Why are there going to be rave reviews of the season finale of Mad Men festooning the internet today? Because MM creator Matthew Weiner gave his fans what they’ve been dying for all season, even if they strenuously denied wanting it — that is, liveliness, jokes, action, and even the suggestion of a few plot-line resolutions. SPOILER ALERT IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN LAST NIGHT’S MAD MEN SEASON FINALE.
Yes, the marriage of Don and Betty took a turn toward dissolution. Yes, the children clung to the parent who occasionally shows them some semblance of affection. (That would be Don; I know it’s sometimes hard to tell with the Drapers.)
But after all the agonizingly calibrated anguish that began this season with Sal’s love-that-dares-not-speak-its-name-in-1963 hotel scene, and continued on through Betty’s zombie-like attraction to a man who’s more like a safe father-figure than the safe father-figure she started being snippy with when her real father died, Mad Men finally had to get a little madcap in its season finale to keep us primed for its next batch of new episodes.
The season-ender was directed by Weiner, and it turned out to be an extremely well-choreographed, wacky 1960s sitcom about starting an ad agency, with scenes of slamming-door farce set in the hotel room where the firm of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce is taking shape. Instead of going the screw-the-viewers route his old boss David Sopranos Chase regularly travelled, Weiner brought back fan-faves, foremost among them Joan. (You know Sal cannot be far behind.)
You’ll read Karen Valby’s full-length TV Watch for all the details. I’ll limit myself to a couple of quick observations and take a broader look at the season.
• The “Connie” Hilton subplot fizzled out rather miserably, the real-life-based character dispatched early on breaking the news of Sterling Cooper’s sale to Don. Don did what we knew he would: Make the speeches he wanted to make to his own dad but was never able to, condemning the old man (Hilton, that is) for coming on like a father-figure but never showing Don real love; asserting his Donnish maturity and independence.
• Speaking of Don’s own father, we had to sit through a few flashbacks that, like nearly all MM flashbacks this season, looked and sounded like drafts of an unproduced Eugene O’Neill play. Young Don’s life was portrayed as a hillbilly caricature complete with a corked jug o’ moonshine. (Weiner seems to have gleaned his knowledge of lower-class rural life from old collections of Li’l Abner comic strips; it’s too bad he never lets Don’s subconscious stray enough to portray Betty as Daisy Mae… ) When the horse reared in the stable and knocked Dad unconscious, Weiner has by now programmed me to select the appropriate time-period song lyric. In this case, I heard Dean Martin singing, “Ain’t that a kick in the head… “
Taken as a whole, the third season of Mad Men was one long day’s journey into night — that is, an extended, tragic meditation on the importance and fragility of mentorship (Roger’s of Don; Don’s of Peggy; Bert Cooper’s of the upper-tier ad-agency execs; Henry Francis’s of Betty) and identity politics (Don’s secret one; Sal’s furtive one; Pete’s and Peggy’s evolving ones; Betty’s despairing one; and, most broadly, the way in which the country’s identity was altered by the JFK assassination).
But the fact that I’m laying this out so schematically is also what’s fundamentally unsatisfying about Mad Men: It’s constructed like a college course in psychological symbolism or literary analysis. Every character, every space they occupy (office; bedroom; restaurant), every prop is chosen not to simply be, but to represent something. That’s one reason why my colleagues in criticism love to write about it: The show is so much fun to deconstruct.
The most adventurous image in Mad Men this season wasn’t a person but a painting: That Rothko abstract that loomed behind so many meetings in Bert Cooper’s office. (Early in the season, Cooper had been most proud of the Asian erotica he’d had mounted on his wall; last night, it was the Rothko, being moved out of the agency by moving-men, that provoked his concerned cry, “Did you wash your hands?”) Unlike the characters, Mark Rothko’s soft-cornered quadrants of color, painted under the influence of Nietzsche, represent freedom and struggle as triumphant endeavors.
This is why my favorite characters from this season were Roger Sterling and Pete Campbell. Roger always provided much-needed humor in the most dour scenes, as well as the most realistic world-view: Unlike Don, he knows who he is, and has reached an age where he goes after what he wants (a younger wife; more power at work), no matter how foolish he may end up seeming. And Pete is a brainy ferret. Behind his pudding face lies a coiled-snake brain teeming with thoughts of ambition, fear, lust, and always-bubbling rage. Here’s hoping that the new firm of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce (with the addition of “Campbell” in the company title a new goal for him) will find fresh ways to stoke the energy of Pete and all his colleagues next season.
As I said: Be sure to read Karen Valby’s complete Mad Men TV Watch.
Was this a great season of Mad Men for you?
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Comments (1-15) of 189 Add your comment
I didn’t like this season — until last night’s finale episode!! Best episode of the entire series.
Aww come on. Yeah it was a really slow season, but what about Guy’s foot being cut off. That was another fun episode. As for the rest of SC, I’m kinda glad they got left behind. Paul was absolutely useless, Cosgrove will thrive in a place like McCann Erickson, and Curt and Schmitty, I don’t even know what they do. Good riddance to the fat. Here’s to a leaner, meaner SCDP!
It was a b-o-r-i-n-g season. I love the office storylines – keep them! The home life story lines were borderline soap opera. *yawn*
I want to disagree but…I just don’t. There are moments of interest in the home scenes, mainly when Betty’s Dad or Carla was around, but by and large it’s all a little relentlessly glum.
Agree. I hope they write Betty Draper off the show. Such an uninteresting character, such a terrible actor. Ditto with Henry Francis.
I second that. I cannot help but groan upon seeing Betty in another scene, it is just so not interesting to see her perform. So static. But Betty’s Dad… holy crap-that scene with Dan’s kid and german helmet? that is Grade-A material.
What a fantastic show to end the season with. It was so great to see Joan back in action again!!
can’t wait for Joan to “burn her bra”
They’re gonna need more than an hour for that one… its gotta look like two beach umbrellas.
Last night’s episode was the best yet. I think Don is going to be so much happier without Betty and Betty, well, Betty will be Betty. I honestly think that is impossible to make her happy. She will be making Henry miserable next season. I almost feel sorry for him. I cannot wait to see who will return in the new agency. How long will it be before Pete’s wife finds out about the baby Peggy had? I love the way those two keep getting thrown together. I cannot wait until next season.
I don’t think this was a great season for Mad Men. Clearly the
weakest of the 3 seasons. In fact, this very good episode could act as a series finale. If the show did not return next summer, I would not be devastated.
ITA. I doubt I’ll be back next season. All the soap opera crap was so boring. This episode was great because it focused on the office, for the most part.
It’s already been announced that Season Four will begin next summer
Yes. Yes it was. I was so happy to see Peggy stand up for herself. She’s my favorite character of this season as well as Betty. January Jones deserves an Emmy nod, her character was anything but cliche. Can’t wait for the next season.
Great as it’s ever been? Maybe not, but great nonetheless.
The show has lost its edge – it got slow and too focused on domestic issues, losing the zing it had in the first couple of seasons. Zzzz…
Season not so great. Finale great.
agree!
AGREED! and I LOVE Joan!
I thought it was a great end to a great season, and so much all season lead up to what happened in the finale. It puts Don at a great crosswroads at his life, which this season has been leading up to (no, the Hilton plotline didn’t fizzle; it actually was the catalyst for everything that happened and will happen), and Peggy and Pete finally get the wooing from Don they’ve always craved. Is Betty truly in love with Henry, or is she just using him to ease her way to independence? And the discrete Mrs. Harris comes in and shows the men how it’s done. Marvelous!
good season. Though I admit that I effin’ HATED the schoolteacher storylines; a boring actress on a dead-end plot. Don’s relationship with his co-workers is infinitely more interesting than his relationships with Betty and/or his squeeze of the week.
Love Mad Men, during all it’s ups and downs. My favorite show on TV.
The season 2 finale left me gasping with my mouth hanging open. The season 3 finale left me smiling with a pounding heart. It was a great way to end, considering some of the tedium we had to go through to get to last night.
This season was inconsistent. The first third was painfully s-l-o-w. The middle had some fleeting moments of greatness (the tractor, for instance). The last 3-4 episodes really packed a punch and rewarded the viewers for their loyalty. But I do agree with the others. Too much focus on Don’s domestic life, not enough on SC and the rest of the supporting cast. Hopefully last night’s season finale was the set up for Season 4’s return to the MM we know and love.
I thought this season was really good, not as good as season one but better or as good as S2. It was a little slow at the beginging, but hey thats the show. Towards the middle it started getting really good, especially the last few episodes. I didn’t mind the focus on Don’s home life, except for the teacher story line I didn’t care for that. But when him and Betty were going at it, I loved it. This finale was great and it really sets up S4 well.
Really Tucker? This was a 60s sitcom, if a family torn apart by divorce is your idea of a That Girl episode. I loved the way they juxtaposed the hopefulness of starting a new agency with the rality of a failed marriage. Jon Hamm balanced that brilliantly. Season three couldn’t compete with season one, but I’d rate it far above season two overall.