<p>I take what Matt Weiner says with 2 grains of salt. </p>
<p>Reacting against what I see in reviews, I thought this was a very positive ending. Pete is free of his mother and his brother and his hideous father-in-law. He’s free of Detroit, which is a place he only wanted to be because he hated what his life in NYC and at SD&P had become. Ted has committed to his family. Peggy has more responsibility. Roger is no longer a drunk wasting his days away. </p>
<p>These are mostly mixed messages. Pete shows love for his daughter. Peggy is miserable outside of work. Roger’s relationship with his daughter has become terrible even as he gets a chance to have one with his son with Joan. </p>
<p>Take Megan. A little more than 1 season ago she was miserable. Her parents would run her down as lacking talent, as being nothing more than a want to be artist. In one season she went from a small part on a soap to meetings in Hollywood. This is her dream. If it includes marriage to Don, we’ll see. And note that Don didn’t say “you can’t go”. He said they’d be “bicoastal”, a word that may have been used then (I don’t remember). He’s not holding her back. </p>
<p>I think, for example, Matt Weiner is in his comments harder on Don than the actual scripts are. In the one where he begins and ends curled up in a fetal position, the message becomes in this last episode that this wasn’t stagnation but birth. And when Peggy calls him a monster it’s true but not because of what he did with St. Joseph’s aspirin, which was the right business decision. Those interactions, like calling back Harry Crane about Sunkist, were for the good of the firm. As I pointed out, the 5 million in extra billings over Ocean Spray is $750k in commissions at a minimum. Seeing that Ted was infatuated and making those decisions could be seen as a war on Ted but they could also be seen as helping Ted see what he was doing while helping the firm. Imagine St. Joe’s reaction when they found their $15k budget had risen to $35k or $50k. Matt Weiner puts spin on things when he talks about the show. That’s one way he guards it.</p>
<p>As for Don, I think the genius in the last episode was in the way they tied all those flashbacks and all that loneliness in Dick’s life to Sally. Don’s mother died at birth. His father was killed by a horse. His step-mother treated him like dirt. He had no choice. This stuff happened to him. We saw he was crushed by Sally catching him cheating with Sylvia. Now we see he connected at least some of the dots: this doesn’t have to happen to her. When he would wish for a normal life, he has it in his power to give at least a better life to her … and Bobby and even Gene though he’s too young to have lines that matter. When he says to Betty, “Birdie, it’s not your fault”, he knows that so much of it is his fault. He also finally seems to have realized that what happened to him wasn’t his fault. That is one of the hardest lessons: you internalize and act out but even if you can see why you can’t forgive yourself for it. And where does that lesson appear? In this episode. The interlude with the preacher sets up a flashback where Mac tosses another preacher out, saying “I’d say go to hell but I never want to see you again.” The preacher turns and says, I think, that the only unforgiveable sin is believing God won’t forgive you. It’s very hard to forgive yourself. </p>
<p>I thought the firing from SD&P opens a lot of plot doors they can use to make the final season. It resets the show. BTW, to note how Matt Weiner talks, in one interview he says this is essentially a firing and in another he’s more cagey saying it is what they said it is. </p>
<p>But overall, the show has always been about whether Don can be happy with himself. It began with uncovering the depths to which he sublimated himself, even to the point of rejecting his brother. It has expressed itself through his family with Betty, then with incarnations of work, then with Megan, and of course through increasingly desperate affairs. The message as I saw it shifted now to become more direct. This is Don. He’s being himself. We always believe that being yourself brings happiness. It may. But that happiness may well involve a lot of dislocation - and heartache - along the way. But at least we see Don trying to live his life as himself.</p>
<p>I mentioned the last season ended with the image of Don showing that predatory smile. Was he back to being the pretend Don Draper? The last image of this season is that of a father seen from his child’s perspective. Crisp collar. Hat. Black hair. Firm jaw.</p>