Note: Full spoilers for the Mad Men: Season 5 finale follow.
On the heels of a couple of standout and notably “big” episodes, the Man Men season finale was… decent. By this show’s rather remarkably high standards it was a good but not great episode that seemed a bit meandering, especially given it was the finale.
In a season where much bigger and more "TV"-type plot turns than were previously the norm have become more standard, Beth’s shock therapy (and related memory loss) seemed a bit too much. Perhaps because, unlike some of the other noteworthy events this season (Roger’s LSD trip, Joan prostituting herself, Lane’s suicide), it centered on a character, Beth, who doesn't feel fully fleshed out, nor someone we’re likely to spend significant time with in the aftermath of this event - if we even see her again at all. And as a vehicle for Pete to make some big realizations about his own unhappiness, it just felt so extreme. Not to mention, Pete’s language in his final scene with Beth, as he spoke about himself -- “Life with his family was some temporary bandage on a permanent wound” -- just felt too self-aware and "scripted" in a manner Mad Men usually avoids.
Also, Pete’s whole encounter with that train conductor just felt very odd and off, from the way the conductor insisted Pete apologize to Howard, to Pete ultimately getting punched again. The Lane/Pete fight (and Pete getting knocked down) was a great moment this season, but this echo of that scene felt a little forced.
I am curious about Trudy giving Pete permission to get the Manhattan apartment he’d been asking for. In the wake of his self-realization, will he take it just to give himself some alone time? Will he continue to cheat with other woman, even though he knows why he’s doing it?
Some Mad Men fans have accused Megan of being written as too perfect this season, though I never really had an issue with her – not to mention Peggy had specific dialogue about Megan being someone who was good at most everything, so it’s not like Matt Weiner was unaware of how she might come off. Regardless, it was very interesting to see her basically backstab her friend Emily in the finale and ask Don if she, and not Emily, could audition for a commercial SCDP were connected to. And I certainly felt bad for Megan, as we saw more of the casually insulting way her mother Marie could be with her and about her, making her feel even more driven to succeed, with the visiting Marie under her roof, watching and judging.
Don’s decision to ultimately put Megan in that commercial seemed motivated by a lot of different things – seeing how upset a drunken Megan was, seeing how cruel Marie could be, and then his run-in with Peggy at the movies. Though his words to Peggy – “That’s what happens when you help someone. They succeed and move on” – seem ominous, given he then did help Megan so directly with her career.
Which of course set up that very evocative final moment, where a gal hits on Don, and we don’t see how he’ll respond – but get the idea that yeah, the old, cheating Don may be back, which is sad to see, if not shocking. But who knows, maybe Don will surprise us next season. Yeah, probably not...
I was pleasantly surprised to see Peggy in the finale. I never believed we wouldn’t see her again, but thought she might not appear until next season. But we see that things are going pleasantly for her at her new job – even with that rather random moment of her seeing two dogs having sex at the end. That was another "huh..." moment in the finale for me rather than the usual impact this show is so capable of.
I was glad to see Lane’s suicide weighing heavily on the finale, with many characters directly bringing it up. The scene where Don went to pay Rebecca back for the $50,000 Lane put into the company was a sad one, as she rejected any attempt Don made at condolences, while also insulting Lane in the process when she said, “You had no right to fill a man like that with ambition.” And her discovery of the photo Lane kept from that wallet he found (of a woman he never actually met) was a nice echo of that sad segment of Lane’s sad life.
When I first wrote my review of last week’s episode, I had completely blanked on the fact that Don’s half-brother, Adam, had hung himself – and that Lane’s suicide by the same method would have an extra impact as a result. But this week, that fact came into play in a major way, with Don seeing visions of Adam, who ultimately taunted him with, “It’s not your tooth that’s rotten.” Rather on the nose, but still, it makes sense that Don would feel very haunted by his past at this point, as he just had a horrible echo with Lane of a terrible part of his past.
Again, it was a decent episode. We had some nice character pieces. (Ah, poor Roger, trying to get Marie to do LSD with him to connect – and then doing it by himself when she turned him down). But it didn’t really add up to a super-compelling whole, like most Mad Men episodes do. Even the portions dealing with the company’s growing success and their move into bigger offices weren’t quite given enough of a spotlight to take hold.
It's not the end of the world though, or this show's awesomeness. The finale wasn't all it could have been, but as we've seen several times this season, Mad Men still has "it" and then some.
Source : ign[dot]com
