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Mad Men - Season 7, Part 2 - The End of an Era - AMC Sundays
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StopMakingSense
Member
One thing to remember is that the retreat he went to he was was an early iteration of the self-help movement that became big in the 70s. It wasn't a "spiritual" commune of the sort where going back took your day job and selling coke could be seen as some violation.
sure, I just think it's very clear the ending is not meant as some sort of Don breakthrough where he felt in tune with these people
It is a breakthrough, but it doesnt come from that place
even when he hugs the guy; on the surface one could think this means he's relating to him and i've seen some people comment in that matter, but fuck no. Don is the complete opposite of this dude. The dude is basically more like Dick, and Don hugging him to me felt like a thank you for making him realize how shitty he'd be without the life he built himself as Don. He's basically embracing the fact that he doesnt have to live that shitty life.
it's clearly done on purpose tho, in the sense that it's not spelled out; but if you truly get these characters and have been watching the show all along you realize what I at least think is the true intention and meaning behind the ending, which makes a lot more sense than "everyone changed, peggy is gonna be happy, so is pete, and don is now moved on and is a happy spiritual man". lol no
stn
Member
Don's spiritual awakening came at the end when he realized that he wasn't the only one alone. The Coke ad symbolizes a fusion of people and different cultures. I think for Don that means the fusion of Don and Dick. I think he goes back to McCann, just now he's finally at peace with his dual identities. His experience fuels the ad. Not the first time he's done that.
real_slime
Banned
Right now I'm thinking there's only really one satisfying possibility for what Don did after that hippie nonsense, and that's exploit it completely for the Coke ad. I also don't see anything else suggested in the previous season that points to a different future.
So I kind of wish they had just filmed it and given a glimpse of him at least leaving that stupid place. It isn't really nice to leave Don like 5 minutes after the worst breakdown he's ever had, y'know? Even with the smile, it's just a smile, I want to see him act on what he was thinking.
There was more of Mad Men than there needed to be in every way except an ending.
I'm seeing less and less ambiguity, too. I think the debate exists because we didn't actually see Don walk back into NYC and say 'guess what im back'.
I wish they had at least shown him standing up and walking away from the meditation group or something.
So I kind of wish they had just filmed it and given a glimpse of him at least leaving that stupid place. It isn't really nice to leave Don like 5 minutes after the worst breakdown he's ever had, y'know? Even with the smile, it's just a smile, I want to see him act on what he was thinking.
There was more of Mad Men than there needed to be in every way except an ending.
I'm seeing less and less ambiguity, too. I think the debate exists because we didn't actually see Don walk back into NYC and say 'guess what im back'.
I wish they had at least shown him standing up and walking away from the meditation group or something.
DataStream
Member
I'd reccomend people watch this documentary the full way through, but start at 29:00min in on this part for some very pertinent bits about Esalon and advertising.
https://vimeo.com/10245146
edit: maybe start at 27 minutes
edit: 3 should have been 2, duh
https://vimeo.com/10245146
edit: maybe start at 27 minutes
edit: 3 should have been 2, duh
I think it's done in a brilliant way. Like I said before you could interpret the ending as a very different, kinda disappointing thing on the surface, but I don't think it's subtle on what actually happens, on where all these people will end up.
why show it if you know?
show is actually treating us like watchers who pay attention. im not gonna complaint about not being spoonfed enough
real_slime
Banned
Well I am!!!
Most of these 7 episodes was spent fucking around and Don's storylines were kinda boring. Totally fine if it was building up to something, but it was building up to something that we didn't really see through, and is only implied in the last 30 seconds. Just fuckin show me it, I want the fun ending scene.
umop_3pisdn
Member
The psychotherapy they were doing was in the vein of Carl Rogers and encounter groups, which would have been huge at the time but were later found largely unsuccessful. Carl Rogers falls into the romantic category of personality theory, which is extremely appropriate in this context. Basically his idea was that we all have a "real self", which we erase due to externally imposed conditions of worth. The aim is to reclaim an authentic self, and doing so will essentially solve all of our neuroticism. Yet the irony is apparently that an 'authentic self' doesn't really exist, and 'authenticity' becomes another idea to sell and consume. That's okay, and I'm sure the work they were doing there helped some people with some problems, but I think presenting the image of coke against the image of 'enlightenment' was meant to go both ways, it's not just commercialism corrupting romanticism, the romanticism was already faulty, and despite Don's flaws that's one of the strange insights he's always kind of had. That authenticity and enlightenment are just another product, at least in most cases.
Well, yeah... if you're expecting "Don being a bad-ass at the office," they were spent fucking around. His plotline for this season though was pretty much "lose everything piece by piece." So they managed that pretty conclusively.
The episodes weren't spent "building" to anything... they were spent UNBUILDING everything.
Just watched it. Unlike many other shows (Lost, BSG), this one actually has always been about the characters not the plot. So why should the final be any different?
Two minutes before the credits, I thought: I love everyone's ending except for Don's. Then BOOM. Perfection.
Also, I am very happy for Peggy, but her previous "ending" scene of walking into McCann was a better final image to go out on.
Two minutes before the credits, I thought: I love everyone's ending except for Don's. Then BOOM. Perfection.
Also, I am very happy for Peggy, but her previous "ending" scene of walking into McCann was a better final image to go out on.
real_slime
Banned
Uh-huh, everyone likes to make people who have one problem seem like idiots who have other problems.
The process of him losing various things that defined him didn't go over my head. The Diana storyline was still pretty boring and took too much time. This whole commune story was boring to me because it's a point that has been made in the show several times (and in plenty of other books, movies and tv of the past 50 years).
It all had a point, but until that point became clear it did feel a bit pointless. I wish I could have seen and felt the impact of that reveal on screen rather than have it cut off while Don is still stuck in one of the lamest places on Earth.
I've loved just about every episode of Mad Men, including the last episode. The show had writing that never bored me or I thought was stupid. I mean even the Diana stuff, the hippie stuff, which I am in the process of insulting, had fragments and conversations within it that I enjoyed a lot.
I just think it's a bit of a nuisance to have spent so much time wallowing around with set up, and not actually do anything with it except imply.
I feel terrible for Peggy. Her relationship with Joan was much more genuine than the feelings they think they have with Stan.
the job offer was also precisely what she wanted all along but then she convinces herself she must be in love with Stan and ruins everything on a whim.
umop_3pisdn
Member
I don't know about that, in this case I think Stan was right, simply wanting to work for yourself isn't really all that great of a reason, and it was clearly the one on Peggy's mind. She came around to that opinion before the love thing came on the table.
mightynine
Member
But Peggy didn't decide not to take Joan's offer because of Stan. She had already decided that when she talked to Stan.
I don't think Peggy wanted to write corporate films permanently - that wouldn't have allowed her to make something lasting, like she mentioned to Don.
I also don't think she would've wanted to share the power with Joan, honestly.
I don't think Peggy wanted to write corporate films permanently - that wouldn't have allowed her to make something lasting, like she mentioned to Don.
I also don't think she would've wanted to share the power with Joan, honestly.
nah. dude made it straight up clear when he went "good, cause I don't want you to go"
im not saying I don't agree with the sentiment, I just feel he wasnt being truly genuine
what's wrong with wanting to be your own boss? that's what Peggy always wanted and what she was this close to getting
maybe? but she explicitely says "you were right im not taking the job"
Peggy is a romantic, she definetly wants what happens but I think is blinded by it. The fact that it's played up like a romcom down to Stan heroically showing up without hanging up plays to this I believe.
but it's something that plays to the complete opposite of what her character is and has been thus far. I really think we're implied to believe that the relationship is a terrible idea and will fail.
Peggy always wanted to be a creative director in advertising. Joan's company isn't ads, but corporate film production. trust me when I saw that's not a great venue for creativity. Just having a "boss" title wouldn't be enough for Peggy in something a lot less fulfilling, and Stan understood that.
umop_3pisdn
Member
Yeah, but I think his advice was also sound and him having more complex feelings about it doesn't invalidate the advice.
I thought the point was that Joan's offer wasn't really what she wanted. Being in a partnership with her would probably be great in a lot of ways, but it would have to be about Peggy starting the kind of company that she wanted, for it to be worth all that much. When Peggy had to talk about it, all she could say was that she wouldn't have to work for anyone. That's really not saying very much. I think there's a lot more to it for Peggy than just being her own boss, which might make her life more harmonious in a lot of ways, but just having that doesn't seem to align with her ambitions.
Exactly.
well, I think it's certainly something that is more up to debate than "did don make the ad?", but I still feel like the relationship outcome of it at least is.. pretty clear. which means I can't say im happy for her
snoopeasystreet
Member
That's essentially how I saw the ending. Don realises that depression and sadness isn't unique to him because of his sin's of the past, it's just the way the world works. It doesn't matter if you're Don Draper, Dick Whitman or just some normal dude living a normal life, we're all looking for meaning in life.
I was actually also disappointed she didn't take Joan's offer, but I don't thin it was because of Stan. I think she wanted to stay at McCann to become the creative director, like Pete and others predicted she would. Only on a secondary level did she stay because of Stan.
Now that I think more about it (and I finished watching like fifteen mins ago), I love how Don told his niece "you just gotta keep moving forward and your problems cease to matter" and his niece basically tells him that's bullshit. You have to stay and face it. By driving away, she forces Don to do just that. He faces his own demons, has a revelation and succeeds in genuinely bonding with other human beings. And then he turns it into an ad.
Now that I think more about it (and I finished watching like fifteen mins ago), I love how Don told his niece "you just gotta keep moving forward and your problems cease to matter" and his niece basically tells him that's bullshit. You have to stay and face it. By driving away, she forces Don to do just that. He faces his own demons, has a revelation and succeeds in genuinely bonding with other human beings. And then he turns it into an ad.
Which appears to be work
well he had plenty of shots at a more meaningful life and fucked them all up. so work is all that's left for him.
Dion Blaster
Member
After some reflection I couldn't be more satisfied with the ending. Perfect amount of ambiguity/closure. I feel like I know Don perfectly.
My view on it is far less on the cynical side, though I understand the reasoning and don't disagree that some of it is present. I think the answer is somewhere in the middle. And I think these last episodes have been driving that conclusion all along. The cynicism comes from the theme that people don't necessarily change, or that these characters will stay true to what they are. And I get that. But I think everything this show has been building to down the stretch is as much about finding that middle ground that enables you to be at 'peace' with what you are as it is that what you 'are' doesn't change.
Pete, Joan, Peggy, Roger...all of them in this finale still have the same faults and/or drives and motivations, but they have finally put themselves in situations where they can work with those characteristics rather than have them destroy them.
I think Don is no different. This last stretch of episodes has him shedding a lot of the baggage that wrestling with the Dick/Don identity has created. So he really did find some sort of peace...but he is still Don Draper and is still very good at what he does. So in the end he manages to be at peace with that identity too.
Pete, Joan, Peggy, Roger...all of them in this finale still have the same faults and/or drives and motivations, but they have finally put themselves in situations where they can work with those characteristics rather than have them destroy them.
I think Don is no different. This last stretch of episodes has him shedding a lot of the baggage that wrestling with the Dick/Don identity has created. So he really did find some sort of peace...but he is still Don Draper and is still very good at what he does. So in the end he manages to be at peace with that identity too.
I feel the exact same way. My first reaction to ending was "Wtf we just got robbed", but I loved it after some reflection.
oh I think it's definetly that.
I mean the whole thing is about finding happiness, what drives people, what changes you gotta make, and in the end it's basically about being comfortable in your skin and realizing who you truly are. Don is no façade.
very cookie cutter if you think about it that way I guess
Ignatz Mouse
Banned
Can't agree with this less.
The job with Joan looked like a dead end for her, to me, and was only appealing because she'd be her own boss-- something she never expressed interest in before. And given how fundamentally she and Joan have dealt with some conflicts in the past, I can see that relationship breaking up very fast, leaving Peggy with no McCann history, and thus losing ground on her "bigger and better" goals as stated to Don.
OTOH, she and Stan will bicker and want to kill each other and love each other and grow old together.
I think the show is hella more grounded for that to happen
bad couple is bad. they're both just vulnerable
I really don't think they're going "but deep down all is gonna be fine cause love!" route. There's no love in that way.
the job thing is more ambiguous, sure
Technosteve
Banned
Peggy and Stan getting together is like brother and sister getting together. It's just weird
StopMakingSense
Member
I guess the one thing that rang a little hollow for me was how proscribed Don's deconstruction felt to me, feeling ultimately sort of hollow and artificial. The systematic losing of his stuff, his wife, his car, etc. Also Betty's insistence he not come back just rang super super false to me.
Moment to moment it all felt fine and I quite liked the season past the first couple episodes (didn't really buy Don's super sleazy sleeping around in the first episode, and never quite cared for the Diana thing), but all the stuff Don lost and then his ultimate breakdown in CA just felt off in viewing his progress through the season.
Moment to moment it all felt fine and I quite liked the season past the first couple episodes (didn't really buy Don's super sleazy sleeping around in the first episode, and never quite cared for the Diana thing), but all the stuff Don lost and then his ultimate breakdown in CA just felt off in viewing his progress through the season.
snoopeasystreet
Member
I don't think it was necessarily work for Don, it was honouring the name of the man's identity he stole. He basically says "I stole a man's name for nothing" in this episode.
I thought it was quite a twist, unseen in this series. Throughout the entire half season we were led to believe he is systematically shedding his Don persona to become Dick. Yeah, it felt kinda artificial, but it was presented that way.
Finally, when Stephanie leaves him and he is just standing alone at California coast that's it. It seemed like there's no more Don, his last connection to Don is gone (apart from his phone calls to Sally, where is fatherly instinct overcome Dick/Don dichotomy, where he honestly believed himself to be a good father and where he didn't try to desperately separate the two). And then he breaks down, hears someone articulate his feelings better than anyone else could have done and becomes 100% Don, with all the good and bad it comes with it, finally accepting himself for who he is.
I may be rambling a bit, I need to think it over a bit more, but I really liked that swerve at the last minute, where he doesn't go hobo Dick, but finally is able to go past it and embrace Don. That transition from Don smiling to Coca Cola ad was brilliant.
Ignatz Mouse
Banned
I think you don't understand people. Couples who know each other for a while before getting together are more stable.
heh, i see what you mean. i think it's the over-literalism that i don't get here.
i honestly don't think it's that far divorced from mad men conspiracy theories. i mean it's more based on the text that the insane ones which jettison everything like d.b cooper or benson, but it feels like the same impulse.
it just feels so much more resonant as a very dark, very striking thematic flourish, than an attempt to finish a puzzle.
PeakPointMatrix
Member
What? No.
She literally tells Don all of her dreams some episodes previous, none of which involved producing movies and being her own boss. She gets stars in her eyes when Joan makes the offer, to which Stan observes as Peggy simply wanting to be in charge. "Working for a producer? that's not even what you DO." It would have made no sense for Peggy to pursue this flash in the pan, left field opportunity when it's not what she is interested in the first place, outside of "having her name on the door". Stan called her on it, and rightly so.
About the Peggy/Stan scene (and actually, you can copy and paste this all to talk about the Pete/Trudy scene last week as well):
I totally agree that it was completely over-the-top in a way that this show virtually never was. It actually felt, to me, like a Peggy/Stan shipper doing fan fiction. Possibly even more ridiculous than that.
Having said that, as a Peggy/Stan fan myself....I absolutely loved it. I think the show earned the right to pull out a couple scenes like that, and when else but for the ending. It was total wish-fulfillment of course, and I didn't expect the show to actually go there because it seemed too ..."nice", I guess, for reality. But I adored them for doing it and I do think the tracks had been properly laid over the years for it to happen.
I totally agree that it was completely over-the-top in a way that this show virtually never was. It actually felt, to me, like a Peggy/Stan shipper doing fan fiction. Possibly even more ridiculous than that.
Having said that, as a Peggy/Stan fan myself....I absolutely loved it. I think the show earned the right to pull out a couple scenes like that, and when else but for the ending. It was total wish-fulfillment of course, and I didn't expect the show to actually go there because it seemed too ..."nice", I guess, for reality. But I adored them for doing it and I do think the tracks had been properly laid over the years for it to happen.
World SkiFree
Member
I agree. As interesting as the ending was, the episode proper was odd. The pacing and editing just seemed off. A ton of runtime was spent on the commune and warp sped through tying up the other characters story threads. I'm exaggerating but it felt a bit out of sync, for a finale or normal episode.
Bobby Roberts
Banned
I think it's less that they know each other, and more that they know each other through work, and have come together over work, and will have a relationship because of that work.
That's likely going to lead to some level of burnout. Because there's no outlet, no pressure valve. Everything about every aspect of the relationship is tied up in that one thing, and that one thing now takes up all of your life. Plus Peggy is his superior. So the regular politics of a relationship are now bound up in the politics of work, plus the fact those two consistently irritate the living shit out of each other - They'll need breaks from that, (before now, they WERE each others pressure valve, in fact) and now they can't take those breaks, because no matter where they go, there they are.
But they're going to probably have a lot of fun while it's still new, and it's going to feel like three million dollars just from the tension finally having been released. But I just don't see that ending in any other way but a burnout.
They'll probably be friends afterwards, though.
This has been couch minute with Bobby Roberts and completely made up couples from before he was born.
No, PEGGY needed a relationship. Not "you". Not everything is a life lesson. And she needed one with one specific person, not just "a man".
She was in love with Stan and never knew understood it until she, in her usual fashion, logically came to that conclusion.
Raitosaito
Member
https://youtu.be/MVfbAgTHMVY
if you guys havent seen it, that's an in depth interview Weiner had with his sister that looks back on the show. Great insight into a lot of episodes.
if you guys havent seen it, that's an in depth interview Weiner had with his sister that looks back on the show. Great insight into a lot of episodes.
Wow. Great finale. The whole end of the 7th season is a masterpiece of melancholy. I need to watch it again to fully understand and give a proper interpretation, but it was well executed. I was also worried about the last shot, it couldn't be just done meditating.
It had a Californian "Did somebody say yoga ?" vibe too.
It had a Californian "Did somebody say yoga ?" vibe too.
lol man that's a pretty serious accusation from what we're discussing
I agree with bobbyroberts mostly, but feel free to say im a bit cynic on it. The show hasnt shown me what i'd need to see that couple work. quite the opposite.
the cocaine scene wasnt out of place for me, if anything it was even a bit on the nose (hehhehe) how we get Joan snorting COKE and going "it's like someone just gave me really good news"
c'mon guys
World SkiFree
Member
Haha, I like this interpretation!
this "cynical" side is the only side I have about it, and like I said I think how hammy it was plays to that on purpose.
edit: just to clarify; I don't think Peggy conciously knows this and made that decision tho (which might be what you're saying), but I think that's certainly what happened.
I mean we have her straight up convincing herself with "uhh.. I must be!" which I guess could be interpreted as a big romantic realization moment.. but I don't think this was ever that kinda show
Watched it and loved it. That DING and then the Coke ad... it was just perfect.
Thanks for the video.
Thanks for the video.
N
Noray
Unconfirmed Member
Not quite the perfect finale (I think just a tiny bit too much hinged on hippies as props, essentially), but close. I cried a lot and I think ultimately, the ending was perfect. Of course Don would come up with that ad out of that! It's not what I wanted for the character, but it rings true.