Mad Men Season 5

Hurry up!

The season ended last night and I think it's the first time we've had some kind of cliff hanger (albeit fairly minor) in a MM season finale. Will he or won't he? Anyone want to weigh in?

Also, I love the "new" Joan with some actual power/authority. It's fantastic. Although she's clearly having trouble keeping her secretarial instincts in check...

So much to say.... this season made me feel so many things.

I really loved how much symbolism was in this series and aimlesstraveler, I think it is safe to say

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that scene of Don walking away from the commercial set was showing the end of his marriage. It definitely felt like the end of Megan's time on the show and I am glad at least she got what she wanted and you can see her being happy.

I love Joan's new role (of course, not how she got it) and that image of the partners on their new floor is going to be iconic image of this show, at least for me. I am glad her husband is gone.

Glad Pete's face got what it deserved multiple times this series. Joan should have gotten at least half these shots.

Roger- Oh man, all throughout the seasons I kept on having hope for him that he would have some big turnaround, but as he sat in that partners meeting and completely failed Joan, now all of his scenes just make me sad.

Betty- Though I've got to love a Philly girl, that b is crazysauce. I do think she came into her own as a mother at the end of this series, though there is no way Sally is making to adulthood without an eating disorder.

Lane- Oh My. I know they had been hinting all season

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at suicide, but I was still shocked by his. The response from his fellow partners was well played.

Peggy- I never cried quitting a job-

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but I was welling up during her resigning scene. When Don kisses her hand I.Just. Die. I am so glad they are giving her the job & life she deserves.

Don- I really, really, really liked his character development this series. Learning how to be

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a good, supportive husband; trying to let go of being a creative; seeing Peggy on a somewhat equal level... I hope they don't throw all of it away with the reprise of man-whore Don Draper

His relationship with Joan was really touching and I am wondering how it will play out

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now that she is a partner.

Has anyone felt that the season has had a continually sour mood to it? Rather than see the 60s as opening, it feels like it has become a picture of a small world spiraling downwards. Don needs to get back to California, his space of liberation. Instead we're getting more of his descent (open elevator shafts, anyone, subliminal fascination with the devil's underworld).

I think this is really interesting as I don't think the characters would have seen the late 60s as a bright time. My grandmother (who was a CT housewife to a man who was a VP for a large NYC company) said that she remembers assassinations, communism, war, and people felt like these things were inevitable. Likewise, the show heavily dwells on mortality, depression and loss.

Overall I don't understand why people didn't like the season, though the last ep was slow after the emotional penultimate episode.

THIS makes me excited for season 6.....

Kerri-Yes, yes a thousand times yes! I love that spot of bright red. I LOVE LOVE LOVE that Joan is a partner now.

Danielle--Agreed about Joan and Pete. I'm not sure about Don & Megan--you're probably right but I kind of don't want you to be. This season sold me on them as a couple, after not liking them getting engaged last year so. I think Megan is good for him, actress or not. I dunno, we'll see. Also, I want to see more of her mom, I like her for some reason. And I think that Megan would be helpful in getting Sally to adulthood with a few less therapy hours in her future.

Lane makes me very sad as well. And I think that Peggy leaving is a good play as well. She needed to get away to really advance herself. It makes me sad but I think it was necessary. Her clothes in this last episode are already much more mature and she's left behind her school girl look and grown up. And they'll clearly need to hire a new woman in creative next season, since clients are complaining about the lack of a "girl's perspective." So that should be interesting.

I guess I'm in the "didn't like this season" camp. Not that it wasn't brilliantly acted or that set and costume weren't excellent as always. I just increasingly have issues with what I see as Weiner's meta channeling of his own dissatisfaction at success.

This was the episode where it was pretty heavy handed that Don does feel like he has blood on his mouth (what Roger said after last week's meeting, but now literally with the residue after his dental extraction). Don broke his own rules and while he refused to allow Betty to shoot a commercial (season 1 I think), he now let's Megan do it. The cost of this is the return to old Don's philandering: the rottenness that goes beyond a doctor's/dentist's ability to care.

So we get the return mention of California as place of escape (even for Pete!). But mainly, this was the "movies" episode. Not only showing movie watching ("What's Up Pussycat" is the matinee, which is sort of the subtext tag line for this episode about female desire, getting it maybe) or with heavy soundtrack ("You Only live Twice" with Don in the last scene of the bar), but also visually. This episode was full of scene recreations of films, often the Hitchcocks with Cary Grant, and more "movie" camera work, like reverse dolly, than is often the case with tv in general and Mad Men specifically.

One way to read this is that despite the acclaim cable tv gets now, it is almost as if Weiner is restless, he wants to be a film director. Happiness is only what you feel before wanting more happiness, to quote Jon Hamm ventriloquizing Weiner.