In Which I Review Mad Men (7x14)

And then there were none....

Do you know what I did this week? I re-watched (almost) the entire series of Mad Men. AMC aired the whole shebang and I found myself drawn in, like the proverbial moth to a flame. What can I say? I can't resist the heady dose of complex characters, narrative, symbols and themes. Here we are at the end of everything Mad Men. The last Old Fashioned has been drunk, the last cigarette has been lit, the last ad has been pitched. What did I expect from the finale? I think, in my head, I expected something like Don traveling back to New York and having conversations with those he left behind. After all, the finale is called "Person to Person." But, as usual, Matthew Weiner subverted my expectations (remember when I firmly believed that Don Draper would die before the 1970s?) and gave me something that was out of the box, weird, and little bit confusing. That's Mad Men, though. In no universe, thinking about it now, would Weiner write something so introspective as what I just proposed. People don't work like that in Weiner's world--and indeed, do they really work that way in the real world? I've been saying for a long time that 'people do not fundamentally' change is the central tenant of Mad Men. The best they can hope for is to accept their own issues and learn to live within them. Don staying a self absorbed asshole who is also a mad genius when it comes to advertising? He doesn't change. He becomes only mildly self aware and uses this new found moment of clarity not to heal but to sell hope and love to the starving American public. Because at the end of the day, he's still Donald Draper. And he'd like to buy the world a Coke. One more drink for the road? Let's go. 

I suppose, looking at the finale as a whole, there are really three stories, three people who have to decide what their future is. Isn't that really what this was all about? We can't follow these characters all the way through their lives but at least we can glean what might become of them. Joan, Peggy, and Don are all question marks. Pete got his happy ending with Trudy and Tammy and they're off to conquer Wichita; Roger is going to make the most of what time he has left by marrying Marie and seeing the world with a new girl, forever the child at heart. Sally is going to step up and take her mother's place as head of the Francis household (soon to be the Hofstader household since she and her brothers are going to live with Betty's brother?) But Joan, Peggy and Don are at a crossroads, unsure of where to go. And that's what the finale wants to answer. For Joan, she's torn between love and career, something that shouldn't surprise us too much given that Joan has forever been trapped between those two. Joan has been held there more so than Peggy, I'd say, since Joan has always been searching for love whilst Peggy has been, more or less, content to give herself over to her work (oh yes, we'll get to Peggy.) The new man in Joan's life, Richard, is awfully demanding isn't he? He wants all of Joan and he wants none of her to go toward her career or her dreams and her ambitions. Joan had a guy like that once; Greg, her husband, once told her that she should be sitting in front of the TV eating Bon-Bons. Joan, though, is fed up with living in that world--a world that says she is nothing more than a body and she shouldn't partake in the pleasures of business. It's a bit shocking to find Joan back on the business end of things, though as a producer this time around. She was miserable at McCann and even feeling a little empty at SC&P before the merger, but looking back it was less about the business and more about the fact that Joan was never seen as being capable or having the same abilities as men. Joan got where she was thanks to her body--literally prostituting herself for her partnership. In this business, Joan answers to no one and is beholden to no one. Joan is her own boss; her successes and failings are her own and she's going to make the most of it. What is Joan's future? Probably pretty bright, even if it doesn't include love. At least not yet. It's Joanie. I imagine she'll find romantic love eventually. And even if not, she's got Kevin, she's got her business, and she's got a pocket full of money. You go, Joan Harris. Take on the world and look fabulous at the same time.

Peggy Olson got the true happy ending, didn't she? I never doubted she would. I have to admit that I squealed when she and Stan declared their love for each other, not necessarily because I have been hard core rooting for them but because it meant that Peggy made it after all. She gets the golden goose egg--the job, the money, the guy. I think Peggy learned very early on how to live not only in the world and its rules but live within herself. She's knows she is not going to fundamentally change--she'll always be driven and hard and myopic and obsessive. But that doesn't mean that, to quote Stan, Peggy can't find more outside of work. It was nice to see Peggy struggling with her future; she has always wanted everything and always wanted it now. She's an eager beaver, our Peggy Olson. So when Joan approached her about going into business together (someone fanfic the hell out of that, please) Peggy was understandably eager to take it and run, but not because she wanted to do it but because it would get her "there" faster. Where is there? Success, recognition, money, power, prestige. Everything Peggy Olson wants could potentially be fast-tracked if she up and left McCann and embarked on this new adventure. But what grounds her, ultimately, is that someone loves her and wants a life with Peggy, even if it means that her name won't be on the door until 1980. I think Peggy accepted long ago that she would never find love, not after so many failed attempts: Pete, Duck, Abe, Ted, and various other men. Peggy was too career driven, too focused on her upwards climb. She never realized that Stan was climbing up with her. Did you notice the wonderful "here and there" part of Peggy and Stan's conversation? Whenever Peggy has an intense heart to heart with someone and she has to try and explain her emotions, she tends to talk in location: "it's like one day your here..." she says to Peter in Season 2. Just two weeks ago she told Stan, with regards to the child she gave up that he's "there" and she's "here." But with Stan, he is both here and there. A distance between them doesn't exist. What's Peggy's future? You better believe she'll get her name on the door somewhere at some point, though probably not McCann. She's too talented to be left in that sausage factory; three years down the road and she'll leave and go someplace else to be a partner and a creative director before getting to put her last name above the door. And Stan will be there for it. Throw your hat in the air, Peggy. From a secretary in the steno pool to copy writer to copy chief. From the girl who got pregnant and didn't realize it to the woman who pitched how starved we all are for a connection---you made it.

And finally, at long last, we come to Don. What is there to say? A lot, I'm sure. But I'm going to restate the thesis of Mad Men one more time: people do not fundamentally change. Did Don change? Nope. He's just looking for the "new you." This new him is really just Don Draper 2.0 (or hell, maybe 3.0 or even 4.0 at this point); perhaps a slightly more self aware and self enlightened Don who has learned a little bit about himself as a product that sits on a shelf waiting for love, but Don Draper nonetheless. He did not become Dick Whitman again; he did not re-baptize himself. I have no doubt that Don, having cried his manly cries, having chanted his 'oms' got in a car, went back to New York, back to McCann and said, "I have a great idea for Coke." That commercial at the end about buying the world a Coke--that was Don's last pitch (that we'll see anyway). It was hippie-tastic and shows that Don did gain some wisdom from his retreat in California and everything he's experienced this season, but it also shows that Don still understands people and how to get them to want and desire and long for the products he's pitching. The world needs love and this product--Coca Cola--is just the ticket for what ails you. And that is pure 1960s Donald Draper. But how did he get there, to this juxtaposition between the new you and the old him? Slowly. Achingly. Step by stumbling step.

Don is the only person in this episode who actually made a "Person to Person" phone call, the most significant of them being to Peggy. Can I just say, there was some ugly crying going on during this phone call? Don reached out and really talked to three women (the three women in his life): Betty, the dying mother, Sally, the up and coming daughter, and Peggy, the woman who really understood him, far more than the Anna 2.0 clone-wannabe, Stephanie, who openly declares that Don is not her family. But Peggy? Peggy is his family. I was going to be pretty upset if Don and Peggy never spoke again but Peggy told Don what he needed to hear: "you can come home..." It doesn't matter to Peggy if Don isn't the man she thought he was; it doesn't matter to her if Don broke all his vows and took another man's name and never made anything of it. Peggy doesn't care, even if it's all the truth; she's seen Don at his disastrous worst and at his shinning best and she knows him, in and out, because he's seen her too. Don had to call and say goodbye to Peggy. He never said goodbye to Anna, but by God, he's going to say goodbye to Peggy. That broke my heart. But in the end, Don reaches some measure of peace and self-awareness, as much as a man like Don can find peace and become self-aware. He sits on a beach, in his beloved California, in a business shirt (not the plaid he was sporting all episode) and a smile lights up his face: he's got it--his next great idea, the idea that will define his career forever. He might be a "new you" but he's really the old new, just with some polish but it's up to you, the viewer, to decide how much polish and what he can do with it. After all, the Wheel moves forward and backwards and then takes us home again. Does Don now know what love is? He spent his whole life looking for it, after all. Maybe, but that doesn't mean that he's magically cured of all his ills. I don't think it really matters. Mad Men was never going to spell it out for you whether or not Don has a bright future. For all I know, after the Coke ad, Don went on a bender, picked up some whores and went back down his self-torture road of misery. Only to come up with a great ad afterwards, of course. Or maybe he decides he will make a better go of it this time around. Maybe Don will be a better father, a better boss, a better man. Isn't it pretty to think so?

I want to end this (last ever) review of Mad Men on a sappy note, if I may. Two years ago, when I began this little blog of mine, it was really for one simple reason: I wanted to talk about Mad Men. I had been watching the show for years and found it highly stimulating and engaging and thought provoking, but I had little to no outlet for discussion. I had toyed with the idea of a blog for awhile and finally, one fateful day, sat down and decided to just dive in. I told myself, at the time, that it would be a blog for just about anything: TV, movies, politics, books, whatever. As you might have gathered, my focus became decidedly more narrow and now is almost exclusively about TV. Mad Men has a lot to do with that. My reviews have vastly improved since then and I became more comfortable talking about TV and the way I read texts. Again, Mad Men has a lot to do with that. I don't know that I'll ever tire of talking about, thinking about, or even just simply watching this show. Twenty years from now, it will still feel fresh and innovative, quite a feat for a show that spent its run in an era long since passed. I'll always find something new in the re-watches and something worth examining. Even though this is my final word on the show as a whole, it's not my final thought. Can I quote Don? Is that too passe? "...There's the rare occasion when the public can be engaged on a level beyond flash, if they have a sentimental bond with the product." That's me and that's Mad Men. A sentimental bond has formed with this TV show, one that won't easily or quickly go away. So to Bert and Roger, to Megan, Betty and Sally, to Joan and Pete, to Peggy and to Don (to them most of all), from the bottom of my heart, I will be forever grateful for you, your story, and what you gave me for ten years. And I will miss you.

Miscellaneous Notes on Person to Person

--"I translated your speech into Pig Latin..."

--"And this...is a cactus." I have a lot of love for the final Pete and Peggy scene together. They've come so far, from the married man who seduced Peggy on her first day to having a very healthy level of respect. The fact that Peggy parrots back Pete's, "a thing like that..." to him was touching.

--Roger actually wore something other than a three-piece suit and Don wore jeans! I die of shock, y'all.

--The phone call between Betty and Don was quite heartbreaking, especially when Betty gave him the cold slap that him not being around is just "normal."

--"It'll get easier as you move forward." Really Don? Has that been you experience?

--"You have to let him go; it doesn't mean you don't care about him..." And with that, I bow out.  

In Which I Review Mad Men (7x13)

Well, Happy Mother's Day to you too, Matthew Weiner. Only Mad Men would essentially kill off the original mother of the show on Mother's Day. There is only one episode left and while there is a sense of finality to all the characters--you better believe that's the last time we'll ever see Betty Draper-Francis--there is still an underlying tension of not knowing how all this will end and where we, the TV hobos, are going. This weeks episode, "The Milk and Honey Route," was one of those rare Mad Men episodes where I sat, slack jawed, staring at the screen wondering what I was watching. Most penultimate episodes of shows build toward something; there is a sense that the audience needs to prepare to take a giant leap forward in the following week by revving up the drama or the intrigue. Mad Men would never be so passe, though. Instead this weeks episode was very much about people being stuck, either in a certain location, in a situation, or an emotional mindset. This isn't to say that this weeks episode wasn't good--it's Mad Men; it's always going to be good. But rather, once again, Weiner and company subvert my expectations of what TV is supposed to feel like. In any other universe, the second to last episode of a series would have been loud and full throttle. Instead, it actually felt incredibly slowed down. It's hard to believe that we only have one episode left, forever. I'm not ready to say goodbye. So, instead, grab all your belongings and shove them into a Sears bag, hug your mother one final time and let's go. 

Is this the last we're going to see of Pete Campbell? It doesn't feel right that Pete and Don wouldn't interact one more time given how Pete has spent the past ten years attempting to become Don, but at the same time, this storyline is as close to happily ever after as Peter is likely to get. I'm just going to say it: the storyline for Pete this week was confusing. First, hello Duck. I never liked you so please go away with your drinking shame and your hat in your hands. Pete is quite happy at McCann/Erikson. He brought back in some clients after SC&P moved; he's obviously well liked and doing his job well. He's a cog in the machine; more important than some, less important than a whole lot of others. Don's prediction back in season one that Pete would eventually become a balding, middle aged executive with only moderate success seems to be coming true. Pete could spend the rest of his life at McCann and be adequately successful and happy. However, that's never what Pete wanted for himself. He wants to be King; it's literally his fantasy as we saw several seasons ago when being declared a King by a prostitute was what it took to get his motor running. Right now, Pete is a middle sized fish in the Ocean. What Duck Philips is presenting is a chance to be a shark in the middle of a duck pond. I guess I'm not one hundred percent sure what this new job is--account man for a luxury air travel agency? Sure. But what matters is that the opportunity to move to Wichita affords Pete a rather grand view of his life so far and what is missing from it: his family. Pete and Trudy were always dynamic together when their marriage wasn't falling to pieces, and to be fair it was often falling to pieces. But here, ten years after we first met Pete--wide-eyed, egotistical, eager beaver, dour Peter Campbell--he seems to have come to a conclusion about himself. He wants to be petted and admired and Pete can't be that at McCann nor even in New York. This latter part is important since Pete has always held New York in quasi-romantic terms. The suburbs of Cos Cob bored Pete; California turned into a nightmare, but New York was where he felt most at home, until it too turned on him and became "a toilet." Am I happy that Pete and Trudy got back together? I don't know in all honestly. It does feel a bit too saccharine for Weiner, someone who's never tried to present the world with kid gloves nor with cotton candy tinged experiences. Trudy and Pete were realistic as two well-to-do, upper class socialites who ultimately made each other miserable because their life together were never enough, at least for Pete. If Don is what Pete would become someday--divorced, mediocre, burnt out and bored--then it seems as though on some subconscious level, Pete is taking Don's departure as a the key to his happiness. Run west, Pete, with your family, become the King of Wichita and luxury airline travel and embrace the morning.

 I never expected to cry over Betty Draper, a character that I've never liked and stopped pitying after season one. Or maybe I cried over Sally and how broken she was, knowing that she was going to lose her mother very soon. I've said this so many time but I'll say it once more, the underlying thesis of Mad Men is that people do not fundamentally change, but they can learn to live within their own set of behaviors. Of course Betty's final letter to Sally was instructions on how to make her look at her funeral. Of course Betty included a picture of what she wanted to buried in with details on her hair and makeup. That's Betty Draper for you: vain, shallow, and pretentious. But sometimes, Betty Draper can be surprisingly deep. In the midst of all this vanity, Betty finally told Sally that she loved her. Betty has accepted her fate that she is going to die of lung cancer (finally someone on this show pays the price for smoking as much as they do). She's not going to fight; she knows it's over and she doesn't want to put Sally, Bobby, and Gene through what Betty herself went through watching her own mother die. Instead, Betty is going to march to the beat of her own slightly vainglorious drum. Betty will go to school, continue to be a mother and a wife and not be drawn into the morbidity of her final days. Betty matured quite a bit didn't she? She's still childlike with her haughty list of demands about her lipstick (something that reads more teenager instead of child), but she's accepted that this is who she is and the best thing she can do is to live in her own expectations of self. And, touchingly, tell her daughter one final fundamental truth: you are going to be okay. Sally might be the amalgam of her father and mother, the conservative yet hobo-esque beautiful girl, but like Betty said in her goodbye letter, she marches to the beat of her own drum and while that worried Betty, she understands now that it is Sally's strength. Embrace your drum, Sally. You are going to be okay.

And then there's Dick. Don? Dick. He keeps introducing himself to others as Don but at this stage of the game, Don is a mere shadow, a bad memory even. Dick Whitman has shed almost every single possession or construct that made Don who he was. No family, no wife, no friends, no job, no house, no business suit, and in the end no car--something he bought years and years ago as a sign of his status and wealth as Donald Draper. When asked how he earned his money, Don replied "I was in the advertising business." Past tense. It's over for Don and he has no intention of going back. He's a hobo and it's not even subtle anymore. There was one other construct that Don let go of in this episode: the secret of who he is. It's not that people before don't know that he's not really Donald Draper--Betty, Anna, Bert Cooper, Pete Campbell, Sally, Megan. They know. But the one thing no one has ever got was Don's true telling, that he was responsible for the real Don's death. It's always been couched as an accident, but here, in front on men who understand war and loss and survival, Don let's go of his greatest secret: "I killed my CO." Don's whole life has been plagued by the notion that he killed people--his whore mother who birthed him, his drunk father, his CO, and his brother Adam. By letting go of some of those burdens, by confessing, Dick Whitman is emerging from behind Don's carefully laid veneer. But back to being a hobo: it's not just that he's running; his possessions are in a bag, he's doing odd handy jobs around a home to earn food and board and in the end, he has no car and must rely on the bus and other forms of transport to get around. That's a hobo. That's what the hobo who showed up on Young Dick's farm in PA (one of the most significant episodes for Don) did and that's what Don is going to do. I don't think it's a secret that Don is slowly making his way out to California. California is his bliss. The final shot of this episode is Don sitting all alone at a bus station with a huge grin on his face. He's in heaven, finally, having emerged from McCann and New York hell. But here's the underlying tension now: what will Don do when he learns that Betty is dying or dead and that his children need him? Will he high-tail it back to New York and be a father or will he pursue his own pleasures and continue to head out west on the open road? People do not fundamentally change; Don is a runner. He runs from his wives, his family, his job, and he has been running from a Death denied (only to find it everywhere he goes...). So what will he do? Well, Sally has always been Don's saving grace on this show (her and Peggy) and I really want to believe that Don will turn around and go back to be with his children but....people. They don't fundamentally change.

And then there was one....

Miscellaneous Notes on The Milk And Honey Route

--Can we take a moment to appreciate how good Jon Hamm looks in 1960s/1970s casual drag? I mean, damn.

--Sally and Don were wearing the same colored shirts in their first phone call, with Sally wearing plaid, mirroring Don's plaid shirt in the final scene. Even half a country apart and those two are linked.

--"I walked into town and it's hard for me. I got flat feet." I didn't particularly care about Andy and his grifter storyline but it does serve to show how self aware Don can be. He knows this kid is him at a younger age, looking for a way out the only way he knows how: by conning people, something Don is an expert at doing. Don's best life advice: "you'll have to become someone else. That's not what you think it is." Quite a change from telling Peggy that "this never happened. It will shock you how much this never happened."

--Yes, Donald Draper got beat up with a phone book after he told his secret. It was a big bold move for him but it does rather reinforce the idea that he should keep his mouth shut.  

--Loved Sally's orange coat. 

--"You just do what you gotta do to come home." Or: Mad Men Season 7B in a nutshell.

--So, what is the final image of the show? Is it Don "Drapering" (the iconic shot of him lounging)? Is it a parallel to the first episode of Season 1 in which he sits by his children's beside, holding their hands (but this time with no Betty in the doorway?) Is it Don standing in the ocean, being re-baptized and reborn as Dick Whitman?

In Which I Review Mad Men (7x12)

Do you get the chance to start over? That's the question on everyone's mind as the doors of SC&P close, as the building is decimated, and as the Mad Men take the slow and long elevator ride up to their so-called heaven at McCann/Erikson. The question is easily answered if you've been paying attention to how the TV show Mad Men views change and whether or not people can truly begin again: no of course they can't. They are always stuck at the beginning. In this weeks episode, "Lost Horizon," the audience (and the characters) very quickly come to the conclusion we suspected at the end of last week--going to McCann/Erikson is the equivalent of dying and going to hell where everyone looks, talks, and acts the same; creativity is squashed and squandered and all women are secretaries and sexual objects that men can use and dispose of as they see it. The episode teased that this move to the so called big leagues might actually work but quickly put the kebash on that within the first few minutes. This isn't advertising heaven. It's hell. You are now a cog in the machine; the shiny veneer through which McCann/Erikson wants you to see them is dirty and tarnished, closed up and closed in. It was another great (if weird) episode so grab a pair of roller skates and let's go!

There are really three main McCann/Erikson journeys this weeks--people coming and going, deciding whether or not this new adventure is going to work for them. Let's begin with Peggy Olson who is my personal hero. Damn. She makes killing your lungs and body slowly look good. First off, this unbelievable moment of her walking down a hallway, box in hand, toward her new office is a total callback to season one, the very first episode in which Peggy is the new steno girl. She's not much to look at and she doesn't fit in. The best piece of advice offered to her is to find a way to make her darling little ankles sing. It's 1960 and Peggy entered a man's world only for her to shake up that world by demonstrating that she was just as good (if not better) than the male ad writers. So here we are, at the end of her time at SC&P, entering her new life at McCann and what is she doing? Strutting. Like a proverbial peacock. She is loud colors and she is smoke in everyone's eye and she is carrying a painting of an octopus pleasuring a woman (that was owned by Bert and given to her by Roger because Peggy Olson is the real heir of the SC&P world). This is how you show character growth. During that parallel scene back in season one, Peggy was invisible except for the male sexual eye. She was a new treat, even if one that none of the men particularly were hungry for. In this final saunter, Peggy demands everyone's attention but not by virtue of being a female and pretty and sexual--nope, she demands your attention by taking on those classic male traits, living her life like a man as she explained to Stan last week. She's got a cigarette hanging out of her mouth, she's obviously hung over with the black glasses, she's deliberately showing off a highly provocative and highly sexual picture and Peggy Olson doesn't care. Peggy is not here to make the men of the world comfortable. You're not going to put a label on her; you're not going to reduce her down to secretary status; you will not make her less than what she is. Peggy could easily take over McCann if she played her cards right--in other words, acted like a man. My bigger question is, will she? It's interesting that the show kept her from going over to McCann until the very end. Every time she was ready to go, something got in the way--her office wasn't ready; the leadership treated her badly and rudely; she had to help Roger cope with loss. Fate kept interfering, as if telling Peggy not to go gently into that good night. Will Peggy stay or will Peggy go? Either way, I think she knows how to exist in this world now. But as her fan, I want more for Peggy than an office that looks like every other office; I want more than tired old board meetings with nothing but stuffy withered white men who will always look at her and see something that scares them, a reminder that the times, they are-a changing. I want Peggy to go be her own boss and be a creative director in her own right, not a cog in the machine (however impressive a cog she might be.)

First off, this can't be the end of Joan's story right? It's not like she's exited the stage forevermore? Please tell me I get more Joan before the show takes its finale bow. Joan's storyline this week broke my heart and made me see Feminist Red. Joan is nothing to this company but a good time fun girl with big boobs. She is there only for two reasons, she was part of the package deal as partner at SC&P and because the men of McCann think they can toy with her like they toy with all the secretaries. Joan has been absolutely reduced to nothing but a sexual object, her worst fear. In the eyes of the higher ups, she's a girl and she doesn't matter. It's a very sad state of affairs that, in so many ways, this is exactly the mindset that Mad Men opened with back in 1960--but again, people do not fundamentally change and especially not a towering monolith like McCann/Erikson that churns out business like a well oiled (slimy oil at that) machine. Joan upsets the balance; she was expected to come in and play nice with the boys and be subservient to them in every way. She has come so far since her days as head of the gaggle back at Sterling and Cooper. Did you ever imagine that the woman who's perfect piece of life advice was "men love scarves" would be name dropping Betty Friedan or the ACLU? Of course, lurking behind all this is the fact that Joan mostly got as far as she has because she prostituted herself; she can never escape that knowledge. It's no surprise that when confronted with the most vile form of misogyny at the hands of Jim Hobart she is wearing a gem green dress, calling back to the emerald she got for her one night of pleasure with the Jaguar executive. Ultimately Joan's story is a tragic one; she's right on the cusp of the first real waves of feminism and the feminist movement, but for her it's probably too late. The men of the world who only ever saw her body have won. Peggy walked into McCann like a man, Joan leaves like McCann like a defeated and deflated woman. I know it's a lot to hope for, but here's hoping that we get one more shot of Joan being happy and finding love and acceptance.

Speaking of love and acceptance, Don Draper what is your major malfunction? No, don't answer that. I know what your major malfunction is. But at least you're keeping true your (hobo) nature in this episode. The beginning looked so positive, did it not? Maybe Don could make McCann work. Hobart is obviously thrilled to have finally landed Don ("you're my white whale!") and everything seems designed to make Don be the best he can be, including killer business that Don would have been chomping at the bit for a few years ago. However, what Hobart fails to realize is that this isn't the Don Draper he's longed for. That Don Draper pretty much died and now Dick Whitman is walking around in a Don Draper meat suit trying to keep his rotting insides from falling out. Jon Hamm, incredible actor that he is, gets that look of intense fear when Hobart asks him if Don's introduced himself yet. "I'm Don Draper for McCann/Erikson." Totally lifeless, devoid of all Don's charms, an attempt that barely earns him a passing grade. More than that though, Hobart's attempt to make Don feel special is anything but; he's simply one of many, a truly horrifying life for Donald Draper. And in the end, the weight of all this is too much for Don. He can't live in this new "paradise" world where the creative department flips absently through research and clinically listens to pitches about cliche men as consumers (with set behaviors) drinking beer while Don and his fellow cogs eat white cardboard lunches. There is no soul there and for all his faults, Don wants advertising to have soul. He needs to believe that creativity can flourish but creativity died in the factory that is McCann. The great beyond is calling to Don instead. Side note, but I did love the image of the Time and Life building fading into the background as Don turned to look out the window. His horizon is lost. So what does Don do? He leaves. It's not like Don hasn't done this before; in fact, I'd say it's what Don does best.

When faced with something challenging that ruffles his internal feathers, he runs. Going back home and facing a life of being Dick Whitman? He runs. Having a bit of a breakdown in season two? He runs. And, like Don normally does, he ran west. Also, did you notice? Don ran but took on another man's name and life to get where he was going, all hobo style. People do not fundamentally change! So where did Don go? To Diana--yeah, that was a bit odd but again, keeping in line with Don's character. He has become myopically obsessed with Lady Di (death metaphor alert!) and is now following her to parts unknown. Will Don Draper catch his white whale (or in this case, sad brown waitress)? Probably not. And even if he did, would the having be as great as the pursuing and catching? Nope. What happens to Don now? Well, I don't think he's going to return to New York yet. I think he'll go West some more, probably all the way out to California to see if he can find his happiness there. Back to Ana's house one final time. The question is, will it work? If Don't horizon right now is a lifetime in the sausage factor of McCann where he becomes just another creative director in a sea of creative directors, can Don escape that and find his real horizon, the one he lost? The one where he is Dick Whitman and free from the lies and the image of Don Draper. People cannot fundamentally change, but that doesn't mean that they can't accept that they can't change. So...maybe. Maybe Don, out on his hobo trail, will find some sort of freedom in living the Dick Whitman life of running and running and running. Go Don. Find what you're looking for.

Miscellaneous Notes on Lost Horizon     

--"Advertising is not a comfortable place for everyone." Shirley is on POINT with that line. Love that a black female finally got to tell a white older man how it feels to be "other."

--"From now on, no one comes between me and your business." I hope Ferg gets pushed out of a window.

--"Maybe you're getting old." That was an incredibly sweet scene between Betty and Don. They were happy once, before Don Draper's inevitable pile of crap surfaced.

--BERT!! Sing for us!! But of course Bert appears, like Marely's ghost, to drop some Kerouac on Don: Whither goest thou, America, in thy shiny car in the night? Like Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty, Don Draper is heading west to trying to find his lost bliss.

--Peggy on roller skates is my life now.

In Which I Review Mad Men (7x11)

And that, ladies and gentleman, is the end of Donald Draper. Alright, that might be a bit of a bold statement to make out of the gates since Don is still very much alive at the end of this week's episode, "Time and Life." Or rather, his body is still breathing, moving, talking, and showing all the normal signs of life. The essence of Donald Draper is dead, however. It got swallowed up by the hellish machine known as McCann/Erikson and there was nothing Don, advertising god, could do about it. Once upon a time, Don could start over and build something with his own two hands; now, Don can't even get a room full of secretaries to listen to him. Very steadily over this last half of the season, we've been watching Don lose those carefully constructed cards that made him the man of mystery and allure we loved (hated?) for so long. The rotting and dead core that is Don Draper is finally surfacing and everyone around him can see that he's a sad and morose guy who ultimately has no character because he's devoid of any meaning--just like the ads he writes. Is there anything left for Don Draper? Sex appeal, mystery, job, wife, and even to some degree Sally, have left him. Don jokingly tells Roger this week, "What's in a name?" as if he now understands that even his name is getting him nowhere, and of course the irony in that is clear: his name isn't even his own. Grab something depressing because while this was a stellar episode, it was very sad. 

For all its complex subtly and carefully layered meanings, sometimes Mad Men gives you episode as clear cut and in your face obvious as any other TV show. This was such an episode. Not that there weren't layers and symbols and carefully constructed narratives (most of which harkened back to previous episodes, the season two finale with Pete and Peggy and more readily seen, the incredible, TV defining season three finale, 'Shut the Door. Have a Seat') but, rather, that the surface reading isn't carefully belying anything deeper. It really is crystal clear: what happens to SC&P in this episode has happened before, but this time around, there is no saving themselves or the company. They can't start over. Again. There is no time, there is no drive, there is no desire or fierce hunger to match the time, drive, and desire and hunger of season three when Donald Draper, still an advertising god, waltzed into Bert Cooper's office and demanded his chance to build something of value with his own two hands. This time, it's the same scenario but you can't get past the beginning. This entire season began with one question: do you have time to change your life? The answer seemed to be, at the end of the first half, yes you can if only you remember that the best things in life are free and love can come to anyone. But the second half takes Mad Men's ultimate thesis--people do not fundamentally change--and has our main characters go through plot lines that they've gone through before to show that they cannot change, and by virtue of not changing, the outcome is different. This time, Don is going to lose. This bit of the story needs some plot so a basic rundown is in order: McCann/Erikson, the giant machine that turns out advertising like it's a science and not an art, has officially swallowed up SC&P. McCann/Erikson played dirty, waited long enough to make SC&P think they were in the clear and then struck the company we love and never afforded them the chance to try and get out of it. Don, Roger, Pete, Joan (sound familiar? It's very season three finale) and Ted tried their hardest to pitch a new idea--going out west and being left alone out there with a few select clients but Jim Hobart at McCann didn't even let Don finish his pitch (symbolic!).

The real meat of the episode, I think, comes during the meeting at McCann. Welcome to advertising Hell, though the devil in the red tie (Jim Hobart himself) will tell you that you're going to advertising paradise. I love how this was constructed. The SC&P heroes walk into an ad agency (yes, that's a pun on a season three episode title) and they think can take on Goliath. They might be smaller but they are not without friends. And, they've got Don, advertising god. The man who can lay down some seriously profound advertising on you that will make you weep. The man who came up with the Carousel. That's Don Draper. He'll put these giants in their place. Except, it doesn't work. Don isn't even allowed to get through his pitch, to do the very thing that defines Don Draper, before Hobart, our Satan figure, interrupts and tells Don to take a seat. That should be your clue. It isn't going to work. What follows next reads like the literal devil laying out a banquet of treats for you, hopeful that you'll give into temptation.  The men (and woman, though Joan doesn't matter in Hobart's male centric eyes) of SC&P, aren't exactly resolute. With a glint in his eye, Satan slowly turns to each of the people that he thinks "matter" and offers them their greatest temptation. For Ted, it's a pharmaceutical (something Ted hinted at last week). For Pete, it's Buick. And for Don, in a hushed and awed voice spake Satan, it's Coca-Cola. This is, by the way, another nice call back to one of the earliest episodes in season one in which Hobart tried to lure Don to his company by seducing Betty into being a Coke model. Nice, eh? The fact is, though, that none of those people--Ted, Pete, and Don--are going to be as respected and valued at McCann as they are right now. Ted, doesn't care. He's a sheep and will gladly bleat along so long as he doesn't have to make decisions. Pete is morose about it and self pitying, but ultimately probably won't do anything about it because, in spite of being a grimy little pimp, Pete can often be quite profound and knows this is the future of business (and, historically, he's right). He hit the nail on the head two weeks ago: we can never get past the beginning. And Don...well Don's basically dead on the inside and has surrendered to the end. He's our very twisted Jesus insert in this episode and unless he decides to balk, he just threw up his arms and gave into temptation. There is no fight in him anymore. When the news breaks to SC&P that they are being absorbed (which means that 90% of those people are going to lose their jobs), Don tries to give a rousing speech about how this is the beginning of something new and exciting, but he is literally drowned out by the buzzing of those around him. No one is listening to Donald Draper anymore, and Don has neither the fortitude nor drive nor energy to make them. He has surrendered.

The other plot of this week was Peggy and like the SC&P team above, so below. The past is circling the partners with narrative call backs to previous stories and episode that they seem to be only passing aware of; they know they've done it before but they it doesn't become as omnipresent to them. Peggy, on the other hand, is smack dab in the middle of her own haunted past as she and Stan try to cast little children for an ad. What does Peggy know about being a mom? She thinks very little because of course she gave up her own child, something that apparently has haunted her ever since. Don's advice to her, "this never happened. It will shock you how much this never happened" (god, one of the best moments in TV history) didn't quite reach Peggy's ears. She's lived by it certainly, but giving up her son in adoption has always loomed large over her, and never more so when Peggy is expected to "play mom." Her heartbreaking conversation with Stan was, first off, supremely acted by Elisabeth Moss but, secondly, just full of pain and regret but also triumph. Peggy wouldn't change her decision, but it doesn't mean that she isn't troubled by it. I also had a major squeal of delight when Peggy gave what might be her own personal thesis; if I had to sum up Peggy it would be exactly as she put it to Stan, "She should be able to live the rest of her life, just like a man does." That's Peggy. That's just Peggy to a T. Now, with that said, I must admit that I will be really disappointed if Peggy's big Mad Men end is her actually going to McCann/Erikson. Peggy wants to create something of lasting value but I'll tell you right now, she can't do it there. Peggy won't be respected or loved or even thought about. She'll go back to being one of many instead of the one and only. If her tale ends that way, I'll be extremely upset. Maybe Peggy could shuffle through life like that (after all, as Ted said last season, "You're going to die someday, you might as well keep cashing the checks.") but for Peggy fans, it would be heartbreaking.

Miscellaneous Notes on Time and Life

--Another highlight moment, the couch scene between Pete and Peggy, recalling the last time they sat thusly on a couch: the day Peggy told Pete that he got her pregnant and she gave away the baby.

--"Enjoy the rest of your miserable life!" Okay then Lou!

--Even the West is now closed to Don Draper unless he runs from McCann/Erikson. The West has always been Don's safe haven, his paradise. But now it's a dream denied.

--Trudy Campbell has a fabulous wardrobe and I would like that white dress please.

--Joan isn't even acknowledged by Jim Hobart. She'll become nothing but a secretary to McCann/Erikson.

--"I don't know because you're not supposed to know or you can't go on with your life."

--"You are OK." I need more Drunk Roger and Drunk Don having contemplative moments. 

--"I'm fine. I have work to do." OR: how to survive life if you're a character on Mad Men.
     
 

In Which I Review Mad Men (7x10)

What is a forecast? It's a prediction of the future based on current patterns, a theme that ran throughout this weeks episode aptly titled "The Forecast." Everyone is worried about the future--the company's future, their own individual future, the future of those around them. But more to the point, no one (well, almost no one) knows their future nor could even halfheartedly accurately predict their future. Most of the characters this week couldn't articulate their future if their future stood before them stark naked and dancing. When they think about the future, they get tongue tied, they seem to focus on one singular thing instead of thinking broadly (well, again, almost everyone) or they end up realizing that the future is bleak and scary and they have no place in it. This weeks episode was easily the best of the arc so far (the return of Sally at long last does a lot to solidify that, honestly) but it also hammers home themes I've been dissecting all along--Don Draper is almost over and done. His story--the advertising and sexual god who had everything and deserved to have even more--is almost over and Don knows it. He simply can't go on because there is no future for a man like Don anymore. The future belongs to Peggy and to Sally, and all Don does is crap on their dreams and make them uncomfortable. Don is literally charged with writing the future and he's stumped. He has no future and he can't see one for the life of him. Grab a horny teenager (that will make sense if you watch the episode) and let's go!

There are really three main stories this week--Joan, Betty/Sally, and Don. Let's start with Joan. Our favorite sashaying red-head's future should look bright; she's moved up in the world as a partner and an account manager. Joan gets to fly to LA and conduct interviews and have people fall at her feet, something our Joanie has always loved. But, take a look at Joan's life as she is living it. Does it seem like the life of someone who is thinking about the future? At this point, Joan is loaded, making more money than she's ever imagined, and she's still living in that tiny little apartment in the village with her mother and hiring a teenage flower child to watch her four year old. Joan also hasn't been out in the social world much lately, from what we've seen. Joan was the fun loving girl who enjoyed going out and meeting men and being admired. And now, she comes home to a mother, a son, and nothing else. But more to the point, Joan isn't trying to change her situation. She hasn't bought a new house; she goes to work and comes home. That's her present and her future. And then Joan meets Richard, a smooth talking handsome guy who wants to admire Joan and all her best assets. For a little while, Joan gets to be in her glorious past--the hot to trot woman who doesn't live at home with her mother and son, who isn't divorced, but looking for Mr. Right to sweep her up off her feet and take her to a whole new world. It's exactly what Joan of season one and two would have wanted--the man, the money, the adventure. Joan is so stuck in the past with Richard that she more or less neglects to tell him about her son and mother. That all comes crashing down when Richard learns about Kevin and almost instantly doesn't want a future at all with Joan. He's done all that stuff; he wants the grand and glorious adventure. For Joan, it's a reminder that her own future is now tied to Kevin, her son. She can never have a future that isn't linked to Kevin; she doesn't get to run off or be whisked away by the handsome stranger. Not anymore. Joan's story was one of the more positive of the three this week since Richard came to his senses and decided that he wants Joan--baby, mother, and all. Will it work for her? Possibly. Joan just needs to remember that Kevin is not ruining her life (ouch. Harsh, Joan) and hopefully Richard will live up to his promise to accept her.

Easy there, Mrs. Robinson. So this was easily the most disturbing story of the night. What does the future look like for Betty and Sally? It looks like dead children in Vietnam. Specifically, it looks looks like their old friend Glenn Bishop dead in Vietnam. It's interesting how the two Draper/Draper-Francis women react to the news that Glenn is shipping out. For Sally, it's one of her oldest friends going off to probably die for a cause that neither she (as our resident Jane Fonda) nor Glenn really believe in. For Betty, it's the potential death of someone who she once mothered and "wifed" and is obviously having a very sexual attraction to, even years after their first encounter because Betty will always see herself as a princess-child and never more so than when Glenn comes a-knocking. For Sally, the future is bleak because it means growing up and learning some hard truths (your friends might die; you could turn into your parents). For Betty the future is bleak because it means there is one less person in the world who will find you attractive and want you. And doesn't that just sum up Sally and Betty to a T? The relationship between Betty and Glenn has always been super squicky because he idolized her as the perfect mother and she adored the attention Glenn gave her as both the so-called perfect mother (um, no, think again Betty, dear) but also the perfect mate, a fairy tale princess who would give him a lock of her hair and she would be his forever. Did you notice how often Betty touched her hair in this final scene between the two? She's remembering when all Glenn wanted were her gold tresses. This was a pretty awkward moment but Betty, like Betty does, doesn't stop it because it's wrong morally; she stops it because she's married and therefore they can't do it. Her vision of the future isn't about what is right and wrong, but the here and now of potentially getting caught (something that probably titillates Betty secretly). And then there is Sally who is watching her mother, and then later her father, be enamored of teens and basically be sick and sad people and decides that she has had enough of both of them. She wants to be someone different. Good for you, Sally.

Which brings us to Don, the man who's creative genius was so defined for the entire run of the series that it's a truly sad note that here, at the end of the series, he can't even write a 2500 essay on the future. A high school project in the most remedial sense and Don has nothing to say. Isn't that the ultimate theme of this last arc: Don has nothing left to say. He's not creative anymore; he's neither captivating nor charismatic nor charming nor any other adjective you can come up with to describe the late great Donald Draper. He is an empty vessel whose employees can see right through him whereas before no one could suss him out. Don used to be a genius at selling himself and what he sold was mystery and allure. Remember that great line from season one? "He could be Batman for all we know." Nobody knew how to crack the enigma that was Donald Draper; but now everyone can see through his facade and well coiffed hair. Like Mathis tells him before he gets fired, "You have no character. You're just handsome." That's exactly it. Don isn't a real person; he's a facade, an ad for the American dream but ultimately empty and devoid of meaning. But Don is handsome, could speak well and he was a creative genius and that fooled a lot of people; but not anymore. Don's future is dark, dank, and and totally imaginary. Everything around him is rotting to the core--his genius, his family, his facade and even his house. A real estate agent who barely knows him managed to get a read on Don's personality in a shorter time than it took both of Don's wives! The agent tells Don that his entire house reeks of failure and that it looks like a sad person lives there. And, of course, she's right on both accounts. Don cannot hide who he is anymore and the inside bits of him that he once kept tucked away and hidden are oozing out like so much sludge. And the worst part? I think Don recognizes it too: "We know where we've been, we know where we are...it's supposed to get better." But it doesn't get better does it, Dick? You can't start over and you can't hide your flaws; in the end you have no character.

Miscellaneous Notes on The Forecast

--I didn't mention it in the proper post, but of course, who is the one person who can see the future and is excited by it? Peggy Olson. She wants more than advertising. She wants to create something of lasting value. Oh Pegs. You are the anti-Don Draper. It's lovely to watch. I know I say it every week, but you're gonna make it Peggy.

--Every single line Sally uttered was my line of the night, but to pick a few: "This conversation is a little late. And so am I." "All I want to do is eat dinner..." "Anyone pays attention to either of you – and they always do – you just … ooze everywhere.”

--Betty is positive that Glenn will make it and live through Vietnam, so naturally he'll die.

--Don flirting with the teenagers was a whole new level of creepy.

--Nobody has time for Meredith's nonsense. It's hilarious.

--No ex-girlfriend this week, but there were still "three women" in Don's life--Sally, Peggy and the real estate lady. And none of the three liked him nor had time for his nihilistic mountain-of-crap. 

--3 episodes to go. Will Don live through the end?

In Which I Review Mad Men (7x9)

Women are whores. And the men of the world can treat them as such: wooing, sexing, paying for, bribing, hustling, and manipulating women as they see fit. Or at least, that's the stance Mad Men takes in this weeks episode, "New Business," a title, by the way, that feels very tongue in cheek since the women-are-whores thesis is nothing new for this show, especially for Don Draper who has some serious whore issues. Much like last weeks episode, this was a strange one and I'm wondering if we're going to be seeing strange episodes every week now. There were really two main threads--Don treating women like whores, and Megan being treated like a whore. Subject and object. Man and woman. Hustler and his hustlee. There is one very hilarious exception that I'll get to at the very end, but outside of the "whore thesis" (yes, I think I will keep calling it that) this weeks episode was also an exercise in French lunacy. Half the episode felt like a very old French comedy with the wacky, drunk mother and her two daughters who cat-fight for a few hours all while being sexy, stylish, and speaking in French. And honestly, I could watch Marie yell, "bring cash!" for hours and never stop laughing. It was another odd-ball one, but aren't all the best episodes? Grab some furniture that doesn't belong to you and let's go. 

Hey look. Death came to visit. Well, Di was more or less forced to come visit after a not-so-well-played proposition from Don. A lot of this episode centered on Don trying to get to know Di and Di's ultimate rejection of Donald Draper (hm, potential foreshadowing since technically the real Don Draper is dead?) Don is really laying it on thick with Di, isn't he? He somehow shows up at her new place of business where she is once again a waitress--a service worker who will give you what you want but in the end you must pay her for it (women are whores). After Don gives Di his phone number and tells her to call him, she proceeds to get drunk and...actually calls him. This is a late night booty call but not one that is initiated by Di; never lose sight of the fact that Don is in control here. Even when Di tries to tell Don that she isn't sure she wants this (sex), Don rebukes her by saying "it's three in the morning. You know why you're here. Do you want a drink or not?" In other words, Don is treating Di like a whore and Di understands that this is her role to play. For a few hours she gets to forget her tragic life (because of course the woman is also a mother with a lost child. I'll get to that in a second) but ultimately Di is treated like a woman of the night--she eventually has to leave the apartment, like so much dirty laundry, when the real woman of the household comes calling. Her status as whore is even more enforced in the end when Don shows up, gift in hand, and expects his just rewards. Now credit where credit is due, Di actually rejects him here only because she's been made aware that she's just another whore in a long line of whores. Once you get her out of her uniform of either a service worker (waitress) or her sex worker uniform (the nightgown), it turns out that she's a person with (really depressing) feelings! Who knew! Di was once a mother to two little girls, one of whom died. Golly. This sounds familiar, or at least bears some startling resemblances to Don's life, something I think he understands and I think will continue to draw him to Di. Don is also the son of a whore (Di's current status in this episode as both whore and mother) and his mother left him just like Di left her other daughter. There was another child left behind who must be missing both sibling and parent (Adam or even Dick Whitman himself) while Di embarks on a new life to forget the pain from whence she came. Di is also Don, but since Don's a whore himself this really all fits neatly together. I know there is a lot to unpack in this paragraph and in the interactions between Don and Di themselves but it really comes down to this: Di is, at the end, an amalgam of Don's issues wrapped into one sad package. She is a whore (as was Don' mother and part of his great shame growing up in a whore house); she's a mother who left her children (like Don's own mother and like he's accused Betty of doing in the past) and she's Death Incarnate (a figure that has loomed large over Donald Draper since the beginning of the show). As Don is wont to do, he tried to make Di into some sort of savior figure for his mountain-of-crap but fails because he turns her into those very problems: death, sex, and mothers. Have we seen the last of Di? Probably not. I expect we'll see her again, maybe at the end of the seasons/series.

And then there is Megan, who was treated like a whore by pretty much everyone in this episode. To some degree, I think Weiner and company are trying to get us to think about actresses as whores in general, a metaphor that certainly isn't unique to Mad Men. In order to move her career forward, Megan has to do what so many actresses do in her position: butter up, seduce, and play to those in power (and because we're in the 1970s--that means a man). In this case, Harry Crane, someone Megan cannot stand even in the slightest but for whom she'll put on her best mini-dress, poof up her hair, and put on tons of eyeshadow (holy blue eyeshadow, Batman!). She'll play up the fact that she's a gorgeous woman while flattering the heck out of her lunch companion if it means Harry will help her get an agent. Now, make no mistake, I am not making excuses for Harry Crane who takes the women-as-whores thesis to a literal translation and propositions Megan at the lunch table. He's a pig and he deserved a good slap in the face or even just a glass of wine thrown in his face. But he's demonstrating the concept of this episode: men have the power to turn women in whores and, more than that, it's expected. All art is selling something, and if Megan wants to be an artist, then she has to sell something--namely herself. Harry's entire bit of advice to Megan after she rejects his sexual advances is that if Megan didn't act this way, she'd be further in her career. Whore it out, baby! That's how you'll get far in this world. After the nasty run in with Harry Crane, Megan is then treated to yet another display of women-are-whores and this time from her former husband, Mr. Draper himself. After hearing about how Don has ruined Megan's life, Don decides that the only way to make up for this is to treat Megan like...you guessed it. A whore. He literally pulls out his check book and gives her a million dollars. In Don's head, he's hoping that this makes Megan happy and that's righted the wrongs he committed because surely women want things like money and presents (never respect or admiration or an apology), but coming off of Megan's lunch with Harry in which she was asked for sex in return for help in her career...this was just another way of reminding her that she's a whore. Way to go Don!

And thus we come to the one woman in this episode who was not treated like a whore, but rather treated everyone around her like one--man, woman, model, vegetable, mineral. She's even trying to make art her bitch, isn't she? Pima. A well known photographer who has been hired to work for SC&P, Pima moves through the episode hustling Stan and Peggy and the company. She can get everyone to do as she wants, from showing her the dark room to, presumably, getting Peggy to change her mind on which photo to use. But here's why I think this little subplot is hilarious. Do you see what Pima is wearing--what she wore the entire time she was in this episode? A man's suit. We never saw Pima not in a three piece male-esque suit. It's all sort of fabulous, of course, but it helps drive home the thesis of this episode: men have the power. In order for Pima to be as well respected and powerful as she apparently is, she adopts a male lifestyle, either unconsciously or consciously. Pima dresses in female-version of a man's clothes; she hustles everyone around her, she understands that all art is selling something and you can either be the seller or what is being sold. Pima manages to get Stan to seriously worry about his art and his own creative genius (not something we've ever seen from Stan before) just by her mere presence. Pima manages to gobsmack Peggy with just one little touch on skin. The actual business side here doesn't matter. Pima is a walking thesis for this weeks episode. But to leave this review on a slightly more upbeat kind of note, the one person who figured Pima out by the end? Peggy Olson. Peggy might have been treated like an object by Pima but she saw what was going on and seems to be the only one who did. Oh Pegs. You're gonna make it after all. One final nail on the head moment, this time coming from Pete Campbell. He gave, what I think is not only a sum of the series as a whole, but answer the questions I posed last week about if Don (or Dick) can enter 1971: "What if you never get past the beginning?" There are no second chances and no chances period. These characters--apart from Peggy--keep making the exact same mistakes over and over again (hence the irony of this weeks title). People do not fundamentally change; they are always stuck in the beginning.

Miscellaneous Notes on New Business 

--Another women-are-whores moment, though a much subtler one. Marie calls Roger and begs him to come over with money ("bring cash!") to help her out of a jam. She tells him to bring $200 in order to get all of Don's things off the sidewalk. When Roger gets there, he only has to pay $180, the furniture is in the truck, and Marie is having a cigarette. It might be incredibly subtle, but I'm pretty sure there was some hanky panky between Marie and the furniture mover in order to reduce the price and get the stuff off the street before Roger arrived.

--Betty is going back to school to get her master's degree in psychology. Because "people love to talk to me." I think I laughed for five minutes solid.

--"How do you sleep at night knowing the Manson Brothers are running around?"

--So, does Don ever get his furniture back? That was hilarious but also a nice symbolic note that his life is now literally empty. Also a nice juxtaposition to the opening scene where Don also looks around the Francis house but instead of finding it empty. finds it full of life and color. Everything that empty NYC penthouse is now not.

--Are we going to be seeing an old girlfriend every episode now? Hi Sylvia, it's really appropriate that you showed up this episode since you were really Don's whore-mother in season six. Also, mega awkward elevator meeting, no?

--I miss Sally. Where is Sally?

--"You're nothing but an aging, sloppy, selfish liar." Pretty much, Megan, pretty much.

In Which I Review Mad Men (7x8)

The end of an era. A time to say goodbye, to think fondly back on all the memories made. A time to realize how massively you've screwed up your life. Welcome back, Mad Men. I have missed you dearly. Let's just start off with some eyebrow raising but not really a criticism, more a passing caveat. This weeks episode, "Severance," was a weird one. It's not that Mad Men hasn't done oddities before; on some level all episodes of this show are weird in that they are so carefully constructed and detailed that you can feel overwhelmed by the amount of symbolic resonance and storytelling. But this episode felt like it never quite knew where to land. I half expected it to end with Don Draper waking up and the entire thing having been an nightmare. But, of course, Mad Men isn't that crazed. It was all real and it was really that macabre. It's hard to imagine that the first half of this season ended with Bert gleefully dancing and singing while secretaries in outlandishly bright costumes twirled around him, but it did. The best things in life are free, he intoned. It was a message from beyond the grave: Donald Draper, do you have time to change your life? Do you understand that you can have it all, but only if you let go of these material things holding you back? Perhaps, only if you let go of Donald Draper? Well. Guess what? Message, not received. Because the underlying thesis of Mad Men is, and always has been, that people do not change. This Don Draper...is the same Don Draper in season one. Bert's message fell on deaf ears as the money and the women and the booze begin to pile up around Don once more. But maybe, just maybe, he can still catch his flight. Grab an old fashioned cocktail and let's embark, one final time, into the dizzying brilliance that is Mad Men. 

I have said it before: Donald Draper cannot enter the 1970s. I've also said this before: I was wrong. Turns out, Matthew Weiner can almost gleefully pass right into the 1970s without anyone blinking an eye. It was rather cheeky of Weiner to pass over the remainder of 1969 in the fashion he did (no Woodstock!) especially for a show so heavily entrenched in the 1960s aesthetic, but it's perfect for the man who loves to skip months at a time to prove that these broken people at SC&P are still the same. So, having admitted that I was wrong, I want to take a look at Donald Draper's current mountain-o-crap that is infecting his life. This episode finds Don doing the same thing Don always does: he's philandering, he's boozing, he's sleeping on the job. After successfully coming back to work last half of the season, working his way back up to creative director (no fuss, no muss, his name is back on that iconic door) and he finds himself back where we somehow always knew he'd end up: lonely and alone. Money corrupts. Isn't that some sort of trite cliche? Well, for Don and the rest of the partners who turned a hefty profit when they allowed their company to be bought by McCan/Erickson, it turned them all into bitter shrews who are deeply unhappy and looking in all the wrong places for the life they really want to live. What life does Don really want to live? What life can he really live here at the end of all things when Bert's message has failed to seriously make an impact? The proposition that saved his job is slowly killing him because I think Don Draper is tired of being Don Draper. I think he's ready to be Dick Whitman.

If there was one theme that was hammered home time and time again in this episode, it was that you have to take the life you want to live, not accept the life you have. The problem is that several of the characters stumbled into this realization and then blatantly went the other way. Kenny was fired and was finally free to go live his life as an author like he always wanted, only to turn around and get another job in advertising, the job that has made him miserable and cost him an eye. Joan finally realized that she would always be seen as a sex object, an uncomfortable reminder that she literally slept her way to the top and prostituted herself for her partnership, but instead of facing it head on, she buried herself in more luxury clothing, believing that her new found wealth could ease her pain. Peggy, ever the romantic deep down inside, met a great guy and had her first true perfect date only to snub it the next morning and tell herself that aspirin would cure her of this desire she felt for something non-work related. Oh Pegs. Listen to the cute guy: you're fearless and you really can have it all. Be your Mary Tyler Moore best self and have both the career and the man. If anyone can do it, it's you. But let's bring this back to Don. And...Rachel Menken? Who, turns out to have died prior to this vision of her dressed in fur? Another ghost from the past--they aren't uncommon to Don who has seen his dead brother Adam and of course Bert.

Why is Rachel here? In a lot of ways, Rachel Menken (from season one) was perhaps Don's perfect match and the "one that got away" out of the many (many many) women Don has had over the years. She was sexy and strong and independent but also damaged much in the same way that Don was. They connected but Don, being Don, decided to go back to Betty and his kids only to find out, at the end of season one, that he has missed the train in the current Draper household but only after Rachel rejected his offer to fly off into the sunset together. Rachel Menken shows up here as a bit of a Jacob Marley-type of ghost. Once you learn she is dead, you almost hear the chains in the background warning our Draper-Scrooge to change his ways and start living the life he wants. That's the takeaway message Don gets from visiting Rachel's memorial and seeing her children. "She lived the life she wanted to live. She had everything." Don does not have everything. No word on Sally and the boys this episode; Megan is now being called "the ex wife" and his work is once again only something that gets him through the day. Was Don in any way creative this episode? He did nothing but show up, drink, and whore. And this is what I mean by saying that I think he's ready to start being Dick Whitman. It's time for Donald Draper to really die. To be put in that pine box that Don once placed "Dick" in and be gone. Dick Whitman never got to live a real life. He grew up poor and unloved and abused by his father, his stepmother, and the whores he lived with and then all too soon he went to Korea and upon his return home decided he didn't want to be Dick Whitman anymore; he wanted to be Donald Draper. Dick Whitman has been struggling to live for decades now, crushed under the weight of Donald Draper. Well, Don Draper has lived a life that Dick thought he wanted, but now that's over. Those things that once made Don who he was, that carefully constructed life he built out of a deck of cards, is crumbling around him and instead of adding another fake layer to it (another wife, another business venture, another drink) perhaps he can have a proper wake up call and live the life he wants. Dick's life. Whatever that might mean. Don Draper entered 1970, but if (oh such a big word and full of such possibility, that 'if') Dick Whitman can finally claw his way out of Don Draper's carefully lad out life of lies, I wouldn't be shocked if Dick enters 1971. The best things in life are free, Dick. Go; live the life you want to live.

Miscellaneous Notes on Severance

--"Is that all there is?" Basically the other theme of the night that fits in with the "go live the life you want" theme.

--While I love Peggy and Joan tag-teaming and being badass business women, it's still very hard to see Joan being treated the way she is. Sexism has always been a motif in this show and I didn't expect it to stop here at the end, but poor Joan. She did sleep her way to the top, but she has also proven that she's damn good at handling accounts. She is more than the sashaying secretary with big boobs; she's actually incredibly competent but to to hell if men can see that. The fight between Peggy and Joan was rough to watch, but these are two women who do respect each other but often have a hard time showing it because their approach to life is always going to be different. Remember, 10 years ago (show time), Peggy was a little slip of a girl with a big box on her fist day and Joan was the towering figure of secretarial authority. Now, look at them. Joan is still treated like a sex object while Peggy gets treated "like a man" who more or less hates being reminded that she was once a secretary and not a copy chief.

--Now forget everything I said in the above note because "I want to burn this place down!" was my line of the night.

--Of course Don becomes obsessed with a woman name "Di" whom he treats like a whore. Of course.

--Let's all take a moment to appreciate Roger and Ted's epic 1970s 'stache. 

--When people die, things get mixed up. Dick Whitman "died" many years ago and things got mixed up. Fix your life Don. Before it's too late.