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

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.

Like, all epiphanies will eventually be boiled down and used to sell coke.

to rich retirees in Florida

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

hmm

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

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.

People realize that Don writing the jingle probably doesn't mean that he would be in charge of costumes, though, right?

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

2001: A Bum Don Odyssey

People realize that Don writing the jingle probably doesn't mean that he would be in charge of costumes, though, right?

― 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"

"I am the man who drinks."

Janie Bryant (Mad Men costume designer) said on twitter the braids girl is not a coincidence.

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.

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

yeah, counterculture, '70s Carly Simon, same resonance.

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

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

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.

Also, in that gif set they got Sally's final appearance wrong, but hey. Still good.

rob sheffield is a garbage critic

man, the '60s hit a lotta ppl with the Ugly Stick.

(xpost) Disagree majorly--I'll leave it at that, except that I do think he's wrong about the finale.

all tv criticism is the worst thing, a clue that the golden age of tv isnt that good

tbf clemenza my major basis for this is music-related, & i dont know him personally or anything

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

The gif page technically got Lane's last appearance wrong too, which I assume was in the interest of decorum.

(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

when did film criticism stop doing that?

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.

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.

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

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

yeah, counterculture, '70s Carly Simon, same resonance.

― the increasing costive borborygmi (Dr Morbius), Monday, May 18, 2015 3:53 PM (30 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

In the MM universe, "You're So Vain" is about Don Draper.

xp i was granting that film reviews might have stopped; but i asked when they did, since i would not be surprised if belief that people are seeing works in an artform that say something about the medium has something to do with their spending a lot of time in their criticism saying so

Mad Men was catnip to tv-critics. That whole ethos of 'Do the work, even though everyone else think it's worthless, and nobody acknowledges that you're creative, and people laugh at you.'

But recaps of Mad Men was good. On the other hand, all that stuff that has been written on how Game of Thrones is an oh so insightful depiction of what it takes to lead, and what power is. Hate it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jrCsa3RzDw

Full disclosure i made this in a couple of hours.

Mad Men was catnip to tv-critics. That whole ethos of 'Do the work, even though everyone else think it's worthless, and nobody acknowledges that you're creative, and people laugh at you.'

― Frederik B, Monday, May 18, 2015 5:34 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol

betty being a moron at life and a genius at death was kinda an interesting twist

Jon Hamm seems to lean towards the idea that Don creates the ad--but, ambiguity lovers, he's a little ambiguous.

Q. Do you have an interpretation of it?

A. I do. When we find Don in that place, and this stranger relates this story of not being heard or seen or understood or appreciated, the resonance for Don was total in that moment. There was a void staring at him. We see him in an incredibly vulnerable place, surrounded by strangers, and he reaches out to the only person he can at that moment, and it’s this stranger.

My take is that, the next day, he wakes up in this beautiful place, and has this serene moment of understanding, and realizes who he is. And who he is, is an advertising man. And so, this thing comes to him.

It depends on what he means by "this thing"--the ad, or just this serene moment of understanding?

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/05/18/mad-men-finale-jon-hamm-interview/?_r=0

lol @ thinking that ashram was a beautiful place

I checked with Meredith, and she confirms that the ashram was a worse place than McCann.

isn't it big sur, noted beautiful place?

I should check the meanings of words--I thought an ashram was something Don was wearing (why I thought that, I'm not sure).

xp yea it's big sur

Big Sur is gorgeous wtf

all I see are people meditating in bad clothes in front of mountains. That's man's fault, not God's.