Mad Men: Season Finale- "Shut the door, Have a seat"

Below is my spoiler filled take on last night's Mad Men.
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Now to last nights fantastic Mad Men finale:

• First: I didn't post on last weeks excellent and devastating episode about the Kennedy assassination. It was fantastic, but I was too busy to get a post done. At some point in the future I will try to write a post for it. It did well to set the stage for this episode though. Change and fear were still hanging in the air, both in the country at large and at Sterling Cooper. I don't think the characters could have made the choices they did here without the events going on it that episode. Especially Betty telling Don "I don't love you."
• This was at turns the most upbeat and fun episode of the entire season and the most depressing personally. It is a credit to the writer and actors that they were able to pull off such shifts in tone while continuously building the energy and the tension on both the work and home fronts.
• The entire office plot was spectacular, from the moment Hilton told Don about the emminent sale of SC it was a joyride of delicious moments set up over the entire season (or series) paying off one after another. 
• Don goes to Betram, the once powerful and vital man turned dotty zen-master office napper, but who we have seen at times still has a formidable power and pride inside and the two of them team up to save their own lives by building a new home for themselves.
• Don and Bertram get Roger (and his stupid, but necessary, Lucky Strike account) by virtue of their combined skills and persuasions. I actually think Don realizes in this conversation that his hatred for Roger this season is another of many extensions of hating himself, especially that he felt trapped and alienated and Roger seemed to be free of all that, so when Don asks Roger on, I do believe it is more than Lee Garner, Jr's stupid company that is at work in the room. Of course there is also Bertram, impeccably summing up the situation by telling Roger to join them or Roger will die. 
• All of this means Roger and Bertram have to start over, but they are energized by it. Especially Roger who notes that he always acted like he started the company when he just inherited it, I think it is huge victory for him to think that the Sterling name on the door will now actually be his. When they get a door.
• The entire Pryce storyline came together so well too. All those moments in so many episodes during the season when he had little realizations that St.John and his superiors had no respect or place for him were the perfect set up for the ultimate Mad Men weekend. Pryce fires Don, Roger, and Bertram (getting them out of the contract mess) and everyone has 48 hours to create and/or steal everything and everyone they need to make a new Sterling Cooper (Draper Pryce) before anyone knows on Monday.
• Then it was really on. Pete is brought on with a (again I think authentic) speech from Don about his value as a forward thinker. Pete's growth and the solidified Pete/Trudy relationship (German au pair notwithstanding)were really highlighted again and again. When they hugged and kissed after Don and Roger left it seemed like one of the most genuinely loving moments of any couple ever on the show. (Which should be interesting as the changes continue and Pete and Peggy are now back in close quarters, and Trudy is bringing lunch to the "office".)
  
• Harry once again gets the benefit of having chosen a great and important job accidentally.
• Peggy and Don finally have the talk they have needed to have for a long long time. As at first he just assumes her willingness to follow him and she says no. Later he actually admits their connection, and her value. With a tear the two mirrors are ready to start out again, again brought closet to a relationship of peers.
• Joan, back with a vengeance.Seriously make that woman Cheif Operating Officer. It was great to see, as we have glimpsed often this season, sure she knows everything about SC, but that isn't what makes her the Queen Bee. She is simply the most effective, intelligent and talented character on the show. Hopefully the show will continue to have her break out of the socially infused barriers to actually use those talents. She should certainly at the very least be added back to the television office. And Dr. Cutup can shut it and stay out of the way. I love that the AMC website is updated already and Joan is "the office manager at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce". Christina Hendricks and John Slattery are also just an unmatchable pair for on-air chemistry. Give me more!
  
• Finally there were the tears and dejections of those left behind. Don's secretary was so distraught, and poor loser Paul staring at Peggy's office. I hope that there is an expansion of scope on the show, so that we can at least check in on them and see how they are competing with the "A-team" that snuck away.
• No Sal... will he ever return. I think there may be riots if he has met the same fate as Freddy. Come on Weiner we all want Sal back. Somehow!

• At the "Draper Residence" things just went from awful to disastrous:
• Betty finally asks for the divorce that has been looming since the Pilot.
  
• The scene where Don confronts Betty about her relationship with Henry was one of those classic "horrible Don" moments (Like when he fired Sal) that leave me so impressed with John Hamm. It was excruciating, and frightening and then with his look when the baby cries that shows he knows those same things ultimately devastating.
• Kiernan Shipka's Sally has been great all season (and I normally despise child acting) but her scene when Don and Betty say that he is moving out was seriously Emmy worthy. Immpecable work by all of the family there, but she hit all the right notes so well that I wondered if she had actually been through her parent's divorcing in real life. I hope they don't jump ahead so far that they think they need to recast her.

• Don calling from the "office" to apologize and the way that Betty really seemed to want him to actually fight to stay was really the best way to end it. They will still be in a relationship, but now the marriage is no more, and while I think there will be some twists and retreats, I think that is the way it will stay.
• I don't trust Henry for a second, I just think something is up with him and I hope it isn't too terrible (and that we get to see it). I also hope that January Jones and the Draper clan all remain on the show a good deal. Even though I still want more office scenes next season.
  
• It was just a great episode (and season) overall. I am really going to miss it, and waiting a year is so frustrating, but it will be tremendous to see what Weiner and company bring us when they come back. And the story possibilities and combinations are really just broken wide open now. I can not wait!
  

Mad Men- The Hobo and The Gypsy

Quick spoiler filled notes on last night's Mad Men:

• The overall episode was great, easily one of the best of the series, even without having many scenes at Sterling Cooper. 
• The Confrontation somehow lived up to the anticipation of three seasons of waiting. The way Don Draper completely disintegrated and left a shivering shell of what might once have been Dick Whitman, Betty standing up for herself and defiant, and all the while Suzanne Farrel waiting in the car was simply delicious, and devastating. Somehow commupenance for a character has never been both so cathartic (for him and us) and sadly deflating all at once. John Hamm for the Emmy right now! "And who are you supposed to be?" Carlton said at the end, the answer could be "anyone" or "no one", we just don't know yet. And neither does he.
• I want to see the "Roger Sterling Show" set in 1941 and lasting at least until he hires Don for Sterling Coorper, but only if there is a way for John Slattery to play keep playing him. This was the most Roger in ages it was fantastic to see him play off Annabel and...
• Joan! Taking control back from her indescribably awful husband, interacting with Roger with warmth and grace, maybe getting a job somewhere. All golden. The range of emotion by Christina Hendricks was exceptional too. 
• Has there ever been a character who the whole audience wanted to get blown away in a war as badly as the despicable "Dr." Harris?
• Vase against the head! Can we get another?
• The only "less than great" parts, only one scene of Peggy and no Pete. (or Sal who I hope is not gone forever.)
  

Mad Men- Wee Small Hours

Last night's episode of Mad Men, the third episode of Season 3, "Wee Small Hours" was pretty much unrelentingly bleak. Every moment was fought with peril for the characters. Don is being hustled by Conrad Hilton, Peggy continues to drift, and poor Sal gets the worst of it all. All of this did however make for another exceptionally engaging television episode. (Even if it was Pete lite, that is a guy I love to hate!)

Don and Hilton are the focus for the vast majority of the episode, which is probably to expected since, no matter how much we may love Peggy, Pete, and Joan, the show is still about him. John Hamm continues to delve into deeper darknesses in the character too. Chelsie Ross plays Hilton in every way that would bring out the worst in Don. At first, he has felt so friendly and inviting, allowing Don to feel at ease, and then his prickly, disastrous, real personality comes rushing to the front. When a classic Don Draper pitch can't even win the guy over we see that Conrad Hilton is definitely not to be trifled with.

Then there is Sal. As Sal continues to come to grips with his identity, something that early in the show's run seemed set up to be a joke, we learn more of the ways it torments him. Here he and Lee Gardner have an obvious connection. Sal throws caution to the wind and decides to go for it. And he winds up destroyed. Gardner becomes a villain not just like Hilton, but a far more destructive one. We can see the way that being gay in the 1960s could be a death sentence even without being fully outted. 

Between Sal's fall and Don's failure, we seem poised to go into the end of the season even lower than ever before. But with Mad Men as a show firing on all of its creative cylinders.

Here were some were a few of the other highlights:

• Peggy's smiles at Don even as he kept giving the whole creative team exceptional grief over every little idea they came up with. (Also "Peggy, Smith, and Smith" seems like a much more effective team than any that has been on the show before.)
• Conrad Hilton going from a tear-inducing father figure to a total nut job in the course of two scenes.
• John Hamm playing the most lost and unsettled Draper yet and then going all out on his most depraved act of selling out a friend.
• Just everything to do with Sal... just a fantastic job by Bryan Batt, so much pathos, and his face at his betrayal was too much.
• Oh... Betty...
• Carla seems to be on the edge of moving into her own as a fully realized character, hooray!
• The march of history moves on, the march on Washington, MLKJ on the radio, Dallas mentioned, talk of voting a second time for JFK, the 1960s are churning. And looming...

All in all, not the best way to forget the pains of the world, but another totally awesome Mad Men.

UGA 19- UT 45

So the usual Saturday football fest has come and gone. With an emphatic thud all around. The Dawgs did absolutely nothing against Rocky Top, but get demolished on defense again. Egads! Willie Martinez what have you wrought? When "The Crompton" looks like Johnny Unitas there is nothing left to say. Except that even the insane amounts of Tennessee fans in my life being happy don't make up for that type of disaster. 3 points on Offense? REALLY?!?
The Buffs seemed like they would give Texas a shot, then wound it up in disasterous fashion. And LSU didn't even have it in them to give a concussed Tebow vicarious alchohol poisoning.

Doctor Who on the other had is a different matter altogther. I have just had my first taste of Tom Baker in 20 years and so far he is great! (I'm watching one series of each of the old Doctors, it has been fun. If I actually start this, or can get my podcast up and going, I'll review some of them.)

In other news, Mad Men has a new episode tomorrow! Don Draper it up.