Tomorrowland

Whenever one is about to watch the season finale of Mad Men, one cannot even begin to predict what is going to happen. Mad Men is such a one-way show that every episode is completely unpredictable, and this season especially has shown that. Tomorrowland was another excellent end to another great season.

Over the course of the season, we have been forced to really watch and understand these characters and their flaws, and this episode particularly wanted us to do that with the Don and Betty. Betty has become unlikeable and cold-hearted over the series, and this season especially enforced that. The reasons were because of her disturbed relationship with her own mother, and because of the events that Don put her through. Again here, Betty shows us just how evil she can truly be, but it also shows us just how sullen she is. She is unhappy, and her husband is too. She wonders if she will be left again, or cheated on, and for now this is where she is. We will have to wait until we see where she is and in what progress she has made in the next season.

Don Draper. The show's lead, and while he is certainly more charming with his kids than Betty is, his root flaw is the fact that he cannot keep himself away from women. He has had at least one affair in each season, and again in this episode he sees himself 'falling' for his secretary, despite having a girlfriend back home. The reason? Because he is in another city, he feels the love and passion and... well, not much. One would like to be as happy as Don is right now with his fiancée, but how can we? We say to ourselves 'Maybe this IS Don's true love, just maybe', yet we know underneath that he is doing what he does best. His girlfriend back home said it best, Faye, 'You only like the beginning of things'. She got this one spot on. Pity too, since I really liked Faye, and along with being a well rounded character, she also accepted Don's most personal secret. We can hope for the best in Don, but despite having high hopes earlier in the season that he was finally going to realize his past mistakes, it is so heartbreaking to see him once again step into his own trap. The sad thing is, he also knows it. In a scene with him and his new love, he says that while sometimes people try to change, it is not enough. That line right there pretty much sums up the whole season.

The great thing about the episode is that while Don and Megan may be as happy as can be, others know best, particularly Joan and Peggy. In a great scene in Joan's office, both talk about how pointless their engagement is, and it roots back to how both of their jobs will be affected, which points back to another point of the season. Throughout the season, we have seen how Peggy is successfully breaking herself out from the majority of women in jobs like these, and how Joan is much more old-fashioned in her approach. Whereas Joan tries to be successful in her persona life, Peggy has focused primarily on her business life, which comes back to her problem here. She is now worried about how this new relationship will cause Megan's job to be elevated, and how she might be decreased in importance, which in turn is when Joan tells her that's why she finds other things to be happy about. Who knows, in this case maybe Joan is right.

Overall, there are many wonderful things in this episode, and it already seems like I am missing Mad Men. The continuing wheel in Don's life also seems to never stop, and one can wonder when will the wheel finally come to a stop.

The scenes with Megan right after the proposal back at the office from the Disneyland trip... it's eerie, like in a horror movie when an innocent girl walks into a house she doesn't know is haunted, and that will eventually kill her... well, not literally, but...

Good episode, and personally I think Megan is a good choice for the next wife... she has the innocence and vulnerability down, and what's weird is she's a dead-ringer for a character who went nowhere, that being Roger's own trophy wife... god, I even forget her name... Jane, that's it...

The best scene takes place between Peggy and Joan, finally bonding and sharing a moment after all these seasons, and jealous about the secretary that married the boss, very realistic...

Betty goes through changes that makes fans hate her like they hated Skylar from Breaking Bad, but I totally am behind her for doing anything possible to keep Sally away from the bad-acting freak-boy, Glen, who simply stops time whenever he's on screen... almost ruins the show...

Anyhow, a great season, this one, but I still think the first was the best.

Though the first three seasons of Mad Men are largely beloved, I hold a little bit different of an opinion. Though incredibly well-made and as good of period pieces as one will ever find, those campaigns are "solid but not spectacular" for me--mainly because of the intense character (over any plot) focus and a tendency towards Sterling-Cooper naval-gazing. In this fourth season, however, is where I feel the series starts making a push towards "great".

Trying to quickly summarize any Mad Men season--with all its various tangents--is an exercise in futility, but I felt the overriding theme in S4 was a breaking away from usual behavior patterns and showing how these characters act "when the chips are down". A few examples...

-Don (Jon Hamm) finally being single and free to sow his wild oats--yet now without the alluring "married man" appeal. This is true whether pursuing the sophisticated psychologist Dr. Faye Miller (Cara Buono), back-in-town old fling Midge (Rosmarie DeWitt), or new secretary Megan (Jessica Pare). Plus, he misses the family lifestyle--at least its image--a bit more than potentially realized.

-Betty (January Jones) is free from Don and with Henry Francis (Christopher Stanley)--yet her behavior towards her children is reprehensible and she's no better with the new beau than the old one. Her petulant true colors show through without Don's masculine identity pulling her in line.

-Peggy (Elisabeth Moss), usually the straight-down-the-middle hard worker, has her eyes opened by a confrontation with Don and begins entering the 1960s counter-culture scene--including a lesbian friendship and a new boyfriend.

-Roger (John Slattery), the usually-lovable cad, now wears his prejudices on his sleeve and struggles with relevancy issues as the company moves away from him. His tremendous misstep towards season's end sets in motion the slate's endgame.

This is of course all framed in the building of the new Sterling-Cooper-Draper-Pryce company from the S3 finale. Most of the individual plot lines focus on how the new firm can grow business without looking desperate and stay afloat without the traditional backings of the old Sterling-Cooper.

But perhaps the biggest reason for my upward appraisal? A branching-out from the ad business offices, dinners, and drinks. This is the season in which Sally (Kieran Shipka) becomes as key a player as anyone in this series. I believe this to be a much-needed aspect to include in the show, as it is essential a series where it is hard to truly root for anyone. But an innocent child? That opens up entirely new emotional doors.

Even aside from Don's family, other plots take us outside the office more than ever: Pete (Vincent Kartheiser) and Trudy's (Alison Brie) baby arrives, Joan (Christina Hendricks) has a very personal situation to deal with, and Lane (Jared Harris) struggles to adapt to full-time American life with his family languishing back in the U. K. While the ad business of it all is still of course the primary focus, these excursions are nice respites from the smoke-filled rooms.

All told, this is pretty clearly my favorite Mad Men season thus far, even if not quite to elite levels yet (still a few too many drawn-out 7-star episodes). But installments like The Suitcase, The Beautiful Girls, Blowing Smoke, and the incredible finale Tomorrowland are amongst the best the series has to offer.

A few episodes into this season I had to wonder to myself why I had taken so long to get around to watching it. It had been on the BBC months prior and had sat waiting for me to watch my recordings but yet I always found a different show to watch when it came time to pick one. I don't know if it is season 1's impressions lingering in my mind but the show was in my head as dry, a little slow and perhaps a bit stiff – this was the feeling I had even though the previous two seasons have been nothing of the sort. Anyway, when I eventually did start the show it took almost no time for this lingering doubt to be dispelled and to be replaced by a season that is yet again engaging, interesting, character-driven, comedic and entertaining.

We pick up some time after the end of the third season and the new company, although still in infancy, is in proper offices, mostly off the back of the Lucky Strike business. Don's marriage has long been dissolved and while his focus is on getting business good, his personal life is full of messy interactions, frustrations and poor judgement. The decision to skip forward a year (give or take) is a good one as I had worried that the fourth season would be focused on the business as they struggled to get off the ground, the skip forward means that the firm is still a focal point but it is not so overpowering that it pushes out other aspects. As with the third season the show does a really good job of spreading out the plots to have lots going on with the other characters – and not just lots going on, but lots going on that is of interest and value. I never really felt that there were threads where I was longing for it to move back to the characters I prefer, everything seemed to work pretty much as well as everything else.

Of course Don is still the lead character and he is really well written – all at once sharp, desirable and professional while also demonstrating terrible judgement, nagging demons and frankly a real inability to build a relationship that goes beyond the "new" stage. He is fascinating this season and he has grown on me as a character very much over the last few seasons. He is not alone though and indeed almost everyone has more meat on them in terms of character and, in some cases, plot threads. This also helps the show develop a sense of time and place – I'm not old enough (or American enough) to say whether it is accurate or not but everyone seems to say it is, but where real or not, it works for me because the show gives you a feeling of time/place but without ramming it down your throat. Likewise this fourth season is for me the one that handles cultural change the best because it doesn't wear it on its sleeve but rather shows it through its characters. OK we have people and places and events that are part of times changing but they are no more important than behaviour and interactions that say the same (eg the final exchange between Joan and Peggy).

The cast respond well to the material and are yet again excellent throughout. Hamm leads well but support is just as good from Moss, Kartheiser, Jones and others. The one thing I struggled with a little was the reintroduction of Staton to the cast; I had no problem with his performance but having his work in LA Noire so fresh in my mind I did find that I was constantly waiting for him to suddenly and erratically shout and threaten during normal conversation! As always the design is great – from sets to costumes it is a retro-design head's dream come true.

Overall I may have come to this season with an unjustified reluctance but the season quickly puts me right on that, delivering an engaging and entertaining show that mixes social change with personal plots and comedy with drama. Very well done and very much worth watching. Unfortunately this is the last season that will be available in the UK without subscribing to Sky to get access to the new channel they created.