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There's nothing that sums up the show and that character better than the first time Don has perfect clarity of meaning in life and it results in an all time ad for sugar water. Also just a quick shout out to the very deliberate phrasing of "I'd like to buy the world a Coke." Not give, buy. Very clever, Don!
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Sep 10, 2022 19:02
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Such a good finale! While there are some rushed things like Peggy's and Stan's romance, the seeds of it were all there, and it gives a good and appropriate( if not happy) ending to all the characters ( my favorite moment being Ken's line about his kid, it's so charming).
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Sep 10, 2022 19:30
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Congratulations on finishing another one of these monster threads, Jerusalem. It’s been a pleasure reading your takes and reactions in this one as well.
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Sep 10, 2022 19:33
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And you can mark me down as cynical about Don’s finale. Getting a bunch of kids to sing about Coke on a hillside in California probably did more to kill off the hippy dream than Altamont.
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Sep 10, 2022 19:42
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Anyone cynical about the ending didn't get it.
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Sep 10, 2022 19:50
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Torquemada posted:And you can mark me down as cynical about Don’s finale. Getting a bunch of kids to sing about Coke on a hillside in California probably did more to kill off the hippy dream than Altamont. It was filmed on a hilltop in Manziana, Italy 
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Sep 10, 2022 20:03
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Gaius Marius posted:Anyone cynical about the ending didn't get it. Okay. It's a fantastic ending. It's also incredibly cynical.
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Sep 10, 2022 20:13
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Gaius Marius posted:Anyone cynical about the ending didn't get it. The way I expressed my opinion left room for other people to express their own, perhaps contrary opinion. You should take notes.
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Sep 10, 2022 20:25
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WampaLord posted:It was filmed on a hilltop in Manziana, Italy I didn’t know this, thanks.
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Sep 10, 2022 20:25
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Finally, I get to share the True Ending to Mad men. https://youtu.be/KOzS9Azg0Ag Great finale write up. I stayed up way too late to read it, but it was worth it! Gods, I love this show and experiencing it like this was almost like experiencing it for the first time all over again
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Sep 10, 2022 20:56
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Awesome recaps, Jerusalem! Now that you've completed the series I can share this without spoiling anything: In the lead up to the airing of the finale, there were a bunch of theories floating around about what Don's ultimate fate would be. One of the theories focused on the fact that the show's opening credits depict a man in a suit falling from the top of a building and took this to mean that Don would end up killing himself by jumping from a building. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJ5-sdHP0YQ Of course, the opening credits don't end with the man in a suit hitting the ground. The opening credits end with the man sitting relaxed, similar to Don's state at the end of the finale. He fell quite a ways before he got there, but in the end, he was okay.
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Sep 10, 2022 21:00
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Devorum posted:Finally, I get to share the True Ending to Mad men. Should be that Jason Alexander McDonald’s ad lmao
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Sep 10, 2022 21:07
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There are no more secrets anymore, Jerusalem. You're free.
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Sep 10, 2022 21:27
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easily my favourite finale of a western tv show. its interesting in that it leaves many ultimate fates up to interpretation as you describe jerusalem, and yet the preceeding episodes are so earnest and all the character's routes to these places so earned that you cant really help but be optimistic (betty aside of course). i do think pete and trudy worked it out and stayed together, i do think marie and roger travelled around together and enjoyed being old, i do think peggy and stan settled into...well, maybe not marriage but certainly something comfortable. and its the optimism that the show built up leading one to take those final moments at face value that lead to me also taking don at face value. of course his experiences here informed that coke ad, but ive posted about it in spoilers a few times, and i fully believe that just because these experiences informed it does not mean it was made cynically or with a desire to coopt anything. don wants to pay it forward, he wants to make the world a better place, he still wants to give you an object/money as a shorthand for emotions. he wants to buy the world a coke. edit: some earlier posts in the thread i made about the finale, now unspoiled! theres a couple contradictory/unformed ideas in here but hey, thats the magic of this show, im STILL chewing on it to this day and watched since episode 1 aired in 2007 Paper Lion posted:I love the finale of the show very much, and always boggle at people's opinion that it was anything less than stellar. One thing I never really see talked about or even considered, is the exact impetus that brings Don to have his breakdown and hug the man in group therapy. He's sitting there, pretty passively, until he begins talking about his dream. It's only when his isolation, his inherent unlovable nature, his fundamental flaw is articulated in a capitalistic manner of an unused product, that Don begins to react. He is being advertised to in that moment. As this man describes the dream from his subconscious, what Don is hearing is a pitch for a commercial, of a condiment that no one will ever apply. But what's stunning about it is that that's not what he (as far as we know) takes from this experience. The emotion behind the pitch, as he says many times in the show, is what gets through to him, and makes him realize that he's not alone in this world, and he's not alone in how he feels. THAT'S the sentiment that brings him to the Coke ad. That sometimes all an ad has to be is a genuine expression of togetherness, of care. That a pitch doesn't have to be disingenuous, or cynical. It's very easy to view the Coke ad in our modern hindsight as those things, as riding the wave of the late 60's just a couple years too late, but I truly think that when it was made it was genuine, and doubly so in the fiction of Mad Men, and the key to it is that fridge dream. spoilered part of the waterloo post Paper Lion posted:more than that, the assertion that love can come to anyone is powerful for don, who believes he cannot ever be truly loved or accepted for who he is. He tried hiding himself, and lost betty. He tried being honest, and lost megan. What hope is there for him when no matter what, he cant be loved? Bert assuring him that isn’t the case is the thing that visually pushes don over the edge, from mere awe at the spectacle to full on nearly weeping openly. What is unconditional love? How can you give it to someone in a way that anyone can accept and understand? “id like to buy the world a coke” Paper Lion fucked around with this message at 00:31 on Sep 11, 2022 |
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Sep 11, 2022 00:22
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oooooh Jerusalem didn't bring up the thing I thought he was going to bring up. the worker at the retreat Don attends has a striking resemblance to the girl in the Coke commercial 
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Sep 11, 2022 00:25
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In what is ultimately a pretty uneven back half of the season, the finale is oh so very good. I don’t know that I can offer any thoughts that are particularly noteworthy but whatever. I love, love, love the final scene for all the reasons mentioned. Don can have his cake (emotional openness and reckoning with his emptiness and fear) and eat it too (make an ad out of his enlightenment). Imagining the cum face Jim Hobart makes when he gets this pitch is something to cherish. Henry’s final scene is so loving sad and then he doesn’t appear at all in the finale. Sally doing the dishes behind Betty is grim as gently caress. Holloway Harris is a perfect moment. Richard is a douche but at least he is upfront about it. Pete and Trudy are definitely not going to make it. I always hoped roger would get back together with Mona. Harry is such a fuckface. I like to imagine what would have happened to him. Landed on OD.
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Sep 11, 2022 00:48
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I think Pete and Trudy will absolutely make it. Pete has been beaten by the world and he sees it. Of course he's always known that but Driver's Ed girl and Shock Therapy girl really drove that home. He has been drained of ambition and is content to take the privilege he has. Trudy is part of that and Trudy is content to be just that continuing her role as a fun house mirror to Joan.
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Sep 11, 2022 01:04
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2nd Amendment posted:He has been drained of ambition and is content to take the privilege he has. Trudy is part of that and Trudy is content to be just that continuing her role as a fun house mirror to Joan. To me it always felt like him recognizing his privilege and leaning in to it having realized that much of his family's wealth really only existed in his mind anyway and at this point he is probably part of a wealthier household than he ever was as a child and he has "beaten" his parents whom he had a poor relationship as well if all he does is maintain relationship with Trudy from here on out, stay rich and establish the Campbell name in a more modern business environment.
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Sep 11, 2022 01:37
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Pete likes to push the envelope. If he thought he was winning he wouldn't go back to Trudy.
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Sep 11, 2022 01:54
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Admiral Bosch posted:Okay. It's a fantastic ending. It's also incredibly cynical. I don't think it's cynical exploitation to Don. Not any more than his Carousel ad was cynical.
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Sep 11, 2022 01:59
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Did anyone else not realize the ad came first? We used to sing the song at assembly when I was a kid, minus the coke line, I always thought the ad was a changed version of that not the other way round
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Sep 11, 2022 02:23
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sebmojo posted:Did anyone else not realize the ad came first? We used to sing the song at assembly when I was a kid, minus the coke line, I always thought the ad was a changed version of that not the other way round That is way more Orwellian than the pledge of allegiance in America and the pledge is very orwellian.
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Sep 11, 2022 02:40
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2nd Amendment posted:That is way more Orwellian than the pledge of allegiance in America and the pledge is very orwellian. "I'd like to build the world a home and furnish it with love" is a very Orwellian sentiment, yes
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Sep 11, 2022 02:43
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Paper Lion posted:its the optimism that the show built up leading one to take those final moments at face value that lead to me also taking don at face value. of course his experiences here informed that coke ad, but ive posted about it in spoilers a few times, and i fully believe that just because these experiences informed it does not mean it was made cynically or with a desire to coopt anything. don wants to pay it forward, he wants to make the world a better place, he still wants to give you an object/money as a shorthand for emotions. he wants to buy the world a coke. My thoughts are still churning around exactly how to read the coke ad and probably will for a long time, but I do feel that this post and many of the others in the same vein are largely where I'm going to remain: it may be Don taking something real and turning it into a commercial for a product ("sugar water" as one post put it) but that doesn't take away from the fact that I feel Don will have pitched that ad from a completely genuine place. Like the Carousel pitch, this is Don showcasing that this is perhaps the only way he can really understand how to express genuine emotion. The words of the song could be viewed as a cynical approach by a gigantic multinational selling sugar water, and that was the end result for sure... but the ad genuinely touched people, inspired them, made them feel good and like there was something more that could be aspired to. Those feelings and those reactions were genuine, and that was what Don was trying to convey, in the only way he knows how. aBagorn posted:oooooh Jerusalem didn't bring up the thing I thought he was going to bring up. Well goddamn, would you look at that!  Bismack Billabongo posted:Imagining the cum face Jim Hobart makes when he gets this pitch is something to cherish.  absolutely had the same thought, just utterly furious at Don for walking out like that, bitterly agreeing to give him one last shot and then falling in love with Don all over again after the pitch  General Probe posted:To me it always felt like him recognizing his privilege and leaning in to it having realized that much of his family's wealth really only existed in his mind anyway and at this point he is probably part of a wealthier household than he ever was as a child and he has "beaten" his parents whom he had a poor relationship as well if all he does is maintain relationship with Trudy from here on out, stay rich and establish the Campbell name in a more modern business environment. Pete is definitely playing off his family name as he always has, part of why Duck targeted him for the role and as the Learjet guy freely admitted was that Pete would make people feel comfortable because he's "one of them". But it's a very different Pete to the one from season 1. He actually is genuinely great at his job now, he's matured enough not to appear quite so desperate to please, and as you mention he's also come to a (belated!) realization about the flaws of his parents and his father in particular, and that he doesn't want to repeat that... plus he's got more money than they probably ever had, the inheritance he grew up expecting only to discover his father had blown it all ended up being irrelevant (beyond the lack of it giving him the impetus to make his own fortune) because he made more from the name they "gave" him than they ever did with it or indeed ANYTHING in their lives. Sure, the name opened doors for him and gave him access and privilege others could only dream of, but by the end of the series there isn't anybody in the show who wouldn't agree that Pete was an incredible asset to his workplace, or doubt his work ethic, even if they still don't personally like him. You couldn't say the same about season 1 Pete, he has actually grown, even if he's still got plenty of hang-ups. The final goodbye to Peggy showcases that perhaps better than anything, as he freely offers her the praise and compliments he never got himself. sebmojo posted:Did anyone else not realize the ad came first? We used to sing the song at assembly when I was a kid, minus the coke line, I always thought the ad was a changed version of that not the other way round Yep, exactly the same. We sang that song in school (minus coke references of course!) and the first time I heard the ad I assumed they were just using a pre-existing song. The penetration that ad had was insane, hell I've been humming the song on and off ever since watching the episode. I had the reverse experience where I had no idea Love & Marriage existed BEFORE Married... with Children  Paper Tiger posted:In the lead up to the airing of the finale, there were a bunch of theories floating around about what Don's ultimate fate would be. One of the theories focused on the fact that the show's opening credits depict a man in a suit falling from the top of a building and took this to mean that Don would end up killing himself by jumping from a building. Yeah, that's kind of crazy, I'm both sad and glad I got to miss out on the theorycrafting before the final aired for the first time. I actually wondered if there would be a callback to the Hawaii clothes-off scene, but the closest I think we got to that was the earlier shot of Don staring at the clifftop and then showing up there right at the end of the episode before the reveal he is - like he told Peggy - "in a crowd" and he sits down to take part in the Sun Salutation. Devorum posted:Finally, I get to share the True Ending to Mad men. Amazing kalel posted:There are no more secrets anymore, Jerusalem. You're free. 
Jerusalem fucked around with this message at 02:55 on Sep 11, 2022 |
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Sep 11, 2022 02:52
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sebmojo posted:"I'd like to build the world a home and furnish it with love" is a very Orwellian sentiment, yes Once again, you remain one of the genuinely densest posters on this forum. Singing pean to capitalism is insanely Orwellian.
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Sep 11, 2022 03:02
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Jerusalem posted:
I can think of one character who would strongly disagree with the bolded part. In fact, he did during the italicized part.
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Sep 11, 2022 03:07
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2nd Amendment posted:Once again, you remain one of the genuinely densest posters on this forum. 
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Sep 11, 2022 03:08
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2nd Amendment posted:I can think of one character who would strongly disagree with the bolded part. In fact, he did during the italicized part. Well of course that's a trait that Pete manages to keep across all the seasons: he simultaneously believes he is the center of the universe AND that nobody likes him or at best tolerates him. He has this weird mix of narcissism and imposter syndrome where he always felt like he deserved more but also that he didn't belong. Even in his happy moments he seems like he's just waiting for somebody to haul it away from him. Very strong second son syndrome, I guess. If his parents were in politics he might have ended up a lawyer or in the CIA or something while Bud got to be Governor.
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Sep 11, 2022 03:22
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aBagorn posted:oooooh Jerusalem didn't bring up the thing I thought he was going to bring up. Even more bizarrely, this is Jon Hamm's current girlfriend. They met during the shooting of this episode... and he left his long time girlfriend for her
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Sep 11, 2022 04:34
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Everything about the finale is even more amazing when they let it slip that Jon Hamm went to rehab right after filming it. There was alot of him in those scenes.
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Sep 11, 2022 04:47
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heads up op, there's a lot of petty arguing in some of the earlier spoilers itt, hopefully it doesn't detract from the experience too muchJethroMcB posted:I don't have time to read the whole thing just now but I do want to ask something I've been sitting on for like a year now, Jerusalem: did you have deja vu during the group therapy scene? Because I swear you wrote up what Don's whole deal was back in one of your S1 or S2 recaps, using some language that was very similar to what we hear from the guy describing his dream. that reminds me, I can't remember where Jerusalem mentioned it but he said in one of his early posts that he got spoiled on an episode, or he watched a random episode before starting this thread, or something. In all of his write-ups he never mentioned which one it was, and what he got spoiled on. I've been sitting on asking this for literally two years, almost to the day, and now I need to know: what did OP get spoiled on coming in to the show?
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Sep 11, 2022 04:48
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kalel posted:heads up op, there's a lot of petty arguing in some of the earlier spoilers itt, hopefully it doesn't detract from the experience too much The Carousel. I saw most of the episode completely at random years ago, and was blown away by Don's carousel pitch. Him going home and sitting alone in an empty house after that incredible pitch was compelling enough without context, with the context it became extraordinary. I also on two separate occasions over the last two years accidentally briefly saw a single lines from an episode description before quickly looking away. They were, from memory: -Megan and Harry meet to discuss her career- -Don is driving between States when- The context for both of those when they finally came up cracked me up. I'd assumed Don was just out on business, not abandoning his life and career to go on an aimless roadtrip. Megan and Harry's meeting being her sitting down for like 2 minutes and then just coldly walking out on him when he makes an incredibly awful come-on to her made me laugh a lot 
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Sep 11, 2022 04:57
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And no spoilers from the thread? Not even a single one?
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Sep 11, 2022 04:59
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GoutPatrol posted:Everything about the finale is even more amazing when they let it slip that Jon Hamm went to rehab right after filming it. There was alot of him in those scenes. Oh man, that's rough, glad he seems to be getting more work again which presumably means he's doing better. He's really, really loving good! kalel posted:And no spoilers from the thread? Not even a single one? Not a one. Everybody was so good about using spoiler tags, or if they weren't by the time I saw their post people had asked them to use them and they'd edited them in. I started to get really worried as I got closer to the end that finally I was gonna get spoiled, but nope I managed to avoid being spoiled.... sometimes by pure luck. I mentioned the "Buy the world a Coke" ad a couple of episodes back completely unaware of where the series ended simply because I wondered if McCann had done it yet at that point in the series, and looked up the date. If I'd scrolled down even a little bit, I would have seen mention of Don Draper and Mad Men. It's kind of crazy that I didn't. Wait, I tell a lie! Not in this thread but somewhere unrelated (might not have even been SA) somebody asked if Duck ever accomplished anything in the show, and somebody replied,"Well he offered Pete that job..." before I got the hell out of there. But even then, I assumed the job offer was the one Duck made to Pete and Peggy, while now I figure it was actually the Learjet offer in season 7.
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Sep 11, 2022 05:05
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I think it's possible to view the ending both cynically and as positive for Don. If anything, the most alive we've ever seen Don is when he's in the middle of a really good pitch. One could argue that making one of the greatest commercials of all time for Coca Cola is indeed real personal growth and some measure of emotional fulfillment for him. What that says about Don, well, that's up for the viewer to decide.
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Sep 11, 2022 06:36
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Great writeup of the ending, looking forward to the final recap. I swear I'm going to find that bit about Don feeling unwanted in a much earlier post. I love the crappy Halloween decorations everywhere; beyond a useful marker of time it makes McCann look like an elementary school. Anonymous rooms and hallways, adorned with cheap decorations that came from a Ben Franklin Crafts. Gotta be especially soul-draining for the Stans of the company. On the ending, I think it's honest and cynical in equal measures. Yes, Don really did achieve some level of enlightenment during that golden morning on the coast...but, unfortunately, he is still the man who has spent his adult life selling a lie (himself) to others. His only outlet for his talent and expression of his newfound peace of mind is going to be a commercial, for a product already so ubiquitous that it didn't need to advertise. (If the moral of The Sopranos was "People can't change," then Mad Men is the half-measure rebuttal. "People can change...a little. If they really want to. And not necessarily always for the better, but one can hope.") (And, of course, if you wanna get REAL down on the ending, you could remember the exchange between Don and Roger at Dow as they pumped each other to sell napalm to the public - "What happened to your enlightenment?" "I don't know...it wore off." This new Don Draper may go back to New York and pitch that spot, but who's to say that his new peace of mind lasts beyond 1972?)
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Sep 11, 2022 06:39
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Don Draper, who has struggled to connect with youth culture at many points in the show has a breakthrough where he realizes "Holy poo poo, I can sell this!" and people mistake it for a personal breakthrough. He is just as cynical here as he was with the Stones and the Beatles but unlike those, he can sell this.
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Sep 11, 2022 06:51
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this ending was really good, and i always felt it really deeply. i think part of the therapy that Don hears and relates to from Leonard - about feeling unloved, and not knowing how to ACTUALLY feel love, even when intended - is something we all feel parts of at given parts of life. I never even considered that he made the commercial at the end, and always felt like that was a super cynical interpretation that he just moved to sell it. i always felt it was as clear as the show made - Don suddenly felt, genuinely, that maybe he can be Better. after all, going back to earlier in season 7, i'll echo my fiance shouting at the TV - he HAS been good! i dont know. there's a really good tale of redemption, but more importantly, a tale about all of ourselves in the finale - that we can connect with other people, if we're willing. maybe that goes back to him going to McCann and trying to relate the ad. maybe it goes back to him not knowing how to communicate love except with consumerism. idk. but it IS that sentiment. and that's always really touching to me. it is a very great show. don's clear breakthrough here, the progress he's made the last couple seasons - it's something we can feel Good about.
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Sep 11, 2022 07:25
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I’m not sure I’m quite that cynical about it, (e: to the post one above this one) but Don is repeatedly shown through the whole run to be a perfect advertising machine that runs on personal trauma and emotional fallout. The correlation between ‘greatest moment of personal trauma’ and ‘legitimate claim to the best advert ever made’ is too glaring for anything other than cynicism on my part. Charitably, I could read his smile as one of acceptance; that he has achieved satori, his possessions and relationships have been discarded on his journey, and at this one moment he realises who he is. A man uniquely gifted at turning all the horrible, messy, and painful (but occasionally joyful) parts of being a human being into a thirty second tv spot that “tells you you are ok.”
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Sep 11, 2022 07:35
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Torquemada posted:I’m not sure I’m quite that cynical about it, (e: to the post one above this one) but Don is repeatedly shown through the whole run to be a perfect advertising machine that runs on personal trauma and emotional fallout. The correlation between ‘greatest moment of personal trauma’ and ‘legitimate claim to the best advert ever made’ is too glaring for anything other than cynicism on my part. i think this is complicated. how do you decouple one from the other? is there no value in such a state? not challenging you as wrong, i just think this isn't even necessarily cynical! being able to transform the awful gauntlet that is humanity into things that touch and move you is powerful, consumerist or not - and would being able to communicate that WITHOUT consumerism work in a 1970 america?
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Sep 11, 2022 07:42
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