Mad Men: The Final Season (Part One)

[JRGoldman]

I liked the ending because no event thus far has changed Don Draper in any dramatic way, so for him to have some great enlightenment about who he really is would've rang false to me. In the early seasons especially, Don is essentially a cipher of a man, just getting by on being handsome and cold and mysterious, and falling upward because he looks good in a suit and can keep up with Roger. He does what is expected of him at almost every turn. Despite being the protagonist, nothing about him is unique. Other people work harder, other people have good ads. Other people cheat on their wives. As the decades wear on, Don loses his hold on the world around him, and thus loses his hold on who he is because he is defined purely by others. At the end, when he is at his lowest, or at least what he thinks is his lowest, he looks inward and finds an ad as his happy place, simply because that world remains unchanged. It's something he can cling on to and understand. It's not him moving forward in any meaningful way, I doubt it's even a conscious discovery on his part. It's just another new way for him to remain Don Draper. 

[Spritenaut 32]

Oops.  Double post.

[Spritenaut 32]

I liked the ending because no event thus far has changed Don Draper in any dramatic way, so for him to have some great enlightenment about who he really is would've rang false to me.

 

If Don did write it though... yuck. Cynical isn't the word.

 

It'd be entirely keeping with Don Draper's personality to have a moment of true introspection.... and miss the meaning in his rush to turn the moment into an ad campaign.  If there were going to be a season 8, no one at all would be expecting Don's epiphany to last more than a week.

[elizium]

I liked it because it didn't have a total sense of finality for anyone. Their lives are still going on, this is just the point that we stop viewing them. More than anything, the series was about the Sterling Cooper agency and that finally died this year. Do you really think Pete isn't going to somehow sabotage his own happiness in Wichita?

[Technico Support]

I don't think Don wrote it. I think it was just a snarky coda to the series. Looked at that way, it's not too bad. If Don did write it though... yuck. Cynical isn't the word.

 

 

Yeah I didn't get that Don wrote or imagined the Coke ad during mediation I think the dude was just real happy and at peace with himself for the first time in years.

 

That's how I interpreted the ending.  I know it's some Joseph Campbell shit and some might think it's outdated, but to have to protagonist of your story undergo this journey of self discovery, only to return the the same old life, is ridiculous and unsatisfying. 

[EVA]

But that's pretty much been the thesis of MAD MEN since the beginning (and one of its biggest weaknesses in the later seasons): the times change, but these people don't.

[MORELOCK]

I know it's some Joseph Campbell shit and some might think it's outdated, but to have to protagonist of your story undergo this journey of self discovery, only to return the the same old life, is ridiculous and unsatisfying. 

I know you can interpret it however you want, but it seems like you're only interpreting it that way because you don't care for the way it was pretty clearly intended to be interpreted.

 

The last bits of dialogue, the focus on his head when the "DING" sound goes off, as if like an idea coming to him, then the immediate shift to the ad. I don't see much room in that.

[GuerrillaMonsoon]

I'm 5 years late to this party. Finished watching it at 1am this morning.

I've never watched a show where I've simultaneously related to and despised the characters so much.

Like the level of self reflection I've felt watching this hurts.

I also want that octopus painting.

[Dolfan in NYC]

I certainly don't think that what I said about dragging up dead threads can be applied here, do you?   

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