Mad Men: An End is Come; The End is Come

When a major TV series ends, it’s like a friend dying.  All the characters you've grown to know and love cease to exist, in this reality anyway.  All you can do is imagine that they continue on in some sort of TV heaven. Movies can have sequels and reboots, but (next season’s Full House and Coach notwithstanding) once a TV show is gone, it is gone for good.

So it is time to say goodbye to Mad Men, one of the best dramas ever to grace the small screen.  Its final episode wasn't a home run, like the season finale of season 1 (the legendary episode called “The Wheel”).  It wasn't a train wreck, like the final episode of How I Met Your Mother, which finally got around to explaining that the Dad was asking his kids for permission to go back to nailing their Aunt Robin after their biological Mother had been dead an appropriate period of time.  However much AMC hyped it, it wasn't an “event” finale, like the interminable end of MASH or the finale of Seinfeld where they brought back every character who’d ever appeared on the show.

It was not a confused hodge-podge of attempted wrap-ups, like the finale of Lost (yeah, Sayid ends up in heaven with whiny Shannon instead of Nadia).  It was not a surreal epilogue, like the final episodes of Newhart (Bob Newhart ends up in bed with his previous TV wife), St. Elsewhere (it’s all a dream in the mind of an autistic child), or Quantum Leap (okay, this one was too weird for me to summarize).  It was more like the finale of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, where the unit broke up but the individuals go on to lead happy lives that we know nothing about (except Lou Grant, who gets a job with a newspaper in LA).

The series finale offered somewhat more closure that was found on The Sopranos, the show Matthew Weiner worked on before Mad Men, which had one of the most argued about endings of all time.  Nothing came to an actual end on Sunday night; supposedly Don Draper took his new-found enlightenment back to Madison Avenue where he used it to sell Coca-Cola.  Pete found happiness in Wichita, finally getting the respect he always thought was his entitlement; Joan, typically, proves to be super-competent at business but with lousy taste in men; Peggy and Stan finally realize what the audience has known for several years, that they deserve each other; and Harry has no one to have lunch with, at least no one who likes him.

I found the most interesting thing about the finale was how Don’s advice to Stephanie about moving forward echoed similar advice he gave to Peggy when she was in the depths of post-partum depression at the start of Season 2. The advice worked for Peggy, but rang hollow for Stephanie (and the participants in group therapy session) who, like Peggy, gave up a child.  Is there something wrong with Stephanie for rejecting the advice?  Is a “move forward” philosophy at the root of Don Draper/Dick Whitman’s problems?  Is what saves Don at the end his discovery that, if he looks back instead of forward, he finds something worth living for?

I could quibble about some of the resolutions.  Peggy and Stan seems a little pat, although it is hard not to be a shipper after the incident where Peggy tried to lure Stan to her apartment to empty a rat trap by offering to “maybe make it worth your while,” and Stan flatly replied, “No, you won’t.”  Frankly, I can see the two of them working out some arrangement with the fashion photographer played by Mimi Rogers earlier this season, who was clearly interested in each of them.

I’m sure it will rankle some fans that Pete Campbell winds up with a happy ending, given that he’s been an unspeakable jerk most of the time on the show and that Trudy was more than justified in leaving him.  But, as Don pointed out in the season 4 finale, Pete did have good ideas and was good at his job.  Being in Wichita away from big city temptations will curb his appetites, while access to unlimited Lear Jets will stroke his ego.  After trying to be like Don and seeing where that got both him AND Don, maybe he’ll appreciate Trudy a little more.  Besides, given his hairline, trying to be like Don Draper with the ladies is no longer an option.

My biggest problem with the finale is Joan’s story, with poor Joan once again getting a raw deal in the love department.  My complaint is that, in the brief time we've gotten to know Richard, he seemed to vacillate between being perfect and being terrible.  He seems to understand Joan’s potential and wants her to use it, but not if it interferes with her giving him 100% of her attention 100% of the time.  Given that the Peggy/Stan relationship took years to gestate, throwing Richard in for four episodes and having him be supportive for the first three episodes and insensitive in the finale seems rushed and manipulative.  That said, her ending up in film production is a nice extension of her time working in the new television division with Harry several seasons ago.

Where does Mad Men rank in the history of television?  Of course an objective ranking is impossible, but it is certainly one of the top ten dramas in broadcast/cable history (excuse me for excluding premium cable fare like The Sopranos and Game of Thrones, but the economics of HBO and Showtime are wholly different than that of the broadcast networks and basic cable).  I’d say Mad Men is in the top five, with Hill Street Blues, The Wire, The West Wing, and The X-Files (although I am sure most viewers would replace X-Files with Breaking Bad; I just never got that show).  The first two seasons were brilliant; the next three consistently excellent, and the last two abbreviated seasons were somewhere in between.

One final note: the character of Meredith became one of my favorite Mad Men characters based solely on the last two episodes.  The way she politely turned away Don’s boss at McCann/Erickson when he asked where Don was managed to be truthful yet cover Don’s back; her wish that Don was in “a better place” eliciting Roger’s emphatic, “He’s not dead!” was hysterical (“There are better places than this,” resonated with Dawn’s exit line in a previous episode; not everyone is comfortable being Don Draper’s secretary).  She deserved better than being fired because Don Draper took off for California.  I’m sure Don got her rehired (if she was willing to come back) before creating Coke’s “I’d Like To Teach the World To Sing” ad campaign.