Jake

The End of Mad Men: "Lost Horizon"

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I'm totally with Sean on the scene between Joan and Roger. Joan, to me, this episode was able to show so much range in her facial expressions to all the shit she had to deal with. When Roger told her to just take the money, it was incredibly heartbreaking as a viewer to see that interaction, Joan's expression, after all of their history together was just crushing to watch. 

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I haven't listened to the episode yet, but what I thought was really incredible about this episode was how the character of Jim Hobart was set up, effectively from the first season, and how it came crashing down into reality in his confrontation with Joan. Jim's shown to be a man whose business sense means always getting what he wants, money be damned. That's why he sets up an entire Coca-Cola ad shoot for Betty back in season one, to lure in Don. That's why he buys SC&P, to get Don and perhaps some of the others there under his control. That's why he doesn't give a crap about Sterling Cooper West, because he wants them actually under his control. That's why he buys an entire company in Wisconsin, to get Miller. Even after just a few appearances, he's cemented himself as an impossibly powerful man who's able to get things done, and I personally didn't even see it coming that he'd clash with Joan, the other in the show with an intimidating ability to get things done, only without the use of money as blunt object. When he beats down Joan simply at the prospect of facing such infinite resources and stubbornness, it's a heartbreaking look at the human cost of that kind of power, especially the kind of talent it ignores or drives away. It was beyond painful for me to watch that scene, but it was masterfully done, in my opinion

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Really liked this episode. Now hoping that Tyne whole thing ends with Joan setting fire to the McCann Eriksen offices with everyone inside.

Let's try and guess the official ep description. "Peggy and Roger reminisce, Joan has trouble adjusting, Don takes a drive and Betty reads a book."

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Let's try and guess the official ep description. "Peggy and Roger reminisce, Joan has trouble adjusting, Don takes a drive and Betty reads a book."

 

"Harry needs a bigger hat. Peggy's office gets painted. Don talks with Bert and is asked to find Jesus."

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"Don helps the homeless. Peggy is misplaced. Bert comes back from the dead. An octopus pleasures a woman"

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The music that played over Peggy's entrance to McCann Erickson is called "

" on the Mad Men soundtrack for the first season. It's the music that plays while all of the secretaries are testing the lipsticks and Peggy's copywriting talents are discovered.

 

It's a nice callback.

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Just some random thoughts:

- The AV Club agrees with Chris that the roller-skating is a callback to the fake scooter ad ploy.

- That AV club review also has a lot that's good to say about the meeting Don walks out of, including the "turn it up a notch" that makes Don realize he's no longer special, and the perversion of his pitch technique into something dull and lifeless.

- You talked about the interior design of the McCann office, but to me it felt almost identical to the old Sterling-Cooper offices back from season one. 

- I sincerely hope that Peggy is successful in busting balls and taking names, but Hobart did have an ominous line to Joan in their showdown. When mentioning that Peggy was a Copy Chief and had lots of men calling a lady their boss, he said something along the lines of "I'm not sure how long that is going to continue either".

- I also though for a moment that Don was going directly to Miller for some kind of end-around.

 

Also, give the female copywriters some respect for their wordplay: the explicitly non-feminist ladies' night drinks were "Not awareness raising, strictly awareness lowering" *drinking gesture*.

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I loved the Scene with Roger and Shirley, it was a combination of Roger's ignorance about why the lower level employees are unhappy about moving and that he isn't a terrible person. He lives in the rich person bubble and forgets that people that don't think like him exist.

 

#OpressiveHallways

 

I'm conflicted about what I want for Joan. Part of me just wants her to run off with Kevin and the developer guy (what is his name?). At the same time I want her to fight hard and bring McCann down a few pegs. 

 

Every time Diana comes up, I really hope its the last time, so heres hoping. I am pretty sure Don is heading for California to get rejected by Megan again, or to go to Anna Draper's old house. He went to Rachel's funeral, Betty has moved on and is maybe happy? I'm starting to get a sense that Don is regretting all his choices and all the lives he could have had. I felt like when he was sitting in the house in Wisconsin he was again thinking here is a life I could have had. There seems to be a theme of Don intruding on other people's lives and noticing their children: Rachel's kids, the girl on the stairs, Don making milkshakes and later missing Sally and the boys. 

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I think I mentioned before how Mad Men can feel both subtle and obvious at the same time. One example is Don wearing identities: Hobart cajoles Don into introducing himself: "I'm Don Draper from McCann Erickson". While it isn't actually his next line (he speaks to Betty and to dream-Cooper in between), the next time we see him saying his name, he's introducing himself using a different identity (and then tries on another one as a collection agent for good measure). As an audience, we're expected to know that this is of course simply part of what Don does, but the craft of the parallelism is so good.

 

That's part of the reason I'll miss Mad Men. The craft is so good that everything feel obvious, until you realize that most other shows don't actually do that kind of thing.

 

For some reason, during Peggy's badass walkthrough at the end, I also thought of Sally and the Moon Landing. We've seen Sally try on different identities several times recently. Here, we see Don's "other daughter" Peggy trying on a new identity of her own.

 

Also, I think that the comments about Diana being insufficiently drawn are accurate, but I don't blame the actress. I think it's entirely intentional in that she's meant to be an amorphous entity that can Don project his own needs onto. She isn't supposed to feel enigmatic to the audience, because there's no mystery: it's supposed to be clear that Don is simply looking for something that isn't there.

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To the fella on the podcast who emailed talking about Ginsberg (if he's a user?). Weiner talked about him in the interview he did with his sister before the season premiere. Basically said he was always insane

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As soon as I heard the organ music while Peggy walked the empty hallways I thought "Carnival of Souls" and it's lead female character walking through the abandoned amusement park.

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I really enjoyed the smile on Chaough's face when he realized that he possibly may never see Draper again.

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Regarding the McCann ladies meeting, I think the exact quote was "only conciousness lowering (drink gesture)" which I took to mean "we're just having drinks, no mind-expanding shenanigans here". Maybe I'm wrong but it felt like a weird 70ies flavor thing.

 

Contrary to most people I really don't mind Diane. I know she's a very late introduction, but to me that seems like the point so far. She's not the warehouse magnate lady whose name I just forgot. She's a random waitress who Don is trying to convince himself is actually more significant to him. I think it all works great in showing Don's desparate clutching at straws. There was a moment two or so episodes back with Don and Diane where it almost seemed like Don could hit the reset button once again and sort of use Diane to mask the fact that his life is secretly a void. Being with a new woman is Don's go-to escape, but I love that this temporary satisfaction (or at least distraction) is being denied to him now. His apartment is empty/sold, he's reaching all these dead ends with Diane, SC&P is gone... where is Don going to go from here? I think Diane works very well as this big red herring for Don.

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Contrary to most people I really don't mind Diane. I know she's a very late introduction, but to me that seems like the point so far. She's not the warehouse magnate lady whose name I just forgot. She's a random waitress who Don is trying to convince himself is actually more significant to him. I think it all works great in showing Don's desparate clutching at straws. There was a moment two or so episodes back with Don and Diane where it almost seemed like Don could hit the reset button once again and sort of use Diane to mask the fact that his life is secretly a void. Being with a new woman is Don's go-to escape, but I love that this temporary satisfaction (or at least distraction) is being denied to him now. His apartment is empty/sold, he's reaching all these dead ends with Diane, SC&P is gone... where is Don going to go from here? I think Diane works very well as this big red herring for Don.

 

Those thoughts resonate with me. A lot of people are expecting some deviation from Don's pattern, now that we've come to the end of the series, but that's exactly what Don is expecting, so we're not likely to get any. He'll continue to search for a vulnerable woman whom he can anchor with his neglect and exploitation for as long as he exists, even if he becomes less and less successful in the process.

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Regarding the McCann ladies meeting, I think the exact quote was "only conciousness lowering (drink gesture)" which I took to mean "we're just having drinks, no mind-expanding shenanigans here". Maybe I'm wrong but it felt like a 70ies flavor thing.

Ugh, yeah, you're probably right about "consciousness" rather than awareness. Well, the raising / lowering parallelism is what was fun about the line.

 

In either case, I can't really see where your read comes from. The entire conversation was about feminism, and "consciousness raising" was an active term used by feminist groups at the time, roughly mapping to what we would tend to call awareness today. 

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If that's the case then you are almost certainly right as it makes far more sense. I was not aware of consciousness being used in that sense... and this made me go off on a totally ridiculous other path. lol...

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Contrary to most people I really don't mind Diane. I know she's a very late introduction, but to me that seems like the point so far. She's not the warehouse magnate lady whose name I just forgot. She's a random waitress who Don is trying to convince himself is actually more significant to him. I think it all works great in showing Don's desparate clutching at straws. There was a moment two or so episodes back with Don and Diane where it almost seemed like Don could hit the reset button once again and sort of use Diane to mask the fact that his life is secretly a void. Being with a new woman is Don's go-to escape, but I love that this temporary satisfaction (or at least distraction) is being denied to him now. His apartment is empty/sold, he's reaching all these dead ends with Diane, SC&P is gone... where is Don going to go from here? I think Diane works very well as this big red herring for Don.

I don't really mind her as a totem, especially in this episode. Don kind of realized that he wasn't needed at work or home, that he didn't have any control anywhere in his life, and looked to Diane as something that needed him and that he could control. Her being an offscreen force worked well and led to interesting things.

Her on screen is terrible and the writers should feel bad about the dialogue involving her.

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For some reason, during Peggy's badass walkthrough at the end, I also thought of Sally and the Moon Landing. We've seen Sally try on different identities several times recently. Here, we see Don's "other daughter" Peggy trying on a new identity of her own.

 

That's funny, I also thought of Sally and the moon landing in this episode, but not from Peggy's badass entrance into McCann.  When Peggy and Roger were reminiscing about Sterling Cooper, Peggy initially says something grumpy about how miserable she'd been and how glad she would be to leave Sterling Cooper behind.  Roger, gives her a skeptical look and says "Is that really how you're going to remember this place?" and Peggy takes a beat, looks slightly chastised, and admits no, it's not.  That interaction felt like an echo of Don and Sally's conversation about the moon landing, where Sally acts all cynical and too cool for school about the moon landing until Don is disappointed rather than impressed.  Not the same scenario, of course--Peggy has plenty of reason to have bad feelings about her time at Sterling Cooper, and she's a grown woman, and I imagine she doesn't care a whole lot about Sterling's approval in the grand scheme of things.  But the [cynical statement] [wounded/disappointed response] [slightly embarrassed acknowledgment of being overly glib] sequence made me immediately think of that great moon landing phone call.

 

I thought this was a great episode, but I do think this episode further underlined what a mistake this "half season" concept has been.  Everything that happened to Joan was affecting, but it also felt so compressed and rushed.  Not that the groundwork hadn't been laid to some extent with the Topaz meeting and her omission from the big McCann pitch, but to be so immediately undermined, attacked, and ultimately defeated by the sexist machine at McCann made me imagine how differently this would've played out if there were more screentime to go around.  I understand Joan wanting to handle things herself without involving Roger or Don or anyone else who might have been helpful, but the way she seemingly thoughtlessly just went up the chain of command apparently unprepared for the possibility that Ferg or Hobart might also be terrible sells short Joan's ability and experience dealing with shmucky executives.  I think if they had 4 or 5 more episodes to go, Joan would have spoken to the McCann women to see how they handle the neanderthals at the firm, take more careful and strategic steps to identify potential allies, talk with one of the Sterling Cooper partners about the situation while asking them to stay out of it, and generally develop a more thoughtful plan of attack.  It still could have resulted in failure, but could have given Joan more agency and more credit for her savvy.  If nothing else, this episode has given me more reason to believe in my theory that Peggy and Joan are going to start an agency together.

 

I too initially thought Don's drive to Wisconsin was going to result in him kicking in the doors at Miller and announcing TASTES GREAT, LESS FILLING, DRAPER OUT!, and was immensely disappointed when I realized what was actually happening.  I won't beat the dead horse that is the Diana plot line any more, except to note one especially strange aspect of Don's visit.  I can buy Mr. Diana having some sense as to why Don is really there and what he's up to and chasing him off.  But what I don't get is his suggestion that Don isn't the first man who met Diana, lost contact with her, and then thought to reconnect with her by driving to her ex-husband's home in Wisconsin and posing as someone else to get more information about her.  Really?  That's a thing other people would do and have done?  I'm sure she's a great lady and everything, but the idea that anyone other than Don would have had that particularly odd reaction to her and misguided plan is hard to imagine.

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