The final season of Mad Men contained something of a rarity for the show: a truly bad episode ("New Business," which focused on the dull and uninvolving Diana). And given that it came so early into this final stretch, you could forgive me for being worried. After all, Mad Men has always been a show that's taken a few episode into the season to hit a stride, and between the shortened run of episodes, the misbegotten Diana storyline, and some other signs of time-wasting, I was worried Mad Men's final season would be a huge misstep, an ending that left us wanting more. But once Diana was out of the picture,Mad Men came back together nicely, bringing the era of SCDP to a close and giving most of the characters curtain calls and satisfying endings. It was a happier conclusion to the show than I really expected; almost every character ended up in a happier place than we might have dreamed of, and it seems like Matthew Weiner decided that he couldn't quite agree with mentor David Chase's theory that people never change. Instead, Mad Men was about the difficulty of change, but also its necessity; almost every character's happy ending came as a result of them either making changes to their life (Pete) or making their peace with who they are instead of constantly striving to be someone else (Peggy, Roger). And then there's Don, whose enigmatic smile in the show's final moments has already become a fiercely debated point. Is he coming full circle, cynically turning the hope of his commune into a commodity? Or is he making peace with himself, embracing his own talent and realizing that he's more special - and needed - than he likes to believe? It's all up to interpretation, I think, and it's worth noting that both, I think, are valid interpretations based off of your own levels of happiness, cynicism, and hopefulness. Even with the missteps, it was a good final season of Mad Men, giving us enough closure to feel a sense of ending while never being so definitive we felt like the show abandoned its usual subtlety. It's the right ending for Mad Men in so many ways, one that ties in with all of its themes and ideas in a way consistent with the rest of the show - an intelligent, character-driven, complex way that eschews easy answers. And you'd expect nothing else from this finely crafted, intelligent series.
- Josh Mauthe
- Josh Mauthe
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