When you shake hands with the devil, you don’t always get all your fingers back…
Look, there’s no need to be clever here: we all know that what we just watched was essentially an inversion of “Shut The Door, Have a Seat,” pretty much everyone’s pick for best episode ever. And I’d love to be the guy that comes up with a clever alternate theory, like being able to tell you why this episode is really a remake of “The Crash.” But it’s late, and I’m tired. So the obvious choice it is.
The difference, of course is that the scrappy associates of Sterling Cooper & Partners are under the impression that they’re still the hungry underdogs, when nothing could be further from the truth: they’re fatted calves for The Machine now. Everybody is rich and only going to get richer.
So what are they even fighting for?
With three episodes before the series finale (and congrats to AMC for finding a needlessly convoluted way of saying you have four episodes left), we finally get the shape of the end. And, as was probably inevitable, it will be with be the proverbial whimper. At least, if you’re the “corporate intrigue” type of Mad Men viewer.
“Time and Life” puts to rest the era of the corporate intrigues of Mad Men. And its lack of interest at this point couldn’t have been any more clear if they had spent an entire episode giving us closure on Megan and her dumb family.
(Get it? Because they did that. And it was really dull…)
There haven’t been any strategic inside moves, no world-beating pitches, no hunting down new accounts this year. It’s all been status quo and maintenance.
We’ve been spending a whole lot of time with Glen and Diana and the Calverts and Dinkus, and very little time focused on the business aspect of things. Our heroes have mostly seemed distracted so far. And in drifting away from certain types of stories, Matthew Weiner has been sending us a clear message about how the show is going to end; not with some intricate plot, but focused wholly on the characters themselves.
But the characters on the show don’t know their story is almost over. So of course when they find out they’re losing their autonomy, they rally to find a way out of it, like its any other season.
Don Draper comes up with another smooth plot, as he has so many times before, but to no avail: the fix has been in since the very beginning.
We knew it wasn’t going to work, and not just because Roger and Pete couldn’t sway Ken.
(How great was that, by the way? From Ken, a simple kiss-off. As good an exit as one could hope for, really…)
Even if this wasn’t the final season, Don and the gang pulling off yet another move like this would be exactly the sort of thing that would have people calling for Weiner to wrap it up; it would have been one end-run too many.
But this IS the final season. They’re not all moving to L.A. to continue the same old shit, because that’s not an ending. It wouldn’t tell us anything about anything.
But tonight, in essence, WAS the end of the show; Sterling Cooper and Partners, absorbed into the machine they fought so hard against.
And yet, this isn’t the tragedy it seems to be.
To a certain extent, it might actually come as a relief.
As mentioned before, the obvious precursor to this episode was “Shut The Door,” a nifty little bit of corporate intrigue that in which The Draper Bunch cleverly outwitted a hostile takeover by McCann Erickson. And as with any callback in the world of Mad Men, the law of diminishing returns is in full effect: it’s never going to be this good ever again.
(Which, as if it needs to be said, is often the point of revisiting previous victories in the world of Mad Men. This is how you get from the poignant, overwhelming Carousel speech from “The Carousel” to the pathetic, drunken recycling of the speech in “Waldorf Stories”…)
They fight and fight and fight, but to what end? What has their freedom brought them, in the scheme of things? They were constantly struggling, constantly fighting, and though we tend to forget this, always the little guy.
Joining with McCann Erickson got them everything they wanted (which is to say, a butt-load of cash), and the illusion of freedom, which, really, is the most you can hope for in a corporate environment.
When you boil it down, the plan they try to enact here is almost exactly the same plan as before. Only this time, it never really gets off the ground, and not just because it’s so clearly a pipe dream, but also because they’re no longer the mavericks or the underdogs: they’ve literally sold out.
In the end, this isn’t a plan, it’s a pitch.
And if we’ve learned anything at all this season, it’s that they’re nowhere near the pitch-masters they used to be.
So with our conclusion well and properly foregone, the show settles in on the effect this has on our people. There’s comfort in defeat. Once the fight is over, the pressure is off. You can accpet the new world and move forward. And that’s exactly what happens here.
In one of those payoffs that’s been building for seven years, Pete tells Peggy about the dissolution, and advises her to start job hunting. All their history comes to bear on this one sweet moment where we’re reminded that Pete’s not such a bad guy, when he’s not being a total knob.
In fact, I’m calling it right now: Pete earned MVP status this week. Not just for the Peggy scene, but for his taxicab commiseration/pep talk with Joan (who has the most to fear out of all the partners; she’s seen what sexist bungholes those guys can be, and worries she’ll lose her account). Pete essentially reminds her that she’s Joan Fucking Holloway. Why, it’s almost enough to make you forget that time he basically pimped her out.
(One step forward, two steps back with this guy…)
On top of everything, Pete discovers Tammy won’t be getting into the private school they wanted, leading Pete to punch out the headmaster. And I don’t know if the whole Hatfields and McCoys thing between the Campbells and the was a callback to anything in particular, but that whole scene was delightfully odd and humorous in what was a mostly melancholy (but not dour, thank god) episode.
Random aside: Lane Pryce himself, Jared Harris directs the episode, and now all I can think about is “Signal 30”:
Jared Harris + Vincent Kartheiser = Punches For Everybody!!!
But the whole encounter thaws the ice between Trudy and Pete, hinting at a possible reconciliation. Which brings us to one of the big themes tonight, togetherness.
With their careers in freefall, everybody turns to their loved ones for comfort/relief.
Joan gets consolation from her new man, who contrary to what the internet seems to think, isn’t supposed to be a scumbag (this is the Bruce Greenwood Effect: once you’ve played Ashley Judd’s husband in Double Jeopardy, nobody will every trust you again. Some bells, apparently, cannot be un-rung…)
I mean, if you’re not impressed by his rush to be by her side, no questions asked, then you must be a nightmare of a life partner to deal with. Just sayin’.
While Pete is character MVP, Joan has the line of the episode with her post-sorrow drowning goodbye to Roger, “Don’t be a baby, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Elsewhere, in Loveland: Okay, maybe Stan and Peggy are just friends, and not ‘Steggy’ like I want them to be. But I still root for those two, for one simple reason: Peggy is a massive pain in the ass, and Stan is the only person who is not only willing, but happy to put up with her.
(Slick how they offhandedly dropped in the fact that Stan and Elaine weren’t an item anymore…)
After seeking out a headhunter, Peggy is advised that McCann Erickson is in fact, the best deal. She decides to stay. And she convinces Stan (because of course she tells Stan) that he should stick around too. And he does, because he wants to have her babies now.
I might be embellishing that one, but he’s now in on the secret of the baby she gave up for adoption, a truth that comes out after a child actress accidentally staples her own hand (you know how these things work). Peggy lets Stan in on the secret that only her and her mentor know: it may not mean love, exactly, but it sure as shit means something.
And Roger, who should feel the worst out of everyone: Basically destroyed his fathers’ company, no son (well, at least not one that will carry on the family name…), got pwned by Ken Cosgrove…. even Roger takes comfort in that he’s apparently gotten serious with Marie Calvert.
Everybody has somebody.
Everybody except Don.
And his only prospect (or the only one he seems to have any interest in pursuing) is the saddest waitress in the world.
Unless you count Meredith, and at this point she should at least be on a waiting list.
Which makes the ending work all the more, as we realize while we’ve been focusing in on the partners (and why not? They’re our main cast), we’ve been neglecting the fact that there’s an entire office up in the air. Nameless, paycheck to paycheck worker bees who have been passing by in the background for years now, and they’re not going to be all right.
We’ve basically spent this episode discovering that the end of Sterling Cooper and Associates isn’t necessarily the end of the world. But for the second time this evening, Don’s smooth words fail him as he’s unable to convince any of the little people that everything is going to be fine. Because even though the show Mad Men is basically Don, Pete, Roger, and the rest (even Megan), it is definitely not the story of Dawn, Shirley, Meredith, Scarlett, Caroline, or Gene Stickypants (a character I just made up to illustrate the fact that we don’t know most of the people that work in that office). They don’t have the comfort of being indispensable characters that people want to know the ultimate fate of.
Basically, they’re fucked.
STRAY OBSERVATIONS
-We have a Jim Cutler mention! Apparently, he’s in good with the McCann Erickson crew, because of course he is.
-And Lou Avery returns, only to be headed for Japan! If I had to guess, I’d say that the development process on Scout’s Honor eventually wound up turning it into this.
-Obvious runner-up for line of the evening: Don Draper’s casually tossed off ‘What’s in a name?’
-Seriously, what was up with that private school scene? I feel like it was a whole thing that went straight over my head… anybody out there want to fill me in?
NEXT WEEK: Even more sentence fragments than usual…