Mad Men Series Finale: "Person to Person"

Finales. They can make or break how a show continues to be perceived in the public consciousness, long after the show has ended. The Sopranos took fans through one of the deepest journeys of a man’s psyche that has ever been shown on television, but bring up the show to a fan now and the first question they’ll ask you is, “What did you think of that ending?” Your answer will pretty much sum up for the other person whether or not they want to continue discussing it with you. Showrunners know you can never satisfy everyone. If the finale is too open-ended, you’ll be called lazy. If you come down on one side, you’ll estrange all the fans on the other. And I haven’t even begun to talk about the death threats aimed at showrunners through social media.

            Into this fraught territory wades Matthew Weiner with Mad Men. Perhaps the most stylized show I’ve ever seen, this is the series that inspired further antiheroes with dark pasts, that stimulated the gorgeous art direction of Hannibal, that demonstrated fans are interested in period pieces that don’t involve Victorian corsets. The show premiered in the summer of 2007 by setting the first episode in 1959, and eight years later the series ends with a glimpse of a commercial we know was released in 1971. The big question is: how did the penultimate scene — of Don Draper meditating on a cliff side — tie into the commercial that fades us out of the series?

            The obvious answer is that Don Draper finally finds peace, and, in typical Don Draper fashion, monetizes it. When Don goes to a therapy session at the retreat, he hears a man tell a story of how he feels no one sees him anymore, that he’s just an item sitting inside a refrigerator door wanting to be chosen, but people open the door, shine the light, and close the door again, never choosing him. He’s invisible, and unwanted, and eventually his expiry date will pass and he’ll be thrown in the trash. Don, overcome with emotion and empathy, stands from his chair, strides across the room, and throws his arms around this desolate man as they both break down and cry. He knows what it feels like. In a beautiful final scene with Betty, he calls her after finding out the news she has six months to live, and tells her that he’ll take the children. She begs him not to, and says that she doesn’t want to spend her last moments on earth fighting with him, but that their lives would be so much easier if it were just the way it is now, with him in it only on the occasional weekend.

Suddenly he’s the mustard sitting inside the fridge door... and everyone in his family wants ketchup.

But is Don entirely unwanted? In the final scene between he and Peggy — and if I got nothing else out of this finale, I desperately wanted one final scene between Don and Peggy, because their scenes together are sublime — he calls her on the phone and she tells him to just come back, that they’ll take him with open arms and they need him. Here he’s wanted. This is a company full of people who prefer mustard. The problem is, he doesn’t know if he wants them.

So after the epiphany at the retreat, we see him sitting on a hill, in lotus position, oming his way to peace, and suddenly a smile comes across his face and we see the legendary Coke commercial, with people dressed much like the hippies at the retreat, standing on a very familiar-looking cliff, singing “I’d Like To Teach the World to Sing,” that super long commercial that, even though I wasn’t even born when it began airing, I still remember on TV and singing along (I think it was one of those commercials that kept being brought back for nostalgic purposes).

So Don goes to the retreat, has an epiphany, clears his head, comes home and rejoins McCann-Erickson, and brings to them the dazzling commercial for which they will forever be known.

The thing is, that’s not my preferred reading of that final scene.

There have been three major fan theories as to how this series will end.

One: Don will turn out to be DB Cooper, jumping from a plane and escaping into the air, and history books, as the man who couldn’t be traced. It seems like a fitting end for Dick Whitman. Matthew Weiner is obviously aware of this fan theory, and toyed with it a couple of episodes ago, when Don, ensconced in a meeting (where everyone is, incidentally, drinking Coke), stares out the window for a long time at a plane going by. Will he see this as his way out?

Two: Don will jump out of the window of McCann-Erickson, thereby reenacting the opening credits. I’ve never given much credence to this theory... would he be landing comfortably in a couch and flicking on the TV at the end of it? Nonetheless, Weiner played with that expectation as well, where, in the same episode as the previous one, Don pushes on the window and notices that it’s not airtight, and could be easily opened. Will Don jump?

Three: The idea that the final image would be the “I’d Like To Teach the World to Sing” Coke commercial has been one that’s been floating around for a while, because McCann-Erickson is not a fictional agency, but a very real one that is famous for that commercial. So, naturally, since McCann has been headhunting Don since season one, fans have long wondered if Don will jump ship, go to McCann, and put Coke on top.

The question is, is it possible Weiner is just messing with fans again?

Mad Men has not only been the story of Dick Whitman/Don Draper, but the rise of feminism and the importance of women in the workplace. And that has always been embodied in Peggy and Joan. In the very first episode, Peggy comes to Sterling-Cooper with her little-girl bangs and fresh face, listens to Joan’s chauvinistic instructions — which include making sure her boss is always happy, if you know what I mean, nudge nudge, wink wink — and when she caresses Don’s hand in a ham-fisted way, he immediately sets her straight. And that’s when the mutual respect between the two of them begins. She knows she’s a good writer, and he encourages her. In the centrepiece of the entire series — the phenomenal episode “The Suitcase” — we get a set-piece with just the two characters, like they’re in a play, working through their issues and with Don opening up to her in a way he never did to the romantic women in his life. She refused to let him cut her down, and he rarely did.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the spectrum, you have Joan, the stunningly beautiful head of the secretary pool, who works her way up to partner. There’s always tension between Joan and Peggy — Peggy is eminently jealous of Joan, whom she believes slept her way to the top, who has men falling at the feet of that voluptuous body, who never has to actually work to get men to respect her; while Joan eyes Peggy with envy, as Peggy doesn’t have the classical good looks to get anything handed to her, whom people pay attention to because of her mind and not the size of her breasts, who might not have a steady man in her life, but who has the respect of the other men around her. In the season two episode, “Maidenform,” the question raised in one of Don Draper’s ad pitches is, who do women want to be: Jackie or Marilyn?

The answer: Both. They want to be sexy and beautiful and envied, but they also want people to love them for their minds, to believe they’re smart and capable and got to where they are based on their intelligence, not their looks.

And now, in the finale, Joan realizes that Peggy is everything she ever wanted in a business partner, and asks her to join forces with her in a production company, pumping out the TV commercials that ad agencies hire them for. Peggy turns her down, because she sees it as an easy way out, and not necessarily everything she wants to do. She doesn’t want to jump in as head of a firm — she still wants to work at it, to build up that resumé and earn that position and respect. Joan, undaunted, heads out on her own, being dumped by a man who wanted to support her, not have her be independent in any way (good riddance), and claims her place in the advertising world by calling her new company Holloway Harris — using her maiden name first, as if to trump her married name.

And what of Peggy? After receiving a phone call from Don, where she becomes worried he might actually kill himself, she calls Stan in a panic, and he finally vows his love for her. It might seem like a trite ending to that character — Joan eschews men to become a businesswoman; Peggy ends up with the man — but it’s not that simple, because Stan has always been a hippie, a freer soul who sees Peggy as an equal, sometimes even a superior. On first viewing, I felt like adding that love scene in there seemed almost pat, but maybe it’s something more: is it possible she’s found the way to be the Jackie and the Marilyn? That she’s proof that in the 1970s men WOULD see her for her mind and fall in love with her because of it? The last shot we get of Peggy is her furiously typing out something that seems to be pleasing her, while Stan stands behind her, supporting her but not standing in her way. Meanwhile, Joan is manning the phones, giving orders to a secretary — a position she once had, and likely never will again — and seems excited about what she’s working on.

Is it possible the two of them are working on the Coke ad?

We know that Joan respects Peggy enough to offer her a partnership and then tell her it’s for her only; there’s no one else she wants to partner with. And we also know that Peggy is Don Jr. in many ways — she’s ambitious, clever, and has a great creative sense. We’ve seen a ton of Don Draper pitches, and more recently, we see Peggy handling the pitches. She has a similar sense of gravitas and drama when she pitches one of her ideas — the only thing missing is the cigarette that Don would often light and use as a prop.

And finally, we know that when Don is at his lowest moments, he calls Peggy. This final episode was called “Person to Person,” referring to the person-to-person phone calls that Don makes through the episode, to Sally, Betty, and Peggy. Why do we think he’ll stop calling her? What if he calls her to tell her about the retreat he’s on? What if he calls her to cry when Betty dies? And what if Peggy put those thoughts together, and saw a Coke commercial in it?

Coca-Cola has been one of those recurring motifs throughout the series. When McCann is head-hunting Don at the beginning of the series, they keep using the little incentive that they have Coke. When Betty decides the children are now old enough they don’t need a stay-at-home mom, and perhaps she could make something of herself by returning to her life as a model, she models for McCann’s Coke ads. And Don, horrified by the idea that his wife would be stared at and adored by millions, that she might actually be able to set out on her own and become independent, quashes it. Now that Birdie is dying, but still going to college in a last-ditch effort to make something of her life, could Don be eaten up by that terrible thing he did? Would he tell Peggy about it?

Yes, Don is the one who came up with the campaign for the Kodak carousel, in that beautiful, touching moment where he saw the beginning of his picture-perfect life slipping away. His campaign is deep, tinged with the idea of nostalgia for lost things, dark and heavy with the idea that we must take photos of our happy lives, for some day, displaying those slides on a carousel will be the only happiness we have.

Peggy, on the other hand, came up with the Popsicle campaign, filled with love, hope, and immediacy. A mother smiles at her two children playing outside and then brings them a Popsicle. And they “take it, break it, share it, love it,” as Peggy pitches. It’s sweet, but bright and sunny, an optimistic look at the world where everyone shares things in perfect harmony. It’s the sort of creative vision you see in that Coke commercial. The sort of commercial that Joan’s company could have produced after Peggy wrote it for them.

What I love about open-ended finales is the breadth of possibility. Some fans would say it’s lazy, but I think it can be clever if done right. And Mad Men did it right. Perhaps Don Draper finds peace, rejoins McCann-Erickson, and reinvents himself once again. Perhaps Peggy is a huge influence on him, and her optimism combined with his sense of peace creates that commercial. I love that idea. Or maybe he stays away; in a final episode with very little time in which to wrap up everything, Matt Weiner included a scene where Roger finally fires Don’s secretary, the last thread that was still holding him to that company, and maybe that was our hint that Don’s not coming back. Instead he talks to Peggy, and she is the one who writes the legendary commercial — not because he came up with the idea, but that SHE saw the possibility of turning his experience into a commercial.

In either case, I know we’re meant to believe that someone we care about on that show came up with that commercial. And regardless of who it was, it was everyone else who played into it. Roger’s wit, Pete’s mistakes, Stan’s free-spiritedness, Betty’s sacrifices, Sally’s potential, Joan’s determination, Peggy’s ambition, Bert’s Zen-like influence, and Don. Everything about Don, the ups, the downs, his struggle to find himself in this world. All of these people came together, and that commercial was born.

I know fans will no doubt be divided on this one as they always are, but I thought it was divine, and showed the perfect harmony that this incredible show created.   

What Else I'm Watching: Mad Men

As I mentioned in yesterday's blog, I'm going to devote this non–Game of Thrones/Walking Dead week to say that yes, I actually am watching other television. But pairing up with Christopher Lockett on GoT and Joshua Winstead for TWD means they actually kick my butt to do blog posts, which is why I'm consistent with those shows now and nothing else.

But that doesn't mean I'm not watching. Because I'm watching a TON.

And among those shows is Mad Men. It feels like it just started a couple of weeks ago, and yet here we are at the "mid-season finale" (what a load of bunk, by the way; it's the same thing they did with Breaking Bad and it's no less irritating). These season has seen Don Draper having to make up for falling apart last weekend, drunkenly making his way through the office, destroying business and losing accounts. After being forced on a paid leave, this season he lies to everyone around him, not letting anyone know he's actually being forced to stay at home. Megan is off on the west coast living in Laurel Canyon, trying to get her acting career moving again and enjoying the freer side of the late-'60s lifestyle, not realizing that the reason her husband isn't actually with her has nothing to do with having to go to a 9-5 job every day, and everything to do with burying his own pride.

And yet... it all just felt wrong. Yes, in a way Mad Men is happening in real time. We're in season 7, and we're about 10 years after the first episode (it's mentioned briefly that it's 1959 in that premiere episode, although in the next episode they zip it to 1960), so with the exception of fast-forwarding some time here and there, time has passed for us the same way it's passed for them. And yet, with us being the voyeurs looking inward, we can look back and see how far they've come. And the way they're all treating Don now is justified in some ways, but hurts in others.

As I've said on here before, Mad Men is a great show, but when the scene features Peggy and Don, it raises the show up to something extraordinary. The chemistry between Jon Hamm and Elisabeth Moss is wonderful. There's no romantic inclinations between them at all — he stopped that in its tracks in the very first episode, after Joan counselled Peggy to "be there" for her boss should he need that sort of thing and Peggy decided to try it — but instead they are like mentor and student... and then colleagues, then equals, and rivals. Her trajectory has been upwards, with a few bumps along the way, while he started the series near the top, then went through the stratosphere, and then his rock bottom. Emotionally and personally, Peggy hit rock bottom, too: we all remember her getting pregnant by Pete and suffering an emotional breakdown because of the way she buried the reality of what was happening to her. She didn't hide the pregnancy; she refused to acknowledge it. And when a baby suddenly came out of her, her mental collapse was complete. She was self-destructive, giving the child away, lying to Pete and everyone around her... and Don was the only one sitting by her side. Not being a shoulder to cry on, but the giver of harsh words, telling her to get up, face the world, become another person, and bury this. At once he was in her corner, but also pushing her out of that corner and telling her to give it a stiff upper lip. He was the only one she could confide in, the only one who figured out what had happened and searched for her until he found her in that hospital bed... but maybe the advice he gave her was more destructive than helpful. Their rivalry, which has jumped back and forth every season from her appealing to him and him shooting her down, to him coming to her with praise and her refusing to accept it, and then these tiny moments where they're both on the same page, as they were this year dancing in Peggy's office on a weekend as she's struggling with the copy for the ad. I still think "The Suitcase" is THE single best episode of the series, and it sits right in the middle of the show's run, like the perfect centrepiece from which every episode grows, and that has everything to do with Moss and Hamm just killing every scene.

I love this dress SO MUCH.

Joan has shown nothing but contempt for Don this season, and I'll have to admit, in the beginning I was confused as to why. She's a partner only because she spread her legs for a client and was offered a partnership to do so, and Don was the only one of the partners who found this reprehensible. He rushed to her apartment to tell her not to do this, that she's better than this, and she just smiled and kissed him and patted him on the cheek. He didn't realize she'd already done the deed, and she didn't tell him. But she knew that he cared for her. So why is she SO angry with him now? In his drunken phase, he came in and imploded the company; he drove clients away; he lost all of the partners money. If Joan was going to lose her dignity and sense of self-worth, the least she could do is pad her pockets with enough money that her son will have a better life. But now Don took away that money, her chance at becoming a millionaire, and she's furious for it. All of the men sitting at the partners table are advertising geniuses who worked their way to get there: Joan is a secretary who slept with an important client to get the business. In some ways, she doesn't seem to deserve a spot at that table. But we know how smart Joan is, how much of a lynchpin she's always been for that company, how she's kept things running smoothly behind the scenes, and how Sterling-Cooper owes much of what it is to how she kept the daily operations going, and was often even helping out with ad copy. And what she was asked to do was unforgivable. So yes, Joan deserves her spot at that table, and deserves to be angry at Don for what he did to hurt that position. Still, every time she glared at him this season or raised her hand to vote to turf him, I was saddened. I miss the camaraderie the two of them had, and the way he was always there to talk to her, not taking advantage of her the way Roger did.

And then there's Pete. Just as that hairline recedes more every year (they shave it on the show to make it look more severe than it actually is), so do Pete's morals. As he's cavorting with women, he becomes furious if he thinks his wife might be out on a date. He's always been a boor, but the scene when he took his beer bottle and stuffed it into the cake that his wife had made was classic Pete. And yet of all the people, this guy who has hated Don from the very beginning, the one who found out about Dick Whitman in season 1 and threatened to spill the beans, is the one who's in his corner now. Pete is nothing if not endlessly pragmatic. Despite everything, he knows that Don is great at what he does (when sober) and that he deserves a second chance, if only to put more cash into Pete's pockets. He doesn't care about retribution; he just wants Don back on the horse making money for the company.

Betty has been relegated to a side story, as have her children (which is too bad, because Kiernan Shipka just gets better and better every year as Sally Draper), but since the central story is Don, there's not a lot to be covered with them anymore if they're no longer in his life.

Megan is younger than Don, and he warned her early on that he worried their age difference might become a problem, but now that he's in a crisis at work, but she's wanting to live in the 1960s of free love and flower children, the generation gap has become insurmountable. We only see them together a couple of times this season, and otherwise he's in New York while she's talking to him on her hideous green phone (my parents totally had that phone). At one point she breaks down, having discovered that he's been lying to her about his job, and she tells him that it's over. But just as Don doesn't realize that being put on indefinite leave at the company means he's being turfed and can never go back, he doesn't seem to grasp that Megan telling him that it's over means IT IS OVER. She's ready to move on, he just seems to be in the way when he comes to her place, and when at one point he tries to pawn off one of his stray cats on her — Anna Draper's niece — Megan gives her some brief help before writing her a cheque to send her on her way. Of course, much of that had to do with the fact that Stephanie casually said she knew everything about Don, whom Megan still finds somewhat of an enigma, and she no longer wanted this person in her house. But on another level, she's finished with Don, and doesn't want to be picking up the pieces of his life anymore.

And so we come to the final episode. A man has just set foot on the moon, changing the world and the way we see it forever. Don has tried to come back to work, but has been turned into a guy writing tags for Peggy, taking orders from underlings, and being imprisoned by a partners contract that's as stifling as it is condescending. Don should be at the top of his game, but because he let his personal demons take over — and then affect those around him — he's paying the price. Watching him sit at a typewriter or being lambasted in meetings rather than being treated with some deference and respect is SO painful at times. We can't help but think how much he's helped every one of these people around him, how he's been there for them when they were down. But then we can't help but remember that each one of these people tried to help him when he was at the bottom, and he pushed them all away. Now that he's sober, with his head hanging in submission, they're not ready to forgive him easily. And despite him kidding himself into thinking he'll be safe, that his marriage will survive, and that he'll claw his way back to being the Don Draper of old, it's over. As a man makes a giant leap for mankind, Don lets go of the reins of the Burger Chef account, and tells Peggy it's hers now. He calls Megan and finally accepts that she's done with him. And then Bert Cooper dies.

Bert's death hits Roger the hardest, obviously, since the two men were once the only two names on that partner's wall. But in the midst of his grief, and knowing he's about to lose Don for good, he makes a play no one saw coming: he goes to McCann and offers them the company. McCann has wanted Sterling-Cooper — and specifically, Don — for some time now. They made Don a sweet offer earlier this season, and he came storming into Sterling-Cooper in the midst of his leave and waved the offer in Roger's face, who haughtily told him to take it. But Don just couldn't do it. However, he gave Roger the card that Roger needed, and knowing how badly they wanted Don, he knew this could be his way out. Roger's just been sitting in that office, drinking and not doing much, and he's been ready to move on for a long time. The ad agency is just a hobby — and more often than not, an albatross around his neck — and he's wanted a way out. But he needed to get his money out of the deal first.

So when he goes to the other partners and tells them what he's done, they're at first horrified, and then suddenly pleased when they know how much they stand to gain from this. All the money (and more) that they believe Don stole from them due to his behaviour last season is now back in their pockets, and it's all because of Don. Roger is the one who entirely orchestrated the deal, but it's the creatives they want. Say what you want about McCann, but unlike the gong show that Sterling-Cooper-Draper-whatever has become, McCann doesn't put the money guys before the creatives. They know that by buying the company, what they're getting is Ted and Don. Don manages to get Ted on board for the deal, and in doing so, helps Roger seal it. After the Season Where Don Was Humbled, he walks out of the meeting with everyone suddenly forgiving him (amazing how you forget all the good Don has done when he's cost you a million dollars, and then forget that you hated him when he gets it back for you) and Don once again on top. He's running the show, he's back where he should be, and he's in charge.

But back to Bert. We see Bert for the last time sitting on his couch, smiling as he sees man take a step on the moon. And happy in knowing the world has changed in 1969, he dies. Robert Morse found fame in the Broadway musical How to Succeed in Business without Trying, playing a young up-and-coming executive who tries to prove himself in a corporation. Here's a scene of him in that musical, when he was just a tad younger than Don Draper is supposed to be at the same time:



So when Don leaves the meeting and suddenly turns to see a vision of Bert Cooper singing and dancing (in sock feet, of course!) the song "The Best Things in Life Are Free," it was an overwhelmingly joyful moment. I glanced over at my husband, who had a big silly grin on his face that matched my own. What a wonderful, perfect way to send off that character, and to pay tribute to the actor's own background and significance during the very time period the show is portraying. In this moment, Don realizes that it's not all about money and power and finding your way to the top; it's about everything else. It's about the life he's lived, the people he's lived it with, and the experiences he's had. Even the terrible things that happened to him are important, because they made him who he is.

"Love can come to everyone, the best things in life are free."

But Don just made millions for Sterling-Cooper. He's running the show again. So what's the significance of this song? I'd like to think that Don will move on. If the series had ended here (and it very well could have) we would all be satisfied that Don got his mojo back, and that he's back on top. But there are seven more episodes, and I doubt they'll be episodes of him showing how awesome he is and doing more Kodak carousel–type pitches. I'd love to see Don striking out on his own, becoming his own person, and finding a way to embrace the Dick Whitman he once was and know that it's because of that man that he's the Don Draper he now is. Maybe this will mean him being pulled up to the top of McCann and becoming a partner there, and making that company McCann-Draper. Maybe they'll have him set up a satellite office elsewhere, where he can begin again. What I want is to see him moving forward, and this episode would indicate just that.

Despite everything, despite Don being such a loathsome character at times, we still want to see him win, just like we want all of our antiheroes to — see Tony Soprano, Vic Mackey, Walter White. I'm happy to know they're returning for a final seven episodes, to wrap up everything, help Don find some peace, and show us where they'll be headed in the 1970s. (Spoiler: bell bottoms, oil crisis, and glam rock.)

Mad Men S4: Portrait of the Artist as a Middle-Aged Man

I was going to go with a different photo for this week's recap of the Mad Men S4 finale last night, “Tomorrowland”... a photo showing The Thing that happened. But I didn’t want to inadvertently spoil anyone, so if you haven’t yet seen the finale and don’t know what Thing I’m talking about, please stop reading now.

This season has been, in a word, extraordinary. We watched Don Draper unravel completely as Dick Whitman dogged him almost to the point of complete self-destruction. His wife was remarried, his children were confused and he was constantly worried about them, the new business wasn’t doing gangbusters like it was supposed to, he screwed the babysitter and the woman down the hall and some waitress in a diner and his secretary before she finally quit and then the psychology expert the company brought in... it was a mess. He walked through the halls in an alcoholic haze, he messed up board meetings, and the creative genius of only a few years earlier had devolved into a monkey that resembled Roger Sterling... without the zingers.

And in an episode I can only refer to as sublime, “The Suitcase,” Don finally hit rock bottom. He’d peaked in assholery, forcing Peggy to stay late in the office on her birthday and then chastising her for not telling him it was a special day, he literally had a lost weekend where he didn’t know where he’d been for a couple of days, and worst of all, Anna, the only person who really knew him for who he was, died. In this incredible hour, Don and Peggy stayed in his office all night while other characters moved in and out of the scene like a play -- not sleeping together, not playing superior and inferior, not playing the roles of Man and Woman -- and we saw a new Don emerge the next morning. He had a purpose, he was going to put his life back together, he was going to attempt to stop drinking, he was going to put an effort into his children and his company, and he was going to stop sleeping around.

And for a while, it worked. The no-drinking thing was stymied slightly when Sally accidentally poured rum all over his pancakes (in a hilarious scene where she mistook the rum bottle shaped like a little Jamaican woman for a bottle of Aunt Jemima), but he shrugged it off and dealt with it. He began focusing his romantic energy on Faye Miller, and rather than continue his Don Draper charade with her, he told her up front who he really was. It was a surprising moment, but you could tell he was simply weary of lying. Finally he opened up to someone. He wasn’t going to lie to her the way he’d lied to Betty for so long. Here was a woman who was strong, independent, who Peggy recently had said she was envious of because this woman seemed to stand out in the world of men, making her own way.

And then, one night when Don was working late, his secretary, Megan shyly poked her head in and offered to help him out. And before you knew it, they were having sex on his couch. Sigh. “Oh, Don, you bastard,” my husband and I both said, exasperated. But this secretary wasn’t like the other one. She didn’t expect anything from Don, and simply zipped up her dress and walked back out of the office. And the next day, it was business as usual. No looking for compliments, no shock when he acted like he was her secretary, just back to putting Mr. Draper’s phone calls through to his phone.

We’d first noticed her when Sally had come into the office and had a complete spazzy breakdown in the hallway, and Megan ran after her, caught her in her arms, and just held her, rubbing her back and reassuring her that it would be OK. Sally quietly said, “No, it won’t.” Sally has been a character who has worried me from the beginning of this season, making me want to reach into the television and just yoink her out of this universe and save her. First, I think the actress who plays her is one of the best casting choices of the series. She looks and talks EXACTLY like her mother, in that very specific, clipped way. I think the young actress has done a fantastic job of learning to mimic January Jones’ way of talking and holding herself. While Betty Draper has turned into Mommie Dearest, Sally seems to take the brunt of it. Gene isn’t really aware of it, and Bobby just remains quiet, like he either doesn’t notice or doesn’t want to. But Sally is old enough to understand that her mother resents her, but too young to begin to understand why, or how she should deal with such a thing. While Betty feels like Don tossed her away, she can’t stand the fact that he wants to spend time with her own tiny doppelganger. Sally used to be the little chubby-cheeked youngster who had the occasional tantrum and otherwise faded into the background, but this season she moved into the spotlight. From the first episode, when we saw how slim she suddenly was, to the scene at the home of Betty’s new in-laws where Sally spat out her dinner, I started to worry that they were setting her up for some future eating disorder. Then as Sally’s life began to unravel, I started worrying more... could she be suicidal in the future? Is there something more at stake here? She’s so delicate and already broken, and she’s only about 10. The current season is set in 1965, and the beauty of this show is that we know the history that will come after it. I remember thinking at the beginning of the season that the poor kid was born at such an unfortunate time – she’ll only be 12 during the Summer of Love, so she’ll miss out on that one, and by the time the punk movement really takes shape in about 1977, she’ll be in her early 20s, so she may be too old to truly appreciate it. Poor thing! Maybe she’ll just really be into David Bowie. (There’s hope for you yet, little one.) But I am worried that they’re setting her up for some sort of eating disorder during a time where it wouldn’t have been understood.

But back to Megan. Don looks on, agog at the fact that while Betty would have simply said in her flat voice, “Go to your room” and given Sally a kick on the way up the stairs, here is his secretary sitting on the floor, hugging his daughter. There was definitely something in her even then. (And I read something today saying that the Google searches on “Jessica Paré,” the Canadian actress who plays her, have been huge today... as a Canadian I can tell you she really IS from Montreal, just like her character, and her first breakout role was starring in a film called “Stardom” about this girl who is obsessed with hockey and just wants to play with the boys until a modelling scout sees her and pushes her into the world of modelling, where she becomes a world-class supermodel and you watch all of the craziness that surrounds her. After that she was in a Canadian film called Lost and Delirious, based on the Susan Swan novel “The Wives of Bath,” about a girl who goes to college and discovers her female dormmates are sleeping together, and then Jessica starred a bunch of roles, mostly in Canadian films, but she was moving her way into American films and TV shows when Mad Men came along.)

But back to Mad Men. When Roger Sterling lost Lucky Strike (right after knocking up Joanie), Don went ballistic, and the company faced a major crisis where, for the first time, it really looked like they wouldn’t bounce back. Last week Don finally cracked and wrote an open letter to the New York Times, taking out a full page and basically saying he doesn’t sleep at night doing ads for tobacco companies anyway, so screw it, they’re no longer taking on tobacco, and anyone else can feel free to come their way. And so... the American Cancer Society did. Could it be the start of something bigger?

This week Betty finally becomes a full-on dragon, firing her maid/nanny Carla (with the patented Betty blindness: “Since when did you become their mother?” Um... from the moment I bloody well raised each one of them, maybe??), refusing to let Carla say goodbye to the children, and then telling Don he’ll have to take the kids on his trip without any help. Meanwhile, Peggy -- who also really came into her own this season as we saw her hanging with beatniks, showing tremendous restraint and confidence in the face of blatant sexism thrown at her every day from everyone from Don to her inferiors in creative to Joan, and connecting with Don on a new level that seemed to raise her up to almost his equal in his eyes -– has brought in the company’s first new client since the loss of Lucky Strike, and this good fortune could be the beginning of the upswing the company so badly needs. Pete has become less loathsome this season, and there was some political bandying this season with Don, but it always seemed necessary, like maybe Don deserved it and Pete wasn’t just being a dick. Joan watched her husband go off to war, had a fast and furious knee-wobbler with Roger in an alleyway that resulted in a pregnancy, and then went off to an abortion clinic, where it was never really obvious if she went through with it or not. This week we discover that she didn’t, and that instead she’s contacted her louse of a husband where he’s stationed in Vietnam and told him the baby is his (and he responds with regret that he won’t see her enormous breasts get that much bigger...)

But the season – and particularly this episode – belonged to Don. I figured with a season as amazing as this one has been, we would no doubt encounter something shocking... but I was NOT ready for this. When Don decides to take Megan with him to watch his kids while he’s in California, she jumps at the chance, and turns out to be pretty excellent with them. She teaches them French, keeps Sally calm, and when Sally accidentally spills a drink, Sally and Don both noticeably brace themselves for the onslaught of grief and guilt that will spew forth from the woman at the table... and instead Megan just laughs it off and begins dousing it with napkins.

While Don’s in California, he visits Anna’s home one last time and sees the signature he made on her wall when he’d been there a few months earlier. It brings back the last vestiges of the real Don Draper and the memory that around her, he could just be himself. And shortly after, in this scene in the restaurant, he realizes for the first time that he doesn’t have to be on pins and needles around Megan, that she just lets him be who he wants to be, doesn’t expect anything more out of him, and just might be the soothing force that Sally needs. While Betty ships Sally off to a psychiatrist, Megan talks to Sally, reassures her, teaches her, and doesn’t berate her.

But even all of this doesn’t brace us for what happens next. When Don wakes up early one morning upon returning to New York and asks Megan to marry him, handing her Anna’s engagement ring from the real Don Draper, I laughed and said to my husband, “It’s a fantasy sequence... someone’s having a dream.” But as the scene went on, I was thinking it was an AWFULLY long scene to be happening in a dream... someone’s supposed to jolt awake right about now, but instead, Megan’s calling her mom in Montreal. If this is Don’s dream, how would he understand enough French to put that in his dream? If it’s Megan’s, how would she know about Anna’s engagement ring? It can’t really be either one’s dream, which means....

WTF, Don, did you just ask your secretary to marry you???!!!!!

Words cannot express my bafflement in this moment. But after 24 hours of thought, I realize it’s pretty much in keeping with his character this season. Of course he did this. What Don needs is stability, and Megan has it in spades. She passes his phone calls through to him, she rushes into his office to make things better when a mistake has been made, she’s excellent with his children, she shows him respect, she doesn’t ask questions and just accepts him for who he is... she’s perfect.

And not perfect. For while everything might be rosy now, once they’re married she won’t be so willing to just sit back and let Don take the reins all the time. She’s going to want some answers, and won’t be so open to him sleeping around. She’ll resent that he plops the children on her lap while he takes off to a bar or away on a business trip. But maybe Don’s genuinely going to change. Is it possible that after this long personal journey of discovery this season, that Don will find a way to merge Don with Dick, and refuse to make the same mistakes that he did with Betty? Despite watching the scene where he calls Faye – a woman whom Peggy mistakenly thought had proven you can make it in a man’s world, but who in fact has been used by a man just like every other woman on the show – and thinking Don’s a complete ass, you have to admit that Faye, for as put-together as she was, not only felt awkward and strange around Sally, but she looked like Betty. Megan doesn’t. She’s an artist, with her feet firmly planted on the ground but with dreams of her own, and she’s a more interesting character than we’d originally been led to believe.

Could Megan actually help change Don?

Season 4 of Mad Men was my favourite season yet. I cannot WAIT for season 5.

And what were your thoughts?

Mad Men Sadness

I didn't post on this right away, simply because I was too broken up about it. If you're behind on Season 4 of Mad Men, then I suggest you turn away now and don't look below to avoid a major spoiler of the season. But without saying too much more, I think season 4 has been the best season to date. It's taken all of the threads of the previous seasons and weaved them together beautifully. (Seeing Don have a full-on panic attack this week was frightening and amazing.)

But all that aside, what happened last week was shocking, just as I was starting to realize who my favourite character on TV of the moment was. I was literally sitting on the couch with a pad of paper on my desk, thinking, "I'm gonna write a haiku as a tribute to her." And then... she was gone.

RIP, Miss Blankenship.

Your time on the show was too short, and your loud voice rattling into Don's office delighted me every time. You died as you lived... surrounded by the people you answered phones for.

Mad Men: The Suitcase

I apologize that I haven't had a chance to blog on much of this season of Mad Men. But last night's episode was extraordinary, and I simply had to say something about it.

"The Suitcase" is basically a set piece, almost like a play featuring Don Draper and Peggy Olsen, with all of the other characters just playing the chorus, moving in and out of the action while never being a focus. The way Weiner played with these two, moving them like chess pieces back and forth across the board throughout the episode, was incredible.

At the beginning, Peggy and the three dunderheads she now has to tolerate in the copy writing room put on a ridiculous (but hilarious) performance of the Samsonite commercial they want to do. Peggy never really seems to have her heart in it, and Don can tell. Half-drunk and generally falling apart, he bites her head off and tells her to go back to the drawing board. Most of his actions in the ep are driven by the fact that he's received a phone call from Stephanie, Anne Draper's niece, and he knows what the call is about -- Anne has cancer, and she's probably just died. He can't bring himself to make the call, because he can't handle actually hearing the words that this woman -- the only woman who truly knows him, as he'll later say -- could be gone. He's been hanging by a thread for most of the season, and the only time he seemed like himself was when he was with her and being, well, himself: Dick Whitman.

And so he takes out his frustrations on Peggy. It's Peggy's birthday, and she has a date with her wiener of a boyfriend (who played Karl on Lost, he of the Room 23 brainwashing scene), who, unbeknownst to her, has arranged the dinner with all of her loathsome family. Don keeps her after work, and in between dealing with Don's drunken rages, Peggy continually calls her boyfriend at the restaurant to keep telling him she'll be a bit later. To every viewer's relief, he eventually blows up at her and breaks up with her over the phone (he's the Joe Jonas of his time!!) and Peggy wanders back to Don's office, where he finally shuts up for once when he sees her misery. Though... that doesn't stop him from telling her off for being a big suck on her birthday. Don hits a new low in this episode -- the difference is, this time he KNOWS it.

There are many parallels drawn between the Peggy and Don relationship: Don giggles hysterically as he listens to Roger's tapes of his autobiography, where Roger talks about playing second fiddle to Bert Cooper and worrying that Bert won't think he's good enough. Just as Roger had to pander to Bert, Don had to suck up to Roger, and now Peggy finds herself in the same position, trying to win Don's praise. But unlike all of the men, Peggy won't compromise who she is, and never changes: She stands before Don in this episode and finally tells him what she thinks of him taking the glory for the Glo-Coat commercial that she'd come up with. She reminds him of the many good ideas she's had along the way. She knows that she owes Don -- he took a chance on her, and on a personal level, he was the guy who came to her in the hospital right after she'd had a baby and suffered a mental breakdown -- but she's done owing him. When he finally shapes up and takes her to a Greek restaurant, where they sit under a painting and talk about travel, they sit across the table as equals, not one person battling the other. There's no hierarchy or rivalry in this scene.

From there they go to a bar, where Peggy -- unlike all of the guys at Sterling-Cooper-Draper-Pryce -- does NOT get drunk, and they listen to the Liston-Clay fight that ended less than 2 minutes after it began. Cassius Clay would become Muhammad Ali, and he trounced Sonny Liston. He was the one no one saw coming (even Don bet $100 on Liston). Similarly, throughout this season we've watched the great, unstoppable Don Draper fall time after time, and he's becoming as useless as Roger on the job. How can this be the same guy who did the monologue about the Kodak carousel at the end of season 1?

Broken by his failed marriage, his wife and kids, his stressful job, and younger people who are doing their jobs better than he can, Don has found solace at the bottom of a bottle (well, and between the legs of just about every woman he sees). He's destroying himself, and just as Peggy was picked up at her lowest point by Don, here she sits and talks to him, and finally tells him what he's doing to himself. He tells her about the dreaded phone call, and falls apart. She holds his hat while he vomits into the toilet, and she strokes his hair as he falls crying into her lap. Don couldn't be alone on this difficult evening, and it's important that Peggy is the one he's with.

When Duck Phillips stumbles into the offices to leave a "gift" for Don, Peggy's fling with him is now apparent to Don, but considering many of his past transgressions, he can't judge Peggy for what she did, and he doesn't. He waves it off, she gets rid of Duck, and we know that Peggy won't go with Duck to the new firm -- she's smarter than that.

The next morning, Don gets up and finally finds the nerve to make that fateful phone call, only to find out it's worse than we thought -- Stephanie wasn't calling to say Anne was dead, but that she was at death's door, and wanted to talk to Don. He missed his opportunity, and now she's gone. His fear and self-destruction kept him from his last conversation with Anne (which probably wouldn't have been a good one, but it would have been something). The moment she died, however, he had awakened in his office with a vision of her, holding that Samsonite suitcase and waving goodbye as she left on her exciting new journey. Peggy had pitched an idea of Samsonite being the ultimate case you take with you wherever you go, but Don didn't like it.

The next day, disheveled and tired, Don and Peggy awake in the office. He shows her the ad that he'd come up with that mirrors the Liston/Clay fight, and Peggy begins to question his work the same way he does hers. He takes offense in much the same way, and she waves it off, saying she's just tired and tells him it's very, very good. Just before she leaves to go home and get cleaned up, Don takes her hand and holds it. They gaze at each other for a long time, and Peggy leaves. She'll return a couple of hours later, and it'll be business as usual at the firm as far as everyone else is concerned. But what happened that night was monumental. Don was K.O.'d, but Peggy helped him back up. The relationship between the two has changed, and perhaps they can move forward more as equals, rather than the traditional ageing boozehound and the young upstart who's out to push him to the side.

"The Suitcase" was a phenomenal episode, and one of my favourite hours of television of the year.

Mad Men: The Good News

What a great episode of Mad Men we had this week! Last week's episode was depressing as hell. In one moment at the Christmas party, Don's secretary tells the others that Don has forgotten his keys at the office. The new copywriter says, "He's such a disaster" and despite knowing so much about him for three full seasons, the viewer can't help but agree. Don is an alcoholic who sleeps with anything that moves, his wife has left him for another man, he sees his kids only occasionally, and he's a mess. In another scene, Roger comes into the office half-baked and Peggy rolls her eyes, saying, "I can't believe that's his job," referring to his booze-filled schmooze lunches. With Freddy Rumsen back in the office, it's clear the writers are pointing to Don's possible future -- he wants to believe he's above these other guys, but he's turning into the same mess they both were, and still are. When Don groped his secretary as she tried to help him into his apartment, I literally held my hands over my eyes, unable to watch the disaster unfolding on screen, and said out loud, "No, no, Don... don't do it..." but, he did it. And then acted like nothing happened, giving her her Christmas bonus in cash, like she was a paid hooker.

In this week's episode things are far more complex and interesting, with our sympathies moving back to Don again. I love Ann, and he's such a better person when he's around her (making moves on teenagers in cars notwithstanding... like, seriously Don, do you ever just keep those pants zipped?! In moments like this it really DOES seem more natural to call him DICK). Watching the torment on his face as he painted her walls this week, putting a temporary cover over a bigger problem on her wall in much the same way that he was sugar-coating his visit with her knowing it would probably be the last, was heartbreaking.

This episode also moved a focus over to Joanie, much to my delight. I loved her walking into Pryce's office and asking about his fried chicken preferences -- "Breast? Thigh?" -- while she swished her hips about. But back home, things aren't as easy. Her husband refuses to take her seriously, slamming his way out of the house, and then again I winced as, despite everything, she takes the high road and goes out of her way to make a dinner for him, one that begins with her almost slicing off her own finger.

It's in this scene, however, that contains a moment that's riddled with mixed feelings. He shows his sweet side, making jokes with her as he stitches her hand closed. At first he uses a trick on her that he admits he usually reserves only for his child patients, but then tells a dirty joke that makes her laugh and then cry. On the surface it seems sweet. But on the other hand, I simply cannot get that scene from the show's first season out of my head (or was it the second?) where he rapes Joan on the floor of Don's office. At the time, it certainly wouldn't have been seen as rape -- even though they weren't married, she was practically his wife, and therefore his "property" for him to do with what he wishes. I remember once when I was a teenager listening to this very odd conversation between two men about rape where one was arguing that one cannot possibly rape his own wife; that's simply ludicrous. The other was arguing that rape was about consent, and who's to say a wife is always consenting? But despite Joan looking uncomfortable in this scene, it's not clear if she identifies what he does to her as rape or just something that doesn't quite feel right.

Regardless, in this scene one could see his chat as being quite sweet, and that's what brings on the tears. But on the other hand, he treats her like a child and even an imbecile, only showing a modicum of caring to her when he's in charge, and she's completely helpless, and perhaps it's that treatment that Joan simply can't take. It's a very difficult scene to watch because it's hard to come up with just one emotion while doing so. It's this sort of complexity that makes me love the show so much.

Watching Don and Pryce on their wild afternoon was a lot of fun; the Godzilla movie in particular was hilarious, between Don whisper-screaming to Pryce, "You know what's going on here, don't you? HAND JOBS" to Pryce shouting fake Japanese at the woman sitting in front of them, the scene was a classic.

I also enjoyed the contrast between Ann and Betty that we can't help but make in our mind; Ann isn't drop-dead gorgeous, but she's smart, interesting, funny, and doesn't put any pressure on Don. Betty is stunning, but is boring, flat, has no personality, and expects too much from him. While Betty didn't feature in this week's episode at all, she's still one of the most difficult characters to gauge on this show -- one minute you feel sorry for her, the next you can't stand her (and last week I was SO freaking out when creepy Glenn was back!!!)

I know we're only three episodes in this season, but this was definitely my fave of the bunch. Only downside? No Roger! ;)

Mad Men: Public Relations

First, I have to announce (which I already kinda did over on my Facebook page) that I finally handed in the manuscript to my Finding Lost Season 6 book yesterday, so now I'm hoping to be back and blogging on a more regular basis. I think people thought this really was just a Lost blog, since I completely disappeared the moment the show was done! But it was just to write the book, and now I'm back. And I'm not the only one who's back...

Oooooh, Mad Men. It's back, it's slick, and it's as hip as it's ever been. This past Sunday saw the season 4 premiere of Mad Men, opening with a reporter asking Don, "Who is Don Draper?" and making notes in indecipherable shorthand. Don's responses are about as cryptic as the notes the reporter is making in front of him, and when he decides the best way to conduct the interview is simply to be evasive and silent, blowing smoke rings above the guy's head instead, he makes a huge mistake. This guy knows how to sell just about anything except himself.

Don's snafu ends up putting his new partners into a tizzy when the article paints a less-than-flattering portrait of the new company, and Don realizes he can't just think of himself anymore, he's got to think of everyone. As Peggy tells him at one point, "We're all here because of you. Because we want to impress you."

The new offices are all brighter with 60s glass walls rather than the 40s wood panelling in the old office. They all keep telling clients that there's a second floor that's under construction, when no such floor exists. There's no conference table; they all sit in chairs in a circle to promote discussion (this would be an early version of those silly "team-building" exercises that now include beating on drums and "sharing").

Peggy seems a lot more comfortable (and FINALLY has a great haircut) as she chums around with the new cute copywriter and drinks whisky and smokes just like the boys. The first time we see them she's longingly sighing, "John" and he responds, "Marsha" and they keep doing it back and forth. I had no idea what this was referring to, but assumed it was from a movie or an ad at the time. A quick check online showed it was satirist Stan Freberg's "John and Marsha" routine. I went to YouTube to listen to it (you can do so here) and it's an absolutely brilliant one where you hear a complete conversation between two people who say nothing but each other's names in various degrees of desire, anguish, sorrow, anger, and giggling happiness. It's genius. Peggy, and the way she's evolved from last season (including an amazing scene where she sort of tells off Don in his office) was the best part of the episode.

On the home front, Don's lawyer tells him that Betty is supposed to be out of the house that he's still paying for, and it's time he throw her out or ask her for rent. Don's living in an apartment, a single dad taking the kids on occasional weekends (something that would have been seen as very strange at the time). Meanwhile, Betty is being seen as her new beau's sloppy seconds, and his mother rightfully notices that the children are terrified of her. Sally has noticeably lost weight (are they going to introduce an eating disorder in a future seasons or can we just assume this is losing some of the adorable baby fat she had last year?) and is clearly disturbed by her new unsettled family situation. Betty continues to be a difficult character -- she's far from a loving mother, and yet she seems to have fallen into the arms of yet another man who just takes her for granted.

There was a lot to love about this episode, and I did. Roger, in particular was REALLY on. Some of his zingers:

• Roger on the newspaper who sent a reporter with a wooden leg: “They’re so cheap they couldn’t send a whole reporter.” AAHH!!
• Roger on the two prudish guys who have the swimsuits that are NOT bikinis: “I love how they sit there like a coupla choir boys. You just know one of them is leaving New York with VD.” HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
• Roger trying to get Don to meet his young wife’s 25-year-old friend: “You hit it off, come Turkey Day maybe you can stuff her.”
• Roger on why Don needs to go to Roger’s fave restaurant on his blind date: “They have Chicken Kiev. Butter squirts everywhere.”
• Roger tells Don that the blind date liked him after explaining that the reporter screwed him in the story, and says, “If she liked you maybe you should have fondled Peg-leg Pete.” HAHAHAHAHA!!!!

While the girl on Don's date seemed to be a bit vapid, I think it’s just Don’s nature to chase her because she wouldn’t let him follow her up to her apartment. The moment he conquers her, he’ll probably just toss her aside again, Don style.

Did anyone else notice that Don’s date was Sarah Newlin (the minister’s wife) from season 2 of True Blood? She looked SO familiar to me, and then a friend of mine the next day said, “Yeah… she looked exactly like Betty!” and then when we IMDb’d her we realized who she was. How much do I love Mad Men for completely camouflaging people I’m watching on other shows??

And I cannot end this without mentioning the Divine Miss Joan. Oh, Joanie; my girl crush on you has not abated ONE BIT.

Other highlights:
• Harry returning from his trip all sunburned and peeling and saying he was indoors the whole time.
• Joanie reassuring him that she won’t even tell anyone about his big television news after it’s aired. Ha!
• Don ordering the prudes from the swimwear company out of his office. Brilliant. (Even better when he snaps his fingers at them like they’re animals.)
• The end credit song, “Tobacco Road” by The Nashville Teens. I remember my dad playing this song when I was a kid, and I loved it. Great to hear it again!!

What I didn’t love:
• No Sal. Sadness. I miss him so much.
• While I loved seeing Joan, she didn’t have much to do in the ep, and probably only had a couple of lines. That said, they could only focus on certain characters and I’m sure we’ll see more of her in the coming weeks.

So what did you think of the return of Don Draper and the gang?

Mad Men: The Best Show on TV?

I LOVE Mad Men. Love it. From the very first season, I've been intrigued by this show with such stunning directing, writing, and acting. Anyone who's a fan of The Sopranos knows that it was a show where the directors could subtly play with light and dark, where the writers knew how to take already fascinating characters and give them dark secrets to make them even more intriguing, and actors who knew how to take all these elements and make the most of them on screen. Matthew Weiner, the creator of Mad Men, was a writer on The Sopranos, and he certainly picked up a LOT while working there.

Seasons 1 and 2 were brilliant, but so far season 3 is my favourite. I think 6 episodes have aired already, and every week I keep meaning to write up something on it, but I keep missing the boat. So I'm writing this on Friday (while Dollhouse is actually on, but my husband is currently commandeering the TV catching up on last night's Flashforward and I'm FREAKING that I'm not watching Dollhouse in real time here!!) to post it on Sunday.

This season finds all of the characters in transition. Don and Betty have just had a new baby, and for the first few episodes, Betty was still pregnant and dealing with her ailing and aging father, who suddenly died right before she gave birth. For me, this is one of the most fascinating and horrific storylines yet -- no, not the whole father dying bit, but what it was like being pregnant in the 1960s!!! ZOMG. First of all, the maternity clothes were HIDEOUS, making this gorgeous woman look like she's wearing a tent the entire time. She smokes, drinks, and does whatever she wants while pregnant. No one worries about her "condition," even if she mentions it every once in a while, and there's no judgement against her for doing things. While I don't smoke or drink, and therefore had to give up nothing for my pregnancies, I have friends who would go out to a restaurant and have a small glass of wine and the looks they endured from people at nearby tables made them wither and push the glass away, ordering a water instead. (But at least their maternity clothes were more fashionable!) And that doesn't even BEGIN to cover the actual birth scene. Yowzers. It's white, sterile, clinical, and they pump so many drugs into Betty's poor frame it's a wonder that kid didn't have to go on methodone as soon as he was born just to deal with the immense withdrawal. Don walks her into the hospital, where she's promptly put into a wheelchair, he's told "your work is done now" and he ends up having an excruciating wait for several hours in the waiting room while Betty deals with nurses who know better, doctors who just jab her with needles to knock her out constantly, and hallucinations that are both vibrant and terrifying. I, on the other hand, remember coming into the hospital through emergency where I had to walk the length of the hospital to the bank of elevators that would take me to triage, and I had to stop every minute to have another contraction against the wall. Where was MY wheelchair??!! Oh, I kid. I'd take that any day over the horrible way they depicted it here. And today's generation often says, "And imagine those fathers who just sat around doing nothing in the waiting rooms" like they were somehow layabouts. I can tell you my husband would have much rather been with me, knowing what was happening, than pacing a waiting room for 20 hours not knowing a thing. And then there's the Bety staying in the hospital for a week, and Don going back to work a couple of hours after the baby was born...

But anyway, on to the rest of the show. There's an early scene where Roger and his ex-wife meet to discuss the impending wedding of their daughter, and the daughter tells the father that in no way does she want his new young wife to be there, because it'll embarrass her in front of everyone. He tells her that there's no way he's going to leave his wife at home, and looks at his ex, picks up the invite and says he'll be sure to tell his wife the date. (The kicker: the date on the invite was November 23, the day after JFK's assassination will be.) He later tells Don that he's not going to let his wife win this one, but clearly he's not considering his daughter at all. War among the exes at the expense of the children, sadly, is not something that had changed at all, even with 50 years under our belts.

Peggy is considering a change of her own, as she's not making nearly the money that the other copy writers are, and is being courted by another agency. Will she go? Meanwhile, Joan's husband was supposed to become the chief resident of the hospital, and she put in her notice to coincide with the day he was going. And then he doesn't get the position and tells her that she'll have to go back to work, which she can't imagine doing now that they've all had a party for her. Will Peggy leave, and Joan will go with her?

Sal has a brief flirtation with fabulousness as he not only gets caught with a busboy by Don in a hotel, but he performs a Broadway routine in the bedroom and his wife finally has that look in her eye like, "Oh. So THAT'S why you're not totally into this whole sex thing..." I wanted this to be the season of Sal, but that might have been it. Oh, and Pete Campbell and his wife perform a choreographed dance for the ages in the first episode that had me in stitches.

Meanwhile, the Brits have taken over the company, and in this past episode (my fave of the season so far), a young buck shows up from England, having gone to the London School of Economics, and he will be taking over as one of the heads, along with Don and Bertram (he forgot to add Roger's name to the flowchart). But Cosgrove, in the meantime, had just landed the John Deere account, and he brings one of their new riding mowers into the office. At the big good-bye party for Joan, everything is going swimmingly, and then Lois decides to hop on the lovely riding mower and ride it around the office. Unfortunately she forgot about the blades, and gets too close to the young Brit... and then this happens.

One of the craziest and funniest moments EVER on Mad Men (and that gif never gets old for me!) Only made funnier by Kinsey telling Roger that he might lose his foot, and Roger replying, "Just when he got it in the door" as a guy is squeegeeing the blood off the windows in the background. My husband and I were laughing our heads off, all the while horrified at the same time.

I wish Mad Men lasted the entire year. I can't believe it's almost done already. Why can't there be more episodes?? Right now, it's the best show on television (while Lost isn't running, of course!) and I think it's extraordinary.

And I'll mention once again that if you haven't already, pick up a copy of Jesse McLean's Kings of Madison Avenue, a book the establishes the socio-political context of the show, and which has made me watch this new season in a completely new and intriguing light.