Don, she's seventeen. Come on.
“Do you ever think there’s less to actually do, but more to think about?”
Mad Men, as self-conscious a show as there has been, is all about the navel-gazing this week. A lot of it felt forced and awkward, with Don being asked to come up with a mission statement for SC&P, leading to his probing Ted and Peggy about their own hopes and dreams (and being disappointed by each's responses). More awkward and anvillicious, still, was Don's own interrogation by his realtor, who acutely diagnosed the pathetic state of Don Draper based on the whole wine-stain-no-furniture thing. And even more awkward still was Don's being called out by his own daughter for macking on one of his contemporaries. (See, above.)
And yet, all this compulsory introspection led to someplace fairly compelling for the show, as Don and Joan in particular contemplate the paths not taken, and those which might remain viable. So after you're done with that Hanna-Barbera meeting, grab your bus ticket, and let's all go to Playland together.
This week, much like Game of Thrones, has a lot to do with what happens in life when you no longer have a map. Joan never expected to be twice divorced, with a young son. Don never expected to have conquered the professional mountain (and be twice-divorced himself). Glen Bishop (!) didn't expect to flunk out of SUNY-Purchase, or be rebuffed by lifelong crush Betty Draper Francis. Fucking Mathis That Idiot didn't know he couldn't charm his way out of a client mess.
(You know who has her stuff surprisingly together? Betty, headed back to school. Go figure.)
Diana seems to have disappeared from Don's world, along with the furniture. (And where's Brian Krakow?) As for Don ... for whatever reason (and it isn't sobriety, because he's decidedly not sober), this pause in his life has opened himself to the possibility that something other than money and sex might define happiness for him. Ted's and Peggy's answers weren't sufficient for him, but what's left? Might he actually seek purpose?
Probably not, but we've got about four hours left to figure it out, as well as close the books on Roger, Pete, and the gang. Commentary:
Margaret Lyons:
Sally herself subverts the kid-adult paradigm by calling out this behavior exactly: She's one of very few people to ever even try to hold her parents accountable for their behavior, and her critique is incredibly perceptive. She spots that Don and Betty are both very easily enchanted by people paying attention to them, the exact thing her parents can't or won't or don't know how to do for her. Maybe Sally could just write a Dear John letter, like those kids in the theoretical Tinkerbell cookie commercial that fuels this episode's advertising drama. Wait, Dear John letters are not a kid thing. At all! Neither is the line, "One Tink and you're hooked." Of course the product at the center of this week's episode is Peter Pan. And of course we see Peggy and Pete in their own squabbling children roles. Hell, even Lou Avery's hard at work — on a kids' cartoon.
Matt Zoller Seitz: "What’s been happening in the back half of season seven is (to me) peculiar and original, albeit ostentatiously off-putting. It feels less like an extended climax that’s building to some sort of cathartic release than an extended postscript or summation or gradual ramping-down, rather like the structure of a typical
Sopranos or
Mad Men season (climax in the penultimate episode, dénouement in the finale) writ large. There’s also something to be said on behalf of a show going out in a manner consistent with what we know about its creative character.
Mad Men was always aware of what viewers wanted but always seemed disinclined to satisfy for satisfaction’s sake."
Mark Lisanti: "We say this with the utmost respect, but: Maybe shut the fuck up just a tiny bit, Pete. This is not your week. The dumb kid said the F-word in a pitch. You once got your ass kicked in front of the partners by an Englishman who called you a 'grimy little pimp.' Chewing gum on the pubis, dude. Chewing gum on the pubis."
And finally: