"Mad Men" -- *Final* Season Official Thread (possible spoilers) (part 2)

No I agree with you, Don seems to be thinking along those lines. The next deal, then what? Another, bigger deal, and then? Retire and cook a pop tart? Is that all there is?

I've been feeling the presence of David Chase in these first 3 episodes, this theme recalls the final Sopranos season; your life is short, what will you make of it, what do you value? And little things, like Don in the diner with his remaining "family" (Roger and the models), Roger coming out of the Diner bathroom, the bell at the diner door ringing away, Peggy Lee sings about a house going up in flames (AJ's SUV), Pete saying how his time in California felt like a dream (Costa Mesa), Peggy looking frantically for her passport (Finnerty's briefcase) - and finding it at the office. Fragments and reflections, intended or not.

I suppose Weiner must come to terms with the master and his infamous series ending; it will be interesting to see.

 

Because Peggy has goals and he doesn't, either for himself or the agency. Remember, he was stuck in old, rehashed ideas. If his concern is about Peggy, and she is the one person he has always mentored, then maybe he is signaling to her that work is not life. But, since he has yet to discover that himself, can he be hinting that she is beyond his guidance now?

Many themes still need to be revealed in the four episodes remaining.

 

Wasn't Don just being lazy by trying to con all his coworkers into writing his "Gettysburg Address" assignment?

 

Okay- I get your point now and it is valid.

 

Yeah, it was a pretty funny depiction of how sh!t flows downhill. But I think, like most everything on the show, there is also a subtext behind it - Don is having trouble seeing a future for himself in advertising - or anywhere else for that matter.

 

Very few are Don Draper's daughter.

 

I wish Rod Serling was around to watch Mad Men. I think he'd love it.

 

Understandable. Her reading of that line was so direct that the sarcasm was pretty subtle

 

Maybe the last episode will skip ahead four decades, finding Don outside of Weiners Office. He enters, puts down his briefcase, asks Weiner why he lost that huge account and why he was never able to change his hairstyle. Weiner just laughs and says "You're not even real. Your just a projection of my psyche.' Don then pushes Weiner out the window (though he falls much less gracefully than the opening credits character).

 

Appx. 38 blocks north-south, plus whatever difference with one avenue vs. another east-west.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time-Life_Building

 

Are they still in the Time-Life Building? I thought that was the first Sterling Cooper location and then they moved out of that when they started SCDP.

 

I think it was partly lazy and more desperation. Don is usually at his best when his underlings bounce ideas off him and he takes the best one and runs with it and makes it even better. But the Gettysburg Address assignment isn't a conventional advertising strategy and that makes it more difficult. Don tries to forget his past, live in the present, and not think too much about the future, so right off the bat, he was going to have a struggle to imagine the future, especially with a short deadline. Don's specialty is wedding nostalgia to current products, and nostalgia and the future do not really mix, so again, he is out of his idiom here.

 

If they play "Don't Stop Believin'" and cut to black in mid-song on that final episode, I'm gonna throw a brick at my screen.

 

I don't know where the original Sterling Cooper was supposed to have been located. SCDP/SC&P, I'm 99% sure, is meant to be located in the Time-Life Building.

 

Please don't. Your TV is better than mine!

 

Never ever going to end that way and we all know it.

 

They've all been dead all along.

 

I don't really see a happy ending for Don.

 

I don't want a happy ending for Don, so my biggest fear for the conclusion is that he never gets his come-uppance.

 

He gets PLENTY of happy endings!!!

 

Even at the diner.

 

Yeah, but I've read things like this - and I'm not attacking you in any way, whatsoever - and I wonder what has Don done that's so dastardly that he deserves a bad fall, or an unhappy ending for that matter? At the worst he's a chronic philanderer. In fact, I would go so far as to say for a guy who's had such a rough upbringing he's been able to overcome those deep psychological demons, at least in the way he treats others. He's a pretty good father, who genuinely adores his children, instead of recreating the circle of despair that people are wont to exhibit when they've been raised in a less than desirable manner. Of course that knife cuts both ways: we hear about people who were raised crappy and then treat their children in turn, and then there are those like Don.

Children aside, Don's business acumen has been near exemplary, only screwing the pooch a couple of obvious times. That's a pretty good track record. Don has championed race relations, not letting that get in the way of the best person for the job. Now, while he might have let his huge ego get in the way of some dealings with others, in other aspects there are people working with Don right now who wouldn't be where they are today if Don hadn't encouraged them, even to the point of personally nurturing their talents. Moreover, Don is probably more liberal with his money than he is with his ego.

Don is a liar. Yet, the biggest lie of them all is to claim that one never lies. Eventually we all, to some degree or another, craft narratives around ourselves, which might not be outright lies, but in the spirit of self-preservation, they aren't exactly true, either, until we make them true for ourselves. Unlike the psychotic, most of us, like Don Draper, as well, do not tell the lie so much that we can no longer are able distinguish between what's real and what is not.

I still believe Don Draper was constructed to mirror most of us: what we would do if we looked like Don, were as talented as Don, had Don's money and Don's temptations. So, do we all deserve a paddling for being naughty little children? Maybe. But not a destructive exit simply for being human.

 

Don's going to wake up from a dream. His wife will be Diana.

 

Don's level of identity theft has been extreme, so I can see people wanting for the character to have to answer for this.

 

Great post!