Pete and his cactus get say goodbye on the series finale of Mad Men
Photo Credit: AMC TV
A review of the very final episode of Mad Men ever as soon
as I sleep with you and try to steal your money…
“It will get easier when you move forward”
-Don
It may Don it may, but boy am I ever going to miss this
show. Anyways on to that finale.
In his final hour with Mad Men Matthew Weiner decided to go
full on sappy, and I loved every last second of it. Maybe sappy is not really
the word, but maybe it’s more that Weiner decided to do the ending to a
Shakespeare comedy. This is a show that’s had so much of everything, drama,
comedy, tragedy, sadness, happiness etc. and really the final note of the show
is where its final tone will be decided. Weiner went the happy, nearly everyone
gets married route, and in this day and age of constant mostly depressing
finales to big television drama it was a breath of fresh air to see Weiner go
for the Shakespeare comedy ending rather than its tragic counterpart.
Of course, despite all the pure happiness found in the
finale, Matthew Weiner could not let the very last episode go by without a
chance to mess with us one more time. Don is on his final soul searching journey
throughout the hippy retreat in California and finally hits perhaps his lowest
point followed by what seemed like the potential “come to Jesus” moment. Along
the way we get him finding out and then coming to drunkenly accept the death of
Betty and the fact that despite how much he does love his children that he
really hasn’t and ultimately wouldn’t be a person who could be their full time
father, and seemingly gives in to Betty’s plans and wishes one more time. He
also gets to meet up one final time with Stephanie, only to have her, really
the final piece of his “old life” stripped away from him. Then there is the
wonderful breakdown to Peggy on the phone (which as we’ll get to later gives
her her own kind of funny “come to Jesus” moment) as his life seems to have hit
a final rock bottom, and the ultimate lifting up of the great monologue from a
man who seems to be the only one who in a strange way understands his warped
feelings. Don seems to be on the way towards the road of redemption and that
little smile on his face while doing the mystical heeling that is yoga…
…and then that damn coke add plays to close out the episode and
makes us potentially question everything that has come from this big moment for
Don. It doesn’t have to really Matthew Weiner could have presented the add
entirely to convey the mood of the moment, or to ultimately relate the big
final scene of the show back to advertising. But let us not kid ourselves here,
the reason why Matt Weiner put that add as the very last moment of his
masterpiece of a series was to twist the knife a little bit. It was to spin a
great and wonderful sequence where Don finally finds himself and give people
the idea that maybe Don was only really in that moment taking just enough inspiration
for a trip home to come up with the Coke add. That can be seen as a really cynical
way to look at the ending, Don after all this time may just never change, he
may just be destined to be the same old Don Draper forever.
But on the same token even if he does end up coming home
like Peggy suggests in her call, and ends ups getting lured in by having the
chance to write for Coke, Don is ultimately happy in that ending sequence.
There does seem to be change that occurs in the mind of Don as he is going
through this trip, and it is entirely possible that he can return to the world
of advertising, a man with a different view on life. The suggestion that Don
wrote the add does not have to be negative and like so many more of the endings
on the show could be it could be Don’s perfect Shakespeare Comedy ending. It
may be a choice of either or between an old life and a new but maybe a combination
of the two. As we’ve seen so many times on this show the answer does not have
to be clear and simple, the choices that these characters make and their
ultimate consequences are not binary in the way that some are interpreting those
final moments.
Don’s story may be the driving force of the finale but it
certainly isn’t the only ending that we get. I was wrong to say last week that
we may get an entirely Don centric finale as there are many characters who get
to come in and say their final goodbyes in their own beautiful ways. Never this
late in the series would I have envisioned a phone conversation in which Peggy
and Stan both profess their love for each other at nearly the same time but
that’s what we got in “Person to Person” and every second of it was marvelous.
I’m glad that Peggy got to have a good happy ending that had absolutely nothing
to do with work which is something that she has arguably been partaking way too
much in for at least the last several seasons. It was a sudden ending for the
two characters but the way it played out was so beautiful. Just the reactions
of both characters as they both individually talked through it and just came to
the realization that they loved each other, along with Elizabeth Moss’ just
wonderful facial expressions made the sequence so great even if it was
something that may have come out of nowhere.
Joan also gets a great little send off as well, just in an
opposite but equally happy and satisfying. Through the power of Ken and his
eyepatch Joan gets to get into the producing business and ultimately gets the
thrill of finally getting to pull of the “starting her own business” game. Sure
she has to ditch Mr. Leisure suit and his cocaine but I’m glad that the show
got to see her finally fully give in to her amazing business instincts that she
has developed throughout the show (and arguably had the whole time). It’s a
nice little send off for Joan and a great way to send off a character that I
really did not expect to see in the finale.
Oh yes and Betty is not dead yet. The whole sequence of Don
finding out that his ex-wife whom he still loves a whole heck of a lot, was
pretty devastating. Their final conversation, as so many of their big emotional
conversations looking back have been, was a dynamite sequence that really
showed where these characters are and have been throughout the series. From
Betty calling him out on the fact that he hasn’t really seen the kids in
forever to the just gradual devolution of the conversation to tears between two
people who still have a wonderful connection. January Jones was again
marvelous, and while Betty sadly had to be the one sad ending in a litany of
happy, like last episode the arc proved to be incredibly powerful.
“Person to Person” marks the beautiful Shakespearian comedy
style ending to this amazing television show. Whether Don does go back to
advertising and never changes or if that smile is a sign of the true change so
many have been clamoring for this finale was so brilliant and wonderful,
paying off so many arcs and giving all of these characters a chance to say
their own individual goodbyes. I am very much going to miss this show.
Final musings for Mad Men:
- Yes I noticed (and saw confirmation on Twitter) the similarity between the pig tailed woman in the Coke add and the pig tailed woman at the desk at the retreat. Matthew Weiner does not do this by accident folks.
- Pete and Trudy doing their walk to the private Jet needed to be in all of the slow motion ever.
- Roger also got a great little happy ending here with Megan’s mother. I laughed out loud at the way he explained to Joan just exactly who he was getting married to with her claiming “I guess somebody finally got their timing right.” It’s great to see Roger not only realize that he is aging and maybe not going to any longer be a relevant part of the business but to fully embrace it and just be legitimately happy in a marriage for the first time ever.
- Hey if Don does go back to the office then Meredith does get to keep her job after all.
- The interaction between Sally and Bobby is both heartbreaking and super sweet. These two will do a fine job taking care of their little brother Gene no matter who they end up with.
And there we go so ends this marvelous show. Mad Men was a
hell of a show and a hell of a ride through the happy and sad, and old and new
of the 1960s. It was the show that I consistently enjoyed writing about the
most week to week once I started doing weekly reviews for the last few seasons
and a show which I will always cherish. This one ending hurts but at the same
time I love how it has progressed and ultimately ended. This is one of the best
ever, one that I will remember for the rest of my days.
That’s just me though. What did everyone else think?
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