Mad Men

[Perkins Cobb]

On the other hand, Robert freakin' Towne will be writing for the show this season(s)!

[Robert de la Cheyniest]

I was just about to post that
Weiner must love hiring 70s screenwriters considering he also had the late, great Frank Pierson on staff last season.

[manicsounds]

DVDBeaver on Season 6

Well, this is disappointing. While all previous season sets had lots of extras including commentaries on all episodes, (usually 2 per episode), season 6 gets none!

[LQ]

How great was last night's episode? Jon Hamm and Kiernan Shipka's father-daughter relationship continues to be one of the most compelling ever committed to screen. The ending note of the episode was so beautifully simple and poignant.

Also: "Hello, Dawn." "Hello, Shirley."

[Werewolf by Night]

The first half of the episode had me thinking, "Oh great, another week where no one is happy, no one gets anywhere, and everybody's still lying to each other," and then the last half had all the movement of the staff around the office and those great scenes between Don and Sally. The look on Don's face after Sally got out of the car: devastating. Also: "I'm so many people."

But poor Peggy. Get your shit together, girl. The farce with the flowers was a little unsatisfying, dramatically, but I realize it was necessary to facilitate the upward movement of Joan and the secretaries. But is she going to spend the remainder of the series (and her career) chafing under Ted, Lou and his cardigans, and the inescapable influence of Don?

[manicsounds]

Looks like there are commentary tracks on the blu-ray/dvd of the final season part 1 set, the last season set had none for some reason.

[Murdoch]

It's over. I'm not sure what to think, but I can't say I disliked it.

Spoiler

Stan and Peggy getting together caught me by surprise, not that that's a bad thing. It felt like one of those golden era Hollywood romances where the lovers don't realize it till the end. It was a bit cliched, but given the show's indebtedness to old Hollywood it felt fitting.

I like that the end didn't feel like the end, that these characters' lives would continue on. Most shows try to provide a definite endpoint, that whatever happens afterward isn't meaningful. But with Mad Men I didn't feel that, rather that we were given a glimpse of an era. I had a love-hate relationship with the show, but by the sixth season something just fell into place for me.

And that final monologue was perfect, especially for the fact that Don just watched his words pour out of someone else's mouth.

[mfunk9786]

I thought it was really beautiful, and for once no one's getting exuberant praise for the great ad - hell, we don't even know who came up with it. My money's on Don, LQ's is on Peggy - and that's the show. Isn't it the idea that these people are communicating to other people through the thick lens of their work, and that they feel the most comfortable doing so despite all the outside forces in the word going what the fuck is wrong with you?? The title of the show has never made more sense.

[Roger Ryan]

After finding most of this last half-season to be a little off-putting, I was very pleased with how the final episode concluded.

Spoiler

I found Don's realization that his ability to pitch a product is the most honest thing about his life and his choice to embrace it to be just about right. I have to imagine that Don's retreat experience is what inspires the most iconic Coca-Cola TV ad ever; that a true sense of embracing life might be found in the act of selling soda pop is the combination of sincerity and cynicism that has propelled MAD MEN all along.

[hearthesilence]

After finding most of this last half-season to be a little off-putting, I was very pleased with how the final episode concluded.

Spoiler

I found Don's realization that his ability to pitch a product is the most honest thing about his life and his choice to embrace it to be just about right. I have to imagine that Don's retreat experience is what inspires the most iconic Coca-Cola TV ad ever; that a true sense of embracing life might be found in the act of selling soda pop is the combination of sincerity and cynicism that has propelled MAD MEN all along.

I haven't seen these last episodes yet, but Jesus, there's something inherently repugnant about that idea, enough that there isn't anything I would embrace about that ending, even if it is a personal grace for Don. If anything, it anticipates everything that's horribly wrong about the coming '80s with the rise of Reaganism, Wall Street and yuppie culture, not to mention the foundation for a lot of wrongs today.

[mfunk9786]

At least it's honest.

[Drucker]

After finding most of this last half-season to be a little off-putting, I was very pleased with how the final episode concluded.

Spoiler

I found Don's realization that his ability to pitch a product is the most honest thing about his life and his choice to embrace it to be just about right. I have to imagine that Don's retreat experience is what inspires the most iconic Coca-Cola TV ad ever; that a true sense of embracing life might be found in the act of selling soda pop is the combination of sincerity and cynicism that has propelled MAD MEN all along.

I haven't seen these last episodes yet, but Jesus, there's something inherently repugnant about that idea, enough that there isn't anything I would embrace about that ending, even if it is a personal grace for Don. If anything, it anticipates everything that's horribly wrong about the coming '80s with the rise of Reaganism, Wall Street and yuppie culture, not to mention the foundation for a lot of wrongs today.

You're really going off this morning, buddy!

[Feiereisel]

The ending sat very well for me too, creatively speaking.

Spoiler

With regard to the final shots, I'm curious to see what people make of it as they puncture the "Does Don go back?" veneer of the scene and start trying to unpack its potential meaning. Whether or not Don returns (I think he does, partially because he's kind of a coward when it comes to introspection--this is the beginning of that road of self-realization rather than the end of it) is almost incidental, a subordinate question in the scheme of the episode and the show.

What surprised me most was how largely content the characters seemed--I don't know if I'd call it optimistic, though. Peggy and Stan and Roger and Marie couple up, but fight prior to their unions; the show as a whole suggests that things like bliss and enlightenment, though willfully chased, are only momentarily attained or outright fictions. The ad-as-closer squares with this--the idea, like the product, is sweet but ultimately ephemeral, thirty seconds of peace and love designed to hook you into buying something. (Though maybe that's a cynical read--there's an undeniable work-as-art current in the show...and the ad certainly is purer than the product it's designed to sell.)

The structuring of the "I'd like to buy the world a Coke" phrase also speaks to this; the Coke hasn't been bought yet, despite the desire. (Yearning: very Don, in a creative sense.) So while I'd like to think of these as happy endings, there's a sense that the characters' various "harmonies" will be, like the commercial, like consumable product, like Roger's enlightenment, fleeting, something that's fondly remembered long after it has aired but firmly ensconced in its nostalgic shell--something that is by nature of the past forever longer than it's of the future. Ads: the idea is more satisfying than the reality.

The sentiment is genuine, at least, even though the enlightenment might be self-delusion; Don buying his own product. I don't know.

And as a quick reply, all the subsequent bad '80s stuff still happens--the show is still set in the "real world" and can be read speculatively in that context, though I'm not sure "Don can't stop history" is particularly enlightening. Time marches on. He left his fancy apartment, his car...and new people moved into them, into parts of his "identity", as Dick Whitman co-opted Don Draper. Hell, Don as DB Cooper is still on the table because it didn't not happen. And the significance of Don abandoning his car at the end of the previous episode is also cheekily undercut by this episode opening with him driving another, faster car.

Either way, I want to run through the whole show again and see what sticks out now that we know the shape of it.

[hearthesilence]

After finding most of this last half-season to be a little off-putting, I was very pleased with how the final episode concluded.

Spoiler

I found Don's realization that his ability to pitch a product is the most honest thing about his life and his choice to embrace it to be just about right. I have to imagine that Don's retreat experience is what inspires the most iconic Coca-Cola TV ad ever; that a true sense of embracing life might be found in the act of selling soda pop is the combination of sincerity and cynicism that has propelled MAD MEN all along.

I haven't seen these last episodes yet, but Jesus, there's something inherently repugnant about that idea, enough that there isn't anything I would embrace about that ending, even if it is a personal grace for Don. If anything, it anticipates everything that's horribly wrong about the coming '80s with the rise of Reaganism, Wall Street and yuppie culture, not to mention the foundation for a lot of wrongs today.

You're really going off this morning, buddy!

Hahah, yes, I know. Right after I saw Roger Ryan's post and before I even typed the first word, I thought, "Jesus, I just got on the soapbox for the Steve Jobs thread…"

Part of it may be the recent start of multiple Presidential campaigns, which can make one a bit more mindful of such issues, but Mad Men and Steve Jobs are both works that choose, as their context, capitalistic endeavors with a direct and sizable impact on the world's socioeconomic climate, and the timing of the season finale and the Steve Jobs trailer was serendipitous.

And with that, I will return to my job, handing out Socialist newspapers on your local street corner...

[Lost Highway]

Only finished the show last night. I don't think season 7 was overall as strong as previous seasons, but the end was handled very well. I thought the Coca Cola ending was great but I was most impressed with how the show tied up Betty's storyline. She has always been the character which I found the most intriguing, possibly because of her resemblance to my own mother. While Betty was potentially the least sympathetic of the female characters, she ended up moving me the most and that was without compromising, sentimentalising or softening her. It just turns out that her perceived weaknesses also end up being her strengths. Facing the end she appears to be almost entirely preoccupied with how she looks in death but for her that was also was the way she faced the end with bravery, dignity and a total lack of self pity. Her dress, her hair, her make-up are her battle armour with which to go into the night.

And I'm with those who despite her consistently strong work on the show, may have underestimated January Jones' acting skills and who now regret it. I long thought that this was simply lucky casting but what she did in Mad Men required great acting. The reason why she hasn't impressed me in movie roles yet may just be because so far she has mostly been cast in purely decorative roles.

[WrathOfAguirre]

HBO acquired the rights to stream Mad Men, and in 4K, after a "remastering." This is the most insane yet hilarious example of ineptitude and "how did this get signed off on?" maybe ever when it comes to this sort of thing. Really, just unbelievable.

https://fxrant.blogspot.com/2025/12/the ... bacle.html

(Also didn't know Blogspot was still in use or even available today. What year is it?)

[EddieLarkin]

I would have assumed that this 4K remaster was just an upscale from the finished 2K files, but this debacle suggests that they did indeed go back to the original film materials. But it's precisely this reason why studios don't 4K remaster in this way, because even back in 2007 everything was finished digitally at the lower resolution. So did they just stupidly think they could scan the film elements and, job done?

[andyli]

Yeah exactly why a 4K rebuild of DI would lead to mistakes, almost inevitably.

[EddieLarkin]

Yup, even if they did the "right thing" and tried to reintegrate every single digital effect that is now missing, they wouldn't be able to recreate the signage or trash cans or whatever with perfect accuracy (and no doubt in fact do a crappier rushed job overall), which people would then complain about instead. I wonder if they'll eventually just replace this version with a standard 2K upscale.

[knives]

WB has done this same mistake before. For example the Blus to a lot of the DCAU are messed up on account of not realizing how many changes were made from the negatives to airdate. Wrong title cards used, missing effects and the like.