Post-Finale Update At The Bottom.
Those were the days…
Not the 1960’s, mind you – but 2007, 2008 and 2009, when Mad Men changed television with its sexy retro-cool and provocative storytelling that snapped, crackled and popped.
It was great stuff. Instantly addictive, refreshingly intelligent.
Watching the last lurching, listless, seemingly random episodes of this great series has filled me with a nostalgia for the first three or four near-perfect seasons. The show stumbled before but always reclaimed it’s greatness when it counted – I’m hoping creator Matt Weiner pulls a similar rabbit out of his hat on the series finale tonight. But it’s hard to see how he will pull it off. Unlike Breaking Bad, which packed its last half-season with one jaw-dropping show after another, all story momentum seems to have been lost over Mad Men‘s long hiatus. Obviously, it’s a very different kind of show. It doesn’t have a life-or-death crime plot to lean on for excitement. But what made Mad Men special from the start was the way it turned the small everyday moments into an adventure of movie-sized triumphs and epic defeats.
Now it seems all the air has leaked out of the show.
There’s no urgency to any of it. The characters all seem worn down, with nothing to win or lose, nothing left to say.
The entire season feels like one giant shrug.
It’s all right for Don to wander the country aimlessly, but shouldn’t the show know where it’s going? Shouldn’t we feel further along? The last hour may turn out to be a masterpiece, but I can’t help feeling that Weiner and his writing staff ran out of ideas somehow – and missed a real opportunity to send the characters spinning into new orbits at the start of a strange new decade.
Betty’s cancer is the perfect example. Yes, it fits with the times and pays off on the tobacco theme of the show. Somebody had to pay for all that chain smoking. But Betty’s reaction is so cold and casual as to be unbelievable. The character has been given short-shrift for seasons and even facing the end she isn’t allowed any real growth as a person or last-minute revelation/regret. If that’s the case, what’s the point? Even if you think it speaks to the brutal reality of life, it still feels arbitrary. In the parlance of the era, it’s a cop-out.
Joan’s struggle against corporate sexism felt much more on target, but also lacked something. How did her relationship with Roger get so watered down that he didn’t even try to come to her defense? And if that’s a sad comment on him, then make it. It just felt like lazy writing.
Peggy at least gets to contemplate on the child she gave up for adoption years ago and gets a killer slow-mo entrance into the agency, where, let’s face it, she is clearly doomed.
Instead of chasing after his “lost” diner waitress, wouldn’t it have made more sense for Don to go to bat for one or both of his female colleagues? Wouldn’t that have given his quitting the agency more purpose? I liked that we saw him realizing (finally) the emptiness of the ad biz, but what I can’t for the life of me figure out why, with the clock ticking down, you would waste Don’s and our time with a bunch of people we don’t know or have any emotional stake in…
Yes, these are all middle-aged characters going through an identity crisis, but all the more reason they should be fighting the dying of the light, whether literal or figurative.
At least Pete was given a sudden epiphany. Too bad the acting and direction felt so stilted.
Roger playing the organ while Peggy roller skated around him was a beautifully odd tableau, one of those iconic Mad Men moments, but it only highlighted how dull the rest of it has become.
I know, I know…all this bitching seems petty when you’re talking about what is, on the whole, one of the great television series of all time. I would easily put it in my Top Five. Its place in history is secure and, over time, we will remember it only for the sheer brilliance of it’s best days. And wow, what a run. Maintaining such high quality for so long is a huge accomplishment.
If it limps across the finish line, it’s hardly the first series to do that and it won’t be the last.
Nevertheless… Of course… I will be there tonight. In front of the TV one more time. With a drink in my hand even if Don is sober.
Expectations lowered, yes, but savoring every last damn minute of it.
Update:
Well, it wasn’t a masterpiece, but overall I would say the series finale was a success…
It did a good job, at least, of wrapping up most of the supporting characters’ stories. And a certain grudging satisfaction seemed to be the general consensus from critics and fans alike the day after. Maybe we were so braced for grimness, the happy endings were a hard-won relief.
Betty is still dying, but at least she was allowed to be human and have a very touching moment with Don over the phone. Sally was also clearly stepping up to the plate to take care of her mother (still smoking) and, even more importantly, her little brothers. Instant adulthood, as often happens.
I especially liked how they flipped our expectations on Peggy and Joan. Joan gave up a relationship to start a business and become the boss that she always knew she could and should be, and Peggy found that work and love didn’t have to be mutually exclusive. The phone scene with her and Stan can be forgiven for being a little too on-the-nose and Romantic Comedy 101 because…well, it was just nice to see her end up happy. And with someone who respected her talent.
Best of all was Roger and his crazy French wife – a perfect match. His worst nemesis was always boredom and with her that won’t be a problem. Also, they finally gave us a scene of him and Joan where he took full responsibility for their son’s future…the “little bastard”.
All of this made Don’s story, ironically, feel like the weakest part of the episode.
His “journey” continued to feel meandering and bizarre. I still don’t understand certain choices the writers made. For starters, couldn’t this would-be spiritual awakening have happened a few episodes ago? Why did they wait so long to get him to California and then make it more of an accident than a choice on his part? His breakdown on the phone with Peggy and then later when he hugged the poor balding-average version of himself in therapy were both strong moments…but not as much as they could have been if Weiner and Company had built a better foundation throughout the season. That’s my feeling anyway. It felt inevitable in a way, but it should have been executed better.
The final reveal of the famous Coke ad tied it up with just enough ambiguity. It sparked a lot of debate, which a good ending probably should. Some people saw it as a kind of victory – Don got his shit together, got back to what he did best, used his experience to fuel a revolutionary ad campaign and became an even bigger legend in the industry; while others saw it as cold and cynical – whatever sincere breakthrough Don had felt was cheapened and reduced to a smarmy ad exploiting the hippies he hated. (That grin while he was meditating did seem more like a smirk than a eureka moment)
However you look at it, he went back to McCann-Erickson and, despite all his flakiness, they took him back. Because he’s just that good. In fact, it could be argued that all Don really is when all is said and done is an enigma with a genius gift for advertising.
Maybe, Weiner asks, that’s enough. Does he need to be or do anything else?
Most of us would kill to be truly great at just one thing. Don is that wish come true, for better or worse. Otherwise, his life is a lot of random strangers and a false identity. And that applies to the show as well…
It was genius, even as its meaning slips through your fingers.
RIP Mad Men. I’ll miss the enigma.