Emmy Spotlight: \"Mad Men\"

In its final season, Mad Men is determined to come back to basics, and indeed, throughout these seven episodes the audience, and our characters, come face to face over and over again with the idea that happiness, however we define it, is inherently unattainable. Happiness is caught up in desire, and no matter what we have, we’ll always want what’s next.

There is little here that hasn’t been explicated on the show already, but don’t mistake that for a lack of interest or thoughtfulness. Instead, the first portion of this final season takes us on a much deeper exploration of several (though, sadly, not all) of these characters, and brings questions and themes to the forefront that, until now, have been content to linger back, informing the events of the series, but never quite themselves becoming those events.

Matthew Weiner and company have become very comfortable with Mad Men, and that comfort shows in this batch of episodes, which are typically competent and confident in their production. Likely owing to the split scheduling of the season, this first set lacks any formal experimentation along the lines of something like “Far Away Places” or “The Suitcase”, or even “The Crash,” though there are certainly moments like these scattered throughout, especially in “The Monolith,” and of course with the delightful sendoff given to Robert Morse’s Bert Cooper.

The show has always been about the pursuit of happiness, and it has always viewed the ‘60s especially as a decade of progress, of movement from point A to some different, better point B. We are rapidly approaching point B now, as the ‘60s draw to a close, and while it’s different, many of our characters are, finally, hitting the wall that Weiner has been building for six seasons now—there isn’t much better to be found here. The season is littered with signs that the times are running away from Don and crew. Early in “Time Zones,” the season premiere, Don meets Megan at the airport, and the scene is shot in vivid color, a swanky ‘70s riff on the soundtrack, as Megan departs her cab in slow motion, dressed head to toe in the fashion of a decade that’s barely started. There’s a deliberate artifice to this scene, and to many like it throughout the season (like the party Harry takes Don to, for example). Artifice is all over this season, right from the first scene—where Freddie Rumsen speaks a pitch he didn’t write directly into the camera—to the scene in “Waterloo” where Pete, Peggy, Harry and Don rehearse their Burger Shack pitch, using placeholder dialogue all along.

Also running throughout the season is an uncertainty of reality, one that is explored most obviously in “The Monolith,” as poor Michael Ginsberg is driven slowly insane by SC&P’s new IBM computer. The story, and his behavior, are outright weird, and they bely not just the encroaching ‘70s, but more generally, the advent of technological advances, including the moon landing that closes out the season, that threaten to displace the agency, and thereby the characters. In season six, assassinations dotted the ongoing narrative, increasingly destabilizing the world the characters inhabited. This season, it’s glimpses of the future that destabilize the characters themselves; the world around them, for the most part, is doing just fine without them.

Even Don himself feels a little less than real, this time around. Peggy views him as this titan of advertising, a force of nature rather than a human being, and it causes her to resent him. When he does return to work, he ends up walking through the office like a bogeyman, talking to tertiary characters, in each shot occupying the middle of the frame uncomfortably. He sits alone, waiting, in the creative room, while behind him the work of the agency continues on. He’s been fired without being fired, and his presence there is awkward for all involved. In many ways, this season is Don’s slow realization of this fact. That extends to his marriage, as well. Toward the end of “Time Zones,” Don meets Lee Cabot (played in a random guest turn by Neve Campbell), and confesses that his marriage is already over—Megan just doesn’t know it yet. Over seven episodes, she has her own epiphany, finally leaving Don in “Waterloo,” although even then, leaving most of the words unspoken.

Artifice and unhappiness afflict the other characters, too. Peggy ended season six in Don’s office, feet propped up on the desk, but here, she’s right back where she started, and this time she’s languishing under Lou Avery, a competent creative director, but one happy to be an office drone, turning in work good enough to keep from being fired. Don might have been an ass, but he challenged Peggy to do her best work, and now she’s used to that type of boss. Ditto Joan, who continues to be a partner in name only, clawing her way to greater responsibility within the agency. And as for Pete, when we first see him he’s tanned, he’s got a new wardrobe, and he seems to be significantly happier in LA. It’s when he returns to Cos Cob in “The Strategy” that we see the extent to which he’s fallen. Trudy is divorcing him, his daughter doesn’t even recognize him, and Pete is the same sad, manipulative little man he’s always been. It’s already too late for his new girlfriend.

Despite all that, there’s an underlying humor this season, too. I’ve said before that Mad Men is stealthily one of the funniest shows on television, and that’s owing to the incredibly well drawn characterizations. Everything in the show feels very lived-in, and the hyperrealist approach to the writing and acting means that, sometimes, particular situations or lines of dialogue are just funny, the same way we occasionally find things funny in real life. It’s not a setup-punchline kind of thing, but instead is wonderfully organic humor. Case in point: “Excuse me, could I get a splash of whisky in this?” Especially as things threaten to become increasingly dourer, it’s great to know that we can count on several of these characters for a laugh. Sometimes life is hard, and sometimes it’s unbelievably funny, and Mad Men excels at presenting these moments in equal measure, and in making them as surprising and unexpected as they tend to be in reality.

In other words, it’s business as usual for Mad Men. Each episode is its own little short story, and when they’re all taken together, they form their own kind of novel, a continuing look at Sterling Cooper & Partners, and the people who work there. The show is serialized only in the way that life is; events keep piling on, some significant, some rather mundane. People flit in and out at the strangest of times, in the unlikeliest of ways. If there’s a criticism to be had here, it’s that it all feels a little too familiar at this point. Once upon a time Mad Men could surprise you, whereas here, it feels a little like we’re going through the motions.

I also can’t help but feel like I’ve watched an incomplete story. Narratively speaking, we don’t cover much ground this season, and most of the really good stuff seems to have been held on to for the final run, airing next spring. We don’t spend as much time with Pete, or even with Roger, as I’d like. Joan is criminally underused. Surely the writing team was pressed for time, needing to create a complete story in only half the space available—but at the same time, I feel like, as I did with Breaking Bad, that this first half has been stretched out a bit too thin, to allow for a back half that is relatively identical to what would have aired in a traditionally scheduled season.

Even considering its structural failings (which are more the fault of AMC, really), this season still does a pretty major job of final seasons, which is to refocus on the important themes, and the important characters. In “The Strategy,” Don and Peggy come to the end of a very long journey, dancing together to “My Way,” and finally viewing each other as colleagues and as equals. We’ve been watching this relationship grow, been watching it wax and wane, as Peggy continues to grow as a professional and, finally in this season, begins to surpass her former mentor. It is a moment weighted in the show’s history, and it’s the kind of scene that only a show this detailed can deliver—and even then, it’s a moment that can only be delivered at this point in the narrative. The best thing about Mad Men is that Matthew Weiner has this brilliant, almost instinctual knowledge of structure, knows exactly where to place story beats like this so they might have maximum effect. And so the “My Way” scene doesn’t close the episode. Instead, we go out on Pete, Don and Peggy, eating in Burger Shack together, their own kind of family.

The bottom line: it’s Mad Men. It’s got one of the best ensemble casts in the history of the medium, a truly stacked bench where great performances can come from any actor, at any moment. And those performances come frequently this season. Elisabeth Moss especially continues to shine, perfectly embodying the basically unwinnable situation Peggy finds herself in. She’s asked to be pretty unlikeable at times this season, especially in “A Day’s Work,” and yet Moss keeps our sympathies with Peggy, and presents a full, complete character at all times. Credit is due also to Kiernan Shipka, whose Sally Draper resembles Betty more with each episode. And now, more than ever, Jon Hamm anchors the show, providing a skeleton to a season that tends to dart around a little. With Don on the ropes, Hamm captures a desperate side to the character that we haven’t really been privy to be for. He’s cowed by Cutler, made subordinate to Peggy, is well on the way to losing wife number two, and just generally unable to keep up with the changing times. Once before, Dick Whitman simply took on a new identity, and everything followed from that. Now that’s not an option, and the result is some fantastic character work from Hamm.

It’s still well written, and gorgeously shot. Sometimes the symbolism might seem a little bit on the nose (oh, are you stuck outside on the balcony, cold and alone, Don Draper?), but it’s all of a piece with the realist/novelistic approach that has become the show’s signature. You watch Mad Men for the same reason you read Fitzgerald, or Faulkner, or pick a writer: you watch it because there is a stylistic flair, a specific portrait of life that is unique to the writer, or the book, or in this case, to the show. We’re well past the point of debate. It’s a show you either love, or you don’t. The worst thing that can be said about this season is that it feels slightly scattered, spread a little too thin. There’s both a lot going on, and not very much. Once we’ve seen the rest of the story, I imagine this half-season will feel less so. But for now, there’s no escaping that it is half a story, and that takes away from the overall package ever so slightly.