To learn more or opt-out, read our Cookie Policy. Every week, Todd VanDerWerff will be joined by two of Vox's other writers to discuss the previous episode of Mad Men over the course of that week. Check out the recap for this episode here , and follow the whole discussion here. Keep checking in all week long for new entries. Libby Nelson: With just two episodes to go, things are starting to feel final, all of a sudden. It's hard to get invested in new characters, new seating arrangements, and new conflicts when we know that their lifespan is so limited.
But it seems we're not expected to care much about McCann, because, well, it doesn't seem like anyone at Sterling Cooper intends to do much work there. Like almost everything else in Mad Men , "Lost Horizon" is about characters adapting to the way their world has changed. And they adapt about they way we expected: Peggy charging into the brave new world, Joan and Roger struggling to cope, Don adopting a new identity and running away.
The three major storylines felt thematically connected but tonally distinct: Joan's battle with McCann seemed far away from the whimsy of Peggy's roller-skating and Don's eerie late-night road trip with the ghost of Bert Cooper. Mad Men 's more surreal flights of fancy are divisive, but Peggy gliding around the old office on roller skates while Roger noodled on the organ in the background was a good example of the genre. I could also watch the sequel — her sexy, badass march into McCann — forever.
But after Joan's rocky transition to McCann, I can't help but worry that Peggy is striding right into a buzz saw. Barring a last-minute plot twist, it seems like this is where Joan's professional arc ends: with McCann essentially paying her to go away.
It's a victory in that it will make Joan very rich. But we've known for a long time that Joan doesn't work just for the money — as Peggy pointed out a few episodes ago, she can afford to quit — and if this is the end of her career in advertising, it's a sad, hollow ending.
Joan is arguably Mad Men 's most tragic character. Even Betty Draper Francis seems to be getting a happy ending, going back to school and even sharing a friendly moment with Don. For all her looks and competence, Joan is constantly thwarted. She's changed dramatically over the course of the series, from the queen bee of the secretarial pool to a wiser, kinder, astonishingly competent businesswoman.
No matter how many times the men of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce tried, the series always sent them back to the self-destructive routines they knew best.
Those patterns could be anything from the liquor they kept in their desk drawers to the women they slept with to the larger worldviews that kept them anchored to their own pasts — and, more often than not, ensured they sank. Mad Men always knew who world-weary Don Draper was, who petulant prepster Pete Campbell wanted to emulate, who cavalier heir Roger Sterling was thrilled to be.
Sure, the writers and actors finessed their depictions along the way, but nothing about where each of those characters ended up by the series finale would have surprised anyone who met them in the first episode.
The women of Mad Men , however, are an entirely different — and far more dynamic — story. Eventually, all three women reveal rich inner lives their male counterparts never bothered to consider were there, and create the kind of lives they once assumed they never could have.
For as much as Mad Men was about the cyclical frustrations of petty men, it was also about the determination and creativity of women. Just as much as Mad Men knew Don Draper would never change, it discovered that its women — especially Peggy and Joan — were destined to take the kinds of journeys he never could. The more we get to know Don Draper — the man, the constructed myth, the self-destructive legend — the less surprising it is that he returns again and again to an Old Fashioned.
Mad Men always brought Don to the brink of real change, only to yank him back again. He gives up drinking, gives in to drinking, gives it up and comes back to it all over again.
He expresses interest in being a more involved parent, then blinks in surprise when his daughter Sally appears to have grown up without him noticing. Once Betty becomes sick of his shit and presses for a divorce, he trades her for a more modern version of the model wife see: Megan — which also ends in divorce. He mentors Peggy, more by accident than design.
He falls apart, and stumbles back up, and crumbles all over again, waiting for someone — usually, some woman — to come by and put him back together. In the very last scene of the series, Don has run away to California — his place of choice to do drugs with hippies and escape himself — to try to find some semblance of peace.
In interviews afterward, Weiner was less ambiguous than the show about the fact that Don created the ad, which confirms a truth about Don the show never shied away from: Here is a man who wants to be better, but in times of trouble he will always go back to what he already knows.
It's freedom. It's a billboard on the side of the road that screams reassurance that whatever you're doing is okay. You are okay. Throughout the series, she'd been compared to Cleopatra, Marilyn Monroe, and "a work of art". She knew that her figure was her asset. During the Belle Jolie brainstorming session, she deliberately bent over in front of the one-way mirror so the men behind the glass get a good view of her. Joan had to endure some pretty weird back-handed compliments because of the way she looked, for example, she was once told that she should be in the bra business.
But the worst comment was probably this one: "What do you do around here besides walking around like you're trying to get raped? When fans first met Joan in season 1, she was the Head Secretary. She was an admired boss, but she was very condescending to her underlings. She was only kind to those who could serve her in some way, which typically meant successful men.
On the other hand, she didn't really seem to have any respect for women; not for her mother, other secretaries, or women who married well. Instead of helping empower other women, Joan only looked out for her own interests. That is certainly one of those things about Joan that would never fly today. Even though she was financially independent and loved her job, Joan still believed that a woman should eventually get married and settle down.
She told Peggy in the pilot: "If you make the right moves, you'll be out in the country and you won't be going to work at all". It's as if she was torn between becoming another Betty Draper or fully embracing her Peggy within. She encouraged other secretaries on their quests to find bachelors, but she lived a completely different life herself.
Joan's life was pretty difficult, but at least she stayed true to herself. Men rarely gave credit to Joan's work. Greg thought that all she does is walk around the office so men can look at her.
In "The Summer Man", a bunch of guys from the office drew a very offensive drawing of Joan, dismissing it as "just a joke". They would never make fun of Roger, Don, or Bert like that.
Joan didn't rush off to tell on them; that would only make it seem like she is helpless.
0コメント