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<p>I thought next season is to be definitely the last?</p>
<p>Next season is the last. </p>
<p>I don’t expect a satisfying end, but maybe he’ll surprise.</p>
<p>Oops, my mistake. I misread a source. But I did discover thst season 7 will have 14 rather than 13 episodes. </p>
<p>Depending on the year portrayed in season 7, we still might see Sally introduced to society.</p>
<p>I got a chance to watch the episode again yesterday. Seriously, did they have to make Bob be from West Virginia? With parents who are “brother and sister, or something?” C’mon, Matthew Weiner! I expected better from you!</p>
<p>Calling Lergnom! Can’t wait for your take on tonight’s season finale. I’ll start by saying… wow.</p>
<p>The Season 6 finale was so dense with plot, I’m not sure where to begin.</p>
<p>Freedom. Love.</p>
<p>But there’s that image of Don looking at his shaking hand and that, for ineffable reasons, sets him off on the path of righteousness. Not the kind offered by a street preacher for drunks but of truth and honesty and doing what’s right. </p>
<p>I would be happy if the show ended with the shots of Don and Sally exchanging looks. This is what it is all about. Betty says Sally needs more than she can give. Ted needs to save his family from his infatuation with Peggy. And Don takes his kids to the whorehouse where he grew up so he can be their father. </p>
<p>Freedom. Pete is finally free of his mother. And who cares if Manolo killed her? She didn’t have money. She’s in the sea with her husband. And for some reason Pete is headed off to California too. I have no idea why. </p>
<p>And Don is out at SC&P. Who cares? He has money in the bank. He can get another job if he wants. That’s freedom too. </p>
<p>[Added: I have no idea what SC&P is thinking. This isn’t the way business works. You can’t merge firms based on being a creative shop and then bring in some creative guy from a big firm while your creative directors split for the coast and heaven knows where. It makes no sense. There is no way Ted can meet with clients from LA. Remember what phone calls were like in those days? Even today the travel kills you. I guess the writers decided it didn’t matter.]</p>
<p>In the episode, Don moves from freeing himself from alcohol but still wanting to escape his problems by leaving - “we were happy there … we can be happy again” - to dealing with them for the first time with his children. We have no idea what happens with Megan. I never guess what they’ll do with her and Don. For all we know, they do move to California. Maybe they’re divorced. Maybe the show picks up 10 years later for the last season. Beats me. </p>
<p>There was a level of honesty in the writing that is rarely reached on TV. Ted’s plea to Don. Don’s comment to Hershey. (BTW, I looked it up. Hershey started advertising on TV in 1970.) The decision to use that extremely beloved product for that moment was brilliant. Remember Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? Remember how Roald Dahl has his grand-parents not eating so they can buy Charlie that one chocolate bar? To get to this script, they had to create a life for Dick/Don where he’d think about Milton Hershey and his school. Hershey and his wife couldn’t have children so they built a world for disadvantaged children, some orphans. (I believe he left the school nearly his entire fortune.) The writers had to imagine Dick growing up without love in this crazy world of a whorehouse where a Hershey Bar was his source not only of joy but of connection to normal life. That was great writing. </p>
<p>But again, I would be happy if the show ended with the shot of Don from Sally’s perspective. She said in the robbery episode she realized she knew nothing about him. When he looks at her, it’s like “this is it” and his showing that to them - really to her - was the moment when …</p>
<p>All through this series Don’s best work was based on a wistful nostalgia for a family life he only imagined. Has he now come to realize that the truth will set him free?
GREAT EPISODE and I know that this was not everyones favorite season, but it was mine.</p>
<p>I didn’t like a lot of this season, but I did like the last three or four episodes and thought tonight was fantastic. I’m not sure why they are sending Peter out to California, but I imagine he will still be on the show next season. I was glad that Joan decided to let Roger into his son’s life.</p>
<p>Matthew Weiner talks about what he was trying to accomplish with the finale:</p>
<p><a href=“http://insidetv.ew.com/2013/06/24/mad-men-finale-matthew-weiner/?iid=rcfooter-tv-‘mad+men’%3A+matthew+weiner+says[/url]”>http://insidetv.ew.com/2013/06/24/mad-men-finale-matthew-weiner/?iid=rcfooter-tv-‘mad+men’%3A+matthew+weiner+says</a>...</p>
<p>I had the same reaction. I thought the entire show could have ended with with this episode, and with the shot of Don and Sally looking at each other. </p>
<p>And with the song that played over the closing credits.</p>
<p>D no longer has cable and has to wait until Mondays to watch online. She asked that I call her afterwards to tell her if anything big happened, but not give specifics. I told her what you guys are saying, that the whole show could have ended on that episode. I was blown away how Peggy went to Don’s office to begin her new responsibilities and how Don took his kids to the whorehouse to connect with his childhood. He has obviously been processing Sally’s comment about not knowing anything about him. I don’t know how Weiner will top it with the real finale next year.<br>
One thing that I thought was interesting was that on top of the promos designed for Emmy consideration that were sprinkled throughout the hour (and have been for the last several weeks), there was a promo that said “Mad Men returning in 2014.” After seeing how the episode played out, I decided it was intentionally placed for those of us who would be inclined to say that could be the series finale instead of the season finale.</p>
<p>Manolo is Pete’s step-father. </p>
<p>This episode could have been titled “California Dreaming”–a recurrent Mad Men theme. </p>
<p>It’s not clear why Pete is going to California. They were talking about a one-person SCP shop. I’ll give this to him, he cuts his losses and moves on. As devious as he likes to see himself, he has come to realize he isn’t able to outwit a grifter–Don, Bob, Manolo. That funny line about sharks in the water seemed to have put closure on Pete’s blood lust. Also loved him inquiring about the price of justice for his mother. </p>
<p>With Meagan leaving (let’s face it, the most interesting thing about her bland character is her parents, although to her credit she didn’t let Don walk all over her in the end), with Pete leaving, and with Ted leaving the path is clear to some kind of denouement between Don and Peggy. </p>
<p>Until next time, there’s Peggy wearing the pants in Don’s office, followed by Don as one of the few men alive wearing a fedora. </p>
<p>Speculate as we might, Weiner, who doesnt read any commentary not wanting other voices in his head, claims ignorance about the future: “I don’t know much about it, as a season.” <a href=“The New York Times - Breaking News, US News, World News and Videos”>The New York Times - Breaking News, US News, World News and Videos;
<p>I’m in the minority - not my favorite episode. I’m going to watch it again now that I’ve read the comments and gotten a good night’s sleep (and I was in a bad mood anyway yesterday, so maybe I had colored lenses on) :)</p>
<p>Liked:<br>
- The SC&P product placements (large, 60’s colored sign, Don’s coffee mug – coffee?)
- Peggy’s outfits, especially the pantsuit at the end
- The ending - agree it was perfect
- Pete & his brother and the phone call, and both being secretly relieved at mom’s death
- Sally, “yes Dad, why don’t YOU tell them what I saw”
- Joan’s eyes casting downwards when the partners tell Don he must take a leave
- Bob setting up Pete with Chevy in Detroit
- Don’s original Hershey pitch - loved it, and loved the Hershey connection per Lergnom
- Whorehouse before and after, including kid on the stoop with bright orange popsickle (orange sherbert from Howard Johnson’s anyone)?</p>
<p>Didn’t like - much of the stuff that went on at the office:
- Peggy’s tart look to dig at Ted, have a hard time believing she’d really do that at work, even when leaving the office
- Don punching out a minister in a bar and spending a night in jail… really? And missing a client meeting to go drink? He has functioned as a working alcoholic all this time, I just didn’t find it credible.
- Ted’s behavior was, I thought, out of character; he knew he couldn’t leave his wife the entire time, and is he that much of a Don-wanna-be that he’d screw Peggy anyway, knowing how much he would hurt her? His pleading to Don which was, pretty much, don’t let me turn out like you? I just didn’t see it.
- All the back and forth with who’s going to California; no matter how much Don is changing, evolving, finding himself, it is totally unlike him to make his mind up about something and then backtrack, esp. after making promises to Megan; I get that the abrupt turnaround is so that both he and Ted can repair/maintain relationships with each of their kids, but why didn’t they just send Peggy to CA with Don instead?
- The partners booting out Don, even short-term; from a business perspective, I have a hard time believing that would be a reality.</p>
<p>As much as I liked the ending, I’m glad there’s another season (though I wonder if it’s 10 years later, how can they get Sally to look THAT much older)?</p>
<p>Agree with much of what you said Rocky22. Couple of points:</p>
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<p>Eventually most all alcoholics move on to the next phase of the disease: drinking when they know they can’t be drinking, withdrawal shakes, and a downward slide as depicted. I found it realistic.</p>
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<p>Broken promises are a hallmark of the alcoholic and aside from that I didn’t find it out of character for Don at all - he has to pull the rug out from under people who care about him, that’s 100% who he is. When Megan walked out on him - maybe that was his bottom.</p>
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<p>Don has become a liability. As Matthew Weiner said in the interview linked above, his work, while still inspired, is not really with the times. And his behavior with clients has become so erratic that he can’t be trusted. What made him indispensable is gone. </p>
<p>Now I hope they don’t bring in a Duck Phillips crony over Peggy. But it would be realistic to do that.</p>
<p>Last season ended with a look that asked if the old Don Draper was back. This season ended with a look that asked if the real Dick Whitman within Don Draper is back.</p>
<p>I need to know WHO designed the new agency logo. IT’S PERFECT. Those are the kind of details that make this show so great.</p>
<p>Doesn’t the new company logo remind you of the Price is Right Logo in color and font style?
Guess it is emblematic of the late 60’s style of mod.</p>
<p>A couple of things I liked :
- Betty actually acting like a quasi-grownup. I really think she’s learned from some of her mistakes and is becoming a slightly better person.
-Duck finally getting a bit of his own back against Don, like he tried to in Season 2. And remember Duck telling Pete that family was everything (or words to that effect?) Maybe Don, who seems to be on a similar road to Duck’s, is learning that too.</p>
<p>yeah, I guess I get it about the alcoholism coloring everything about his behavior. I just think aside from an indefinite forced leave, they (the other partners) would have come up with something, well, more creative! No matter what is happening internally (in the office, as well as within Don/Dick internal turmoil), Don Draper is still the creative face of the agency to the outside world/clients. Does Don approve of this? Where is Don? Has Don seen this? I can’t believe Don likes this idea?</p>
<p>In addition to the SCP logo, i liked the groovy shaped neon decorative touches on the office doors/windows - very 60’s!</p>
<p>I am going to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to find one of those coffee cups with the logo.</p>