<p>“Lane was neither rich (yet) nor Henry K, nor are most men.”</p>
<p>Yet, Lane’s wife was an attractive woman. I am surprised you hold this view. I know countless examples of dynamic men (not most men) with big personalities in my own life, not physically attractive, and not necessarily rich or even powerful, with very attractive women.</p>
<p>Also, as much as we “Maddicts” tend to forget it, this is television. Attractive women are paired with unattractive, even slovenly, men all the time on sitcoms. I never cared for “Roseanne” but at least the male and female leads were physical equals. Look at “The King of Queens” or “Grounded for Life.” Thin, attractive wives, the husbands, not so much. And the men aren’t rich or powerful, either.</p>
<p>Found the fact that the firm begins rolling in money as soon as poor Lane is gone quite tragic.</p>
<p>So do I, given the fact that Lane set them up for that success. I feel sorry for him. He screws up once and look what happens.</p>
<p>I find Joan’s character to be so rich. She knows what her stock-in-trade is, and she’s very self-aware, with a tender underbelly. Her fatal flaw may be when, as she ages, she’s replaced with a newer model. I have no doubt she’ll claw her way to doing whatever it takes to support her child, and the firm’s success will set her up eventually. She is not to be underestimated, but next season will we see a “Younger Joan” getting more attention? I’d love to see that develop and how Joan copes.</p>
<p>“And hasn’t anyone heard: The richer and more powerful a man becomes the more attractive he is to women. (My own mother told me that when I was a wee lass…and she was right.)”</p>
<p>I also think that many women tend to be less superficial than men when comes to the opposite sex and find that intelligence and humor rate very high, as well as power, etc.</p>
<p>Mel Brooks and his wife, Anne Bancroft, were at an interview and they asked him, What’s your greatest achievement. He said: To get someone who looks like her to marry someone who looks like me.</p>
<p>But the evidence indicates confirmation for the “matching hypothesis,” that signicant others tend to be equally attractive–particularly among couples of equal social-economic status. </p>
<p>Browse through the wedding announcement photos and judge for yourself,</p>
<p>[Weddings</a> & Celebrations - Fashion & Style - The New York Times](<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/pages/fashion/weddings/index.html]Weddings”>Love - The New York Times)</p>
<p>I think Joan’s essential conflict is her looks versus her skills. It’s a setup like Jessica Rabbit: I’m not bad; I’m just drawn that way. She’s not supposed to be so competent looking like that, not in that era. They keep making this point: she knows every detail of parliamentary procedure, she checks out the space, she is cautious for the firm, she draws the location of the staircase. And she does this in a dress so tight she can barely bend over.</p>
<p>I have been reading a ton of weird comments elsewhere about how Don sees Megan. I though the episode was pretty darned clear: Marie tells him he can have an unhappy Megan who is like Betty in her nightgowns or a happy Megan who has a future at least partly apart from him. He chooses the latter. Why? Because he cares about her. Same with Peggy. There is a huge amount of history between Don and Peggy and it’s all there in the scene at the movies. Don couldn’t do that for Adam, though he cared about Adam a lot, because back then he was the other Don Draper, the one who was living a lie he couldn’t admit to anyone at all. He let Adam down. And now Adam says “I’ll hang around” as a reminder. It’s about being strong enough to do what’s right for the people you care for. That has so far been a big part of Don’s journey, learning not only about himself but about he relates to other people in a healthier, happier way. You only live twice.</p>
<p>I also think comments elsewhere about Megan’s reel tend toward actual stupidity. Don bluntly says he has trouble recommending his wife to Butler Shoes. But he does. So therefore he saw enough in her reel to put her up for an audition. If he was so shocked by her desperation, why even look at the reel? Why have the scene if he wasn’t checking her out for the job? BTW, in case anyone doesn’t know, those kind of tests were generally silent and involved showing simple behaviors like laughter, turning around in a costume, etc. You can find lots of examples of stars in screen tests and costume tests that look just like Megan’s reel. One of my favorites is an extraordinary looking Loretta Young twirling and smiling. </p>
<p>BTW, I loved the last shot of Pete. He loves music. He loves to sit with his headphones listening with his eyes closed. That’s a source of contentment. He has a deep unhappiness inside but at least he’s beginning to understand.</p>
<p>As you can see from my posts on this episode, I’m very impressed with the writing and execution. This show was like a novel in depth. That is something tv has trouble with. Pictures can convey so much but tv pictures are usually about situations; they represent a situation in the narrative, more like a series of setups that allow the dialogue to occur. These images told the story. Including the dogs humping in the hotel parking lot in Richmond: the ambiguity inherent in Peggy’s success as she lies down alone in the middle of a big bed.</p>
<p>Lergnom, I love reading your analysis of this show! :)</p>
<p>EXCELLENT post Lergnom, a great analysis on what makes this show so, so good.</p>
<p>
And it will probably happen. Volupitiousness is about to become as dated as cloche hats and rolled stockings were in those days. Upthread, I mentioned Twiggy and Swinging London. The youthquake is happening and Joan will not be a part of it. I’m reminded of something I heard said once about Marilyn Monroe - if she were trying to break into show business today, she’d be told to lose 40 lbs. and get a personal trainer. Joan would probably be told the same thing.</p>
<p>Matthew Weiner shares some of his insights into MM characters in this recent interview. I thought his comments on Joan and Don were particularly interesting:</p>
<p>[Mad</a> Men finale: Matt Weiner interview on Season 5 final episode, The Phantom. - Slate Magazine](<a href=“http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/interrogation/2012/06/mad_men_finale_matt_weiner_interview_on_season_5_final_episode_the_phantom_.html]Mad”>Mad Men finale: Matt Weiner interview on Season 5 final episode, The Phantom.)</p>
<p>^^ Excellent insights into Joan’s character from Weiner.</p>
<p>Great episode. That long take of Don walking away from the audition was incredible. There was a dream-like, Mullholland Drive quality to it that took my breath away. And his facial expression changed at least 3 times.</p>
<p>Weiner would not have gone from there to a standard-issue soap opera plot device like having Megan’s friend lying in wait for Don in a bar. These were two different women, of just the sort that would have tempted Don easily during his marriage to Betty. We’ll see next season whether he has changed for good.</p>
<p>No, not a set-up. It wasn’t the same actress (Megan’s friend and the girl in the bar), and how would Megan’s friend have known that Don would have hit that particular bar at that particular time? More important, I agree that kind of plot point is not a Mad Men sort of thing. </p>
<p>One thing that has struck me all season and particularly in that last scene is that Don, while still very handsome, is showing his age. (After all, it’s been 5 years since the show started, and Jon Hamm is now over 40). His face is deeply creased, and he looks like a married, middle-aged guy. I question whether he would still easily attract pretty twenty somethings in bars. </p>
<p>Regarding Joan’s looks, even without Twiggy on the scene she already looks frumpy and out of fashion when compared to Peggy, for example. She’s still wearing the same dresses she’s worn for years, and her hair and makeup don’t work for the late sixties. She could abandon the tight sheaths and wear clothes that neutralize her curves, could generally update her appearance, but I don’t think she wants to lose the va va va voom girl–it’s all she knows how to be. And while I realize her male co-workers appreciate the tight clothing and cleavage, in any office I ever worked at, she would have been advised to tone it down years ago.</p>
<p>To everyone who confuses Mad Men with Dynasty. Do all blondes look alike?! THAT WAS NOT THE SAME BLONDE. It’s not some sort of (not very) clever “bad TV” plot twist. MommaJ and Snowdog are correct —that is also not Matthew Weiner’s style.:
“I question whether he would still easily attract pretty twenty somethings in bars.”
Ummm. I know SEVERAL young things who would be all over Don, given the chance.</p>
<p>I was thinking in the car about the novelistic aspects of the show. It comes through in the way they portray the loss of Peggy. She sees products through her eyes and phrases the tagline as an elegant summary of what that means. Ginsburg is more a catch phrase writer drawn to direct images and words. His line for hosiery is blunt in a way that appeals to him as a man: less expensive, not cheap. Bam. In your face. Here’s the message.</p>
<p>The show uses 2 or 3 ad professionals, including an older writer who worked on big campaigns in the 60’s. Imagine how this came together: they had to develop the idea that they wanted to show Peggy’s absence’s effect and they came to focus on an ad, came to the idea of it being a woman’s product and then had to create an ad which fit the story and fit Ginsburg’s style. It really is his kind of catch phrase. And it doesn’t work because it associates the product with “cheap”, something that Peggy would have seen. Putting a word in front doesn’t change that. The message is more “only looks expensive”. You can imagine the writer conversations about how to get to that point and how to alter it to be wrong in the right way. </p>
<p>I wouldn’t be surprised if Joan changes in appearance next season. She is outdated. As a number of actual ad people of the era have pointed out, the show is really more in the 50’s in its attitudes and depictions of advertising. Mary Wells famously ran an agency. Working on Madison Ave was considered a possible profession for a woman long before the corporate clients opened the doors. Advertising was and is considered a softer field than manufacturing and many of the products are, after all, made for women so their value was more obvious. It’s much harder to imagine Dow Chemical with women executives. </p>
<p>Joan is a 50’s sex symbol. More Mansfield than Monroe. “The Girl Can’t Help It” fits, though the ad movie for her would be “Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter”, which has Tony Randall trying to get Mansfield to endorse a lipstick for those “oh so kissable lips”. Features scenes of her under a towel and him being labeled “Lover Boy” by the press. </p>
<p>Can Joan adjust? Maybe she can now that she can relax a bit. She has the security she wanted, that she married her doctor for. She’s a partner in an agency that now actually has 2 floors in the Time-Life Bldg. She’ll have a real office, not a pass through next to the kitchen. </p>
<p>We never know what will happen. Even the executive producers don’t know much yet because they rely on what Matt Weiner gives them as direction for the year. (Thinking about it, if they go back to the regular shooting schedule, they would be doing that now with writing to begin a month.)</p>
<p>“I’m reminded of something I heard said once about Marilyn Monroe - if she were trying to break into show business today, she’d be told to lose 40 lbs. and get a personal trainer. Joan would probably be told the same thing.”</p>
<p>A curvaceous body and ample rear end have not hurt Beyonce (bootylicious) or Jennifer Lopez these days. Not so sure MM could not make it today if we’re talking strictly looks.</p>
<p>I agree the look was not so popular late 60s and 70s however.</p>
<p>I enjoyed the two movie music references, both from Bond films: the closing credits “You Only Live Twice” and I recognized Don and Peggy’s movie music as “Casino Royale” . Any significance? (BESIDES the fact that I am obsessed with movie sound tracks)</p>
<p><a href=“Casino Royale (1967) - opening credits - YouTube”>www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSEmKXzpQMQ&feature=related</a></p>
<p>I don’t think Joan is outdated any more than Marilyn Monroe is outdated. An anachronism, yes. But even in the days of Kate Moss, there is and always will be a market for voluptuous, savvy women.</p>
<p>Also agree that Don is showing his age and I think it’s intentional on the part of the writers, along with the fact he now has to work overtime to stay one step ahead of Ginsburg’s agile mind. Ginsburg still makes some rookie mistakes but he’s got as much talent per square inch as Don, and they both know it.</p>
<p>Lergnom, may I ask…what field are you in? psychology? advertising? You always have such interesting points. (Sorry if I am intrusive.)</p>