Where Weiner takes the remainder of the series is, obviously, the great unknown thats so anticipated by fans and by critics who will be attempting, in short order, to place Mad Men in just the right place in the pantheon of brilliant shows. How this final season wraps up will go a long way toward those judgments, but it should be noted up front that getting closure on all of the Mad Men characters and themes may not be the single most important notion for Weiner. He may tidy everything up and shut the door with an audible click of the lock, or he might not choosing instead to be more nebulous and vague (which would be in keeping with the shows tone).
He need not go out with a bang of fireworks or some finale that makes everybody happy. He just needs to maintain the highest standards that have inched Mad Men to this place in the pantheon in the first place.
Like the previous seven episodes, theres no evidence at all that Weiner or the series will stumble in that regard. Mad Men remains, for the viewers who have embraced it the most fervently, a richly rewarding, wholly excellent work of fiction.
Don Draper's Gonna Die! Well, maybe not die exactly. But when the final season of Mad Men draws to a close, that cocky, depressive adman that Jon Hamm madeand that made Jon Hammis going to disappear. Which means two things: It's time to sit down and savor that character's closing notes, and then it's time to get excited for everything Jon Hamm is going to do next
Thanks for posting those. Yes, it's tough divining much from the reviews given that it's just one episode and the spoiler restrictions are significant. Sounds like they all enjoyed it, and it's great to have the show back soon.
Mad Men obsessives will have a field day at NYC's Museum of the Moving Image, where a new exhibition devoted to AMC's landmark television drama has arrived just in time to coincide with the series' final episodes beginning on April 5. Detailing the show's creative process with the same precise attention to detail evidenced onscreen, Matthew Weiner's Mad Men is a television fetishist's dream. It is open until June 14.
I love how fresh all of this late 60s clothing and design looks, yet when you look at it, you know how fucking hideous it's all going to look in just a few short years.
Whenever I look back at my grandparents' old photos and clothing, I wonder how anyone could have ever though that stuff looked good. But then you see similar things on Mad Men (my grandma dressed almost exactly like Betty, head scarves and everything) and it makes a lot more sense.
Rewatched the first 7 episodes of Season 7 this weekend. So damn good. Might be my favorite series of episodes of the series. Especially ep. 7. Sends chills man.
I also rewatched the final 2 eps of season 3. I love the end of that season, so well done. 3.12 is one of my favorite eps of the entire show. It's the episode when JFK dies. I always love their take on historical events.
It's a shame, really. Mad Men is a show that succeeds because of long, drawn out plots. 7 episodes is simply insufficient for the show to continue it's normative narrative pace.
7 episodes, or a shortened season, for a final season almost always results in jarring time jumps and/or hasty resolutions to long established plotlines. I'm expecting rushed storylines, but I can't blame the writers for AMC's fuckups. I wish we had a proper season, and not just because of the wait; the show deserves a proper send off.
It's a shame, really. Mad Men is a show that succeeds because of long, drawn out plots. 7 episodes is simply insufficient for the show to continue it's normative narrative pace.
7 episodes, or a shortened season, for a final season almost always results in jarring time jumps and/or hasty resolutions to long established plotlines. I'm expecting rushed storylines, but I can't blame the writers for AMC's fuckups. I wish we had a proper season, and not just because of the wait; the show deserves a proper send off.
It is really a 14 episode season split up in two so they could have it around longer. If they didn't plan for the ending since the start of season 7, that is on the writers. They even have an extra episode because of the split.
It's a shame, really. Mad Men is a show that succeeds because of long, drawn out plots. 7 episodes is simply insufficient for the show to continue it's normative narrative pace.
7 episodes, or a shortened season, for a final season almost always results in jarring time jumps and/or hasty resolutions to long established plotlines. I'm expecting rushed storylines, but I can't blame the writers for AMC's fuckups. I wish we had a proper season, and not just because of the wait; the show deserves a proper send off.
Well, the full final season 7--all 14 episodes--were written and produced at the same time. I think I recall Weiner saying there was a writing break in between production of the first seven and last seven, but it was essentially an adjusted version of Mad Men's normal process. Around the time of the announcement Weiner also pointed out that Mad Men seasons have always had pivot events midway through the season. The suitcase, the merger. Same goes for Waterloo. These next 7 episodes aren't the start of a new final season, they're truly the start of a second half.
Well, the full final season 7--all 14 episodes--were written and produced at the same time. I think I recall Weiner saying there was a writing break in between production of the first seven and last seven, but it was essentially an adjusted version of Mad Men's normal process. Around the time of the announcement Weiner also pointed out that Mad Men seasons have always had pivot events midway through the season. The suitcase, the merger. Same goes for Waterloo. These next 7 episodes aren't the start of a new final season, they're truly the start of a second half.
Suitcase marks midway point of season 4 but it was more complex, Don finally losing it, suitcase and most importantly SCDP losing Lucky Strike. First half of the season was about the workings of SCDP and Don spiraling out of control, while the second was Don trying to get back in control of his life and SCDP picking up the pieces and scrambling to survive.
Also, Guy Walks Into an Advertising Agency. Sure, it's funny, but it's also shocking, memorable and in the long run saves Sterling Cooper. If he wasn't ran over he would have insured an even tighter control of PPL over SC and ultimately would not allow them to splinter off to form SCDP.
The unsettled feeling on the screen is also distinct from the wistful resignation of viewers who know that some of TVs sharpest characters are about to leave us. Its hard to explain exactly what happens in the season premiere, because creator Matthew Weiner prefers to let viewers experience it themselves. And good for him. But it can safely be said that were not sailing into these last episodes like kids cruising in muscle cars with the tops down.
I am happy to report that the first of Mad Mens final seven episodes is as fine as a silky fur, give or take a hilariously hideous period mustache and some too-on-the-nose lines and symbolism. Id be sweating Weve seen all this before tedium if this werent the last season. But it is, and so an episode that rephrases and forwards the shows themes, conflicts, and concernsespecially the institutionalized sexism of our culturepowerfully launches Mad Men toward a final statement. A-
Weiner's craft should keep dedicated viewers' jaws on the floor. He does it with one fresh episode. That's the power of Don Draper. This generational proxy can stand in a room, staring into the distance, music cues haunting him like ghosts, and that adrenaline rush still kicks in. Mad Men is perfectly composed. It's already classic.
The final season premiere of Matthew Weiner's game-changing cable drama sets a tone both unique and familiar to the franchise. Don Draper is again on a journey of self-fulfillment in Episode 8, but the players, setting and his mentality have again shifted with time.
I love how fresh all of this late 60s clothing and design looks, yet when you look at it, you know how fucking hideous it's all going to look in just a few short years.
Whenever I look back at my grandparents' old photos and clothing, I wonder how anyone could have ever though that stuff looked good. But then you see similar things on Mad Men (my grandma dressed almost exactly like Betty, head scarves and everything) and it makes a lot more sense.
I remember looking back on old photos and loving the style. Still do. Seeing it all fresh and new is complete eye candy for me! It's so much more interesting to me than all that Pottery Barn/HGTV stuff that's in style now.
How does the Don we saw last season, the man entering this final stretch, compare to the Don that you first pictured when envisioning the show's arc? Did it go according to plan?
One of the great tensions in the show is: Do people change or don't they? I've experienced almost ten years of having this job (forgetting about having written the pilot 14 years ago) and I'm like, I was 35 when I wrote the pilot and I'll be 49 when it goes off the air. Not that I'm Don, but, I have a different understanding of life, hopefully.
And you can't discount the contribution of Jon Hamm to who Don is. Despite this sort of nebulous character in your imaginationwhich for me was a cross between James Garner and William Holden, assuming qualities of an actor that are based on the roles that they playedhe still has a light touch to him. I think his journey from an existentialist to someone who is really starting to value the things, the temporary nature of life, there's a bravery. I think Rachel Menken calls him on it in the pilot. There's a kind of courage to saying, "you live alone, you die alone, and there are no rules and whatever." That is a bit of a posture.
As much as I consider myself an existentialist, it's for young men. It really is. As you get a little bit older and, you know, you don't want to be the person clinging to life in terror so much so that you can't enjoy it. But I think that having children changed Don. His ruining the purity of his relationship with Sally, experiencing unconditional love and losing it, in a way. Things like that have changed him. I never anticipated any of these events happening. You take it a season at a time. I did not know we'd be doing 92 hours of it. And what I'd hoped for from the beginning was to tell a story about a regular person. I know his life is extremely extraordinary, but there's not a lot guns, there's not a lot of murder, there's no formula week to week. There's not a product that comes in that he has to sell. And to emulate reality as much as possible, in terms of who you are when you're alone versus how you're seen and how you reconcile those two things.
How much of writing Mad Men involved personifying the viewer to imagine how they would perceive these noticeably calculated choices? How did you ensure that the story you wanted to tell would survive the pop culture journey?
Once I got into a conversation with the audience through critics and through the audience itself, and I'm so happy to have an audience, about what we meant versus what they see, and to say so much of your experience of the show is unspoken and not in words, so it's no explained so you can't be sure, people started to think that everything was part of that message. And in honesty, when you are writing something and it's going well, if it's on your mind, it's going to be in the script. A lot of emotions and feelings come together.
In the third season [opener, "Out of Town"], Don says at the beginning, "I keep going to a lot of places and ending up somewhere I've already been." And to me, that was my experience of having to write the show and trying to get fresh again. There's so much about running into places you've already been. By the time we get to season six and the premiere ends, we discover that he's cheating on Megan, and Don says to Sylvia, "I don't want to do this anymore," you start realizing that, well, that's the way life is. You're making the same mistakes again.
I can tell you right now that, we're usually finished with the show by the time the audience sees it, so something like Bob Benson I did not know. I mean, I love James Wolk, we were super-excited about casting him, and we enjoyed writing the character, but I did not know that the audience would be winding up a story in their head that might not have been as good as what we were doing. To us he was a shadow Don to show that Pete had grown. When Don's doodling in season five, I think, which is where Lane kills himself, Don is doodling a noose in a meeting. I definitely picked that because I feel like we've all done something like that in a long meeting. I didn't know everyone would say "someone's going to die" and they were obsessed with Pete killing himself. We did have a suicide coming, but, like I said, it was on my mind.
Most underseen Hamm comedy role is Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret. rightfully divisive show so ymmv, but I love it. And what they do with Hamm's character is...interesting. He plays the hilariously groveling manservant to a young aristocrat, and Hamm being known for being steely and masculine instead being flimsy and dumb is awesome. It gets really interesting when (seriously don't read this if you're considering watching, because the surprise of this joke is awesome)
it's revealed that he IS Jon Hamm in this world, and the aristocrat bought out his Mad Men contract.
Most underseen Hamm comedy role is Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret. rightfully divisive show so ymmv, but I love it. And what they do with Hamm's character is...interesting. He plays the hilariously groveling manservant to a young aristocrat, and Hamm being known for being steely and masculine instead being flimsy and dumb is awesome. It gets really interesting when (seriously don't read this if you're considering watching, because the surprise of this joke is awesome)
it's revealed that he IS Jon Hamm in this world, and the aristocrat bought out his Mad Men contract.
Weiner talked a bit about that in the Esquire interview:
When people talk to you about Mad Men, conversation almost always drifts to your time on The Sopranos. But, hell, I see Andy Richter Controls the Universe in the show. Mad Men is part sitcom.
First of all, let's not discount how funny The Sopranos was. David Chase is a really funny person and [so is Terrence] Winter. One of my sons is going through The Sopranos right now. We were just watching an episode the other night where
Janice kills Richie, and Tony, they grind his body up and Tony takes her to the bus at the end and she goes, "What did you do with him?" And he goes, "We put him on a hill with pinecones and there's a view." And she goes, "Really?" And he goes, "What do you care what we did?!" We know that he's been ground up into sausage and, my son who's 14, gets this big belly laugh.
I've written a lot of quote-unquote sitcom scenes. I do not consider that to be a slight or anything. I love comedy and I think if this show was without humor, it would be unbearable. Life has funny moments and I enjoy situations of humiliation, which is also funny for the audience. Just from the first season, writing that scene with Pete returning the Chip n' Dip, that to me was right out of my eight-plus years in sitcom. "Here he is. He's in line. He has to do this humiliating thing. There's a bureaucracy to be dealt with." Honestly, the minute you're in a sceneagain, going back to realityyou acknowledge the fact that most of the time our conversations we have no idea what the other person is talking about. That's just the way it is. Email has proven this.
So people talking across purposes, which is the lifeblood of a sitcom, becomes the lifeblood of life and a big part of the show. I always want it to be funny. I did not come up with this joke, but I have been complimented on it from a lot of comedy writers. It came out of the writers room. Lane going to kill himself in that Jaguar and it not startingthat is a big laugh. And it's not just the relief that the guy can't kill himself. In Waiting For Godot, which I was lucky enough to be in in college, there's the moment where one of the characters is going to hang himself and he takes his belt off to hang himself and his pants fall down. That to me is my sense of humor. That's the way life works. "The universe is indifferent," as Don has said.
Does comedy allow you to stroll in and out of the surreal? In Mad Men, there's seemingly nowhere the mind, or reality, can't wander. Is there a point of reference for making that work?
No one can discount the influence of Twin Peaks, or David Lynch in general. But it goes back even further than that. Movies are a non-reality. Time is constantly being cut out of them. They're very akin to dreams in terms of their nonsensical nature and just the essential movement happening. That, right away, illuminates how surreal life experience is. I will go out on a limb here that, as someone who has never taken psychedelic drugs, but have lived a life where I frequently have trouble distinguishing between the real and the unreal I have lucid dreams sometimesusing the control of cinema to show how our experience can be warped, you know, it's something as simple as the famous movie Rashomon. There's no fantasy in that. There are three people relating exactly what they think happened and it's not the same thing. David Chase did [the surreal] amazingly in The Sopranos. I got to be part of an episode ["The Test Dream"] with a 22-minute dream sequence in it. I think that considering that a third of our life, if you're lucky, is spent in bed and some of it dreaming, that's part of our everyday experience.
