Mad Men: Season 7 (AMC) (2 Viewers)

[TonyD]

Not everybody uses TM to cleanse their minds. Check out David Lynch's book, Catching the Big Fish, about meditation and creativity. It should be noted that Lynch isn't above using his creativity to sell products, directing a few commercials himself. ;-)

What the heck is TM?


Anyway I thought it was the appropriate ending.

While wife and I waTCHED the last couple of eps we both agreed that with all the not so subtle Coke appearances and

Don being around all the hippies that the end was going to be him inventing the Coke ad that was shown.


Loved the show and the ending, nothing lke the Sopranos ending even a little bit, and sad to see it be done.

 

[joshEH]

What the heck is TM?

Transcendental Meditation.

 

[Reed Grele]

So this is basically Weiner's Sopranos diner-ending...we're all gonna be arguing for the next ten years over whether that last Coke ad was actually Don's or not.

Had to be.


Aummmmmmmmmmm.....

 

[Sam Favate]

Jon Hamm certainly believes the ad was Don's (as do I):

My take is that, the next day, he wakes up in this beautiful place, and has this serene moment of understanding, and realizes who he is. And who he is, is an advertising man. And so, this thing comes to him.

There's more here:

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/05/18/mad-men-finale-jon-hamm-interview/?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&bicmp=AD&bicmlukp=WT.mc_id&bicmst=1409232722000&bicmet=1419773522000&_r=0

 

[Quentin]

That's a great take by Hamm.

 

[Doug Smith]

Very interesting discussion. The ending obviously meant a lot of different things to different people. But remember the original coke ad that came out in (70 or 71 I can't remember? I'm talking now to those in their late fifties or older. That ad was popular (the song surely was), but it was not universally liked. The counter culture and the younger generation in particular kind of made fun of it . I remember some someone in my High School cafeteria saying "buy her a coke, and save the world". The world at that time was very turbulent (Vietnam, cold war, on and on) so some hippies up on a hill singing about coca cola and world unity was considered a little hypocritical by many. I believe coke was in a major battle with pepsi to see who could get the lucrative youth market (future baby boomers like me). When I saw Don smile, I assumed he felt he got it. And being Don, that meant once again adapting like he had done throughout this series. But the smile tells us it's still all about Don, and that his character was always going to be the same.

 

[davidmatychuk]

I liked that Don's phone call to Peggy ended with him saying "See you soon", and I loved the little "ding!" as he finally got his Mad Men mojo back. The beauty of the ending to me is that it engaged my imagination to conjure up everything about Don's return to New York and the agency, and about him being reunited with his family and his co-workers, and about his being such a consummate ad man that his talent will always make people forgive his many flaws and weaknesses. I believe it was Stephen J. Cannell who said (about Jim Rockford) that a T.V. audience will always forgive the flaws in a hero as long as they are confident that the hero is really good at what he or she does. And this sweet, subtle series ending certainly exemplified that principle.

 

[TravisR]

Matthew Weiner talks about the finale here: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/mad-men-series-finale-matthew-797302

 

[Josh Dial]

Great interview. Thanks, Travis!

 

[Sam Favate]

Here's another account of Weiner's discussion about the finale and the series, which touches on a few more points:


http://www.ew.com/article/2015/05/21/matthew-weiner-mad-men-wrap-up


I found his discussion of Don being somewhat patterned after Richard Nixon very interesting:

During season 1’s “The Long Weekend,” set during the 1960 election, Don even said, “Kennedy, I see a silver spoon. Nixon, I see myself.” But Weiner couldn’t resist going further, delving into both Dicks’ poverty-stricken childhoods, and their determined drive to reinvent themselves and succeed after wartime service. “The idea that that guy, with no breeding, no Ivy League… and no friends [gets out of the Navy, and six years later he’s the vice president of the United States]. He’s psychological fascinating. … Richard Nixon’s a big important part of [Dick/Don], I hate to say.”

 

[Ken H]

One last thing for sure, with the way this is playing out, there will never be an 'end' to Mad Men. We'll all have the chance to imagine what happens to all of them long, long, after the show goes off the air. I predict it will become a major cottage industry.

And so it starts.


http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/249014/don-draper-maverick-ad-man-dead-at-88.html

 

[Josh Dial]

And so it starts.


http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/249014/don-draper-maverick-ad-man-dead-at-88.html

Beat you to it a few weeks back

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/topic/331002-mad-men-season-7-amc/?p=4241795

 

[Reed Grele]

The series finale (In an alternate universe) where they extended the timeline into the eighties, and the "high bidder" was Wendy's.

 

[davidmatychuk]

The series finale (In an alternate universe) where they extended the timeline into the eighties, and the "high bidder" was Wendy's.

wheres-the-beef1.jpg

Is that the one, set in 1984, where Don wanders off from McCann to bum around and ends up on the verge of a nervous breakdown in an old folks' home full of crabby old ladies?

 

[Reed Grele]

It's a good thing that Don didn't have indigestion that day.

 

[davidmatychuk]

It's a good thing that Don didn't have indigestion that day.

Alka.jpg

He got that million-dollar idea just before the final episode when, bumming around on the verge of a nervous breakdown, he stopped at an all-you-can-eat buffet.

 

[Reed Grele]

He got that million-dollar idea just before the final episode when, bumming around on the verge of a nervous breakdown, he stopped at an all-you-can-eat buffet.

Oh well, I guess I can live with the Coke commercial ending.

 

[Sam Favate]

I recently rewatched the fake blaxspoitation trailer for Mad Men:





And it's still one of the greatest things I have ever seen. Now, it's two or three years old at this point, so I was kinda shocked when I watched it again for the first time after the Mad Men finale and saw this image:

which looks a hell of a lot like this:

And Don Draaper's explodin' all over Madison fuckin' Avenue.

 

[TonyD]

Coincidence.

 

[Ken H]

I recently rewatched the fake blaxspoitation trailer for Mad Men: (see link above)


And it's still one of the greatest things I have ever seen. Now, it's two or three years old at this point, so I was kinda shocked when I watched it again for the first time after the Mad Men finale and saw this image: (see pic above)


which looks a hell of a lot like this: (see pic above)


And Don Draaper's explodin' all over Madison fuckin' Avenue.

TM was huge back then, and one of the reasons it became so popular was because of the large numbers of celebrities involved, in particular The Beatles, who's guru was Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. It ran hand in hand with the LSD usage promoted by Timothy Leary. Both were a wide spread reaction to decades of the pressures of conforming to socitial norms in modern times after the industrial revolution.


Hardly a surprise to see it show up in MM, or Don-O-Mite!