"Where are the Dragons?" my partner responded after we screened the season finale of Mad Men--"The Phantom." There were no albino zombies with piercing blue eyes and wrinkled visages either. And Pete didn't die, although he did get punched in the face again, which is always a very satisfying thing. The season finale did feel both semi-satisfying (in that it made me eager for the next season) and anti-climactic (no zombie dragons). Still, the question that burned the most for me: "What is Don thinking while he watches Meghan channeling Anna Karina during her screen test.
I contend that it's actually Don's encounter with Peggy, along with Meghan's "this is all I'm good for" drunken remark that compels Don to take a giant leap into the future, and toward feminism, as this finale implies. The episode plays a little fast and loose with what's actually happening versus Don's toothache hallucinations. We've already found out from "Mystery Date" that Don's guilt manifests itself in all sorts of horrible ways, and also that he's really sucks at being ill. So he keeps seeing his dead brother Adam (who committed suicide through hanging in season 1) popping up around the office, and who repeatedly intones wisdom such as "it's not your tooth that's rotten, Don." Hello heavy-handed message!
Still, his hallucinations allow for a great visual moment that makes clear where next season is headed. The "boys" are struggling with the Topaz account, and others as well, because they haven't gotten the clue that women are the primary consumers, and SCDP is sadly missing that all important female POV they had with Peggy. When Don arrives at the office after his heart-to-heart with Meghan (about an audition), he looks in on the bustling workplace, and every room is filled with hardworking MEN. The camera sweeps through each room, and there's not a woman in sight (except for Dawn, his secretary). Stan utters, "I'm so bored by this dynamic," and so are we. Peggy challenged him, Stan respected her, and he was less of a jerk. Hanging around all these DICKS is not good for him. Things are going to CHANGE.
I also do not think the composition of the image above is accidental, as the flannel suit brigade flanks their new partner, Joan, who clearly, more than ever, runs the place. Every scene she's in highlights her competency, and the devil's pact she made with Bert, Roger, and Pete (and Lane quite literally) appears to be paying off. If one intuits the way Weiner thinks, he's touched on the youthquake, and civil rights, but next season it's the women's movement that will undoubtedly explode. Weiner is priming us for it.
The most telling signal, though, is that Peggy's back, smoking some Virginia Slims and catching a Casino Royale matinee. Yay! Of course she bumps into Don, who comes to realize that it's better to help people and allow them to succeed and move on, than to hold tight to them and hinder their progress. He's proud of Peggy and he misses her. She's now yelling at people at her new firm, and going off to far off adventures, like to factories in Richmond. Yet she's not long for this firm if what she witnesses in the final moments of the episode are any indication.
You treat me like a dog Get me down on my knees We call it master and servant We call it master and servant It's a lot like life This play between the sheets With you on top and me underneath Forget all about equality Let's play master and servant Let's play master and servant
Sounds a little like Don and Meghan's sex life from earlier in the season. Well, that sh** won't fly anymore. Don and SCDP are going to have to work to get Peggy back, and she's not going to just passively accept their treating her like crap. She's destined for much better, and she's strong enough and smart enough to get it. Go Peggy! All the guys have been complaining all season about women and their power and wicked ways, yet at every turn, the show's female characters have struggled and fought for every baby step toward success. If anything, these men, including Don, have stood in their way; but sometimes men learn from their mistakes.
Don learns a valuable lesson from his encounter with Peggy. Earlier in the episode, he has stomped on Meghan asking him for help in landing a shoe commercial--one which his firm is casting. He claims that he wants her to get a job because she "is someone's discovery," not "somebody's wife." While he comes off as fairly reasonable, the real issue here is that he seems to want Meghan to fail, even though he says he doesn't. To include her in the pool of actresses for the shoe commercial is a small leg up, a slight bit of assistance, and one he's capable of doing with relative ease. Don just needs to be a little more selfless.
Marie happens to be visiting them, and she returns from a hair salon appointment to find Meghan still wallowing in bed at noon. Does she offer her daughter comfort? Nah. Marie would rather see her daughter fail in order to manage her own crippling disappointments. Yes, not everyone should be a parent. Then, Marie takes off for a quickie with Roger at his hotel, leaving Meghan to get good and falling-down drunk, offering herself to Don when he arrives, only to be rejected and told to sleep it off. When Marie returns, Don chides her for leaving her daughter like this, but she points out his own guilt in the matter. Is Don going to support Meghan and her dreams, or participate in her failure? Call me a mush-head, but I think he realizes that he wants to help Meghan, not lose her, or worse, destroy her (shades of Betty)?
The commercial looks utterly lame, but Don makes the right move, even though Weiner shows him in a bar moments later, being hit on by a couple of young hotties that ask him, rather stupidly, if "he's alone." The implication is "will he or won't he" go back to his philandering ways, a la Roger Stirling, because Don has released the stranglehold he had on his young wife. Please. I don't think Don's going to go back to square one and negate all the things he's learned in this, and past seasons.
Even Roger's learned some lessons, and I'm delighted that he decides to embark on another LSD trip solo, rather than drag Marie along on such a journey. I was really worried that those two would mess with some drugs and one of them would think that they could "fly," and that "falling man" imagery would finally come to fruition. Whew. Glad that didn't happen.
Then there are those characters that NEVER learn from their mistakes. I'm looking at you, Pete Campbell. My head's still reeling around the cockamamie narrative gyrations at work that got Beth and Pete back into bed again. Does Beth really "spread her legs for the first chump she can find," because Pete is certainly the KING of chumps, and I cannot figure out what she might remotely see in him other than someone who conveniently showed up, twice. When she leaves him at the hotel, it's pretty clear that she's not expecting him to show up at Bellevue claiming he's her brother.
That whole "electroshock" narrative turn also left me pretty flummoxed, although I was actually rather embarrassingly moved by Pete's story regarding his cheating "friend." Then I thought, "Excellent. He's going to check himself in, get himself some electroshock, and come out of it as a decent person, like that crappy Harrison Ford movie where he's shot in the head, and afterward becomes a nice guy, rather than a cheating jerk!" Hey, Rory/Beth was pretty convincing about how electroshock could chase the gloom away, and save her from the "dark place." Thankfully, it chased away all memories of Pete as well. Heh.
When Pete gets into it with Beth's Hubby, Howard, on the commuter train, the conductor gives Pete an out, but instead of taking it, Pete provokes the guy into punching Pete in the face as well! My favorite moment of the screening was when my partner intoned "He really is such a jerk. I'm glad people keep hitting him." Me too, honey, me too. Trudy is a saint, wrongly assuming that Pete's constantly getting into auto accidents rather than provoking people into bashing him in the face. She decides that it would be best for Pete to get an apartment in the city. NOOOOOOO! Poor Tammi won't be seeing her Daddy anymore, because Pete definitely thinks he deserves a different life than he has. On second thought, lucky you, Tammi. No more Pete.
We're left with Don looking so cool it hurts, and that's just not a high enough bar anymore. Where be Dragons? Or Zombies? Have my expectations become impossibly high for this show, or any show for that matter.
Maybe I'm interested in watching something more like this:
