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Mad Men - Season 7, Part 2 - The End of an Era - AMC Sundays

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BenjaminBirdie

Banned
Captain.Falafel said:
I do interpret it this way as well but I also can't help but think that it feels a bit...neat.
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Yeah. Like a perfect ending.

Mad Men has always been a Great American Novel, and the best, while not ending in some big climax scene, all end with a perfect line that, in a very real way, are the best part of the book and what the entire narrative has been driving to.

It's very clear that this is what the commercial was for this particular novel. And it was perfect. Pop open your copies of The Corrections or Infinite Jest and read those last few lines again and think about how endings should work.

Go ahead. You'll see. This was perfect. This was a novel not some dumb ass movie.
 
S

StriKeVillain

Banned
-Pyromaniac- said:
I honestly can't even think of a single other way I'd rather have the show end. I like the idea of Don finally coming at life with a newfound perspective. I like the thought that he went back to McCann one day and everyone was like where the fuck were you, and he said don't worry about it and churned out one of the most iconic commercials of all time. The thought that he got to see Peggy again, and hang out with Roger. Be there for his kids however he can.

Who knows what else new Don is up to. We were told all that without having to see it. Just by one single ad that Don created. And his best pitches were always some sort of reflection of what he had just been through in life. This time rather than see the pitch we just saw the end result because we know how he came up with it.

I don't know. Weiner hit it out of the park imo
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bert-bravo.gif
 
B

BlueWord

Member
I suppose that ending could be read two ways. One, the optimistic reading, says that he found happiness and went home and made that ad. The other, that it's just another Don Draper move: he found "happiness," but couldn't resist his urge to cheapen it and sell it. At heart, he's an ad man.

I like the former more, though.
 
F

Fatalah

Member
I was super excited for Don to finally open up and take that chair!

Jon Hamm's Emmy moment was stolen by a random actor, who nailed it!
 
I

Ignatz Mouse

Banned
Don sheds everything admits everything, gets trapped in a place where he has to deal with it (and can), perfect.

Mrs. Mouse has been shipping Peggy/Stan for a long time, so she's satisfied. When Peggy met Stannie?
 
CharminUltra

CharminUltra

Member
Mad Men is still my fourth or fifth favorite show of all time thanks to S1-S4, but yeah, this finale was just ok.

The Coke commercial was brilliant, though.
 
I

Inferno313

Banned
So is the suggestion that Peggy did or didn't go with Joan? Was that supposed to be her resignation letter she was typing in her final shot? Or some copy?
 
B

BenjaminBirdie

Banned
BlueWord said:
I suppose that ending could be read two ways. One, the optimistic reading, says that he found happiness and went home and made that ad. The other, that it's just another Don Draper move: he found "happiness," but couldn't resist his urge to cheapen it and sell it. At heart, he's an ad man.

I like the former more, though.
Click to expand...

I love the ending because they both work. If you look through the whole life of the show, there's always been a war between art and commerce. Remember Abe's "Nuremberg" essay he wrote for Peggy?
 
W

World SkiFree

Member
HoJu said:
I mean i liked where Peggy ended up, just not sure about how Weiner took us there.
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Agreed. Still unpacking the episode, but I'll stick to my claim of great ending and Roger being awesome in every scene. Rest may have been a bit meh, particularly with Joan and Peggy. Seemed a bit abrupt, like out the season finale handbook.

Really enjoyed Season 7 - both of them!
 
S

sooperkool

Member
Inferno313 said:
So is the suggestion that Peggy did or didn't go with Joan? Was that supposed to be her resignation letter she was typing in her final shot? Or some copy?
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Most likely the scripts for Joan. Remember Stan's whole message to her was about being happy at being good at her job and not having to prove anything. Add to the fact that joan has no partner at "H&H" and well it fits.
 
H

HoJu

Member
Inferno313 said:
So is the suggestion that Peggy did or didn't go with Joan? Was that supposed to be her resignation letter she was typing in her final shot? Or some copy?
Click to expand...

Didn't. When Joan picked up the phone, she said "Holloway/Harris", which are both her names.
 
T

The Outsider

Member
That finale was not at all what I expected.

Which is why I love this show so damn much.

I've said it for years, and tonight only reinforces my belief that this is the best television show I've ever watched.

Thanks for everything, Weiner and company. Can't wait to do a series rewatch from beginning to end sometime down the road.
 
W

World SkiFree

Member
BlueWord said:
I suppose that ending could be read two ways. One, the optimistic reading, says that he found happiness and went home and made that ad. The other, that it's just another Don Draper move: he found "happiness," but couldn't resist his urge to cheapen it and sell it. At heart, he's an ad man.

I like the former more, though.
Click to expand...
As I mentioned earlier, I'm with the latter. You provide a great breakdown of both interpretations. But c'mon, the ad man angle is much more clever and interesting! ;)
 
E

Enduin

No bald cap? Lies!
Fatalah said:
I was super excited for Don to finally open up and take that chair!

Jon Hamm's Emmy moment was stolen by a random actor, who nailed it!
Click to expand...

I think one of Don's biggest flaws was that for all his talent at creating ads that really connected with people deep down he could never actually identify his own true feelings/fears and express them. And this nobody did that for him, he put into words something Don spent most of his life struggling with and finally let him face it. I like that it was someone else and not him. It would have felt weird for him to just understand it on his own. This was something he shared with another person, he connected with him on a fundamental level. Which leads perfectly to the Coke commercial.
 
V

Vyer

Member
-griffy- said:
I also love how people in this thread were speculating what iconic song the series was gonna close on, and it occurred to no one that it would actually close on an iconic ad :p
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lol. yeah, I guess obvious in hindsight.

JCizzle said:
That transition from him mediating into the ad was fucking amazing.
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honestly if the show had just ended on the meditation I would have been, well, 'ok'. Just the jump to the ad made it absolutely perfect.

That smile went from 'found some peace' to 'found some peace and THIS WOULD MAKE A GREAT AD'.
 
S

shadyspace

Banned
So there are two ways this went: Either Don went back to McCann and inadvertandly ended the countercultural movement of the 60s by shrewdly using his experience in an situation awash with the countercultural movement to turn it into a packaged commodity that could be safely co-opted by the mainstream. OR he embraced the counterculture only to ironically have his life's work put an end to it.
 
B

BenjaminBirdie

Banned
Also incredible about the ending, it casts the actual AD in a realer light. As a kid I always imagined it as a really sweet sentiment, naturally, because that's the feeling it was SUPPOSED to give me. Now I realize it was just coopting that sentiment to sell sodey pop.

Person to Person, guys. Communication.

Fucking brilliant television.
 
M

Maengun1

Member
I just realized, I don't think we ever saw or heard from Dawn again after they found out McCann was absorbing SC&P. That's pretty disappointing, she was one of my favorite smaller characters....I was really happy for her when she took over Joan's job last year. Strange, we saw most of the other employees at least get a parting moment.

Did I miss one for her? Don't think so.
 
F

Fatalah

Member
Enduin said:
I think one of Don's biggest flaws was that for all his talent at creating ads that really connected with people deep down he could never actually identify his own true feelings/fears and express them. And this nobody did that for him, he put into words something Don spent most of his life struggling with and finally let him face it. I like that it was someone else and not him. It would have felt weird for him to just understand it on his own. This was something he shared with another person, he connected with him on a fundamental level. Which leads perfectly to the Coke commercial.
Click to expand...

I'm with ya.
 
S

sooperkool

Member
Maengun1 said:
I just realized, I don't think we ever saw or heard from Dawn again after they found out McCann was absorbing SC&P. That's pretty disappointing, she was one of my favorite smaller characters....I was really happy for her when she took over Joan's job last year. Strange, we saw most of the other employees at least get a parting moment.

Did I miss one for her? Don't think so.
Click to expand...

She basically mentioned that she wasn't going to McCann
 
P

purg3

slept with Malkin
Maengun1 said:
I just realized, I don't think we ever saw or heard from Dawn again after they found out McCann was absorbing SC&P. That's pretty disappointing, she was one of my favorite smaller characters....I was really happy for her when she took over Joan's job last year. Strange, we saw most of the other employees at least get a parting moment.

Did I miss one for her? Don't think so.
Click to expand...

Didn't she say she was going to work at a travel company or something when she was talking to Roger a few episodes ago?
 
I

IronRinn

Member
Maengun1 said:
I just realized, I don't think we ever saw or heard from Dawn again after they found out McCann was absorbing SC&P. That's pretty disappointing, she was one of my favorite smaller characters....I was really happy for her when she took over Joan's job last year. Strange, we saw most of the other employees at least get a parting moment.

Did I miss one for her? Don't think so.
Click to expand...
She had the scene with Roger where she quit. Do you mean other than that?
 
O

Opto

Banned
Nice call back to when SCDP was forming in that hotel room. Joan practically built that business, and now she actually gets her own. Her paramour couldn't appreciate her awesomeness
 
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