11.11.2009

Mad season

Kates and I got around to watching the season finale of our new favorite show, "Mad Men" last night ... Our Sunday nights won't be the same for awhile, knowing our DVR isn't recording the trials of the Draper family and the Sterling-Cooper advertising agency ...

The last weeks' episodes have been excellent television ...

The Oct. 25 episode was arguably the best we’d seen to that point in our short tenure of watching.

January Jones stole every scene she was in, and nailed the episode with her death glares at Don (Have I mentioned how excited I am that she's hosting SNL this weekend!?). The episode was proof of how and why this show has cleaned up at the Emmy Awards the last couple years.

And while the thought-provoking endings can sometimes be confounding, how could you not love the ending of that Oct. 25 episode!? With Don and Betty having just had it out, secrets having been spilled and their marriage on the verge of imploding, they take the kids trick-or-treating. A neighbor treats the kids, then looks at Don and asks, “And who are you supposed to be?” … Fade to black. End of episode. So good!

With the season beginning in the spring of 1963, anyone who watched the show was eager to see how the writers would handle President Kennedy's assassination ... We got our answers in the Nov. 1 episode, and it was done wonderfully. In it, we got the tragic weekend in Dallas playing as a backdrop to Don and Betty’s faltering marriage and the spectacle of Roger’s daughter’s ill-timed wedding.

Don and Betty. You never know who to feel more sorry for ... Every time Don cheats or does something to have us sympathizing with Betty, she does something to swing us right back in Don's corner ...

And finally, the season finale. Every episode got better than the last, and Sunday's finale topped them all.

The whole story line proceeded with such zip and adrenaline, full of what felt like both brilliant surprises and a wonderful sense of inevitability as each piece of the puzzle fell into place ... (more)
… The shot of the ol’ gang back together again, standing around a table in the darkened Sterling-Copper office on a Sunday and plotting to steal whatever they could get their hands on was priceless.

While every episode had its moments, we got more laugh-out-loud lines in the finale than there were in the entire season ...

Peggy denying Roger a cup of coffee was priceless, but my favorite came the morning after Don and crew had purged the offices. Part of the plan had been for Lane to fire them, thus allowing the gang to spend a weekend gathering everything they wanted on their way out. So when Lane arrived at the office on Monday and the secretaries were crying "We've been robbed!" he knew exactly what was coming. He answered a call from his furious boss in London -- who promptly fired him, too -- and replied jubilantly, "Very good. Happy Christmas!''

What a season. What a show.

1 comment:

Matt said...

I hate that Betty Draper.
Ooooh I hate her!

For some reason, I think of Don as flawed. But Betty is just a bad person.

Am I wrong/sexist?