Been reading stuff on the web about the finale: What's sad is we just calling that one guy "fridge guy," or "blue shirt guy," or 'lonely meditation therapy session guy." His name is Leonard and he is sad that no one cares about him. HE IS SAD NO ONE EVEN KNOWS HIS NAME. FRIDGE GUY!
sort of have mixed feelings about the finale. on first blush i felt like too much of the episode took place at the commune but overall i thought the finale was satisfying. plan to re-watch tonight. peggy/stan had me like
I thought too much was happening at the commune too, but once it ended, I understood why that happened. Don needed to figure stuff out before he could go back and be useful/function. He always gravitated to Cali. He went out there and finally figured out how to be content/happy, at least to an extent. Instead of finding happiness in something, like fishing off the coast or racing cars.... he found it in knowing his place and knowing he isn't alone in how he feels. then he could go back and continue to do what I think he genuinely loved to do, with many people he loved. His kids are kinda gonna move on without him and I dunno if he cares, but at the least he figured out the other aspect of his life, I believe
I think I spent the 20 minutes half saying to myself "This is a perfectly acceptable mid-season episode of Mad Men." I think I was spoiled on the Breaking Bad finale as that show had an other-worldly great final three episodes, where the penultimate really left you with a hook to want to see how the story all wrapped up. Mad Men didn't have that because it wasn't written that way. It was a little more conventional in the beginning of it, and then the "finale" aspect of it kicked in around the time Sally came home to be the mom to her brothers.
My take on the finale https://www.cultofwhatever.com/2015/05/the-mad-men-finale-advertised-happiness/
Great stuff. Realluly agree on Don smiling bc he could be dick and was happy knowing he could do what he loved, being an ad man, as dick.
Out of town and the hotel didnt have AMC. Just got home and watched it. It's my second favorite show besides The Wire, and this finale was almost perfect to me. Might have been the best finale I have seen. I thought we might have seen the end of a few of the characters but Im glad Weiner gave us one last Betty & Don, Sally & Don, Peggy & Don, Peggy & Pete and Joan & Roger scene. So awesome. As mentioned, all throughout the show Don seemed his most happy and the most content on the West Coast. I thought he might end up their permanently but it seems he found himself there once again. That scene with him and Leonard at the end was awesome. Don finally let go. Loved seeing Stan and Peggy end up together. Remember the first episode, when Don is pitching Lucky Strike? Go to 3:15 mark: He got back there. The Coke Ad: Going to watch it again tomorrow. Damn what a great fucking show.
ya, I mentioned how that happened several episodes ago, but that was a great final interaction for us to see
I think everyone has a few times in their life that you just get bombarded with information and comments from different people all at the same time and you're just standing there trying to process it all and think "WHY IS EVERYONE TELLING ME ALL OF THIS AT THE SAME TIME! I CAN'T HANDLE THIS!" Clearly that was the case for Peggy. Information overload over the course of 30 minutes.
Ted said a few episodes back "that there's 3 women in every man's life" and in this last episode Don calls 3 women. Sally, Betts, and Peggy.
Dude...the guy who gives the speech about having a dream about being inside a refrigerator is named Leonard http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_(appliances)
Jon Hamm Black Cloud: True, getting shot down on a TV dating show isn’t a tragedy to match illness, death or prison time. But for a young waiter/actor hoping to strut his leading-man stuff, it hurt. Hamm was in his mid-twenties in 1995 when he was a contestant on The Big Date, a c-level Love Connection rip-off. With his floppy hair and surfer dude clothes, the future Mad Men star he didn’t impress bachelorette Mary, despite promising “fabulous food, a little fabulous conversation, ending with a fabulous foot massage for an evening of total fabulosity." Instead she picked Mark, a creepy self-proclaimed “stunt man” who promised he would “take her home later and show her my flexibility.” Silver Lining: After watching the show with clenched teeth, Hamm cut his hair, got a nice suit and some attitude and eventually became the People “Sexiest Man Alive” (circa 2008) we know and love today. When Mary found out who she burned years later, she told reporters “I don’t really know who he is and have never seen the show. I have found love since and I wouldn’t trade him for a thousand Jon Hamms.”
definitely seems like Weiner combed through the entire show and really brought home the major themes and really connected things, even by using the same language or people to deliver a message from the first few seasons or big moments very cool
That hit me a few weeks ago when Roger gave Don a big kiss on the cheek and told him "You are okay" Which is exactly what Don said in the first episode.
Yeah that was a definite pete-ism. I suppose him giving her a chip-and-dip would have been too in the nose.
One of the things I think was so perfect about the series finale was how open that last smile and commercial was to interpretation. It wasn't a cut to black like Sopranos, where the debate was whether Tony lived or died. The finale to Mad Men was much deeper. It was if Don went back to the man he was to continue the cycle, or if he found peace and he was going to use to his job to improve the world where he could. Personally, I saw it as Don being Don and having a great idea for an ad come to him. He couldn't leave it behind. It was always going to draw him back into the fold. Especially for a client like Coke. Appealing to the worldwide climate of the time was something he saw as a way to connect his advertisement to everyone. Dick is dead. Don will always go back to being Don. Others saw it as a bit of redemption. Don/Dick found a way to both make an impact in the world AND sell advertising. It was a balance the character grew into throughout the series. At the end, those two goals finally came together in harmony. Neither side can ever be proven wrong unless Weiner speaks (he never wil), but the beauty of a show like this is it makes you examine who you are as a person when you delve into which interpretation you are drawn toward. Fascinating.
Weiner spoke. The interview was posted here a page or so ago. He basically said don't be cynical. Don changed and the Coke ad reflected a less cynical life he embraced.Also Hamm said he played the scene as though Don had found peace with who he was, and that he was an ad man and that's okay. the quote:
I'm hungover and have been watching Season 3 today for the first time. a) I love this show, and b) holy fuck Jon Hamm is great in The Gypsy and the Hobo.
The wife and I just finished our power-watch of all seven seasons this morning. We started it less than a month ago, so it's all still fresh. So many things... Got tired of Joan. Never got tired of Christina Hendricks. Me-ow. Stan Rizzo may be my favorite person. WTF, Ginsburg? I wish I was Roger Sterling. At the end, I was kinda bummed. All this time, Don Draper was a fucking pimp, a bad ass. Then he throws it all away to become Dick again and finds himself in some hippie commune. When they show the commercial, I just thought it was a bittersweet nod to what might have been. Then my wife says, "So did he write that ad? Is that what they're saying?" Without thinking about it, I said, "No, he became Dick again. The world went on without him." Then she says, "... I don't know." And it hit me. Fuck Dick, long live Don. Well done. Oh, and remember that scene with Don and Diana the waitresses ex-husband? After he tries to find her? He leans into Don's car and utters maybe the best line of the show. I'm a (part-time) writer and I told my wife, "I wish I'd written that." "I lost my daughter to God and my wife to the devil."
I feel like the fact that the season started and ended with the same noise is relevant, but dunno if it is just something weiner wanted to do or if this pitch has a deeper meaning, besides the fact it is awesome
Oh, and another thing. Sal, the gay art director? Dude was one of my favorites early on. I was really surprised when he left. I kept thinking maybe he'd come back after they lost Lucky Strike.
this weekend i re-watched the first two episodes of the series, man was sal over the top w/ his fake machismo
I remember MW saying that ideas were pitched every now and then for bringing him back for an episode, but he always nixed it because he liked the accuracy of the cruelty back then. He was totally innocent in that whole fiasco but he got canned, and bad mouthed ("you people") on the way out, never to be seen again. That's just the way things went.
"I'd really like to sex her vagina area, guys." I like that. I thought he was a good character, but I understand that.