The End of an Era . . . The End of Madmen

I'm very sleepy this morning because we watched the final episode of Mad Men last night, and while I won't reveal any spoilers to those of you who haven't finished the series (although I thought the ending would be more tragic, because of the ominous animated sequence during the opening credits, where Don flails about in an infinite dream-like fall . . . it's not like the end is a barrel of laughs, but there is plenty of joy mixed with the pathos-- it's more like the opening is a symbolic fall for the archetypal '50's stone-jawed businessman and I think the weird hug in the penultimate scene is about the shifting gender roles happening in America in the early '70's . . . although if you've got to hug a weird crying stranger in a therapy group to usher in a new era, then I might want to get left behind) but more importantly, it took me seven seasons to learn that the title of the show is Mad Men . . . not Madmen . . . and I'm surprised that the grammar Nazis who visit this place never caught the error . . . perhaps they never watched the show, or perhaps they were letting me slide because everyone pronounces it as one word.

3 comments:

Lecky said...

One of the few series finales I comprehended, so therefore I though it was really good (is that too Dave-like?). The best parts of that show were the client meetings and marketing/strategy pitches, so to end on a famous ad campaign that Don conjured at a California retreat in 1970 - brilliant.

Dave said...

i liked the fact that i got it too-- when you see that smile on don's face, you know he's not going to end up a long-haired new age hippie and the final cut is a real pay-off. i don't really think it's fair that he gets the happy ending, though, while betty has to suffer for all the smoking that everyone on the show did . . .

zman said...

I think Mad Men is two words because it's a play on Madison Avenue and the ad men who worked there.

A New Sentence Every Day, Hand Crafted from the Finest Corinthian Leather.