And so ends another season of the reigning holder of the Best Show on Television crown. For a show that is usually so dark, and for an episode that featured the end (finally) of the dream marriage of Don and Betty, this was surely the first episode ever of Mad Men to make the audience cheer with delight. My friend Shelley nailed it when she said there was a “Let’s put on a show!” element to the shenanigans. So much positive energy put to use in an attempt to … what? The temptation is to say Mad Men has taken three seasons to put us right back where it started. But that wouldn’t come close to what’s really happened.
Yes, Mad Men will continue to be about a group of interesting characters working at an ad agency. But look how far these characters have come. Don has lost a wife, but (perhaps … one never knows with Don) he has gained a different kind of family. If you believe the things he told his future co-workers, he finally sees them not just as an extension of himself, there to do his bidding, but also as individuals with unique attributes they bring to the table. And each of them, in turn, demands Don’s recognition of their talents before they climb on board. Roger waits for Don to say he values what Roger brings to the company … Peggy waits to be treated like Peggy instead of like a pet dog … Pete waits for Don to admit the various things Pete actually does well … and then, in the most anticipated yet obvious move of them all, Roger makes the one phone call that will give the new business a chance to survive: enter Queen Joan, right on cue.
The main character who loses the most, I would argue, is Betty. I’ve always identified more with Betty than with any other character on the show … her low-grade neurosis, her sense that something about her perfect life isn’t quite right, her realization that she has given up a lot of what makes her who she is just to be a part of a fairytale that won’t ever come true. But in the end, she makes less progress than anyone. Yes, she finally leaves Don, but only to find herself with another man. My guess is, he’ll be a kinder and gentler version of Don, and Betty will continue to be mildly depressed without knowing why. Meanwhile, the women in the work force are blossoming: Peggy is inching her way towards something resembling equal status to the men who do the same job, and Joan’s skills are finally recognized for the vitally important necessities they are. In the past, when Joan has shown the ability to work above her station, no one notices … as soon as her job is done, she becomes invisible again (if Christina Hendricks could ever be invisible, which she can’t, god bless her). Now? Joan may not get promoted, may not get a new title … she may just go back to being the office manager. But we get the feeling Office Manager (caps intended) is going to be taken more seriously now. The company can’t exist without her, and everyone knows it.
The result is that Mad Men, which has always paid plenty of attention to the role of women in the time period of the series, finds new and heartening ways to show how women can advance, but those women are leaving the Bettys of the world behind. Being a wife and mother just doesn’t get it in the Mad Men universe, where people are largely defined by their jobs and wife/mother isn’t considered “real” work. It’s entirely possible we won’t see much of January Jones in the future … Betty isn’t as necessary as she used to be … whereas Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce (and the series itself) finds a way to bring Joan back into the fold.
No matter how much depth Mad Men offers, no matter how detailed the recreation of the past, no matter how many fine actors work their way through fascinating characters, ultimately, Mad Men is about Don Draper/Dick Whitman. In the season finale, we saw Don at his most vile, calling his wife the worst word he knows, “whore.” We also saw Don rejuvenated, and (although, again, time will tell how real this is) we saw a Don who might finally be connecting with other people on something other than his own terms. The smile on his face as he watched the crew work in the hotel room … how often have we seen Don smile like that? I doubt Season Four will be Mad Men, the Fun Years. There is still plenty of darkness down the road, I am sure. But the people who confront that darkness … Don and Roger and Bert and Lane, Peggy and Joan and Trudy (the one wife who seems to have found a way to fit into her husband’s work world, unlike Betty), Pete and (hopefully, although he’s not back yet) Sal … these people are not the same people we met in the first episode of the first season. I can’t wait to see what they’ll be up to next.
Grade for season finale: A+
Grade for Season Three: A
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