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

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

If Don had arrived the year before, he could have picked a fight with Stephen Stills: http://dangerousminds.net/comments/csny_and_joni_mitchell_play

There was an ocean too, lets be clear

Xxp

there were no mountains!

gotta be the eslan institute btw or at least modeled after it, the grandaddy of nu age spitritual retreat centers

Yeah def esalen

looked like Beatles in India

didnt see any cows eating trash tho

huge kudos on that subgenius video btw

Of course it would end with Esalen and Coke.

Good finale.

Harry is so much less a shitbag than most of the SCDP dudes, he just has no charm

booze-sweat makeup artist deserves an award for the series, a+ work

knowing Hamm went into booze rehab after this season made watching so many sweaty-faced scenes a little uncomfortably 'did they have to use makeup...'? for this viewer

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

DD is the/a CD and lead man on the pitch he can get whatever the fuck he wants tbh /advertisingwankery

http://i61.tinypic.com/2cr233o.jpg

big sur is maybe the most beautiful place I've ever been.

(in california I meant to say)

guys, don't listen to actors. "have you ever had lunch with one?"

p4reene

http://gawker.com/are-you-a-mad-men-superfan-take-our-quiz-1705261188

I suppose you *could* interpret the Coke ad purely metaphorically but why on earth would you want to when the literal interpretation is so much better?

If he does actually go back and make the Coke ad then the catalyst is this slightly dorky guy's breakdown in the ashram. You think Don's sharing this moment of genuine humanity with this guy but actually he's weeping with gratitude for the insight that saves his career. It's Korea all over again, Don using the wreckage of some poor guy's life to reinvent himself and make the most famous ad ever. The very moment that 'saves' his career is the moment that makes his own redemption impossible. All this at the point when the mother of his children is literally smoking herself to death on the cigarettes he's been selling for much of his career.

In that context it was a deeply cynical finale in the guise of a sugared ending. So we're happy for everyone else but we know it's unlikely to last (but seriously <3 the Peggy and Stan moment so much, in part because it was so sudden). Who seriously thinks Pete and Trudy are going to live happily ever after? And we know what happens to America next, and it sure isn't everyone singing together in perfect harmony.

I honestly think it was a brilliant ending, and I wasn't sure right up until the very last shot. SMDH at anyone comparing it to Lost.

i do think the ending is cynical. it's not a redemption story unless you look at it like this emotionally crippled, unreliable asshole in his pretty-boy white male bubble manages to pull himself from his self-created wreckage and into fame and glory, because of course he fucking does, while everybody else has to hustle. oh wait, no. pete campbell flies a lear jet into the sunset with his hot socialite ex-wife. and roger sterling continues to booze and womanize and say witty things and twirl his mustache and never dirties a fingernail. and stan rizzo dresses like a slob and has no ambition, and he gets the girl and there's never any sense his career is in doubt. but joan's man left her and the last we see of her is her on the phone, still trying to prove herself even though her name is on the door. so yeah, i'd say that's cynical.

is getting married 'womanizing' now? consider me alarmed!

LEAVE STAN ALONE!!!

Roger's previous marriages of course having been such successfully monogamous affairs?

Also Roger and Joan's son never has to work a day in his life.

I read Stan a little more kindly, like maybe ambition is overrated compared to contentment? Maybe it's enough to just be good at your job rather than being the best and being a miserable empty shell like Don. I dunno if there's one character capable of getting everything she wants it's probably Peggy (even if there's a lot of evidence to suggest that she won't).

Stan interpretation makes sense in light of Kenny voluntarily deciding to keep himself in purgatory as well.

(Aware that just being good is a luxury that Stan gets and Joan doesn't though)

The other thing I noticed was that the show didn't give us an ending for Dawn, she just quietly disappeared without anyone seemingly noticing, which I'm sure was entirely intentional on Weiner's part.

Matt DC OTM re the literal reading is better

stan and peggy was like the ending of a meg ryan rom-com or something, but a really good one, and it felt out of place on mad men but it's okay because i really like peggy and tbh i really like meg ryan rom-coms.

Also in the middle of that Peggy is also choosing to stay with McCann and push for Creative Director over walking away and going into business with Joan. Maybe Stan will hold her back from that but I also think he's a bit too ineffectual for that (and their relationship is probably doomed because it's Mad Men). And they already showed us one scene where Peggy pushes back on McCann for what she wants and gets it.

Contrast with Joan who is really not permitted to have it both ways, but she was always going to choose another push for success on her own terms rather than settling down with another creepy and controlling dude. But Peggy getting to do things that Joan can't has been a theme for the whole series, I don't think the Stan moment undercuts the idea that her career is in the ascendant at all.

LEAVE STAN ALONE!!!
--Johnny Fever

otm

I honestly think it was a brilliant ending, and I wasn't sure right up until the very last shot. SMDH at anyone comparing it to Lost.

yeah in the final moments i was preparing myself to be disappointed, i still think it was a bit of a cheapshot, but they were always going to find it v hard to have any kind of significant resolution for don.

I think joan ends up where she ends up because it's not what she ever thought she wanted when the show began. she probably thought she wanted a man and traditional ideas of love, and spent much of the show as an indirect protector of the patriarchy by upholding the male-structured office environment. her realizing that that's not necessary for her success and happiness, after so long not being able to even entertain such an idea, is perfect.

conversely w peggy she'd spent so long being disappointed by and fucked with by men, was resigned to looking for fulfillment in professional triumphs, and it's great for her to see that she can have real love without it derailing her astonishing drive. not that she needs it in some conventional way, but that it's right there and she can have it.

Like many I was a bit underwhelmed by the ending at first, but the more I think about it the more I like it. It presents a pretty cynical view of the 60s in the end; Don Draper wasn't turned into a hippy, hippy ideals were assimilated and commodified by Don Draper. I wonder how much of his breakdown in the commune had to do with alcohol withdrawl?

The Peggy/Stan resolution was cheesy sure, but also really lovely and totally earned imo. A great way to break the tension of years of obliqueness.

"conversely w peggy she'd spent so long being disappointed by and fucked with by men, was resigned to looking for fulfillment in professional triumphs"

Wait what? IIRC it was mostly she who was doing the "disappointing" and rather than being "resigned' to professional disappointments she was way more interested in those than hanging with the shlubs she was dating.

Also in the middle of that Peggy is also choosing to stay with McCann and push for Creative Director over walking away and going into business with Joan.

that's a positive thing. She's not going for Creative Director at McCann. Following the advice of the headhunter, she'll leave the agency after a few years and continue her ascent. Joining Joan would've been nice to have her name on the door, but as discussed w/ Stan, she wouldn't be doing what she loved. Her path is in advertising, not writing industrial films.

In some ways surely Peggy's is the bleakest ending of all? She's the Little Train That Could, some talent but at the end of the day 'just' a good copy writer with aspirations.Then BAM

Hai guys remember me? Well, I nearly drunk myself to death and then I met some hippies and I guess I just accidentally invented the most successful advert of all time!

(cue champagne all round, Don being hailed as a genius, Peggy going back to working on pantyhose and realising she'll never get that kind of break.)

...also Peggy whips out that script for 1200 iirc so all the Jo-Ggy shippers out there have a world where she works under Joan in a vendor relationship

Don't read Peggy's professional ending as bleak (aside from fact that she appears to get some personal satisfaction from Stan-mance). She's going to take longer to get to where she wants to go than it would take Don or than she would want it to take (which is surely a bit of a bummer) but show also makes it clear that she is a singular talent and that she will get there. There is plenty of triumph for her.

except it's in advertising.

Not everyone's lifelong dream is to be a message board curmudgeon.

does less harm.

Does less of everything.

i was an ad agency peon for 8 years, where's my show?

was Willy Loman ever invoked directly in any of the 90+ episodes?

i was an ad agency peon for 8 years, where's my show?

2015 American Politics Thread: The 114th Congress Is in the House!

i dont think the show has ever tried to hide that the inherent engine of advertising is corrupt despite stating that artistry and craft can be involved in its creation, i mean much of season 6 is focused around creating an ad campaign for a chevy sedan that was a notorious lemon (the vega iirc) and choosing that car as the product was v deliberate

Does less of everything.

The Zen of Morbs

i was an ad agency peon for 8 years, where's my show?

― the increasing costive borborygmi (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, May 19, 2015 10:23 AM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

its funny u shd ask cause ive been working on this script

i dont think the show has ever tried to hide that the inherent engine of advertising is corrupt despite stating that artistry and craft can be involved in its creation, i mean much of season 6 is focused around creating an ad campaign for a chevy sedan that was a notorious lemon (the vega iirc) and choosing that car as the product was v deliberate

and Lucky Strike and Coke.

Jaguar

i haven't read all of the theorizing about the end itt but it didn't even occur to me that don would have created the "hilltop" coke ad when i watched it, if only because this show has always been very diligent about keeping major cultural moments on the periphery of the drama. to turn don's breakdown and recovery into some alternate-reality origin story for a famous soda commercial feels like cheap fan service to me. and it well may be! who knows. but i appreciate the ambiguity of the ending so i can at least pretend otherwise.

http://blogs.indiewire.com/criticwire/watch-the-documentary-that-explains-why-don-draper-ended-up-meditating-in-california-in-the-mad-men-finale-20150518