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Mad Men Season 7 Part 2 premieres April 5

Pete definitely thinks he's being sincere.

The problem for me in terms of reading it as a "happily ever after" is how badly this episode wanted to draw parallels between he and Don. I'm surprised the Kansas link hasn't gotten more talk in reviews, but I don't think it's an accident that Don was leaving Kansas just as Pete set out for it. As optimistic an ending as he had on Sunday, he's still forever in Don's shadow, doomed to repeat mistakes made by the man he's spent a decade trying to first emulate and then separate from.

My buddy mentioned that Pete's 4AM proposal reminded him of Don's S1 speech to Rachel Menken, except that because Don was coming from a place of desperation (whereas Pete was content, perhaps even happy), we're meant to expect this to end less disastrously for Pete.

I disagree strongly with that take-- if you dig deeper into Pete's behavior this season, he seems more restless than complacent. He's not having a S7 Don full-on existential crisis, but he reminds me a lot of where Don's mind was at at the turn of the 60s. We've seen him become more and more successful at the agenc(ies), while his personal relationships have sort of corroded.

And of course, this, if nothing else, is a show obsessed with cycles. I had a different Don scene running through my head when I saw Pete go about his business this week. He tells his brother that "it's fun, then it's not," bringing instantly to mind Faye's kiss-off to Don: "You only like the beginnings of things." Yes, we've been down this road before. And as Pete summed up perfectly with his exiting "Good morning" to Trudy: this is only another beginning, and Don's shadow isn't going to break from Don any more today than it did yesterday.
 
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Good take, RSF.
 
I simultaneously want Sunday night to get here right now and don't want it to ever come.
 
I was talking to my grandfather the other night who watches MadMen. At a time he was VP of Marketing for an insurance company. McCann was their agency. They didn't spend a lot of money and McCann pretty much treated them as such. He remembered them as being as arrogant as the show depicts them. He informed McCann they would be opening up the business and McCann would have to re-pitch it when they issued a RFP. McCann, not wanting to be dumped, fired them the next day. They weren't going to win the business anyway.
 
So I was working on another PETE theory today. I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere (maybe because it's grasping a bit), but I think there's a good amount to support it.

I don't think it's an accident that Pete went to Learjet, a company referred to seemingly often as "Lear." Especially given how many times the episode referred to the company as royalty, I wonder if we're meant to apply some of King Lear to Pete's arc this week. The analogy here isn't perfect-- if we are to look at Pete as the Cordelia of this story, then the bluntness of his initial disinterest in Learjet should have turned the company off of him, rather than the opposite. But maybe that's the point, here. After all, the Learjet exec feigned displeasure when he realized what was going on, too, and Duck's eventual orchestration of the outrageous offer to Pete could certainly be called a descent into madness.

The idea is a bit rough around the edges, but I do think there's something there. Curious to see if anyone else has a similar read.
 
Pete likes to leer at females, too. He also likes jets.
 
CantStandYa said:
Pete as a do-good father and husband? Really? An optimist would surely say he's a changed man after tasting the post-divorce life, but a realist might take a look at the character's entire seven-season history and assume the worst for Wichita. There's considerably more evidence for the latter than the former if you watch the previous six seasons of this show. It wasn't that long ago that Pete was living the life in California with his real estate agent GF, but now we're supposed to believe he won't be tempted by Learjet stewardesses and Hollywood types?

In other, "think about the entire arc of the character" thoughts, Better Draper/Francis lived a truly sad life, which makes her ending that much more tragic. Sure, she was petulant, bratty, naive, and stuck-up at times, but aside from a few flashes with Don or Henry here and there, did she ever really experience love or happiness? Her soft spot for Sally, however, gave the character her humanity, which is why the letter (and her ending) were so emotionally powerful.

I could almost envision the boys ending up with Henry and Sally trailing her father westward.

Weiner wasted so much time on other matters during this broken seventh season that now we're left with just a single episode to conclude the stories of Roger, Joan, Peggy, and Don. I personally would also like to see the futures of Stan and Ted, but sincerely doubt we'll get to see them.
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Spot on, especially the last part about the wasted time. I think the show's great overall and really enjoyed some of the earlier seasons but I think this last one's basically been a failure. My interest level has plummeted over the the last several weeks and at this point I'm mostly just curious to see how Weiner ties things up with Draper.
 
To me, the only character that hasn't been satisfactorily resolved at this point is Don. Sure, I'd love to see another Don/Peggy scene, or Joan/Roger scene, but all of those non-Don characters have been left in pretty tidy, thematically appropriate places.
 
I don't think they really tied up Roger...last we saw he was playing organ in the old SCP offices, but we don't really know what he'll do next. Peggy looked ready to go kickass at McCann.
 
Peggy's ending was summed up in the conversation with the headhunter. If they want to show us, that's great but I'm fine with it.

Roger and Joan could use more time. I don't know if Sally was wrapped when she took Betty's seat and put Gene in her lap to become the woman of the house.
 
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I thought Roger playing the organ with Peggy literally revolving around him was a pretty brilliant, satisfactory place to leave the character.

I dunno, I just don't really need to see "what's next" for every character. Like, I've heard a lot of people predict that things will end in an epilogue, but that feels so far off from Weiner's style. He seems perfectly content to leave characters in places that make sense thematically and artistically, even if their arcs are left traditionally unfinished. Frankly, I prefer it that way, anyway. (Maybe that's why I like A Serious Man so much?)

Anyway, changing gears slightly: MY BOI Todd VanDerWerff put up an article on Tuesday predicting the show's final scene, and it seems perfect.

http://www.vox.com/2015/5/12/8589783/mad-men-finale-predictions

So I think Don is going to go back to New York. I think Don is going to go back to McCann. I think he is going to win back his job with a brilliant pitch for a McCann client. I think we're going to think we're on the verge of the Don Draper pitch to end all Don Draper pitches.

Picture it, if you will.

Don walks into the room with the client. Everything is on the line. His career. His family. His future. Everyone leans forward (including us). He smiles, launching into his pitch with something like "I'd like to talk to you about family," and then either the door to the room closes (shutting us out) or the screen fades to black.

And out of the blackness, we begin to hear perhaps the most famous ad of the 1970s.

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PhDeac said:
Peggy's ending was summed up in the conversation with the headhunter. If they want to show us, that's great but I'm fine with it.

Roger and Joan could use more time. I don't know if Sally was wrapped when she took Betty's seat and put Gene in her lap to become the woman of the house.
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The headhunter convo plus the fact that she got to tell someone about the baby made me feel like that could be the last we see of her.
 
Good point.
 
RedSoxFaithful said:
I thought Roger playing the organ with Peggy literally revolving around him was a pretty brilliant, satisfactory place to leave the character.

I dunno, I just don't really need to see "what's next" for every character. Like, I've heard a lot of people predict that things will end in an epilogue, but that feels so far off from Weiner's style. He seems perfectly content to leave characters in places that make sense thematically and artistically, even if their arcs are left traditionally unfinished. Frankly, I prefer it that way, anyway. (Maybe that's why I like A Serious Man so much?)

Anyway, changing gears slightly: MY BOI Todd VanDerWerff put up an article on Tuesday predicting the show's final scene, and it seems perfect.

http://www.vox.com/2015/5/12/8589783/mad-men-finale-predictions
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and then he jumps out of an airplane with dat cash
 
As the edge of the darkening cloud begins to appear and the end of Mad Men (as we know it) draws near, I am comforted in the knowledge that when mid-July arrives I shall be reunited with the lovely, enticing Abigail Spencer (Suzanne Farrell on Mad Men) with the return of Rectify on the Sundance Channel. When her episodes come up in AMC's current marathon run-up I'll undoubtedly be at work.

BTW, does anyone have a line on when Mad Men: the Complete Series will be released on DVD?
 
Dispatch Deac said:
As the edge of the darkening cloud begins to appear and the end of Mad Men (as we know it) draws near, I am comforted in the knowledge that when mid-July arrives I shall be reunited with the lovely, enticing Abigail Spencer (Suzanne Farrell on Mad Men) with the return of Rectify on the Sundance Channel. When her episodes come up in AMC's current marathon run-up I'll undoubtedly be at work.

BTW, does anyone have a line on when Mad Men: the Complete Series will be released on DVD?
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She was awesome in The Fappening as well.
 
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