Mad Men 6x13 Reaction

uh huh feeling out of place maxed out with this comment section IASIP (rounded down) pov is how i experience these characters. Selfish, myopic, only my tribulations matter type people. I don't wish for these characters to escape their consequences, i want to see them drown in their consequences and depravity. splash helplessly. and only then, maybe given another chance. baptism. (no religion). i don't wish for the adult characters to even experience contentment, why should they, the Manhattan elite of yesteryear? think of it, sympathy/empathy towards their modern counterparts. yuck on another note counterintuitively, thinking about these two shows, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia laps Mad Men's social critique from the first ep Airing in 2005, titled "The Gang Gets Racist", IASIP's first episode does not hold back, masterfully drawing out comedy from the day-to-day maintenance of racial hierarchy. and in the next season, in 2006, they did the same with I/P. this level of social critique from a show no one expects anything but comedy from. and then what do we get from a show whose creator claims "I’ve always said this is a show about becoming white. That’s the definition of success in America—becoming a WASP. A WASP male. The driving question for the series is, Who are we? When we talk about “we,” who is that?" - Matthew Weiner on Mad Men a thing like that

'I’m supposed to feel sorry for that bitch?! I don't ... 'Drown in your own tears,' Starnes said. And if you need more water to drown, I’ll throw you in the East River and let you drown drinking it.' - Bronx resident Bernice Starnes circa 2016

I'm sure Don feels betrayed by Roger (and perhaps by Joan as well), but I wonder if Roger also feels a little betrayed by Don? He probably considers Don a friend, and he definitely thinks himself the man who discovered Don. But here he finds out - in a meeting with a client - that whatever Don has told him about his childhood and youth (very little given how evasive Don always was) was a lie. And when he comes to talk about it afterwards, Don just says yes, this was the truth, and takes off. (Not saying Roger is justified to think that, just speculating what he might be feeling there.)

Earlier I'd said this season is a bit janky and meandering - and it is - but it really does pick up tremendously towards the end and this finale is as good as any episode in the show. Again, top notch writing and performing. Standard for this show. Looking forward to the final season(s). I've only watched them once so I'll be rediscovering them.

Should watch Peaky Blinders if you haven't watched it!

I'm a bit of a rebel and a sucker for endings. Season 6 and 7 of Buffy and Mad Men are my favorites. This ep brings the whole season together. Banger.

If you're gonna watch some shorter/newer stuff first, maybe squeeze in Adolescence somewhere? It's only four episodes, but a fantastic show! I'd say as far as classic dramas go, there are still Fargo and Deadwood left.

Beautiful end to the season. Don's story is hard to watch this season but it's told very well. His bond with his kids, his control over his life and affairs, memories of the past. It all builds to a point where he realises he's dragging everyone down around him, and that he can't keep hiding the past and clinging to the crumbling edifice of 'Don Draper'. His real life story is more inspiring than any ad he created, but it breaks the illusion. SCP can't sell the image of Don Draper if Don Draper can't sell the image of Hershey's. Pete and Don both have to hit bottom to realise what they had. Pete walked into his marriage and was always questioning his bond with Trudy and if he wanted kids. Although he's still largely over the top Pete in this season, probably more than ever, there are moments of maturity and reflection like the final scene that are endearing. The characters change in very realistic ways. Not all at once, but gradually as they continue to learn lessons, relapse and handle day to day life. Season 6 and maybe 7 are kind of like season 5 of The Wire for me. I know they're my least favourite so I can acknowledge that and enjoy new things about them when I do watch them. The worst seasons of Mad Men and The Wire are still better than most.

That final scene always makes me cry. It's like the dam finally, finally breaking after a whole season of Don just digging himself deeper and deeper into the muck. The season starts with Don reading Dante's Inferno, "Midway through my life I found myself lost in a deep dark wood" etc. The poem ends with Dante and Virgil climbing out of hell, as it describes what it's like to breathe fresh air again and looking up at the stars. I always thought that final scene with Sally is supposed to mirror that.

S6 isn't my favourite overall, but this episode is a 10/10. So much here to love, and the headliner is that final scene, and the gift of watching Sally completely recontextualize her father in real time. I love that really tall camera angle, and the way their long shadows precede them into frame. I love the choice to use the more saccharine Judy Collins version of "Both Sides, Now". I love how Bobby turns to look at Don first, sure, but he can *feel* Sally looking at him, and turns to meet her gaze. I love Don's line in the car, "There was a man named Hershey, and he made enough chocolate to build a town." Other than that? "Not great, Bob!" gets the headlines, but I love all of the Pete storyline here, including how he struggles to understand with maritime law. "Fine. The brig." A few really great callbacks to the show's history, too. Pete in Tammy's room, with Trudy watching from the door, perfectly mirrors Don with his kids at the end of the series premiere. 'Band of Gold" playing on the radio in the bar before Don assaults the minister. The way his conversation in jail echoes the Glo-Coat commercial. Peggy tilting her head to the side while she sits in her new office, like the Don silhouette in the title sequence... Wow, this show has flown by. Really looking forward to Season 7. I think 7A stands up with S4 & S5 as the best the show ever gets. And I've only watched 7B... twice? Will be very fun to revisit. (I can't wait for these two to meet my beautiful boys Dunk & Egg.)

Pete is my favorite character. You two loved him during the first two and a half seasons, then that one unfortunate episode happened and you've LOATHED him ever since. To the point where you'd groan and complain every time he appeared on screen lol. I'll be honest, it bummed me out! (even though your hatred was complete warranted, don't get me wrong) So I cannot express how happy it makes me to see you cheering him on and calling him "My boy!!" (how long has it been?!) simply for walking into a room lol. And then CRYING over him!! omg. Pete fans... we're back. Also... a whole season spent hating Don ends with: *crying* "I love him!!" That's what makes Mad Men so special.

I guess it doesn't really matter, but you can really think of these last episodes as being two seasons. They aired a year apart. They tell two separate stories and are thematically distinct. And Episode 708 definitely has... a few other notable hallmarks of Mad Men season premieres.

Lola mentioned something that never occurred to me, that it was clearly Don's plan after the Hershey's pitch to tell his kids the truth about his childhood even before the partners put him on leave. The fact that he didn't go off the rails as a reaction to that and waiver from being open with his kids was a real moment of growth that we rarely get from Don.

"The wrapper looked like what was inside." My favorite line from this episode. The wrapper of Don Draper does not look like what's inside. And trying to maintain that facade day in and day out leaves him in a state of constant turmoil.

What an episode, huh? WHAT an episode. You're right that it's definitely unusual when Pete is the most sympathetic character around, but they really did a great job of running him through the wringer here. I particularly love the scene of him looking at his daughter while she sleeps with Trudy observing from the doorway, because it is such a direct parallel to the ending of the very first episode. If you'll recall, the first episode ended with Don looking at his sleeping kids while Betty observed from the doorway. It was a perfect representation of the Americana that marketing execs had been selling since the '50s, and it LOOKED like Don had it, but over the series we learn that was never true. And Pete is almost the exact opposite: Him and his wife have already separated, he's not respected at work, and everything is falling apart around him. But he can still look at his daughter sleeping. It is theoretically possible that Pete's mother's death was an accident, because cruise ships actually have a LOT more passenger deaths than people would expect. Especially elderly customers with demonstrated memory and cognition difficulties. But obviously the fact that it happened immediately after Manolo married her makes it very clear that he wanted to get her inheritance and he killed her. Freddy Rumsen is the guy who they fired in season two due to his drinking problem, but it was a different situation than what's happening with Don now. Freddy was an employee, so the company could fire him. Don is a partner, so unless he violates the Partnership Agreement they literally CAN'T fire him. Not even for poor performance. They can kick him out of the office and reassign his duties and remove him from any authority, but he is still a Partner and will still get all of his relevant payouts. So Don is officially still an employee, which from some perspectives could actually be even more insulting: They're willing to keep paying him just to stay away. Alcohol withdrawal can be fatal, so even more than some "hard" drugs it's important to not stop instantly if you've reached this point. Don has long since crossed over that addiction threshold. It's obviously important for Don to stop his drinking, but he needs to approach it seriously, and not just try to stop completely all by himself. I've got nothing but contempt for Ted for sleeping with Peggy, but I do have (some) respect for the way he realized that he would not have the self-control to keep himself from doing it again so he tried to remove himself from the situation. At least he didn't try to keep the affair going until it all exploded. He had his moment of clarity after one night and was willing to destroy his own career to keep himself from doing it again. For an alcoholic who realizes he doesn't have the willpower to resist a drink placed in front of him, the smart and moral thing is to never enter a bar or liquor store in the frst place. He knows that he doesn't have enough willpower, so he removes himself completely.

The Hersheys Pitch is probably my favorite scene in the show. It's up there regardless. "And I ate it, alone, in my room, with great ceremony... feeling like a normal kid." Six seasons in we get the pure core of Don Draper - a child so abused that he permanently associates commercialised, mass-produced products with "affection", love and happiness. The Hersheys pitch is the end state of Don's successful advertising philosophy. What did he say in the pilot? It's a billboard on the side of the road saying "You are okay." Doesn't matter if it's a Hersheys bar, or Life cereal, or a diet Pepsi drink, or some random floor polish... you can draw a straight line through "Its Toasted", the carousel, Heinz Beans, all the way to here. In a sense this is Don's greatest pitch. He's offering some genuinely true, invaluable advice to the client. It's the culmination of his philosophy of using personal trauma to write great ads. It's not a random choice that the first time Don is truly, brutally honest in a meeting is also the time he gets put on indefinite leave. What was Don always afraid of? If people found out who he really was, they wouldn't love him, they wouldn't want him any more. He reveals who is is (albeit in a wildly inappropriate situation) and is immediately discarded like useless trash. Like a whorehouse orphan searching through pockets for coins to steal. How does he describe a Hersheys bar? "The wrapper looked like what was inside." Don wants to be the Hersheys bar. He wants his wrapper to look like what's inside. On the rewatch Season 6 is one of the best seasons imo. It usually ranks lower for people but gives us so many great moments. It's a lot denser and more difficult than other seasons. It's easy to root for Sterling Cooper in S3 when punching up against the British owners, or Don in S4 genuinely trying to be better. In Season 6 we get as Lola says, Don at his lowest. It opens with Don on a beach next to his beautiful wife, reading a Dante passage about being lost, thinking about the woman living two floors down he wishes he was with. That energy haunts the whole season. So we see Don hit rock bottom - in love, at home, with his daughter, and finally in the one thing he always held together even when the world was exploding: his career. "Who is Don Draper?" A better question: Who is Don Draper without Sterling Cooper? Maybe we'll find out. I think about the ending scene very often. I'm so with Milena and Lola... Don is an incredible protagonist because you really have a toxic relationship with him. The three 'toxic' male protagaonists of this era of TV are Tony Soprano, Don Draper and Walter White. Of all three I empathize with Don the most. I cry every time during the pitch and I cry again when Don shares a tiny slice of truth with his kids, probably for the first time ever. Sally's look... god. It took 6 whole seasons but she finally knows something "real" about her Dad. Heart of the show for me, fr. Bonus Thoughts: Pete stocks at the highest they've been for 3 seasons, "NOT GREAT BOB" is a famous Mad Men meme, him genuinely saying goodbye to Tammy (no performance) is cute. Joan finding a nice balance with Roger finally is an unsung nice moment. Peggy feel for the damned oldest trick in the book, if he says he's "definitely leaving his wife" you're cooked. I love how the show weaves in side characters: the elevator scene with Duck is elevated because we know Duck, it feels like real history, like a shitty ex-coworker or a bad ex IRL.

Don's last ditched effort of "we'll be bicoastal :)" is so funny

also: NOT GREAT BOB

forgive me for a slightly bleak and self-indulgent personal anecdote: I was so depressed at the time I first watched this show a few years back. Not like a sadness kind of depression but a "I'm not feeling anything properly anymore and I'm scared I won't ever again" depression. I still thought the show was brilliant of course but even then felt like I was recognising that brilliance in a detached way without fully connecting emotionally the way you do when you really love something. I remember the wave of emotion I got watching that Don and Sally scene at the end so clearly, the way it communicates a complex, hopeful, heartbreaking feeling silently in a way words just never could hit me so hard, and after months without "feeling properly" I felt the kind of connection to something that I was scared I just couldn't get anymore. I do understand why some people feel like season 6 is the show's weakest, but with that context the ending is absolutely my favourite moment of the show and one of my favourite TV moments ever. Goes without saying but I obviously needed more than that- therapy, meds, life changes, all the good stuff- to get better long term, art isn't a substitute for really putting in the work, but it is an incredible tool for connecting us to feelings we have but can't quite access ourselves, and I've not had many better examples than this. "I've looked at clouds from both sides, now From up and down, and still somehow It's clouds' illusions I recall I really don't know clouds at all"

Just a beautiful episode

NOT GREAT BOB

Good news, season 7 has 14 episodes. So you get to enjoy one extra!

As much emotional impact that this episode has, the part that really sticks with me is Pete's delivery of "Not Great, Bob!" Iconic

New show that you haven't had time? You've already mentioned Pluribus and all the other shows so I'll be in my corner yelling 'HEATED RIVALRY'

The weight of the final scene always breaks me, what a season for Don's character! I cant believe were already going into season 7, this show went by so fast.

My favourite episode of the show :)

Been waiting for this!

Now THIS is the best ending to any Mad Men season