Sometimes
I think about what it would have been like to see a movie like Gone With The Wind or The Godfather when it was originally
released in theaters. I like to wonder
what the experience would have been like for someone like myself back in those
days, before years and years of history continually affirmed each of the
movies’ greatness within the annals of filmdom.
I like to think about what was going through people’s minds, say, when
Scarlett O’Hara cries the now-legendary line “If God is my witness, I’ll never
go hungry again!” or when a young Michael Corleone pulls off a double-murder in
the famous Italian restaurant scene, thus beginning his dark descent into a
life of corruption and power. My guess
is that in many cases, the reaction was something like this: “I don’t know how
this movie is going to end, but right now this in unlike anything I’ve ever
seen...I’m watching something truly special right now.”
And
that brings us to where we are before tonight’s Season 5 finale of Mad Men.
Fat Betty and Other Fun Season 5
Adventures
A
show that simply refuses to stop getting better, Mad Men has given us everything we could have asked for in its
fifth season. Perhaps due to Netflix and
the ability to watch the first four seasons, it seems like people are finally
catching on (the ratings are higher this season than ever before) to Don Draper
& the gang. This season has given us
“Zou Bisou Bisou,” Fat Betty, Pete becoming as close to a villain as the show’s
ever had, Don & Joan and a Jaguar, Lane’s unfortunate demise, Roger taking
LSD (more on that later), and Peggy’s tearjerker of a resignation. More
than in any season before, the show has been appointment TV for everyone I know
who watches it, and I’ve had more discussions, email and twitter conversations,
texts, and phone calls about all the events I’ve just mentioned than in the
first four seasons combined.
And
although these events have been fun to dissect and discuss, I keep thinking
about them in terms of the larger picture.
When the season 5 promotional banner came out (picture on right), there
were obviously tons of bloggers and writers flapping around like schoolgirls
over what the meaning was. The answer
has been fairly clear from the beginning of the season: more than ever, women
are having a large impact on what is happening in the show, and are far more
powerful than they’ve been up until this point, and all in different ways. Megan is finally reeling Don in (and is also
very career driven and apparently good at everything she does), Peggy finally
took her life under control and, for better or worse, got out from under Don’s
wing, perhaps forever. And let’s not
forget that without Joan (who is now a partner), SCDP doesn’t land Jaguar.
This
1967 view of women is a far cry from where we began in 1959, with oblivious
Betty, skanky/flirty Joan, and sheltered Peggy.
The paradigm shift is significant, and for all of the time we spent
hoping for the “Don is BACK!!” storylines this season, perhaps something as
simple as the promo banner could have told us it wasn’t in the cards. Are we so naïve to believe that the titular
Men of Madison Avenue will one day catch up to this world when all of the signs
point the other way?
And that’s
one of the underrated great things about Mad
Men—you sometimes forget after five seasons where we came from. It has such slow, calculated shifts (not only
the one I just mentioned but several others as well), that much like in real
life, you have to take a step back and remember where you started for it to
register its full impact on you.
A Brief History of My Favorite Episodes
It’s
also part of the reason that Mad Men,
for me, has gotten better with every season. Every season features at least one
episode that becomes my new favorite episode of the series. Season 2 features a compelling duo of
episodes in which Don spends some time in California with his “wife,” Anna,
which gives us a glimpse into Don (or, Dick) as he truly sees himself. Season 3’s finale, “Shut the Door, Have a
Seat,” topped that, when Don successfully makes his bid to start the new ad
agency. Then it happened again in Season
4’s “The Suitcase,” a brilliant bottle episode on the eve of the Ali-Liston
fight in which Don and Peggy go a few rounds themselves trying to come up with
an idea for a Samsonite campaign.
And
then there was “Tomorrowland,” Season 4’s completely enraging
finale. In retrospect, the episode is one of the smartest unexpected turns the
series has ever taken, culminating in Don’s unlikely proposal to young Megan
Calvet after a season of wooing the much-preferred Faye, causing me and
millions of people across the country to yell at their TV screen “WHAT ARE YOU
DOING YOU IDIOT?!?!!!” over and over and over again.
Far Away Places
And
finally, Season 5 gave me yet another favorite episode of the series, “Far Away
Places.” Three concurring storylines
involving Don, Peggy, and Roger are spread across this episode, yet we get to
see each one evolve separately. This
artistic measure was one of the best that the Mad Men writers have ever come up with—the three-act structure it
took on contained very different plots, but all with a similar tone and theme.
Peggy’s story involves her frustrations at work—her Heinz Beans campaign is
rejected, which causes her to go on a Don-esque tirade against the Heinz reps.
In fact, the rest of her day goes just about like Don’s might—she skips out of
work, goes to a movie, treats a random dude in the theater to a Peggy delight
with a capital D (after sharing his joint), and heads back to the office to
crash on Don’s couch.
Don
and Megan’s storyline starts with an unanticipated trip to a Howard Johnson, of
all places, and ends in the legitimately frightening scene of Don chasing Megan
around their penthouse, stripping Don down to his most primal state. In between all of this, they get in a fight
about orange sherbet, Megan disappears, Don doesn’t know where she went, and he
spends the long night in the café of the Ho-Jo, alone in his thoughts about
what he’s done (or rather, “Far Away” in his thoughts).
Roger & His Magical Singing
Stolichnaya Bottle
But
Roger. Oh, Roger. Roger & Jane
experience a much different kind of trip than Don and Megan—they spend their
evening in a psychiatrist’s home tripping on LSD. This scene of Roger on a hard drug proves
quite entertaining (but not over the top), and ends with a devastating shot of
Roger and Jane on the floor in bath robes, wondering what happened to their
relationship, not in an immature or selfish way—but rather, in complete and
utter clarity, courtesy of that good ole’ acid they dropped some several hours
before. Then and there, they admit they
don’t love each other anymore, and that their marriage is, for all intents and
purposes, over. And then Jane says these
words:
“I knew we were going somewhere, and I
didn’t want it to be here.”
Which,
for me, sums up not just the episode, and not just the season, but perhaps even
the entire series of Mad Men.
It’s an underlying feeling we all get when watching the show—we want all
of these characters to change, to succeed, to find happiness; but we know in our
heart of hearts there’s no light at the end of the tunnel, and that what awaits
our beloved antiheroes is not success, but failure. Not change, but unrelenting
stagnation. Not happiness, but
tragedy. It’s the truth we all know we
are headed for, though unlike Roger & Jane we don’t need to take LSD to
prove it to us. As with Scarlett O’Hara,
a “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn,” seems a lot more plausible ending for
these characters than a “they lived happily ever after,” doesn’t it?
The End?
Mad Men will end someday sooner rather
than later. I don’t know what will
happen in tonight’s finale, and I don’t know the fate of Don Draper,
Roger Sterling, or Peggy Olsen over the show’s final seasons. I know that in real life there are ebbs and
flows—last season we saw Don at his absolute worst, this season we see him at
his best with Megan. And I expect this
up and down trend to continue. But in
the end, this is not a show about redemption—it is a show about people.
Whatever
the outcome is, whatever happens tomorrow night or in the seasons beyond, I
know that like those lucky enough to see Gone
With The Wind or The Godfather when
they were released, I feel similarly lucky to be watching something
extraordinary unfold as its happening.
Better
shows than Mad Men may come along,
but there’s never been anything quite like it, and there never will be.
