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

my grandparents had this album and that's why i knew the song from way back

http://eil.com/images/main/The-New-Seekers-Wed-Like-To-Teach-371107.jpg

Hamm thinks he wrote the ad! not sure if this has already been posted, thread is crashing Firefox.

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

was that the first actual pop hit that originated with a TV ad? or did it originate there?

i find it weird that people doubt that the takeaway was that don created the ad (or helped to create it, anyway). there were a few things in the episode—- the girl whose outfit looks precisely like that of a character in the coke ad, don's knowing smirk just before the last cut to the ad-- that really serve no purpose /except/ to strongly point to the obvious conclusion. i don't really see it as being particularly ambiguous. the other options would be almost embarrassingly protracted and/or literal: don writing down "i'd like to teach..." on a napkin; don jetting back to NYC and pitching the idea to Coke; Don calling up Peggy and saying "I'm comin' home!" i mean, to the extent it was a formally satisfying ending it's largely b/c it was clear but terse.

(i mean the other options to getting the same conclusion across)

Yeah it's up in the air what he does with the rest of his life. If you believe he goes back and makes that ad, your still back to square one w what he does after that.

If you consider it a question of whether or not Don is capable of becoming a less shitty person then it's a pretty big difference, not least because it completely changes the nature of his interaction with Leonard.

If he makes the advert then the 'Don Draper' story pretty much begins and ends with him making a bigger and more successful self from other people's misery and/or destruction.

Something about Leonard reminded me a bit of Dick Whitman's brother, but that might be all in my head.

But it's been Don's destruction and misery as well. Not that Leonard's feelings aren't valid, but Don isn't just looking into the fridge and wondering if he is alienated from his family. He has lost everything, his house, his wife, his car, his kids, his other wife, his other wife, etc. This is why he went to the ends of the Earth. The final downward arc of his character was nihilistic and miserable. He was spiraling into annihilation. He welcomed it.

Leonard simply reminded him of his own misery. All season he has been seeking validation, asking people about the future, about the past, and not having any real confidence in himself. Don may go on to bigger and more successful things after the finale but that is what he does, it is how he survives.

He has lost everything, his house, his wife, his car, his kids, his other wife, his other wife, etc.

He also hadn't had a big win on an ad campaign in a long time, which seems (to me, anyway) just as relevant. I don't know if the spiralling personal life or the creative slump came first, and I'm open to correction because I haven't rewatched recent seasons, but when the ad came up at the end, it occurred to me that the smile wasn't just one of inspiration, but one of relief.

don's knowing smirk

I liked the fact that you have a second where you're not quite sure. It might not be a knowing smirk, it might be a genuine smile of enlightenment. But then the ad kicks in, and you realise that Don has a different idea of what constitutes enlightenment.

I've watched the last scene a few times now--played it for my class yesterday, trying to provide as much context as I could beforehand (I think they got the gist of it)--and it just doesn't look like a smirk to me. Don could be very sardonic and pessimistic when people got philosophical about life, but I don't remember him being someone who smirked. Maybe I'm just not remembering right. I think the first part of your post is exactly right: "the smile wasn't just one of inspiration, but one of relief."

The whole last 10 minutes is on YouTube for the moment.

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

Smirks are fine. When you meditate all kinds of weird stuff pops into your head. Reaching spiritual enlightenment is about an inner peace, you can go right back to work and carry that with you.

Spiritual enlightenment and worldly matters are not mutually exclusive. There are many famous saints and mystics that reached a state of transcendence and were about to cross over to complete egolessness and decided to stay in the material realm in order to help others rather than drift away. This is seen as virtuous and selfless. Salvation/enlightenment can come to anyone at anytime regardless of context, that is the unqualified grace that separates spirituality from the value-based transactional realm of materialism/consumerism.

Using that to sell Cokes, in the grand scheme of things, is not really that evil.

perhaps better labeled "mundane" or "mediocre"

it just seems weird to me to assume that after he and everything in his life have mutually abandoned each other - his family(ies), his job, his home, his identities - that he would just... go back to them (and be successful!) It feels counterintuitive. Maybe it does happen, I will never know cuz the show is over.

xxp maybe matthew weiner thinks that today's world is one of an incredible loving and understanding coexistence of different peoples and for that the coca cola ad is to thank

Well his job didn't really abandon him, Peggy's phone call is essentially God calling him in the depths of hell to remind him there are still people that value him.

Peggy has no power there

they fired his secretary

also he called Peggy not the other way around, and I read that scene as an appropriately Catholic last rites confession

Well she must have heard something to the effect of him still having his job. I don't see why Peggy would make something like that up.

Forgot about his secretary being fired. Doh.

I read Peggy sympathetically implying that he could get his job back as her expressing faith in his ability to fix things (which he has demonstrated many times before), not that they were holding his job for him - which, tbh, why would they

Cos he's under contract and everyone knows he does this sort of thing.

McCann has been wanting the dude to work for them for years

it's not like he fucked up a client meeting like he did in the Hershey pitch--he just has taken off for six months. he's powerful enough to walk back in and get his job back

he is not powerful at McCann

and his boss was pretty obviously fed up with him in the previous episode

his boss? you mean the one who made him say I'm Don Draper and I work at McCann?

I think he'll get over it

he may not be powerful enough at mccann but he's powerful/convincing enough to talk his way into a job

he called don his white whale

i wonder if that makes Peggy Queequeg

he's powerful/convincing enough to talk his way into a job

for the "Don made the coke ad" narrative to pan out, he doesn't need just A job, he needs a job at McCann. And his old boss was plenty pissed at him after the walkout, and had clearly soured on the buyout seeing as how two-thirds of the team he bought walked out on him. But I assume that on some level he either wanted to own them or put them out of business - his main thing was that he didn't want to compete with them anymore, so if they quit the industry hey McCann still wins.

idk this argument is boring, you guys aren't gonna convince me that this is anything more than hypothetical

Forgot about his secretary being fired. Doh.

Ha, I just now linked Meredith's parting words re. always landing on her feet with Shirley's "We should put a bell on you" comment...Meredith is a cat

It might not be a knowing smirk, it might be a genuine smile of enlightenment.

don draper, inventor of "bitchy resting face"

it could also be a commentary on the smugness of the culture of enlightenment, how that self-satisfied look doesn't seem at all out of place.

Whether it's a knowing self-congratulatory smirk or not has been a subject of many discussions and debates on dualism/non-dualism and the science of yoga for thousands of years.

just look at this smug asshole, who does he think he is
http://www.positivelife.ie/dev/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/buddha-smile.jpg

LOL

lol

sesame street showing up was telling -- one of the first significant cross-cultural groupings of people in a mainstream pop culture product, and then the coke commercial rides its coattails in a way.

the "integrated" cast of sesame street was a big deal and really did make a lot of people uncomfortable! and obv civil rights advances are making people uncomfortable. so it's an interesting climate for teaching the world to sing in perfect harmony.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSIXreOEmzU&index=42&list=PLVY6n7Jrvk_RV_cvTfCW6vtnao1AztWpX

Would McCann have had to pay Don off at least some of the substantial sum he was due? Given he disappeared for ages I dunno, but if they were resolved to having to pay him a few million either way (especially given they've already done so in buying the agency), it's conceivable they might have gone "fuck it, let's see if we get anything at all out of this". Otherwise in their mind they're basically paying however many million dollars for Ted Chaugh.

In any case it's been fairly well established that Don can talk his way out of virtually any professional hole of his own making.

he could've just sold them the idea freelance as a piece of intellectual property, like what freddie rumsen was doing once he got sober (with his own ideas, and then don's when don was on his enforced SC&P hiatus)

Would McCann have had to pay Don off at least some of the substantial sum he was due?

they already paid Don. If he walked away (which he did) he owes THEM money.

i thought this argument was boring

One thing that's cool about this show is I don't see people talking about much is it didn't stay past it's welcome and in fact seemed to end just at the right time

idk this argument is boring, you guys aren't gonna convince me that this is anything more than hypothetical
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 20 May 2015 17:17 (1 hour ago)

I think right now, until it fades, it's a really interesting argument. Not being able to convince you, that's a different thing.

x-post: weeell, actually Mad Men is kinda the longest running of the major shows. 92 hours (tv-hours of 45 min each). Wire is 60, Sopranos is 86, Deadwood only 36, Breaking Bad is 62. The idea that Mad Men didn't overstay is more about it being consistently good, than about it not running too long. It ran a looong time. And it was awesome to the end!!!

Mad Style is up:

http://tomandlorenzo.com/2015/05/mad-style-person-to-person/

omg @ the kittens on the Hokusai in Peggy's office, totally didn't see that

i liked the mad style write-up but one costuming note that struck me that wasn't mentioned: don's white shirt in the final scene. on one hand, it's the same white shirt he's always worn, iconic don draper. on the other, given it's setting and how he wears it -- no tie, untucked, collar & cuffs undone -- it almost looks like a spiritual garment as he chants. i thought it was very smart way of illustrating the confluence of a capitalism and new-age spirituality happening in that moment, both in the show's narrative arc and in american culture at large.

also can't believe I didn't recognize Billie Jean in the Esalen scenes - gah!

great T&L piece as usual

"they already paid Don. If he walked away (which he did) he owes THEM money."

This is incorrect. The amounts are contingent on fulfillment of the contract (see Joan).

It's pretty clear that if Don wanted to come back Jim Hobart at the very least would welcome him with open arms.

i'm not sure if "amounts are contingent" is exactly right.

if they fulfill their contract, they get a certain amount (joan's share would have been $500,000). if t hey walk away, they get bupkis. joan was offered $250,000 if she dropped her threats to sue, and she took it.