tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30892649.post3163876318732530223..comments2024-02-04T05:13:04.501-05:00Comments on Nik at Nite: Mad Men Series Finale: "Person to Person"Nikki Staffordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04463618183850438914noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30892649.post-79180160407881922562015-05-23T09:36:10.721-04:002015-05-23T09:36:10.721-04:00I've come around to the idea of Don creating t...I've come around to the idea of Don creating the ad, especially since Weiner made it clear that was his intention, but I think he's gone back to advertising and his family in a place of peace and self-awareness he was lacking before. <br /><br />I don't think Stan and Peggy was rushed - I've been waiting for that FOREVER.<br /><br />I'm glad Pete found his happy ending. I've always felt sorry for him even though he was messed up. Being ripped away from his father and raised in a hell dimension...<br /><br />I mean his family being a bunch of worthless jerks who treated him like dirt.Colleen/redeem147noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30892649.post-13755671766809495732015-05-19T09:14:08.102-04:002015-05-19T09:14:08.102-04:00Thanks for the recap Nikki - I thought the finale ...Thanks for the recap Nikki - I thought the finale was good not great. Joan & ?s breakup and Stan & Peggy's get together seemed pretty rushed. They should've given more time to P&S this year and less to that waitress. <br /><br />Kind of odd that the character that seemed to have most found happiness in the end was Pete - he was always so slimy.<br /><br />I will certainly miss my favorite character - Roger Sterling - the most.<br /><br />I'd always wanted Don and Peggy to end up opening their own agency as equal partners but that was not to be. Maybe this will still happen in the future.<br /><br />A great show<br /><br /> -Tim AlanAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30892649.post-39965461356857390282015-05-19T09:07:56.143-04:002015-05-19T09:07:56.143-04:00(continued from above) Lastly, the reason I belie...(continued from above) Lastly, the reason I believe he must go back to his kids is that the finale made a huge point of having Anna's niece tell Don that his advice (the same advice that he gave Peggy in season 1) about things getting easier over time when one leaves something behind was "wrong." The episode spent considerable time on this issue and even had one of the group therapy members go into depth about how it felt being left as a child. The whole season has dwelled on this issue with the character of Diane, the grim waitress, featured so much in the earlier part of 7b. I just can't believe that after all of that, Don would leave his kids for good. He hasn't been the best dad, but he does seem to want to connect with them as we have seen on many occasions. I believe he went back for this reason, too.<br /><br />Thanks for writing about Mad Men! I adore this show. It is one of my all-time favorites, and I will miss it so much.Suzannenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30892649.post-59097890738123040262015-05-19T09:05:51.492-04:002015-05-19T09:05:51.492-04:00When I watched the finale, I didn't think righ...When I watched the finale, I didn't think right away that Don or any of the characters had made the commercial. I simply thought that Weiner was using it as a way to celebrate the advertising industry, which has been the core of this show, by ending with one of the industry's greatest creative achievements. However, after reading all of the reviews and seeing all of the reactions to the idea that Don was inspired to create this ad during the yoga scene, I have come around to that interpretation.<br /><br />I flirted with your interesting idea, Nikki, that Peggy wrote it, but I came to the conclusion that the scene with Peggy was simply showing her and Stan working as a team on one of the many projects they probably get to work on together at the firm. Peggy and Stan's relationship is a perfect partnership since they both get to fulfill their creative life together. That is what drew them together and that is why it works so well between them. They both respect one another in a way no one else can. Remember that we saw Stan's girlfriend, the nurse, earlier in the season, and she didn't seem tuned into him in the way Peggy is. Stan certainly gets Peggy in a way no other man in the series has (even Don).<br /><br />As for Joan, my impression was that the kind of producing she was doing was different from advertising. I remember Stan saying something to Peggy about how she wouldn't be happy with Joan since it wouldn't let her write in the way she loves to write. That made me think she would be writing something different from ads. Didn't Ken say something about the job he was asking Joan to do that sounded different from ads? I can't remember what is was exactly, but I will have to go back to look at it. I loved Joan's ending in that it seemed as if she was able to start her own thing and be a leader just as she always was in the past, even though no one ever gave her the respect her leadership skills had earned her.<br /><br />As much as I love your theory, Nikki, because, honestly, I would love to think that Peggy made that ad, I still think it was Don. He finally empathized with another human being fully in the group therapy scene. He reached out to someone in a way that we have never really seen him do, especially to a man. He saw the hurt inside himself in that man and by hugging the man, he was finally hugging himself and accepting that he does deserve love. The real love that was offered to him in that episode (and other times in the series) was from Peggy. She asked him to come "home." Peggy has always been his "family" in a way that no one else except possibly Sally has. I believe he is going home to both of them. He won't take the kids in, but he will be a part of their lives. I believe he will support Sally in making sure the boys aren't completely lost living with their uncle and his wife.<br /><br />Lastly, many have seen Don returning to adverstising to make the Coke ad as a cynical ending. I don't see it that way. Like Peggy, advertising matters to him. He loves the creative process of making a great ad. His art is making great ads and even though those ads are commericial, using people's emotions to sell products, making those ads is what he is good at. He feels at "home" and at peace when he is in the flow of making a great ad. He hasn't had the chance to do so in awhile on the show because the baggage of his personal issues have provided a barrier to doing so, but now that he has found peace, he will be able to be the kind of ad man he has always wanted to be.<br /><br />I don't believe that Don has a sappy happy ending, though. I think he will continue to have demons and will continue to have issues along the way as all humans do, but I think that with Peggy as his friend/family and with the ability to connect more fully with his kids, he will be a lot better. (continued below)Suzannenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30892649.post-82444219118839410912015-05-18T20:28:18.386-04:002015-05-18T20:28:18.386-04:00I loved it. Just finished watching it and can only...I loved it. Just finished watching it and can only say that I loved it.Cairistiona60https://www.blogger.com/profile/03576431917084121191noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30892649.post-51030103537852940422015-05-18T15:59:56.506-04:002015-05-18T15:59:56.506-04:00The one thing that prevents me from buying into an...The one thing that prevents me from buying into anyone from Mad Men working on it is that aside from using an ad slogan for cigarettes from the 1910s ("It's Toasted"), Weiner has studiously avoided ever connecting his fictional characters with ads created by real people. In fact he indicated in an interview with Sepinwall after season 4 he had no intention of having Peggy create the "You've come a long way baby" slogan for Virginia Slims even though CGC was pitching for it when it was still being invented (and Peggy flew there to do that) because he didn't think that was appropriate.<br /><br />Now maybe Weiner changed his mind. But he's never ever done the revisionist thing where he said Don or Peggy came up with other real people's work before, so I kind of think it's just counterpoint.Graemehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14874622261770189776noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30892649.post-4504218705667290982015-05-18T14:53:30.618-04:002015-05-18T14:53:30.618-04:00The creation of the commercial is so well-document...The creation of the commercial is so well-documented that it's on the Coke website. I don't think that any of our characters worked on it, at least in the creative end. I think it's a definitive beginning to advertising in the 70s, an era when you could put diversity on screen and sell soft drinks, so unlike the beginning of the 60s.<br /><br />And I think what Don found on that hill was himself, the one person he'd been seeking all his life.Colleen/redeem147noreply@blogger.com