people and I would enjoy his subtle trolling
― ultimate american sock (mh), Monday, 18 May 2015 18:32 (eight years ago) link
MW said it's easier to get a laugh in a drama bcz anything that breaks the tension gets an outsized reaction. Obviously there were lots of laughs in The Sopranos too, so he's used to that dynamic.
― the increasing costive borborygmi (Dr Morbius), Monday, 18 May 2015 18:34 (eight years ago) link
entertainment weekly interviewed the coke ad guy. he said he didn't give a shit and he stopped watching the show when it became about the characters personal lives.
― ryan, Monday, May 18, 2015 1:56 PM (
Coke ad guy otm
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 18 May 2015 18:37 (eight years ago) link
Still waiting for someone to do the fart edit on that last shot.
― Norse Jung (Eric H.), Monday, 18 May 2015 18:38 (eight years ago) link
at the moment i'm having trouble thinking of many good tv shows that aren't funny
― j., Monday, 18 May 2015 18:42 (eight years ago) link
The Americans is generally not funny.
― “audience participation” otherwise known as “touching” (forksclovetofu), Monday, 18 May 2015 18:43 (eight years ago) link
Wolf Hall. Daredevil. Game of Thrones.
― “audience participation” otherwise known as “touching” (forksclovetofu), Monday, 18 May 2015 18:44 (eight years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlaLh8sqCEc
― Three Word Username, Monday, 18 May 2015 18:51 (eight years ago) link
Ha! Any idea when that would have come out?
― clemenza, Monday, 18 May 2015 19:00 (eight years ago) link
thrones has its moments, mostly in zings
the leftovers is never funny, although a lotta people hated it (kinda loved it tbh) and tried to call its seriousness unintentionally funny
― slothroprhymes, Monday, 18 May 2015 19:03 (eight years ago) link
I thought there was a funniness in it's absurdity, esp of the "remainders" or whatever they were called. And the daughter's friends. It wasn't a hilarious show, but it had it's moments.
― dan selzer, Monday, 18 May 2015 19:04 (eight years ago) link
I think I remember the German commercial running in the late '90s or early aughts.
― Three Word Username, Monday, 18 May 2015 19:05 (eight years ago) link
The Leftovers was absurd, which made me smile a lot through my tears. But it was rarely haha-funny.
― Frederik B, Monday, 18 May 2015 19:17 (eight years ago) link
I also saw the ending as kinda ambiguous. But there are two things I would claim are unambiguous: 1) Don get's an epiphany of sorts while meditating b) that epiphany is then undercut by a coke-jingle. The implication is pretty clearly, that whatever Don's epiphany was, it was something that could be used to sell coke. Whether or not Don actually goes back and makes that ad, or whether it's meant to be more abstract, the implication is hippie-epiphany -> coke-ad.
― Frederik B, Monday, 18 May 2015 19:20 (eight years ago) link
Like, all epiphanies will eventually be boiled down and used to sell coke.
― Frederik B, Monday, 18 May 2015 19:21 (eight years ago) link
to rich retirees in Florida
― ultimate american sock (mh), Monday, 18 May 2015 19:23 (eight years ago) link
one thing that points toward a more literal don wrote the coke ad reading is
https://scontent-lga.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xtp1/v/t1.0-9/11251123_10103901493552542_1014640173074657122_n.jpg
― lag∞n, Monday, 18 May 2015 19:23 (eight years ago) link
hmm
― lag∞n, Monday, 18 May 2015 19:24 (eight years ago) link
Something that links the ending to the first episode (which I've been meaning to go back and watch--I didn't start watching the "marathon" this week till Season 3):
http://www.businessinsider.com/mad-men-finale-explained-2015-5
― clemenza, Monday, 18 May 2015 19:24 (eight years ago) link
http://i.imgur.com/g3EfSY3.jpg
As a finale I thought it was great. All of the women of Mad Men seem to be taking control of their lives-and in Betty's case her death and children's lives as well. I can only really compare this show to the hamfisted "The 60s" miniseries from the 90s, which I saw at the height of teenage Beatle-worshiping and somehow managed to snap me out of that spell despite being a fake Hallmark card to a mythical VH-1 special that my parents lived through. Since then we have had the internet for everyone, cell phones, and a sharp increase in communication, and it all gives "Mad Men" a very real feeling. It's a golden feeling. It's like when you listen to retro 60s bands that recorded in the 90's, they invariably sound like they were recorded in the 90s. Whereas if you listen to anything remotely retro now, our experience w writing, production design, sound design, motion graphics, post-production, etc. can make it sound real and authentic.
Not that "Mad Men" is a real story about real people, but it knows that, that's why the ending is the way it is, it is the way the show is. We know we can't re-create the past, but we can focus on the defining moments, paying attention to the smallest details, and using modern writing and production create a hyper realism by USING that ambiguity and abstractness. Characters float in and out, like a soap opera. Like a space opera.
Don is The Fool. The Drifter. The Third Man. Don has always been a drifter, it is why he drifts from woman to woman. I love the way this show saved his soul, by tearing him down. Losing his wife, his apartment, his car, his kids, his last remaining links to the past. He is literally standing on the ends of the earth, and breaks down, his ego being stripped of all its material signifiers. Andy Warhol comes up and offers him a golden phone that calls God (Doors reference) and he calls, crying incoherently. Peggy answers. Is she God? She saves his soul and offers him his job back, it is the one thing that still remains, anchoring him to Spaceship Earth.
The woman that sees Draper slumped down beneath the telephone asks if he is on anything, and he doesn't answer in the negative. The behavior of post-ecstatic Don is highly affirmative. He could easily move to Texas and start the Church of the Subgenius. It's actually very close to scripture.
I really love the way it ended, it felt very hopeful.
― ©Oz Quiz© (Adam Bruneau), Monday, 18 May 2015 19:51 (eight years ago) link
People realize that Don writing the jingle probably doesn't mean that he would be in charge of costumes, though, right?
― Frederik B, Monday, 18 May 2015 20:06 (eight years ago) link
he had a magical vision of all the people in the ashram singing and dancing about Coca-Cola, and it became a real advertisment.. in our universe, not the Mad Men one
― ultimate american sock (mh), Monday, 18 May 2015 20:07 (eight years ago) link
2001: A Bum Don Odyssey
― ©Oz Quiz© (Adam Bruneau), Monday, 18 May 2015 20:08 (eight years ago) link
― Frederik B, Monday, May 18, 2015 4:06 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
don is in charge of everything if he wanted there to be a girl with yarn braided into her hair he wld just say to the ppl who work for him "put a girl with yarn braided into her hair in there"
― lag∞n, Monday, 18 May 2015 20:10 (eight years ago) link
"I am the man who drinks."
― i blow goat farts, aka garts for a living (waterface), Monday, 18 May 2015 20:13 (eight years ago) link
Janie Bryant (Mad Men costume designer) said on twitter the braids girl is not a coincidence.
― Spencer Chow, Monday, 18 May 2015 20:36 (eight years ago) link
Some people I know who know people at Coca-Cola say they knew the finale would have something to do with the ad because they had to clear it for use.
― Johnny Fever, Monday, 18 May 2015 20:43 (eight years ago) link
Someone should collect all these post-episode analyses into a book. I read the theories, and constantly find myself thinking "Yes, yes," even when they're not entirely compatible with each other.
http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-original-resonant-existentially-brilliant-mad-men-finale
If the show had been set in the '70s and ended up around '79, it all would have pointed towards Heinz's "Anticipation" commercial.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoLoyg3JKRQ
― clemenza, Monday, 18 May 2015 20:47 (eight years ago) link
yeah, counterculture, '70s Carly Simon, same resonance.
― the increasing costive borborygmi (Dr Morbius), Monday, 18 May 2015 20:53 (eight years ago) link
First thing I've read where someone just flat-out disliked the finale:
http://www.rollingstone.com/tv/features/coke-and-sympathy-10-thoughts-on-mad-men-series-finale-20150518
― clemenza, Monday, 18 May 2015 20:54 (eight years ago) link
I can't embed all these, it would take forever, but here's a nice gif set of first and last appearances on the series by all the major characters.
http://flavorwire.tumblr.com/post/119297646089/mad-men-first-and-last-appearances-oh
― Johnny Fever, Monday, 18 May 2015 20:56 (eight years ago) link
xp no conceivable finale of this show would ever satisfy Rob Sheffield, c'mon. He called it the greatest drama ever on television without any sense of how ridiculous that sounded.
― Johnny Fever, Monday, 18 May 2015 20:58 (eight years ago) link
Also, in that gif set they got Sally's final appearance wrong, but hey. Still good.
― Johnny Fever, Monday, 18 May 2015 20:59 (eight years ago) link
rob sheffield is a garbage critic
― slothroprhymes, Monday, 18 May 2015 21:01 (eight years ago) link
man, the '60s hit a lotta ppl with the Ugly Stick.
― the increasing costive borborygmi (Dr Morbius), Monday, 18 May 2015 21:02 (eight years ago) link
(xpost) Disagree majorly--I'll leave it at that, except that I do think he's wrong about the finale.
― clemenza, Monday, 18 May 2015 21:02 (eight years ago) link
all tv criticism is the worst thing, a clue that the golden age of tv isnt that good
― lag∞n, Monday, 18 May 2015 21:03 (eight years ago) link
tbf clemenza my major basis for this is music-related, & i dont know him personally or anything
― slothroprhymes, Monday, 18 May 2015 21:07 (eight years ago) link
xp some of it's good, just like there's (some) good criticism of every art form, but i'm assuming your issue is with the tone of a lot of it, especially that which is created by or heavily influenced by the av club
― slothroprhymes, Monday, 18 May 2015 21:08 (eight years ago) link
The gif page technically got Lane's last appearance wrong too, which I assume was in the interest of decorum.
― clemenza, Monday, 18 May 2015 21:08 (eight years ago) link
(cont. xp) the problem imo is the tendency to assume that critical analysis must somehow dovetail into a statement on what tv really MEANS and shit like that, rather than analyzing the episode/show itself
― slothroprhymes, Monday, 18 May 2015 21:10 (eight years ago) link
when did film criticism stop doing that?
― j., Monday, 18 May 2015 21:11 (eight years ago) link
I thought all the pieces I've linked to from Vox and the rest--honestly, I didn't know these sites existed until I started seeking out Mad Men analyses; I just don't keep up with this stuff--were filled with interesting ideas and mostly stuck to the episodes at hand. There are a couple more really long ones that I still want to read.
― clemenza, Monday, 18 May 2015 21:17 (eight years ago) link
mad men could sustain weekly recaps--it benefitted a lot from contextualization and different impressions on what was often an impressionistic show--but i dont get much out of recaps of other shows these days.
― ryan, Monday, 18 May 2015 21:18 (eight years ago) link
xxp the average review of a given film does not, not by default - but you can shake your head once and find 6 tv episode recaps that fit in some grand-state-of-the-medium pronouncement
― slothroprhymes, Monday, 18 May 2015 21:19 (eight years ago) link
there's def a lot of good mad men writing, most of the things you could say as pejoratives about "tv recap culture" or whatever havent really fucked with it
― slothroprhymes, Monday, 18 May 2015 21:20 (eight years ago) link