Mad Men: Final Season

[LawrenceMD]



Ha ha...yes, his hair is awful!

they purposely shave the actor's hairline upward and made him gain weight to exaggerate Pete's beta-ness.

this half season is one of the few seasons where Peggy isn't ugly-fied/frumpy-ed up.

 

[Texasmade]

Hahaha. That haircut is awesome.

 

[Flambeur]



Gonna miss those Stan & Peggy moments.

but like.. they obviously end up together, right?

 

[Flambeur]

Pete's character development is off the hook these two half-seasons

It's a journey.. from a whiny entitled ***** to a... whiny, entitled, calculating, and dare I say... more likable.. man?

 

[Flambeur]

My drunken speculative predictions:

-Roger continues happily skipping through life
-Joan finds happiness w/ new dude and $$
-Ted.. well... we don't care
-Pete back w/ Trudy, even though we know that he'll still cheat here and there, but he'll never let anyone come between him and his family again.
-Peggy becoming the political mastermind at McCann while finally finding child-free love with Stan.

Don? Who knows? Finding himself as a.... ?

The problem with Don is that even though he doesn't care about advertising that much, it really is his life.. He isn't good at much else other than drinking and whoring, as we've seen from his forced vacation..so ???

 

[Reggs]

Pete has a lot of funny moments. I like it when he was complaining to Cosgrove about being an almost-millionaire and being in a different tax bracket. My all time favorate is when he got into a fight with Trudy and said "Hells-bells Trudy, that is final!" then threw the turkey over his balcony.

I don't think Pete has become a better person. He's just more career oriented and he is not as petty as he once was.

 

[archibaldleach]

Well that was interesting...

 

[RedLantern]

Enjoyed that one. Peggy, killing it.

 

[Reggs]

Jesus that was depressing. I was happy today. The show ruined it. It was a powerful episode.

I cringed when Don had to introduce himself as working for McCann, and pretty much ever scene with Joan. I think the casting is great. Everyone who works for McCann is slightly bloated and looks very stupid in the eyes. Everyone from SCP is scattered and working on different floors. Roger has turned into a Ghost of the old office. I really liked his bonding with Peggy.

The only thing I'm sure of is that Don will not be employed at the end of the show. When he entered the Miller meeting he wasn't even important. No one except for Ted even noticed when he left. He has his Don Draper SS card, which has to mean something. I think he might end his identity as Don Draper. Maybe trade it with the hitchhiker or leave it in California at the real Don Draper's grave and go back to being Dick Whitman. I really enjoyed Space Oddity as the closing song. The song is about someone important who wound up drifting out in the middle of nowhere completely isolated from everything he once knew.

I'm really going to miss this show!

 

[Piobaire]

So what was the significance of Don seeing a cross made by the building steeple and the jet trail? I figure it had something to do with Don having to sit and listen to someone else give a Don Draper pitch.

And driving to Wisconsin to track down that waitress and then pretending to be someone else? WTF?

Best shot ever: Roger on the organ and Peggy coasting by on roller skates.

Long shot finish? A group of SCDP folks get booted from McCann next week and go start another agency.

Good parallelism: Peggy moving her stuff in as Joan moves out. Out with the old, in with the new.

Edit: Bert's weird painting of an octopus going down on a woman? That was for Peggy and mirrored the advice Roger gave her. Roger said you don't have to make men comfortable to do your job and the painting goes one step farther: you don't need a man to get pleasure out of life.

 

[otc]

Although what was the comment the guy made to Joan when she said Peggy was copy chief at SC&P. Something like "that may not be true for long"?

Combine that with Peggy's lack of an office/being mistaken for a secretary and I dunno...maybe her brazen squid painting entrance will be her last.

Don GTFOs from the world and/or his identity and Peggy becomes creative director at the new firm.

 

[otc]

How much are these people getting paid to work at Mcann?

I found this analysis looking at their proposed SCDP salaries, but I find it kind of hard to believe. Would Pete really be making that much less than Peggy? I know there is some family money there, but his lifestyle was at an entirely different level than hers...and he should have been a junior partner by the time Peggy was copy chief.

And they have joan making the modern equivalent of $15k as a junior partner and head of the office (maybe before she got her own clients). But maybe this is terribly done...That could have fit as pete and joan's pay in season one, but why then reference Joan and Peggy's much later job titles?

 

[Piobaire]

Here's something I found about the buy out several weeks ago: http://www.vulture.com/2014/05/mad-men-how-much-did-each-of-the-partners-make.html

Here's Don's salary tracked from things said/seen in the show: http://dvroverflow.tumblr.com/post/21336908551/just-how-wealthy-is-don-draper-something-ive

 

[Gus]

Having owned a company with a very specific culture and then selling it to a much bigger company, last night's episode was chillingly accurate about so many of the uncomfortable realities of an acquisition and integration. It really brought on a flow of emotions from 12 years ago. That part blew me away. Wow!

I like how they are winding down Joan's roll. The sexual overtones aside, when a company is sold, influence and practices simply change.

I loved how Peggy, after all of these years of insecurity, displayed such a cool visual as she walked down the hall at her new company.

In the Miller beer meeting, when the leader started to tell the story, it was in the exact masterful style of how Don presented ideas. And, it was really, really good. Suddenly Don is redundant. Other than that, I have no clue what is happening with Don. But maybe that is it...he doesn't either.

 

[otc]



In the Miller beer meeting, when the leader started to tell the story, it was in the exact masterful style of how Don presented ideas. And, it was really, really good. Suddenly Don is redundant. Other than that, I have no clue what is happening with Don. But maybe that is it...he doesn't either.

Well, I also thought it was interesting how the consultant was the one presenting the story. Miller wasn't even in the meeting, and the consultant was giving the pitch to creative. Basically just saying "Here is the story and image we want to present, here's the market we want to hit, now go write us some TV commercials and print ads that fit".

Maybe that's what you get when the giant account goes with the giant firm. They don't need them to come up with the strategy as their market research and branding has already been handled, they just want you to implement their plan using the best and the brightest. Not that that is bad...in my brief time on the sidelines of the advertising world (working for a guy who represents film directors for their commercial work), it was the big firms that often wanted the big directors. It would be someone like McCann calling for David Fincher or Guy Ritchie. Maybe they didn't come up with the core of the campaign, but they are going to get you the coolest damn TV spot they can.