Mad Men Review - Season Finale
Jun. 24th, 2013 09:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatFinished watching Mad Men season finale, which works quite well as a series finale should the network choose not to renew. Everything was wrapped up quite neatly, I thought.
And Draper not only got his comeuppance of sorts, but also cleared the air and told the truth about his origin to both his kids and to the firm.
I've found the musical choices all quite nostalgic, many were favorites of mine growing up, even though I was barely one at the time they were first played.
The final songs? Moonriver and Both Sides Now ( a song that has more meaning as one grows older).
* Peggy at the end of the season is sitting behind Don Draper's desk and in Don's chair, staring out his window. While temporary, for the next two months at least, for all intents and purposes Peggy is in Don's position, while the erstwhile Ted oversees her from LA. Mainly because Ted could not resist Peggy's allure to remain faithful to his neglected wife and family. So Ted escapes to LA, effectively running away from Peggy and all she represents.
* Don had intended to run off to LA, but Ted convinces him to let him go instead. Interestingly Don doesn't care about Stan - who'd come up with the idea and whose idea, Don steals. As Stan puts it - quite succinctly to Don: "You don't owe me anything. And no, I won't go now - I don't want to work for you. I'm going back to my office now to eat the other half of my sandwich before you steal that too." He also points out how Don hurt his secretary, Dawn. She'd be let go, if he left.
Although I honestly think the deciding factor may have been Sally, his daughter. Who continues to act out. This round she got put in the infirmary (the boarding school equivalent of jail) for drinking and providing alcohol to her dorm-mates. While Don, equally, is thrown in jail for drinking and punching a minister. Don tells Betty that it is his fault not hers, and he finally decides not to run from it and takes charge.
He tells his firm and a client, Hershey two stories. The false heartwarming tale of a boy whose Dad bought him his first chocolate bar, and the true, painful tale, of growing up an orphan in a whorehouse, with a mother who abused him, and the only comfort he got was from a whore whom he helped pick the pockets of her johns. If they found enough money - she'd buy him a hershey bar which he'd savor in his room. Dreaming of the lovely orphanage that Hershey had created. Neither the client nor his fellow partners know what to make of this confession. He tells both that it is true.
The result - is that Don is politely requested to step away from the firm for a bit. To take the next four months off. Peggy can hold down the fort with Ted, they have been doing so anyhow. It is the culmination of months of mistakes by Don.
Meanwhile Don must break the news to Megan that he's not moving to LA after all, but he isn't stopping her. They can have a bi-coastal relationship. And Megan wonders what they are even fighting for in this marriage? They have no children. And while she adores his kids, they aren't her's. "I used to pity them...but now, I feel we are all in the same boat..."
She leaves stating clearly she can't be here any more, and the relationship is not working.
At the end of the episode - the least sequence is Don taking his kids to the house where he was raised. It's a ruin. Peeled paint. Faded yellow. In a bad section of town. Next to projects. And Sally looks at him with a glint of understanding in her eyes - you can almost see the thought bubble - "oh, that's why. I get it now." While Judy Collins sings the beginning strands of Both Sides Now..."it's clouds illusions I recall, but now I realize I don't really know clouds at all".
* Pete Campbell's arc like Peggy's is also neatly tied up. Pete loses his mother, the one who has plagued him throughout the series. She falls overboard and is lost at sea. She may well have been kicked overboard by her new hubby, Manola, who has bolted now that he knows she is not wealthy. But the brothers Campbell decide not to pursue it further due to cost, besides it won't bring her back and neither quite care. After crashing and burning in Detroit thanks to the new Don Draper, the charming Bob Wesserstein (who had set Pete's mother up with the nurse, who may well have killed her), Peter chooses to join Ted in LA to start up the Firm's LA Branch - which will focus on television commercials - specifically the Sunkist account. As Trudy, he's estranged wife states: "You are free finally. Free of her, free of them, free of all of this. Don't you feel it?" And Pete replies, "yes, you are right, I finally am..."
* Peggy in stark contrast has finally like Joan managed to get to the top, but the glass ceiling pushes against her. Ted gets to make the decision to leave. Don gets to make the decisions about her life. Peggy...ends up with the result. But she makes the best of it.
And rises to the challenge.
Peggy's self-righteous and radical boy friend, Abe, leaves her in the house that he accuses her of being too cowardly to live in. Yet, it is notably Abe who leaves her and it. And Abe who gets injured in it - both by Peggy defending herself and by the kids in the street.
Peggy remains, far more courageous than Abe. Likewise it is Ted who kisses Peggy, Ted who initiates sleeping with her, and Ted who flees to California, while Peggy remains and takes over both Ted and Don's position in the NY office with Ted managing her from California.
In this world, women win by default or by staying in the game. But Peggy's life is an empty one. She is in some respects the female Don Draper. And the last image of her at his desk, behind it instead of in front appears to be an accomplishment...but is it? At what price?
It's both a celebratory moment and an ironic one.
The over-arcing theme though is well stated through the whispering strands of Both Sides Now...a favorite song of mine. More so now than before. The song talks about the dreams of youth, of how we see the all possibilities...that clouds are feathered canyons and castles in the sky when we are young, but as we age, we see them as merely gray rain clouds blocking the sun, or obstacles in our way...and we realize it's cloud's illusions we recall (the dreams of what we thought we could achieve and become are merely illusions with no more weight or substance than a cloud) and we don't even know clouds at all (we no longer know what we want and we have even less answers than we did then). It's how we feel when we hit mid-life... a sense of building despair coupled with acceptance and thin thread of hope.
The season started out slow, but the last five-six episodes have been quite good.
Episode? A
Overall season? B-
And Draper not only got his comeuppance of sorts, but also cleared the air and told the truth about his origin to both his kids and to the firm.
I've found the musical choices all quite nostalgic, many were favorites of mine growing up, even though I was barely one at the time they were first played.
The final songs? Moonriver and Both Sides Now ( a song that has more meaning as one grows older).
* Peggy at the end of the season is sitting behind Don Draper's desk and in Don's chair, staring out his window. While temporary, for the next two months at least, for all intents and purposes Peggy is in Don's position, while the erstwhile Ted oversees her from LA. Mainly because Ted could not resist Peggy's allure to remain faithful to his neglected wife and family. So Ted escapes to LA, effectively running away from Peggy and all she represents.
* Don had intended to run off to LA, but Ted convinces him to let him go instead. Interestingly Don doesn't care about Stan - who'd come up with the idea and whose idea, Don steals. As Stan puts it - quite succinctly to Don: "You don't owe me anything. And no, I won't go now - I don't want to work for you. I'm going back to my office now to eat the other half of my sandwich before you steal that too." He also points out how Don hurt his secretary, Dawn. She'd be let go, if he left.
Although I honestly think the deciding factor may have been Sally, his daughter. Who continues to act out. This round she got put in the infirmary (the boarding school equivalent of jail) for drinking and providing alcohol to her dorm-mates. While Don, equally, is thrown in jail for drinking and punching a minister. Don tells Betty that it is his fault not hers, and he finally decides not to run from it and takes charge.
He tells his firm and a client, Hershey two stories. The false heartwarming tale of a boy whose Dad bought him his first chocolate bar, and the true, painful tale, of growing up an orphan in a whorehouse, with a mother who abused him, and the only comfort he got was from a whore whom he helped pick the pockets of her johns. If they found enough money - she'd buy him a hershey bar which he'd savor in his room. Dreaming of the lovely orphanage that Hershey had created. Neither the client nor his fellow partners know what to make of this confession. He tells both that it is true.
The result - is that Don is politely requested to step away from the firm for a bit. To take the next four months off. Peggy can hold down the fort with Ted, they have been doing so anyhow. It is the culmination of months of mistakes by Don.
Meanwhile Don must break the news to Megan that he's not moving to LA after all, but he isn't stopping her. They can have a bi-coastal relationship. And Megan wonders what they are even fighting for in this marriage? They have no children. And while she adores his kids, they aren't her's. "I used to pity them...but now, I feel we are all in the same boat..."
She leaves stating clearly she can't be here any more, and the relationship is not working.
At the end of the episode - the least sequence is Don taking his kids to the house where he was raised. It's a ruin. Peeled paint. Faded yellow. In a bad section of town. Next to projects. And Sally looks at him with a glint of understanding in her eyes - you can almost see the thought bubble - "oh, that's why. I get it now." While Judy Collins sings the beginning strands of Both Sides Now..."it's clouds illusions I recall, but now I realize I don't really know clouds at all".
* Pete Campbell's arc like Peggy's is also neatly tied up. Pete loses his mother, the one who has plagued him throughout the series. She falls overboard and is lost at sea. She may well have been kicked overboard by her new hubby, Manola, who has bolted now that he knows she is not wealthy. But the brothers Campbell decide not to pursue it further due to cost, besides it won't bring her back and neither quite care. After crashing and burning in Detroit thanks to the new Don Draper, the charming Bob Wesserstein (who had set Pete's mother up with the nurse, who may well have killed her), Peter chooses to join Ted in LA to start up the Firm's LA Branch - which will focus on television commercials - specifically the Sunkist account. As Trudy, he's estranged wife states: "You are free finally. Free of her, free of them, free of all of this. Don't you feel it?" And Pete replies, "yes, you are right, I finally am..."
* Peggy in stark contrast has finally like Joan managed to get to the top, but the glass ceiling pushes against her. Ted gets to make the decision to leave. Don gets to make the decisions about her life. Peggy...ends up with the result. But she makes the best of it.
And rises to the challenge.
Peggy's self-righteous and radical boy friend, Abe, leaves her in the house that he accuses her of being too cowardly to live in. Yet, it is notably Abe who leaves her and it. And Abe who gets injured in it - both by Peggy defending herself and by the kids in the street.
Peggy remains, far more courageous than Abe. Likewise it is Ted who kisses Peggy, Ted who initiates sleeping with her, and Ted who flees to California, while Peggy remains and takes over both Ted and Don's position in the NY office with Ted managing her from California.
In this world, women win by default or by staying in the game. But Peggy's life is an empty one. She is in some respects the female Don Draper. And the last image of her at his desk, behind it instead of in front appears to be an accomplishment...but is it? At what price?
It's both a celebratory moment and an ironic one.
The over-arcing theme though is well stated through the whispering strands of Both Sides Now...a favorite song of mine. More so now than before. The song talks about the dreams of youth, of how we see the all possibilities...that clouds are feathered canyons and castles in the sky when we are young, but as we age, we see them as merely gray rain clouds blocking the sun, or obstacles in our way...and we realize it's cloud's illusions we recall (the dreams of what we thought we could achieve and become are merely illusions with no more weight or substance than a cloud) and we don't even know clouds at all (we no longer know what we want and we have even less answers than we did then). It's how we feel when we hit mid-life... a sense of building despair coupled with acceptance and thin thread of hope.
The season started out slow, but the last five-six episodes have been quite good.
Episode? A
Overall season? B-
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Date: 2013-06-25 11:47 pm (UTC)