Just mix in a little more color
So ColumbusGal and I finally finished Mad Men, and while I found the "second half" of the final season pretty directionless, that's nothing to the appalling state of the last two episodes. Did Matthew Weiner die, or get absorbed into Richard Simmons household? It was like, "whip me up six happy endings," and I'm not talking about the good kind, either. It's like he jumped up from the table and announced "I'm done," and somebody said, "er, Matt, you've got four hours left, and the suits are here to make sure."
You say Betty's wasn't a happy ending? Really? She told her daughter she loved her and made her feel all loved and mature. Talk about faithlessness to the story. (Although looking back on it, her final line, "Why was I ever doing it?" is an apt epitaph for the series.)
Ugh. You were much too kind, LAGuy. Really, was there a single major character wrap up that had anything to do with anything in the first six years of the show? It probably would have improved things if they'd made the last episode a musical. Or maybe taken a page from Community and made it a Pokemon card game.
posted by ColumbusGuy @ 3:00 AM
3 Comments:
I thought the show kind of rallied in the second half. It had been in the doldrums and needed shaking up. Yes, it went all over the place and moved away from familiar tropes, and plenty of stuff didn't work, but Don, above all (and he is the show), needed to go on a final journey of discovery.
As for the ending, some of it worked, some of it didn't, though, considering how Weiner liked to avoid the obvious, it gave us some pretty definitive scenarios as to how people were moving on. And yes, it didn't follow where the show had been. That was the point.
But really, the only thing that mattered about the finale was that final shot of Don. Everything else could have failed as long as you've got a moment that works so well (after threatening not to) to cap off all those years.
I'd like to know what my reaction would have been without already knowing what was coming. (Which really made all the references to Coke in the previous five episodes heavy handed)
Perhaps I would have found it so moving. Color me skeptical whether that could bear the weight of all the other failures.
Actually, maybe he could have salvaged it by having Peggy come up with a crying injun theme . . .
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