I didn't see a post.....anyone still down ???

Wtf write damn you

Same for you Joan

Peggy go to effing Paris

Dammit I hope I'm not like this if I come into money
Damn hamsters on a hamster wheel
~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

>
>Dammit I hope I'm not like this if I come into money
>Damn hamsters on a hamster wheel

...Peggy was talking trash to Joan about doing whatever she wanted, but ultimately stepped back from doing the same thing....Don is still looking for that total happiness, unsure about where to go next....he's having fun, but not as much as he'd like.....I felt bad for Ken, but then he got his revenge... They really did him wrong....

The way they kept showing that everyone had options, but didn't seem to want to take them cause it's unknown territory....

>...Peggy was talking trash to Joan about doing whatever she
>wanted, but ultimately stepped back from doing the same
>thing....Don is still looking for that total happiness, unsure
>about where to go next....he's having fun, but not as much as
>he'd like.....I felt bad for Ken, but then he got his
>revenge... They really did him wrong....
>
>The way they kept showing that everyone had options, but
>didn't seem to want to take them cause it's unknown
>territory....



it was
and here we are looking at them
(.. )

not like this mad men not like this!

~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

That's the tragedy here

I really don't want a whole lot of new reveals or too much"action". Just 7 more episodes with the characters and a soft landing/ farewell

Let's me know Sally is good and Peggy is left with a happyish ending and I'll be happy

....I gotta rewatch....when Roger was gone initially, he was with that waitress in the alley, who MUST be a "reformed" girl from that whorehouse they used to visit....

Like, seriously, I don't have anything else to say right now. Roger and Teddy's mustaches ruled everything.

Okay, I'll come back with my thoughts later. But I don't know if there was anything as awesome as those mustaches. Though Ken's revenga was fairly close.

This show needs to end with everyone just growing a fu manchu

I'm sorry it looks terrible on him.

Or am I mixing her up from another show.
Cause I felt like Don. "I know her from somewhere."

~~~~~~~~~
"This is the streets, and I am the trap." � Jay Bilas
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/archive/contributor/517
Hip Hop Handbook: http://tinyurl.com/ll4kzz

She kinda looks like other women Don has banged though.

Plus she's been in other stuff.

That's who I thought it was at first

Nixon's Cambodia speech was from April 30 of that year

For some reason I was hoping the show would approach the 80's since that's a time frame I can somewhat relate to, but for the show to do that would mean it would have to leap frog through time too much, which would ruin the show's pace IMO.

Sucks seeing them keep trying to tear each other down after BOTH being treated like dogshit by McCann's people. But that's how these two have always been towards each other, so I can't say I'm surprised.

So it really wouldn't matter what she wore.
She's a shapely woman, and they were going to make
comments no matter what.

after all this you'd think they'd be on the same page even w/ their differences.

that moment where she said 'If you're dressed like that, what did you expect?', I was shocked.

But it seemed that feminism wasn't at the point of avoiding victim blaming. Correct me if I'm wrong but the notion of a woman in a corporation or anywhere commanding power in a business and still wanting respect for her femininity is a recent development. Maybe in the last ten years, right?

As far as the two of them, like another poster said one has always been jealous or shaking their head at the lack of savvy of the other. (Joan coaxing Peggy to play up her sexuality in S1, Peggy wanting to be a copywriter or be more than a secretary...etc.)

That moment in the elevator was shocking as far as the politics involved, but considering their history personally, I can't be surprised.

Also, why was Peggy so oblivious to the behavior of the Marshall Field execs. Old Peggy would have given it back to them just on general principal. She kind of became a company wo(man) at that point.

...Peggy started it and Joan finished it...

that's why I've fallen deep on the side that this show is not critique, but nostalgia

outside of Don, the characters too often float on the same intellectual and emotional wave lengths.

The women, those two especially, should have some form of solidarity at some point, but nope, it just continues to be cattiness for the sake of cattiness.

it was a good episode all in all though

they don't. why?

^ that's the question. the show answers it.

also, the show won't go deep enough into the 70s to hit on the rise of the Women's Liberation movement but i suspect at least one of them if not both would have an awakening inspired by that movement.

but all in all it's fiction, there can be moments where characters are used to explore other aspects or challenge an established narrative. if the "author" doesn't that, just becomes "Poverty porn", in this case "sexism porn".

and let me redact the bad writing statement, it's just lazy

i disagree that the show is engaging in 'sexism porn'. based on what i learned back in my feminism and gender studies classes way back (my American history classes as well) i think the portrayal is pretty realistic. i am disappointed that these 2 characters don't work w/each other and offer each other more support and i blame internal and external factors for that.

Joan is mad that Peggy has been able to work her way up the ranks of the company on the value of the work she does and the mind she has for the business, meanwhile whenever Joan brings something smart to the table it's either passed off to someone else as an idea or treated as this kind of wondrous moment.

Peggy is mad that Joan has achieved, and in some cases has always had, autonomy as a person solely because of her appearance. Peggy can't just show up somewhere and get a guy to do something because she looks good, she can't sleep her way to a million dollars. She has to grind past midnight in a lonely office cubicle just to live in a shabby apartment on the rough side of town.

Neither of them see the world from the other's point of view, and the competitive nature of that particular office helps enhance it. In Peggy's eyes Joan will always be the girl that had one hand in Roger Sterling's pocket while they held fairly similar positions, and Joan will always see Peggy as the girl who didn't have to sleep with anybody (and wasn't ever asked) to get what she wanted.

Though Don thinks she has great legs.

~~~~~~~~~
"This is the streets, and I am the trap." � Jay Bilas
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/archive/contributor/517
Hip Hop Handbook: http://tinyurl.com/ll4kzz

crabs in a barrel is real
they have a history
their own
and with each other

folks swear shit is easier or better for the next person

empathy is difficult to come by
esp for coworkers


~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

I would think after all this time, they'd have a bit of solidarity.

I don't blame them entirely for feeling that way, it's such a male-dominated industry.
But there's little reward to banding together, they're in the minority in the firm. I'm hoping things change, but...

Joan can't get over how far Peggy has come; I think she still sees herself as Peg's superior and it irks her that she can't just override her.

Peggy can't get over Joan's power and beauty; I think she envies Joan a lot for her looks; I'm pretty sure Peggy would use looks to her advantage, even if it wasn't the pic type of attention...she's pretty money oriented.

He was introduced as Ferguson McDonnally from McCann, but all I took from that scene was that he was a former employer of Ken. Is he a client of SCDP and what did that scene have to do with the golf clubs?

>He was introduced as Ferguson McDonnally from McCann, but all
>I took from that scene was that he was a former employer of
>Ken. Is he a client of SCDP and what did that scene have to do
>with the golf clubs?

yep
the golf clubs was just for his FiL retirement
he didn't realize his FiL was keeping in him in HIS position at SCDP now slash McCann
because when he left them he took all of his billings and client with him including a huge account
this gave McCann folks leeway to fire him once word was out that the FiL was leaving Dow

in turn McCann didn't realize how deep he was in with Dow

heh

HEH
~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

So hard to remember all the plot points in between seasons.

Thanks

as something similar happened to me

but ironically since the company was so big
also my rep was really nice
i gave no one a hard time

which is good because everyone at my old company is spread out throughout the industry and are my vendors
very good decision there lol
~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

It's kind of convoluted, but back in the Season 3 finale, McCann bought the British agency that bought Sterling Cooper. Ken stuck around with McCann after Don, Sterling, Cooper, Pete, Peggy, etc. all left. He then goes to work for SCDP again in Season 4.

Who's cereal did Ken pee in?

He worked there b4 Sterling Cooper and took some of his clients with him. I think that pissed them off. They kept him on after the SC&P buyout bc of his relationship with Dow via his FIL. After he retired they fired him out of revenge. McCann is being posited as an awful place to work except for douchebags - like Don.

awesome

i kept picturing his with a blonde halo of curly hair and trying to figure it out when twitter solved it for me

brian from my so called life

=)
~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

Random info.

2 mil?
Do I have that right?
That would be what Joan has left as the current offer?
~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

>2 mil?

>Do I have that right?
>That would be what Joan has left as the current offer.

Close. 250K would be 1.5M.

That's still good money, plus ahe's out of McCann too.

came up off a milly
megan crazy ass mom took all his shit.
waitress girl demons got the best of her.

is it because she seems so much like him? Gloomy, impulsive, drinks too much, running away from shit....

I mean, she kinda even looks like Don with a wig.

Balance of power is always in his favor, gets to feel edgy by "slumming it." Probably also recognizes someone who, like him, is in a lot of pain.

was that truly just a shitty opening line he thought was clever/smooth?

That he keeps repeating the same plot points over and over

that's the only thing i can think of

or some shit I'm gonna be pissed.

It doesn't make much sense to me. It's almost like a dark version of the Charlie/The Waitress storyline from Sunny In Philadelphia. The relationship doesn't feel rooted in reality.

In fact I'm kinda lukewarm on both episodes so far this season in general. Just hasn't really engaged me. Not sure where it's headed and don't find myself caring enough to try and figure it out. Hopefully by the end I'll be made to understand what they're going for to wrap up the series. I have confidence that will happen.

since I've been watching from the beginning, but I'm as disappointed as you are so far. I wonder if the hiatus is part of the reason I'm so underwhelmed so far since these batch of episodes aren't that far removed in time compared to when the show started up with a new batch of episodes. It appears The Waitress kicked Don to the curb, so there's some hope things will pick up in terms of where the show will lead the audience with Don.

After all this show has done for me entertainment-wise I'm in for the long haul. But yea - you said it...these abbreviated seasons always piss me off and the networks' greed trumps the narrative of the show which is obnoxious. Breaking Bad and The Sopranos were able to overcome it and finish fairly strong IMO, and I'm sure Mad Men will too ... I just wish the story took priority over the networks' desire to fucking drag it out and risk the story for their bottom line.

Anyway - yea I think the waitress storyline is hopefully on its way out tho but that said, it will feel like a rushed and forced storyline if that's all we see of her. So I almost hope it's "done" while still being totally fleshed out as a Don storyline, if that makes sense. In other words I hope (and expect) that by the end of the season we understand what the purpose of it was, even if that was the last we see of it.

I mentioned the hiatus because I'm wondering if I would have issues with these episodes if the show ran all the episodes for this last season together. It's possible I'm viewing these last batch of episodes with a more skeptical eye since they are on their lonesome and separate from the prior episodes that aired for the final season. I'm not upset with AMC for deciding the breakup the season necessarily, but I'm more angry with Weiner and Co. for how sorry things have been so far.

I somewhat hoping the show will rebound, but overall these batch of episodes feel very very choppy to me for some reason. The scenes and plotlines don't feel too fluid to me. Almost feels rushed.

>I somewhat hoping the show will rebound, but overall these
>batch of episodes feel very very choppy to me for some reason.
>The scenes and plotlines don't feel too fluid to me. Almost
>feels rushed.

...feeling of being rushed and disjointed is specifically *because* the final season was split up. They had to shoot and edit both seasons at totally separate times which naturally lends itself to a feeling of inconsistency. Had the crew had the option to write it as one full season and edit everything all in the same time period this may not be an issue.

I mean, I'm just firing off my own thoughts here, I really have no idea, and for all we know this will all add up to something great at the end of the season...but right now it does seem pretty poor. We may slightly disagree on who's to blame for the disjointedness but we at least both agree that it is poor so far.

Where she **spoiler alert***

Tells him to fuck off, basically. I'm guessing it's like Don looking in the mirror but who knows? Maybe just reiterating how he makes poor choices in life, in women...

so vague and odd with the "Don needs pussy damnit," motif

we're over it. three seasons deep, come on. it's over. some god damn catharsis should be creeping in by now

they did more with the scene of Don starring at fly ass Betty with her clown husband and the kids in the kitchen, after Don hit him with the, "he can get his own shake", knowing want some version of that back

i figured there has to be something more behind it.

I mean, fuck her mom for pulling that shit with the movers, but she should have let Don know what's up, not come at hi with that "I don't want anything from you" shit. And he breaks her off with a cool million? She ain't shit.

how did Don "ruin her life"??? she was a secretary when he met hwer, he provided her with a crazy amount of opportunities, and SHE didn't wanna work it out....

eff her for taking that check though....

...and yeah, Harry outdid himself in this episode....

loved folks giving Don "divorce advice"

She truly ain't shit.

She had a gig on a soap opera in NYC (they used to shoot most soaps in NYC and most TV generally in NYC). She left it for Don bc he was going out there for SCDP and Sunkist (I think) but then Ted got that gig after Megan had moved out there. Don never moved. Meanwhile Megan has struggled to land acting roles out there. So I think that is what she's talking about. Plus she spent some of her prime adult years with Don and he was a mess. And he didn't want her to work at all - remember he didn't want her on that soap at first. He was resentful and not supportive of her career choice b4 she got that soap gig.

>She had a gig on a soap opera in NYC (they used to shoot most
>soaps in NYC and most TV generally in NYC). She left it for
>Don bc he was going out there for SCDP and Sunkist (I think)
>but then Ted got that gig after Megan had moved out there. Don
>never moved. Meanwhile Megan has struggled to land acting
>roles out there. So I think that is what she's talking about.
>Plus she spent some of her prime adult years with Don and he
>was a mess. And he didn't want her to work at all - remember
>he didn't want her on that soap at first. He was resentful and
>not supportive of her career choice b4 she got that soap gig.
>
>

Which is why Don gives her the $1 million after Harry says to him, "She never should have quit her soap and moved out of New York." He knows that part of it is his fault.

Not buying the other part of the equation though. Megan married Don with her eyes open. She knew about his past and who he "really was" (as in Dick Whitman). They tried to make the marriage work, and it didn't. Yeah, Don is a big reason for that, but when she told him she wants a divorce, he isn't petty at all. And then he finances her throughout the separation, and writes her a check for $1 million. That at least earns a "Hey, my imbalanced mother had the movers take all your furniture. Don't worry, I'll send it back."

divorce makes ppl do awful, petty things.

she doesn't even have room for that furniture in her LA pad so i expect she would return it.

i wasn't mad at her for not warning him about it. lol

But mostly it's that I've been watching Mad Men long enough to know that shit like that doesn't go undone.

At all. Mostly bc I know Don doesnt care about any of that shit. If he did he'd have gone after her to get it. And/or he'd have replaced it.

That's a good reason too.


*now I'm not condoning the manner in which Megan handled the divorce, but the list of Don's fuck ups was pretty big.

Felt like anytime she got a good buzz he comes and and fucks it up
~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

After that lunch w Harry she's angry again
~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

she def got shit to be mad about

but she's a damn privileged princess who also made bad choices

>she def got shit to be mad about
>
>but she's a damn privileged princess who also made bad
>choices
>
>

Now he outdoes himself every episode.

He was the decent guy in the office. Then he went over to the new firm with Don and the rest, and transformed into a gaping asshole. Working in Hollywood ruined him.

because he lacked power in the office. Once he got that TV slot, he didn't mind showing his true colors.

...three seasons. But after his full-time deal became Hollywood, he turned into just as much of a slug as everyone else.

Dude can't even help himself at this point

And that guy ruined cartoon monkeys forever.

But Jesus him telling Don about Megan's "craziness" was so scummy.

It SEEMS like he's finally coming to grips with his life. BUT that shit w/the waitress was a tad disturbing. :/

I really wanna see him win, but I'm not sure he's headed that way.

>It SEEMS like he's finally coming to grips with his life. BUT
>that shit w/the waitress was a tad disturbing. :/
>
>I really wanna see him win, but I'm not sure he's headed that
>way.

and I don't think I'll miss it

Do you think they're up there, or I guess I should say down there, with the final season of Oz or The Wire in terms of top notch TV shows ending with crappy final seasons or are you just annoyed with one or two things with these episodes?

It's okay to say that the last season of The Wire was the respective worst of the series, but it was no where near later seasons of Oz level bad.

Mad Men has been mediocre for near three seasons. ever since they revealed Dick Whitman to people within Don's universe. it sucked all the intimate tension from the show and they made one of the most likely characters, Peggy, into one of the most unlikable.

they def have had some great highs and the show always looks beautiful in terms of set design, costume, lighting, the framing of scenes etc, but the story line and the supposed critiques of post-50s Americana are a joke

you complaining about lazy writing but the most complex show in the history of television loses all of it's 'grey' when it comes to the newspaper season.

Gus the white knight. Pure. He'd never do anything wrong. He just cares about the news. And doing it right. And the bad guys are beating him up! Poor Gus!

Other dude and Gayle are just 'pure evil' representing what's wrong with print media/newsreporting.

It lost it's edge. It painted that picture as too black and white. It was....LAZY(c).

And McNulty's serial killer...god.

>And McNulty's serial killer...god.

..this whole "golden era" of dramatic TV. I was so disappointed in that shit. Lazy and ridiculous.

I agree with you in general too, season 5 is easily the worst and super disappointing.

With five episodes to go (AND FOUR MORE TO THE SEASON FINALE!), I don't think we need an episode spending so much time on Megan's family and Mimi Rogers in a pants suit; the latter was much more enjoyable then the former. I also don't know if we need to spend so much time on the waitress unless she really is going to be Don's salvation. If she's just another instrument to show how his life is empty, then it's more wasted energy.

I'd rather they spend more screen time on Pete's unfortunate red sweater, Sally, and Teddy's mustache. I don't need crazy Julia Ormond.

Feels like they are wasting time
~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

...i'm gonna miss Pete's tantrums and Don when his confidence is high....i even miss Betty's craziness a bit already....

altogether, no, i won't be hurt when it's all over, but i'll miss my people...

"You're not the first thing to come along...I'm ready"

C'mon dude, lol

>"You're not the first thing to come along...I'm ready"
>
>C'mon dude,

Her: I lied

Don: Already?

>
>Her: I lied
>
>Don: Already?

That pimp hand tho.

haven't enjoyed these last two eps whatsoever.

If he had pushed past "I'm married." He prolly could have had her.

.

in the scene you guys are referencing. While she did say no, there were subtle changes in her face to kind of led you to think she was attracted to Weiner's son.

minor W for the Weiner family.


~~~~~~~~~
"This is the streets, and I am the trap." � Jay Bilas
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/archive/contributor/517
Hip Hop Handbook: http://tinyurl.com/ll4kzz

from when he use to watch tv with her as real boy, I never understood it.

when she gave Glen that "little boy, my how you've grown up... I want to pop your dick squarely in my mouth, if I'm honest with myself" look when she walked into the living room, I was like LOL WTF Betty, come on

Don was just as bad with Sally's little friend. She hit him with that ether

he could've embarassed her. he could've also encouraged her (hi chris hanson). but he merely humored her.

meanwhile betty really wanted to throw glenn the box.

No one wants to be the daughter of the dude all the girls think they can fuck.

Don was responding to her the girl in kind, but still talking to everyone at the table, But he wasn't like Betty who was on some "My my how you've grown...*gulp*"

But those things happening back to back, and Sally kind of knowing how her dad is, i can't blame her for feeling how she felt.

>No one wants to be the daughter of the dude all the girls
>think they can fuck.

lighting her cig, ansewring ALL her questions with that sly fucn look

stop it y'all. Don didn't want to fuck that little girl, bu he sure wasn't redirecting her attention

She shamelessly stood there looking thirsty. Don probably enjoyed the attention on some level, but i didn't really see it as that bad.

Don wouldn't go there but there's no way i can blame Sally for assuming he would, especially after what just happened with her mom, and seeing that she's walked in on Don cheating on his (now estranged) second wife with his neighbor.

>from when he use to watch tv with her as real boy, I never
>understood it.

Yeah glen is a really strange kid, and creepy the way he would stare. *shivers*
even though he's more grown, that creepiness is still there.

These episodes are solid but its like they are intentionally making it feel like any other season as opposed to the end of a long running show

this ep felt really weak to me....

>this ep felt really weak to me....

The first two, to me, seemed like forced, lazy storylines. This ep at least seemed to be leading to something. Don having kind of an existential, philosophical crisis...they moved his family story ahead a bit and if that's the last we see of them, I'm fine with that...Peggy and Don had a moment, an interesting one for sure. But these are the types of scenes I was hoping for in these last episodes. I cared not a single fucking bit about the weird waitress Don was chasing. I care about what happens in the office, and with his family, cause those are the folks we've been with for 8 years now.

Plus this ep had the absolutely hilarious "I can't believe you had the balls to come back here..." moment. The look on Peggy and especially Pete's face in that scene was CLASSIC Mad Men. What a great scene.

That baby Peggy had ain't coming back, for instance.

Like, there are no "mysteries" this show needs to solve. There's not going to be a "reveal" about who the falling man is in the opening credits. Weiner learned from Chase on "The Sopranos," and this show is a lot less plot-driven than that.

I was fairly certain we weren't gonna have any Tony-kills-Chris moments in these final episodes, and I am perfectly fine with that because this isn't that kind of show.

That said, I thought the first two eps were weak because the focus wasn't on the characters I care about. But we'll see where that all ends up. This has been my favorite episode so far.

IJS

But, yea, I suppose......

I enjoy looking through this window and I'm gonna miss it when it closes.

wow

this show...

and Don won't be exposed as Dick Whitman for all the world to see.

and there won't be a big reveal that Roger is Joan's baby daddy.

Megan won't have to answer for her mother stealing Don's furniture.

it goes on.

lots of loose ends will be left dangling. there won't be much (if any) comeuppance though there's much due.

more than anything I guess this show really is how folk compartmentalize to perform and survive

but most folk do know Don is Wickman, no? or am I projecting?

>but most folk do know Don is Wickman, no? or am I projecting?

Everyone one that was officially tied to Don via his marriages knows about the fraud he's pulling, but professionally I think only Pete knows. I don't remember him ever telling Peggy, despite how close they were in the first season. Can someone correct me if I'm wrong?

.

Pete knows. i don't think Peggy knows. Joan doesn't seem to know.

no one else at SCP knows, i think.

and for like a solid 3 season i clean forgot about that shit.

that time Peggy told him about his mom mistaking her for his wife...i thought she was going to reveal it then. but she didn't.

it hasn't pulled me back in so far and it's almost over

>it hasn't pulled me back in so far and it's almost over

Yea ... this was my problem with the first two. I understand this show and love it for the fact that it lacks fireworks, but it's ALWAYS been interesting. The first two eps this "season" were not, at all, interesting. Sunday's was extremely interesting, to me. And very well done. It was a vintage Mad Men ep and that's all I've really been hoping for for these final 7.

While big things can and have happened in the finales, it's not like the usually "build" to them in the way most other shows do. So expecting there to be more of a thru-line beyond, "Don got everything and still isn't happy" is unrealistic.

I agree that I wish they'd focus more on people I care about, but this episode was solid enough.

>I agree that I wish they'd focus more on people I care about,
>but this episode was solid enough.

^ this is where I'm at, which is why I liked this episode best so far. It focused on the characters I actually care about and stories from the office which are far more interesting than, say, the diner waitress.

I really don't mind them treating like this "any other season" all that much, cause this show has never been about huge surprise moments. I just am glad they finally got to the core people.

PEGGY.

Also, if this was really Sally's last episode, it's somehow appropriate that she spends it watching both of her parents soaking up sexual attention from teenagers.

She was firmly #teamdon and now she's starting to see BOTH of them for who they really are.

.

want some sort of approval or recognition from Don since I thought she had moved on from viewing Don as a mentor, but I was happy to see how that scene played out. I was confused, but Don was trying to poach her answers for the sake of the speech he was writing for Roger, correct?

Because he never did. He really has her best interests at heart, he's just a dick and therefore it all comes out dickish.

i was surprised at peggys reaction.

but after she hit him with the uppercut I realized he was being an asshole

he did that w/2 other ppl i can't remember.

and he did come off dickish b/c Peggy was there asking for a formal job review and he was off in the woods asking her where she sees herself in the future and all that jazz. it WAS dickish b/c he completely ignored her request for a review b/c he was too preoccupied w/himself (having taken on Roger's request to write that speech). meanwhile she wanted the real review b/c she'd had a stellar year and wanted him to acknowledge it and write it up formally - that's something she could use going forward as she tries to make her way up to creative director.

but =(
~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

...rather than the questions he was thinking about. She wants a performance review, and he's in his office having a philosophical struggle about what the future holds and the true meaning of success. They have this conversation not that long after the realtor tells him his condo reeks over failure.

Now of course, Peggy can't read his mind, so it comes off as him shitting all over her.

~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

Yeah, she initially thought this was going to be a straightforward work conversation, not a "Don's feeling depressed and philosophical and wants someone to make it better" conversation.

She knew she wasn't gonna get what she wanted and she knew exactly why.

The most refreshing thing about their relationship.

.

She was really willing to send her kid away? For some dude she JUST met? Are you fucking kidding me!!!!????

smh

I'm SO disappointed in her. :(

It was easy to misinterpret. My wife said/thought the exact same thing after watching the scene, because Joan's delivery was sort of weird, but she was saying "You're a jack-ass for trying to make me choose between my kid and you."

He really wasn't trying to make her choose. She str8 up lied to him tho. That was kinda fucked up. He was very honest w/her. I don't get why she lied. - Oh and can we talk about the fact that she's working for Lou??????

WTF!

>He really wasn't trying to make her choose. She str8 up lied
>to him tho. That was kinda fucked up. He was very honest
>w/her. I don't get why she lied.

I guess she still saw the whole encounter as a fling, and figured she was never going to see/hear from him again once she left LA. And on some level she still looks at herself as young and beautiful, and believes have extra "baggage" prevents her from getting everything she wants. There's no way to know if dude would have reacted the same way if she told him off the bat that she was a single mother.

And I can't remember her exact phrasing, but I think she didn't actually say, "I don't have kids," she said something like, "I'm on my own and I love my job", with the context being that she wasn't married. So it was more of a lie by omission.

>Oh and can we talk about the fact that she's working for Lou??????
>
>WTF!

I don't think she's working for Lou per se. I think Lou is just the type of jack-ass who will always act like women are beneath him, even when the woman in question is a partner. She might end up being the one who gets him shit-canned, as she didn't seem happy that Lou was making pitches to Hanna Barbera on "company time."

>And I can't remember her exact phrasing, but I think she
>didn't actually say, "I don't have kids," she said something
>like, "I'm on my own and I love my job", with the context
>being that she wasn't married. So it was more of a lie by
>omission.

more of a politician style lie, but still a conscious deception lol

and it's true - after the McCann buyout she works b/c she loves her job not b/c she needs the money.

my immediate reaction was WTF? also. took me a second to realize she was just taking the piss.

I must've looked away for a couple minutes and missed something because I couldn't tell if Lou still worked for the firm, if she was in NY or LA, if this was some side job stuff or if she was just paying a visit?


~~~~~~~~~
"This is the streets, and I am the trap." � Jay Bilas
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/archive/contributor/517
Hip Hop Handbook: http://tinyurl.com/ll4kzz

cause i missed it....

Lou and her being partners....

with 5 episodes left

jesus

so we'll be like, "you know, in the end, Joan got her white picket fence" swoon

foh. this show has degraded the shit out of that character and to try and give her some love-dovey send off, again is lazy

she's right her parents are assholes

they have shown some growth but she wouldn't know it

and yeah i don't blame her for not wanting to be like them
~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

>she's right her parents are assholes
>
>they have shown some growth but she wouldn't know it
>
>and yeah i don't blame her for not wanting to be like them


I think that's true to a large extent for most teens as they grow out of childhood and take their parents of their pedestals and realize they are flawed people just like everyone else. Not saying that your interpretation isn't accurate, but I don't think it's unique to Sally's situation at all.

One small detail that I liked about that scene was that Don didn't wave back to Sally like the other parents were when she got on the bus. He coldly turned around and walked away when Sally got on the bus.

>>she's right her parents are assholes
>>
>>they have shown some growth but she wouldn't know it
>>
>>and yeah i don't blame her for not wanting to be like them
>
>
>I think that's true to a large extent for most teens as they
>grow out of childhood and take their parents of their
>pedestals and realize they are flawed people just like
>everyone else. Not saying that your interpretation isn't
>accurate, but I don't think it's unique to Sally's situation
>at all.
>
>One small detail that I liked about that scene was that Don
>didn't wave back to Sally like the other parents were when she
>got on the bus. He coldly turned around and walked away when
>Sally got on the bus.

because...hes an asshole
lol

thing is Sally has been doing this from get go
its not because she's a teen
i would have thought she might come to appreciate... something about her parents
but as a teen her lens is sharper than ever
and she's right
they are assholes
~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

But she definitely saw the truth about her parents as clear as night and day, while the rest of us were feeling bad for or cheering on these anti heroes aka Don and Betty (and we still do lol). For what she's been through, she didn't turn out too bad.

~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

Don was right in that SOMEONE would be willing to buy his place as empty and sad as it appeared.

the realtor was right in that showing the place in such empty and sad condition made it more difficult for her to find a buyer.

and most importantly the realtor was right that the place was empty and sad. and w/o saying it she said and Don saw that the apartment was a reflection of his life - great exterior ("the lobby is nice") but ultimately empty and sad.

I'm surprised he let her dog him out like that. Don was definitely more patient with her than I thought he'd be. I guess that's indicative of his general malaise.

So is that the last we see of Sally? After their interactions last season, I was hoping for more of an arc for her/Don/Betty. And poor Bobbie can't get but a few throwaway lines. Gene barely exists.

It's almost impossible to predict this show and why Weiner will choose to explore with the last episodes. I'm gonna miss it immensely for exactly that reason.

and asked for advise and made a fool of himself only to get fired

that shit was jokes

The looks on Pete and Peggy's faces were fucking VINTAGE Mad Men stuff. I rewound and rewatched that whole scene like 10x, was cracking up. Hilarious stuff.

"stop kidding yourself". as much as he made a fool of himself, the kid got some shots in on Don in the end. That, and the thing about Lee Garner got in Don's head.

"I can't believe you have the balls to come back" really was an all-pro level line that only Don and Roger could have pulled off

Speaking of Lee Garner, I wonder if we're gonna get a Sal update before the show is over.

what a joke lmao.

for a bunch of millionaires being absorbed into the industry leader, and being given the keys to the palace, they looked so sad.

a Coke ad will play into the ending regarding Don


>for a bunch of millionaires being absorbed into the industry
>leader, and being given the keys to the palace, they looked so
>sad.

---------
sig:
I got Chad in my heart and DJ Screw in my cup.

Twitter: @chuy_vuitton

Makes it feel like they were the underdog relative to these other agencies, and that adds to the dejected feeling.

Good to see Trudy again, and Ken really did give Roger what he deserved there. Cool to see Ken (likely) get that type of send off.

Don trying to calm the office staff to no avail was sobering. The magic is gone.

Kinda glad Diana was gone. Didn't want to wallow in that despair any longer.

Looks like next week's episode will me in progress of the move. Guessing the finale sees them all settled wherever the decide to do so. This episode really gave the people what they want, and it was wonderful to see. Reminded me of how captivating the show can be.

Oh, Peggy and Stan, best scene of the season so far. Shit was gripping.

>Don trying to calm the office staff to no avail was sobering.
>The magic is gone.


That scene, damn. The people at the top telling the people at the bottom don't worry everything will be fine. Everything is fine for them because they have money and power, everyone else (all the lower level people) have neither and could possibly be out of a job.

I don't know, maybe I'm reading it the wrong way, but that's how I felt with that closing scene.

The partners are losing a name, the rest of them may be losing their job.

and this time they're flat out being swallowed up by a bigger fish. combine that with, as you said, a few 1%ers who will be fine no matter what, telling them not to worry.

Especially with they way they sneakily handled the expiration of the office lease. Shady.

I wouldn't be surprised if McCann screws them over somehow. Like oh sorry, no Coca- Cola

They aren't as big, nor do they have the huge corporate clients that McCann and some other agencies they've mentioned have.

---------
sig:
I got Chad in my heart and DJ Screw in my cup.

Twitter: @chuy_vuitton

for as much as I hate Pete, I'm glad he snuffed dude

also happy they got back to addressing Peggy's baby

Don and Roger getting drunk and Megan's moma coming up was a nice little scene too

lastly, that scene when McCan is giving each there account and ignores/disses Joan was such a great scene

i lost it at that.

.

they teased us w/it when she was assigned to work w/those kids. i'm glad she tackled the subject head on. i had expected they wouldn't give us ANY closure related to the baby and i'm pleasantly surprised that they did. but w/o ridiculous sentimentality or some far-fetched situation where she and/or Pete seek and/or are awarded custody.

that was fitting and realistic, i think.

Better Call Saul-style.

We can have a new show set in the 1600's. backtabbing, intrigue, royalty, power, murder. It's like Game of Thrones, only it's all leading up to the creation of Pete Campbell.

.

massacre of glencoe.

of the past two or three seasons. In addition to what everyone else already said, it looks as if Don is losing something during these batch of episodes. Officially lost his marriage, his apartment and furniture, and now his original place of employment. Wonder what else will he lose during the next four episodes.

The Coca-Cola whisper was great.

Peggy & Pete scene was very good too. Not sure if this means anything but they were both wearing blue, sitting on a blue couch in front of a big blue picture during a scene with sad/bad news. I know nothing about set design or costume but that seemed to hit home with me.

There is no way that Ted's new girlfriend is Di(ana) the sad waitress is there? He said something about just running into her downtown and she is divorced, he also mentioned she has no kids, but we know she has no problem lying....

I noticed that the episode was directed by Jared Harris (Lane Pryce).

"bet you're not laughing now, are ya?"

If that's the last we see of that piece of shit that was a perfect sendoff. Just a totally clueless, classless, hilariously sarcastic call from him.

And he's probably too oblivious to be miserable when he doesn't get it.

Which is the greatest Pete line ever?

The line was perfect, the scene was perfect, his face was perfect, he delivered it perfectly, and the scene didn't need a subsequent sucker punch to finish it off.

One of the best unintentional humor moments in dramatic television history, IMO.

It starts off setting up all the possible legitimate reasons why Pete's daughter wouldn't be let into the school, but then reveals that it's happening because Pete's ancestors participated in the fricking Red Wedding. Which Pete is apparently aware of, and has the necessary response/retort prepared. And the scene ends with the sucker punch.

Both amazing, to be sure.

>Which Pete is apparently aware of, and has the necessary response/retort prepared.

Haha - yea. Thought of that too. Had to rewind to be sure I didn't miss something. Hilarious stuff.

.

I want to peep that on Youtube when I get home tonight. Hopefully I won't forget in the mad rush I'll be in to catch the remainder of the Bulls/Cavs game tonight, but reading that off the screen is funny enough.

I'll have to fire up Netflix when I have free time when I get home.

Was anyone cheering on Don, Roger, Pete and Joan to get their way? I know I wasn't. They treat all the employees (who are not partners) like trash.

those mccann folks are some big biz douchelords. i dont think any of the scdp folks could stand it there aside from harry crane.

- that shit w/ peggy skating while roger played the organ had me dying. such a great scene.
- bert got his final(?) sendoff
- peggy feeling like she was swagging into the mccann offices while for the rest of them it was just tuesday. dont think this will work out too well for her.
- joan need to just go be a housewife for ol boy.

i think it ends w/ don just saying fuck new york and never coming back.

>i could follow these characters forever man. this ep had everything

Yep yep yep. What an excellent episode. I'm still all set with the Diana stuff, though I do trust it will eventually pay off...but the rest of the episode was so over the top fantastic that shit didn't even bother me this time. Last 3 eps have been all timers.


>- that shit w/ peggy skating while roger played the organ had
>me dying. such a great scene.

Yep....but...


>- peggy feeling like she was swagging into the mccann offices
>while for the rest of them it was just tuesday. dont think
>this will work out too well for her.

^^^that part had me laughing even harder than the skating scene. Chick was just head in the clouds'ing into that joint, did not give a fuuuuuuck. Hilarious slow motion stuff.

Re: Don...yea that could be the case. He saw the plane and was like -- yep I gotta get outta dodge. Don't blame him. That ain't his scene. Thought he'd be making a pitch but now he's just another number in a bigger office. Not his style. Rog ain't gonna love that scene either.

Don did look out the window of his new office strangely...think Weiner is trying to play us re: the guy falling from the building stuff. I'd be disappointed if it really ended that way and don't think it will but he's definitely trying to play with our minds a bit with that stuff.

>>>>>>>>>>all of existence.

Roger always gets me laughing. Nice to see Peggy have a genuine fun moment again.
That Joan stuff is a huge bummer. Ferg is such a jackass. Ted Chough is like," F it,
I'm staying".
Don ain't having it, and California looks likely. Nice to hear him refer to Betty as "Birdie" again. Curious what next week brings with regards to Betty.

Great episode, though some of it was tough to watch because we root for these characters so much.

admiring him getting the hell outta there

>Roger always gets me laughing. Nice to see Peggy have a
>genuine fun moment again.
>That Joan stuff is a huge bummer. Ferg is such a jackass. Ted
>Chough is like," F it,
>I'm staying".
>Don ain't having it, and California looks likely. Nice to hear
>him refer to Betty as "Birdie" again. Curious what next week
>brings with regards to Betty.
>
>Great episode, though some of it was tough to watch because we
>root for these characters so much.

>
>admiring him getting the hell outta there

Yep. That was great. Ted knows he can handle that scene and even likes the lack of responsibility, while it's not Don's style at all.

>Don ain't having it, and California looks likely. Nice to hear
>him refer to Betty as "Birdie" again.

Glad that camp situation from season 5 or 6 or whenever it was allowed them to kinda come to a mutual understanding and get along. If that's their last scene together is was fucking perfect.

For the record, he's called her Birdie pretty much throughout, even post-divorce. Not often but for example, a season or two back when Sally was getting in trouble and fighting with Betty, Don called her Birdie throughout their conversation(s) trying to calm her down.

haven't had a ton of scenes together throughout the series but they play off eachother very, very well in the scenes they do have. I'm glad Weiner recognized that and allowed them one more (amazing) moment together.

awesome
~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

Peggy and Rodger shit was great

lol at Don going to dude's house looking for the broken bartender woman. At his core he's such a damn weirdo. Hubby called his ass out with a quickness too, hit him with that "ya need Jesus" shit in the affirmative.

that painting was really cool

Betty reading Freud, fitting

Because she's always ruled over there, but in any other context (here, her job at the department store, with clients,) she gets ZERO respect.

to when he blasted betty out for letting the salesman dude in their house.

For some reason as I was watching last nite, that whole situation felt familiar but I couldn't put a finger on it so I didn't think much about it. But yep - you nailed it.

and i remember thinking why are they so upset

the black folk i understood
but i was like Joan aren't you a millionaire?
oh...
OH
sunofabitch
~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

idk how i would've handled the blatant bs, gender discrimination, harassment and insults.

i was really sad to see her 'lose' this battle. and roger? geez. tells her to take the shitty offer, its the best they'll do. admits he effed up but damn, he's cold as fuck. i hope she gets as far away as possible from all of these ad execs. she deserves so much better.

if she comes back for the finale, i hope she gets SOME kind of justice.

Last night's episode was everything I want in a MM episode.

but it hit me then...it's almost over and i don't want it to end

~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

>Last night's episode was everything I want in a MM episode.

that storyline is pretty whack. but everything else. LOVE THIS SHOW. watched it from the beginning when it started, before everyone got on board. the writing is brilliant...the characters are so fascinating as are their interactions and personal/professional battles…the attention to detail and accuracy of depicting the different time periods…the different possible interpretations and outcomes that lead to lively discussions here and everywhere else. i could go on. Mad Men will be very missed.

when they put episodes like that together...the first one this half-season that reminded me what I'm going to miss. Beautiful television.

Everything is coming to an end.
----------------------------
Same as it ever was!

on the other hand, the research guy holding that meeting sounded like a Don clone

i wonder if that spurred Don's exit. b/c he didn't feel special since that meeting was filled w/creative directors AND there was another guy in there doing his type of pitch.

He can see the writing on the way.

Office funny guys are the worst.

this is all coming together too well for him. these things dont happen to pete.

Too good to be true.

and it's Duck, so who knows?

https://twitter.com/emptyframe/status/597628434861400064

Betty keeps climbing the stairs
while Don is sitting & waiting.
That says more about their characters
than words can describe.

(pulled this from Twitter...but I felt the same way).

when he gave that kid his car and sat on that bench in the middle of nowhere waiting for a bus to i dunno where w/nothing on him i figured it's a great time for him to start over.

he has no connections to anything - oh, i guess he owns a condo in NYC, maybe. but otherwise he has no job, no marriage, no ongoing spousal-support obligation (Megan took a cash payout which i assume came w/o further obligation), no ongoing child-support obligation (b/c Betty has custody and she's married). he has no extended family (Anna Draper is dead and Dick Whitmore's brother is dead). as long as he can access that Don Draper savings account at whatever bank is holding his money he's all good. he can become anyone. he doesn't have to be Don Draper anymore. i wonder if he'll continue w/that identity.

We'll have to see how much they mean to him, especially with the Betty news. I can't see him just bouncing on the out to Cali or wherever. I'm hoping he heads back to NY, finds a humble new job/career, and starts his hustle again. This show is so hard to predict.

Part of me wants to see a final episode all about Don, no other character appearances. Don on the road back home. Seemed important that he finally dropped the truth about Korea on the other vets. Another weight off his shoulders. The only big question is whether he gets the Betty news and how it affects his path?

>The only big
>question is whether he gets the Betty news and how it affects
>his path?

yup.

that news is the only issue standing between him and a new life as whomever he wants.

in how Betty was refusing to get help and try to improve her situation. I suppose ultimately it's her decision as to what she want to do, but she was very cold in how she dealt with them in terms of how handling her cancer. Betty almost literally gave Sally the cold shoulder when she walked past her in that kitchen scene. Heartbreaking stuff all around, especially in regards to Betty's letter to Sally.

when she decided not to undergo treatment that would likely have extended her life for 'only' 9 months to a year. she raised a valid question - what quality of life could she have during that year? and how hard would it have been on Sally and Henry, et al to watch her demise during that time? w/that i can understand her desire to just let the disease run its course w/o drastic intervention.

maybe she's selfish for deciding not to have the treatment. and maybe her family is selfish for wanting her to endure that treatment.

since she's the one dying i think the family should put their desires aside and focus on her. but that's easily said when i don't have any kids or spouse.

out of having any meaningful conversation on her decision is probably what made me feel for them the most. Like they were both forced to have to put up with her and her decision and have no dialog at all on the matter.

I'm glad she's at least in a place that makes her happy. She might only have a year left, but at least she's doing something she wants to do.

The Flip Wilson Show

I've needed those things for the second half of this season to sometimes remind of me the times. The McCann offices REALLY say the 70s.

million dollar personal, check to the ex in 1970... no problem.

company getting bought out... *shrug*

casually walk out of the meeting at your new job in front of everyone, because, fuck this... and i feel like taking a road trip. maybe i'll look for the waitress i fucked in the alley that time...

small town adventure, get drunk, hustled, beat up, give your car away to the dude who hustled you, and sit on a bench smiling on the middle of nowhere, because, what's the problem?

shit, man.

like we think is coming

he's just a drifter in a suite who happened to fall into some traumatic luck and got paid through his military white man hard work

is he lost? maybe... lonely? mos def... bored? absolutely, but aren't we all. we just don't got stacks to say fuck it i'm'a just wander through my nihilistic existential crises.

he's going to be banned from advertising after this little turn playing Jack Kerouac.

he already said bye to betty so will he even be back for the funeral? will he even find out? it's not like someone can send him a text about it.

Maybe this is how he figures it all out...

but with Betty dying, he might need to step up and take the boys. Sally is good but they'll need their father unless other dude is planning on raising them.

He'll get bored, walk around entitled and start fucking around again. Trudy shouldn't have fell for it.

Tell's McCann he's bouncing and loses the $1m
Learjet falls through somehow or Duck fucks Pete over or both
Pete ends up taking the dive

jmo

Duck is just too imbalanced to trust. I mean not a single offer was made by the LearJet guy.

I dunno if the writers will actually truly do the opening credits jump thing (I always thought it was Roger) but I really don't think Pete's gonna end the series on that big a high. Would be shocked if he did.

And we've been conned into believing the show's about Don. Don's just the con man who got in the door; the show's really about the fall of the old mores, and no one is more emblematic of that than the guy who used to introduce himself as Peter Dyckman Campbell.

he's seen how everyone around him has fallen. he's always tried to be a new don. now he can just be Pete.

plus Wichita has a lot less temptation.

he has the same pedigree, works magic with accounts the way Roger did in the beginning. I don't totally buy him giving all that up for Wichita, even if it does mean private jets.


but IDK. part of me is just bitter the show is ending and I have to accept I'm done learning about any of these people.



~~~~~~~~~
"This is the streets, and I am the trap." � Jay Bilas
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/archive/contributor/517
Hip Hop Handbook: http://tinyurl.com/ll4kzz

Is driving him to be so nice and insightful towards Trudy. I was disappointed that she fell for it (again). There's hoes everywhere, even in boring ass Wichita.

He hasn't been running around lately. I think he got caught up w/his new options once he got into his new position. It's all old news now, tho. He realizes having a woman like Trudy on your team is worth all the hoes in the world.

he's been giving those longing looks to his fam all season and you can tell he wasn't feeling the bachelor life...he thought that's what he wanted but it isn't. that was just young Pete trying to be what he thought he was supposed to be...basically trying to be Don.

I really hope this show doesn't pull an okie doke on Pete. Even though he's continually won career wise he has taken so many L's on this show on a personal level. I'd like him to finish with a W.

Maybe she'll get her happy ending...?

I mean, his kids, Betty, etc, can fit in as needed.

But I think they could and should make the finale Don-centric.

I'm good with leaving the rest of the characters where they are.

I'm sure they won't do this, but it would be fine with me.

I got sucked in til like 2am last nite and can't wait to get outta here to go watch more. May skip a wedding this weekend just to watch.

>I got sucked in til like 2am last nite and can't wait to get
>outta here to go watch more. May skip a wedding this weekend
>just to watch.

with my old roommate, who I started watching this show with back in like 2009, and we were reminiscing about all these old storylines. How obvious it should've been to us that Stan was gay, how miserable Betty was from day 1 but how good a face she put on cause that's just what folks did, etc. Wild shit.

Anyway I had to leave to pick up my fiance from the airport and was like 20 minutes late cause I was stuck in the middle of the Pete pitching copy situation which is one of my all time favorite array of scenes. Roger handled that flawlessly. Kept texting her like "sorry babe. traffic" while watching Pete get lit up.

.

when Don was a kid and the grifter kept correcting his language. Dick said something like "you don't SOUND like a hobo..."


~~~~~~~~~
"This is the streets, and I am the trap." � Jay Bilas
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/archive/contributor/517
Hip Hop Handbook: http://tinyurl.com/ll4kzz

Is Gene and Jax's son the same actor?
If so, how does this kid get high end bookings with such horrible acting?

I came here to post that
I saw him a few eps ago and was like nah it cant be
But this ep proved it
It was like seeing my worst enemy come back from the dead

>It was like seeing my worst enemy come back from the dead
>
^^^ hilarious

>It was like seeing my worst enemy come back from the dead
>

it almost ruined the scene for me.

.

i was looking at him like "damn where do i know this demon child from???"

They're twins. And neither one can act. Oh and their manager dad sounds like a dick

http://www.people.com/article/jax-son-abel-twins-evan-ryder-londo

Folks have that coke jingle in their heads for the night lol
~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

Loved it.
I can't even describe why I loved it so much.

my man took that epiphany and inner peace and went back and made a coke ad out of it. cant change a tigers stripes. that's such a don move.

imma miss seeing don do his thing.

>my man took that epiphany and inner peace and went back and
>made a coke ad out of it. cant change a tigers stripes. that's
>such a don move.
>
>imma miss seeing don do his thing.

that's a solid interpretation of that final scene

The ideas were fine, the execution just seemed a bit... off.

And honestly, though I was fine with most of the "endings" the characters received, I feel like most got better endings in other episode.

I would have been great with the final shot of Peggy have been with the sunglasses and the cigarette and the octopus porn, rather than her finding true love as a copy writer with Stan. She should have joined with Joan.

I was fine with Joan striking off on her own. Her sugar daddy wasn't shit, although the scene with both of them high on blow was hilarious. I also liked her accurate appraisal of her exes' character.

I can live with Roger's end, though I really never needed to see any member of the Calvett family ever again.

Everything we saw with Pete was redundant with what we saw last week.

The final Betty and Sally shot was great, but also sort of redundant. I guess if they decided not to do a time jump, a convo with Betty and Don was sort of necessary.

And Don was... Don. I guess him finally achieving inner-peace (and then possibly turning it into a Coke commercial) was good. But, again, I would have been just as happy with the last we see of him sitting on the bus bench having given up his car. I will say that the one essential thing that this episode provided was a final conversation with Don and Peggy. That whole scene was great.

Finally, I like Brett Gellman as an actor a lot, but we didn't need that much of him. Particularly him naked sitting on a lawnchair.

Otherwise... eh, I guess it was fine. If I'm being honest, this last half a season wasn't really necessary, and the whole thing could have ended with Bert's ghost singing to Don that money doesn't matter, or even Don and Peggy slow dancing. Got some good drama for seven more episodes of a great show, but nothing essential.

.

For Joan the idea of doing something where "you're your own boss" is everything. She's finally in a place that the work she does won't get discarded by a man who didn't appreciate what she's done (like Jaguar or how she was treated upon coming to McCann.)

Peggy doesn't have a problem with that at McCann. She can handle herself fine, and as her agent or whatever told her, you can do a few years at McCann and then do anything you want. She's already in control of her destiny.

Could have been better done. But there were some GREAT moments in this episode.

The setups for the final goodbyes were well setup:

The mystery of Don's life possibly heading out of control after his conversation with Betty. Would the series really end with Don falling and killing himself?

The karma of Don being either shut out of his family - Betty and Sally - or emotionally abandoned by Anna.

Then Peggy and Stan's conversation about the opportunity to work for Joan and Peggy throwing Stan's contentment with his life back in his face.

Then the moments with Don finally opening up and loving the man whose life was a mirror of Don's. It wasn't clear what Don's issue truly was but he did just want people to pay attention to his deep wounds. The career and the sleeping around were just poor ways to soothe that wound.

Joan letting the guy who seemed like the perfect match for her leave and letting the only man who truly was her equal, Roger, man up and care for their child. As much as her identity was of the old generation's of manipulating a man's amoral attitudes towards women for her advantage ahe was able to understand she didn't need a man for her happiness. Very modern of her.

Peggy finally did meet her equal with Stan. And despite her identity as a modern woman she realized that she was more traditional then the woman she projected.

I still don't know what to make of Sally. It isn't clear if she is going to be alright after the stress of basically caretaking her family and in many ways being the adult while her parent aren't able to attend to her.

But I think Don goes back to NYC, makes things right with his family and makes the pitch for Coke.

That generation was able to connect counter culture issues like the peace movement to consumers so his pitch does make sense in that regard and since those retreats really are meant for self actualization it does make sense that Don would see that. Although most people don't usually find self-actualization by making millions of dollars. ;)

But yeah, the final good byes were.... awkward but goodbyes in real life usually are.

Episode was solid, I really didn't know where is was going with Don. That's appropriate though since this series in general has been impossible to predict.

Betty and Sally scene just made me sad.

Got a good chuckle from Roger when he called out to Kevin with no response. Classic.

Peggy got a great end, as did Joan. It was all actually "happier" than I thought it would be. But I guess it worked because I'm cool with it.

The ambiguous ending of Don's story is a bit annoying, but that smirk he had was dope.

Such a great show, it's one I'll be able to watch for years because of the fantastic writing. Helluva run. Just wish we had more Betty/Don interaction over the past few seasons. That pairing just worked from the get-go. Oh well.

All that despondency and spiraling. This big exisential crisis. Then finds inner peace. Then goes back to McCann to do coke ads. Lol

I guess.


----------------------------
Same as it ever was!

His strength as an advertiser has always been his ability to empathize with people and sell them what they really want. After his life fell apart, and the money and products he thought would bring him happiness weren't enough, being another company guy grew tiresome for him and he had no idea what he was selling. By finding that inner peace, he now can empathize with the existential crises people go through and what they need to be happy, and can use that to be a better advertiser.

Don finally overcame his own issues which enabled him to land the Moby Dick he's been chasing his whole career. It's more believable than him attaining that peace and then repenting for his career of misleading people while making his children vegan pancakes in sunny California two times a month. He filled the hole in his life, and now, after making a huge breakthrough in the advertising industry, he can happily go back to doing what he does best.

I was very impressed and surprised with the finale. Without that Coke ad it would have been too Hollywood for me.

I took the ending is just that he finally found his inner peace.

But I will say that if Weiner meant to infer that the whole experience inspired him to write the perfect add for Coke, it would be true to the series. The point that this series has hammered OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER again is the people, particularly Don, don't change. And the Don Draper of seasons 1 through 6 would channel what happened to him into an advertisement.

I prefer to think he found inner peace and leave it at that.

There were enough clues to think it was

The girl with the pig tails at the front desk, guy in the white shirt blousy shirt, etc....pretty much confirmed it for me

Moving to Empire?

Or just going to start DVR's General Hosptial?

She could've had the life. Traveling around, spending money, seeing the world and snorting up all it had to offer. The one thing that seemed to be keeping her from happiness (her son) is going to be financially taken care of without her having to lift a finger. And it's not like she didn't bust her ass and earn a life of luxury.

But that couldn't top the allure of having REAL control in a business. The more I think about it, the more it makes sense for her to go off on her own, shirking anyone else from the old days (including Peggy.) Can't say I pictured her producing industrial films in the 1970's, but as long as her name (both of them) is on the door, it doesn't really matter.

Something about making that hard choice that I REALLY like.

Don sitting on the bus bench would have been hallow but this.. this is a man finally piecing together two halves of himself

Not sure why people think just because Don went back to make that ad means he hasn't learned anything or changed. I see this more as him realizing who he is and can be without throwing away his talent and career. Stephanie says something to him about them not even being family.. I think the conversation with Peggy later plays on this same theme with him seeing he still has 'family' that care and think about him back in NY.

I don't know it was just perfect as hell for me.

>Don sitting on the bus bench would have been hallow but
>this.. this is a man finally piecing together two halves of
>himself
>
>Not sure why people think just because Don went back to make
>that ad means he hasn't learned anything or changed. I see
>this more as him realizing who he is and can be without
>throwing away his talent and career. Stephanie says something
>to him about them not even being family.. I think the
>conversation with Peggy later plays on this same theme with
>him seeing he still has 'family' that care and think about him
>back in NY.
>
>I don't know it was just perfect as hell for me.

McCann-Erickson.

The writers spent two episodes spelling how terrible the place is for creative types. And now after all this enlightment the great don draper is going back to do coca cola. He had to find himself to do what he was already good at?

----------------------------
Same as it ever was!

I see it more as the problem was always Don more than external forces.

>I see it more as the problem was always Don more than
>external forces.

But I think that place had a lot to do with it. Don fought against working there for years. Only reason he ended up there is because they had no choice. Even in this ep he spoke of it in past tense. He was "retired".
----------------------------
Same as it ever was!

http://www.vulture.com/2015/05/mad-men-recap-season-7-episode-14.html?_ga=1.166858750.1327648215.1431463334

By Matt Zoller Seitz

“Be open to this,” Anna Draper’s niece Stephanie tells Don in “Person to Person” when they check into a proto–New Age facility in Northern California. “You might feel better.”

She’s responding to Don’s reflexive sneering at class names on a handout: “Psychotechnics,” “Anxiety and Tension Control,” “Divorce: A Creative Experience.” She’s right to push back against Don’s sourness, because those last two topics, maybe all three, sound like they might do a fellow like Don some good. And by the time we get to Don’s final close-up — a slow dolly into his meditating face as he smiles, capped by the sound of a bell — it appears that he’s on the road to accepting them. He’s open to the possibilities.

I started my final recap with this seemingly minor scene between Stephanie and Don because I’ve been reading descriptions of Mad Men’s last few minutes — a meditation followed by a Coke ad — as “cynical,” confirmation that all Don really learned in season seven, and at the retreat in particular, was how to hug and get his job back.

I couldn’t disagree more strongly. I think the optimism is sincere, bordering on maudlin. The whole episode fits that description. The Coke ad — a Madison Avenue incantation insisting that the momentary happiness of soda is the Real Thing — undercuts this a bit, because it’s ironic and funny, and consistent with the rest of Mad Men. The co-opting of the counterculture has been a theme throughout the show’s run, starting with the beatniks and continuing through the hippies and beyond.

But still, even though “Person to Person” has many wrenching scenes, and much of the action takes place in New York in October, it’s as sunny as the Northern California coast.

The Coke ad at the end is funny and ironic. It packages hippie sensibilities for a TV commercial, and Don starts the series selling cigarettes and ends selling stomach-and-tooth-rotting soda. But the tone of that ad is uncharacteristic of Don, whose most striking campaigns tended to have a melancholy, self-aware vibe, bordering on meta. The Coke ad is all about making the viewer feel good. It’s a Pollyanna-ish ad that befits a smiley-faced episode. I don’t have a problem with that. These characters have made mistakes and learned from them while remaining the same flawed people they always were. Any happiness they receive in this finale isn’t an unmotivated, unrealistic, out-of-nowhere gift. They worked for it.

Sally goes home from school and helps her dying mother raise her siblings. Betty has only a few months left and looks ashen and weak, but manages to arrange for her children to be taken care of in strict accordance with her wishes, a major victory for a woman whose desires were second-guessed and undermined throughout the show’s run.

Joan gets a commission from Ken to produce an industrial film, breaks up with Richard because he’s jealous of the time she’d spend on her new career, and starts her own production company. She’s last seen working out of her home with her mom babysitting Kevin, Joan’s child by Roger.

Roger had stopped by earlier to tell her he was leaving part of his estate to Kevin to make sure he would always be taken care of. Our last glimpse of Roger finds him in a Quebec café with his new wife, Marie, the mother of Don’s ex-wife Megan and Roger’s first age-appropriate partner since Mona. (They both have wedding rings.)

Pete is seen crossing airport tarmac with Trudy and their daughter to board a Learjet and start a new life in Wichita. Pete’s parting scene with Peggy finds him expressing total confidence in her (“Someday people are going to brag that they used to work with you”) and admitting that nobody ever said anything like that to him (an extraordinarily generous thing to say when you think back on insecure, ambitious, treacherous young Pete, who saw Peggy dancing with co-workers after her first writing job and said, “I don’t like you like this.”) In the penultimate episode, we’d seen the lifelong brat and serial cheater begging Trudy to take him back, and convincing his brother not to cheat on his wife.

Peggy, who never got any closure on her promising date with Stevie in “Severance," practically stumbles into a mutual declaration of love with her co-worker Stan, in one of the most shameless and satisfying examples of fan service I can recall. (“All I want to do is be with you,” Stan tells her.) The most beautiful thing about this pairing is that Peggy, unlike Joan, won’t have to choose work over love. Peggy loves her work, her boyfriend is turned on by her creativity, and they share an office. Our last image of Peggy finds her banging away on her Selectric while her artist lover rubs her shoulders. Writer heaven.

Series creator Matthew Weiner, who wrote and directed the finale and directed and co-wrote last week’s “The Milk and Honey Route” (which to me feels like Part 1 to this week’s Part 2), is not a cynical artist. He’s skeptical about a good many things, and he’s put his characters through the wringer, not just by inflicting great distress upon them but by never taking anything they do or say at face value. In the end, though, Mad Men is ultimately a more hopeful series than The Sopranos, the last drama Weiner worked on, in that while The Sopranos seemed to think that people could change profoundly but usually didn’t because it was just too hard, Mad Men shows people changing all the time, sometimes deliberately but more often incidentally, shifting out of one mode and into another and back again, while never suggesting that a particular mode is the “true” version of that character, or that any of them should be condemned for all time for making a rotten choice. (Stephanie, like Don, lives in terror of being judged. Like Don, she’s not temperamentally suited to being a parent, and when somebody does judge her she flees, and here she makes a choice that seems as self-defeating for her as going back to New York and fighting for custody of his children would’ve been for Don.)

Don told his half-brother Adam Whitman in season one’s “5G” that “My life only moves in one direction: forward.” This was one of many examples of Don, formerly Dick Whitman, narrativize-ing his life to make a meandering and often half-conscious journey seem deliberate, and a conflicted, messy, often destructive and self-destructive personality seem cool and controlled. I don’t think it’s an accident that Don’s progress in season seven divests him of all outward signifiers of “Donald Draper,” including both his wives, his children, his apartment, his job, and, at the end, his car and his suit. (He’s carrying his belongings around in a JC Penney bag.) Nor do I think it’s incidental that Don’s most intense scenes in the last few episodes have revolved around deep, dark confessions to friends and strangers. Last week he told fellow veterans at a V.F.W. meeting about how he accidentally killed his commanding officer in Korea. In this episode, his phone call to Peggy peaked with a list of admissions that might as well have started with “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.” “I broke my vows. I scandalized my child. I took another man’s name and made nothing of it.”

“That’s not true,” Peggy says, replying to that last one. She would know. She’s Exhibit A. Don was her mentor and she’s still applying lessons he taught her, including the fine art of bluff-calling-as-brinksmanship.

One of the most discussed episodes of The Sopranos’ final season was “Kennedy and Heidi," in which Tony Soprano went on a dreamlike trip to Las Vegas, took peyote, and stood on a hilltop shouting, “I get it!” He didn’t get anything. But I think Don, who ends “Person to Person” on a hilltop looking inward just like Tony, does get it.

What does he get? A (possible) answer can be found in two other scenes at the retreat.

One is Don’s phone call to Peggy, which sounds very much like an addict making amends for past misdeeds in the early stages of recovery. ("Person to person" is how Don calls Peggy and Betty long distance.)

The other is the refrigerator monologue by a fellow retreat member, Leonard (Evan Arnold: remember his name). It’s about feeling unloved and invisible, so much so that you retreat within yourself and fail to recognize that, in their awkward and often messed-up way, people are trying to reach out to you, and “you don’t even know what that is.”

Don’s moment of clarity, such as it is, occurs here. He stands up from his chair in a medium shot, and over his shoulder we see a painting of an opened flower; slightly abstracted, it suggests a sunburst. Then he embraces Arnold, as a young child might embrace a family member in distress: reflexively and without any ulterior motive. Don has nothing to gain from doing such a thing. Don is a man who, throughout the show’s run, treated the expression of emotion as a sign of weakness, unless he was so bereft (or drunk; the two were usually connected) that he couldn’t control himself in that way any longer. Think of how many times Don responded to other characters’ tears with “Stop” or “Get a hold of yourself,” and then practically ordered them to drink.

But maybe it’s not Don who’s embracing a stranger. It’s Don plus Dick Whitman, a name Don has used in the last few episodes, with surprising ease.

Maybe what we’re seeing here is the reconciliation of Don Draper and Dick Whitman.

Throughout the episode, you hear what sounds like two people talking: Don and Dick. Dick realizes Betty is right to say that he’s never been that involved and has spent the last few months on the other side of the country (racing cars!), and stays put.

Don tries to stop Stephanie from going back to L.A. for her son by warning her not to be guilt-tripped. “Don’t listen to them. You weren’t raised with Jesus. You don’t know what happens to people when they believe in things.” Seconds later he’s offering to move to L.A. to help support her. That’s Dick. Don wants to go back to New York and fight for custody of his kids, even though he’s at best third in line for that privilege. The two sides are in conflict throughout the show’s run; the battle was what many episodes were about, especially “Kennedy vs. Nixon,” whose title used the public identities of presidents as metaphors for the warring aspects of Don’s personality.

Which brings us back to “I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke,” one of the most famous ads ever made. I don’t object to the idea that we’re supposed to come away from “Person to Person” thinking Don left California and went back to McCann with a great idea. This isn’t the end of The Sopranos. All the pieces actually do fit.

But with apologies to Peggy Lee, that’s not all there is.

As presented, I think it’s fairly clear that the Coke ad is Don’s. But the idea might have come from Dick Whitman.

“Look at yourself,” Don told a model in the first scene of the mid-season premiere, “Severance.” “You like what you see.” As is often the case with Don, he was talking to somebody else but also talking to himself, in ways he couldn’t realize because Don is an emotionally constipated man who makes fun of psychiatry and self-help and generally resists looking inward. The Don we see on the hilltop is a man who seems to be making a dedicated effort to look at himself (actually into himself, through meditation and group therapy) so that he can one day like what he sees. The title of the mid-season premiere, “Severance,” describes the slow rupture that’s separated old Don from new Don throughout the back half of season seven. (The process actually began in the first half, but toward the end it accelerated.) This is a man who still has some of his old bad habits (smoking, excessive drinking, sex addiction, running away from problems) but has displayed more contrition and self-control than we’ve ever seen, and has made a number of grand gestures that were more about making other people happy than protecting himself (such as that huge check he wrote to Megan).

That Coke ad was born in January 1971, less than three months after the events depicted in “Person to Person.” It was developed at McCann, the agency Don fled, by an executive named Bill Backer (sounds like Don Draper). He got the idea when his plane was stranded in Ireland en route to meet Coca-Cola music director Billy Davis and Davis’s co-songwriters Roger Cook and Roger Greenaway. Backer saw other stranded passengers killing time by chatting over bottles of Coke. Upon arriving in London, Backer told the music team about his epiphany, and they got out an old tape of a song they’d started working on a year earlier, turned it into the now-famous jingle and shipped it to radio stations in February, and it became so popular that it became a TV spot that fall.

Don is staying at a facility that seems modeled on the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California, and he’s stranded there, just like Backer was stranded in Ireland. Among other things, Big Sur hosted folk festivals; a documentary of 1969 edition, featuring musicians from Woodstock, was released as a feature film in 1971. To top it all off, if you watch the ad you’ll see a hippie chick with pigtails tied by red ribbons who looks just like the young woman who tells Don he’s stuck at the institute.

Beyond that, it’s not a huge intuitive leap to expect that the Coke ad would come into play during the final season. Even if you didn’t know exactly when it was created, Weiner has repeatedly shown McCann boss Jim Hobart trying to tantalize Don with promises of Coca-Cola. The first such instance can be found in season one’s “Shoot.” And the show has a history of borrowing or outright appropriating real-world campaigns, starting with season one’s “Lucky Strike: It’s Toasted,” from 1917.

It’s possible that Peggy, herself a McCann employee, created that ad, maybe with input from Joan, whose son is pictured watching Sesame Street, which was filled with sing-alongs that had a Coca-Cola hilltop feeling. But the dollying in to Don’s face followed by a ringing bell and then the ad — plus the fact that Weiner came to Mad Men from The Sopranos, and has indicated in interviews that this show’s ending wouldn’t be like that one’s — makes me think that in this case, the most obvious answer is right.

The next question isn’t what does it mean, but how does it feel?

It feels warm and hopeful.

That’s why I can’t accept that the Coke ad’s use is purely cynical — that it’s snickering at the viewer by suggesting that Don learned nothing from any of his life experiences, much less the last half of season seven, and that he eventually went back to New York and strip-mined the remains of the counterculture and California-style self help in order to sell cola.

That can’t be all there is. It would be out-of-character for a series whose stories, characters and themes were never about just one thing.

Try to be open to this:

Mad Men is the story of a lot of complex, often infuriating characters whose individual stories are all reflected and refracted through the show’s hero. The hero is a man who keeps running away from himself instead of looking inward to try to figure out why he runs. The hero is a man who was abandoned over and over throughout his life. He felt unloved even when he was loved dearly (just like the refrigerator monologist), and spent much of his adult life seeking perverted facsimiles of love, then abusing and betraying the people who gave him real love, because he was so damaged that he couldn’t recognize love as love. He kept thinking about killing himself and then not doing it. He kept blowing up his life whenever it got to be too much and building a new life in the rubble. He kept running away and ending up back where he started because he only liked the beginnings, with their new car smell. He loudly proclaimed that love doesn’t exist and money can buy happiness and you can forget anything and move on. He told himself life was about moving forward and never looking back. He eventually figured out that, as Dick Whitman’s own stepmother said in “The Hobo Code,” life is a horseshoe: “Fat in the middle, open on both ends, and hard all the way through.”

The man described above is Don Draper, and he's Dick Whitman. Both are seeking what the hero described in his Lucky Strikes pitch in the pilot episode, “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.” He justified an essentially meaningless phrase by saying that all advertising came back to the desire to fill a void and assuage feelings of unhappiness. “A sign on the side of the road screams with reassurance that whatever you’re doing is okay,” Don concludes. “You are okay.”

See also I’m OK, You’re OK by Thomas Harris (no, the other one), which was published in 1969 and became an international bestseller in 1972. It’s a book derived from transactional analysis, which holds that “’Happy childhood’ notwithstanding, most of us are living out the not okay feelings of a defenseless child, dependent on okay others (parents) for stroking and caring. At some stage early in our lives we adopt a ‘position’ about ourselves and others that determines how we feel about everything we do.”

Person to person, indeed.

By the final few minutes of Mad Men’s last episode, I think the hero has started to become okay. He’s begun to reinvent himself one more time, not as yet another discretely defined (false) person, but as the two men he always was, in “perfect harmony,” as the Coke ad says. And maybe he’s started to detach from the “positions” on himself that were formed in childhood, and cemented when he didn’t get off that train at his hometown stop in 1950.

That smile wasn’t just about having a clever idea for an ad. It was the real thing.

He may not always be nice. Maybe he’ll win his daughter’s love back, maybe he won’t. Making ads makes him happy, so he’ll go back to making ads. But he’ll be Don Draper and Dick Whitman, and all stops in between, and he’ll be okay, and so will Peggy and Stan and Joan and Roger and Marie and Sally. Life is a horseshoe, but you can be okay.

We got a lot of generally positive closure (minus Betty), and at the same time, if this weren't the finale, it could continue, which is the beauty of this final episode.

Some of my favorite highlights:

- Roger telling Joan that he's marrying Marie " “I met her through Megan Draper,” he tells Joan. “She’s old enough to be her mother. Actually she is her mother.”

- Betty and Don's tear-jerking phone call. The way he said Birdie...felt like all his regret, guilt and sorrow packed into that one word. Too bad he couldn't bring himself to change his ways, treat it like a new day and REALLY take care of his kids.

- Joan kicking that old sugar daddy to the curb. He was full of hang ups and negativity. Good for her. I liked seeing her taking control of her destiny; too bad Pegs wasn't down for a Harris Olsen joint venture.

- Peggy and Stan's surprising love for one another. That took me by surprise. When Peggy said she never thought of him before, I thought "damn, that's cold!" But then she somehow comes to the realization that she likes him. Crazy. I don't know if she really is in love with Stan but they make a great pair and Stan is good for her feisty ass.

- When Don calls Peggy and they have another great heart to heart. How she tells him nothing he's done could be that bad. She helped him confess his "sins" and get beyond it imp. Then that group hippie therapy thing, miraculously, brought his actualization out aka gave his life as Don Draper new purpose. (I'll admit That Coke commercial almost went over my head with his last meditating smirk. Lol.) sure beats a sad/bad ending that some predicted.

>- Peggy and Stan's surprising love for one another. That took me by >surprise. When Peggy said she never thought of him before, I thought >"damn, that's cold!" But then she somehow comes to the realization >that she likes him. Crazy. I don't know if she really is in love >with Stan but they make a great pair and Stan is good for her feisty >ass.

That was the most forced/fan-servicing part of the whole episode! I saw that coming a mile away and thought they did a terrible job of making it in any way organic or natural. They foreshadowed their growing feelings for eachother for several seasons now but never "went there." I wish they had found a less "rom-com" way to do it. But seriously, that was the least surprising thing the show ever did I think haha.

>That was the most forced/fan-servicing part of the whole
>episode! I saw that coming a mile away and thought they did a
>terrible job of making it in any way organic or natural. They
>foreshadowed their growing feelings for eachother for several
>seasons now but never "went there." I wish they had found a
>less "rom-com" way to do it. But seriously, that was the least
>surprising thing the show ever did I think haha.

I know they kind of had something going on int he past but I figured she was over him.

I agree though, it was very rom-com and corny when she "realized" she loved him...how Stan was no longer on the other line, but he shows up at her door on cue. LOL. Not really that signature Mad Men style of writing there.

>I agree though, it was very rom-com and corny when she
>"realized" she loved him...how Stan was no longer on the other
>line, but he shows up at her door on cue. LOL. Not really that
>signature Mad Men style of writing there.

Haha yea exactly. I was super disappointed in that whole thing. I mean any love situation with Peggy was gonna be awkward by nature, but still the writing was pretty lazy there I thought.

>I agree though, it was very rom-com and corny when she
>"realized" she loved him...how Stan was no longer on the other
>line, but he shows up at her door on cue. LOL. Not really that
>signature Mad Men style of writing there.

I guess I should watch the scene again (and I don't really want to), but it felt as if Peggy 'loved' Stan mainly because he confessed his love for her first, almost like it was a matter of convenience if that makes sense and not something she truly felt within herself. Also, it almost felt like she was downloading her love for Stan via wifi as that conversation was going on instead of something she truly felt organically. Dunno if that makes the situation unrealistic or realistic, but it wasn't engaging to me in the least.

Felt totally inorganic. I was cringing the entire time.

>I guess I should watch the scene again (and I don't really
>want to), but it felt as if Peggy 'loved' Stan mainly because
>he confessed his love for her first, almost like it was a
>matter of convenience if that makes sense and not something
>she truly felt within herself. Also, it almost felt like she
>was downloading her love for Stan via wifi as that
>conversation was going on instead of something she truly felt
>organically. Dunno if that makes the situation unrealistic or
>realistic, but it wasn't engaging to me in the least.
>

You pretty much summed it up..it seemed like she didn't want to leave him hanging.
Before that scene, she was still wondering if there was more out there besides McCann Erickson. What about that? Stan just eroded her ambitions? Lol

their interactions were just way too intimate.

i figured at this point they'd avoided it for so long that it'd just never happen. that's why the way it went down was just corny as fuck to me.

>their interactions were just way too intimate.

"intimate" like in a brother-sister way or puppy love kind of way. she was not even looking at him like that.

I started to piece it together once Peggy mentioned Coke to Don during the phone call. Thought back to him working on the coke machine and then him being surrounded by hippies.. I was hoping that was going to be the pay off and it was. But calling it way back when you did is pretty impressive.

after coming to terms with his true identity of Dick Whitman (the real him/thing)

and then fade to black


>I started to piece it together once Peggy mentioned Coke to
>Don during the phone call. Thought back to him working on the
>coke machine and then him being surrounded by hippies.. I was
>hoping that was going to be the pay off and it was. But
>calling it way back when you did is pretty impressive.
>

.

>

In that episode where they all come to McCann and are being given there ..duties...so to speak, Hobart dangles Coca-Cola in front of Don as his client.

All seasons long, his existential crisis have been because of the abuse of his past and the anxiety of hiding his true identity,

I felt that Weiner was again trolling like the Hershey pitch breakdown/catharsis, he would do it again...and this time used as a positive, exposing himself as Dick, the real thing..and using that as the idea of calling Coke: The Real Thing tag that was used back then.

He'd come clean, make a great ad/saying by coming clean and not have it be a disaster like Hershey, and ride off into the sunset, as himself, to live life without the fear anymore of anyone having to find out who he was and relieving himself of his past/upbringing, that was the cause for his foibles.

It was a great finale. That's all I got.