MAD MEN: ‘Tomorrowland’ Closes the Season and Next Year Can’t Come Too Soon

No. No, no, no. Please don’t go.

If you’ve been watching MAD MEN this year and saw last night’s season finale, I know you were experiencing this same sentiment as the final moments of the episode played out.

Like your most fun friend going to live abroad for the year. Like the best date you’ve ever been on coming to an end. Feeling MAD MEN slip away for another ten or eleven months — especially now, just as our leading man, Don Draper, has done something so totally major and unexpected… and yet, so simple and predictable at the same time — it hits you right in the pit of your stomach.

To watch MAD MEN is to watch the work of some brilliant psychoanalysts, who understand the complexities and simplicities of human behavior so intricately, they’ve been able to not only create but develop and grow these three-dimensional, intensely interesting beings we’ve come to know as “Don” and “Betty” and “Peggy” and “Pete” and “Joan” and “Roger” and the list goes on.

And if you don’t watch MAD MEN, I’m sorry, because you are missing out on the greatest dramatic television series in the history of time.

For those who have had the pleasure, let’s review what we learned from last night…

Don Draper doesn’t want to change or move forward. Not really. What he actually wants is a do-over on his former life, with a woman who isn’t angry and damaged and cruel.

Yeah, Betty, I’m talking to you, you sad, pathetic excuse for a wife and mother who can’t see two centimeters in front of your own cigarette smoke to consider the feelings and the well being of another, including your own damn daughter. Such high hopes we had for you at the end of last season as you finally looked to take your life by storm and pursue happiness. Sadly, one year later, we learn the truth — that your true colors are not warm and bright and perhaps you played a bigger part in the demise of your marriage to Don than we originally guessed. Oh, Betty, we liked you better when you were just sad. Sad and bitter and selfish ain’t looking good on you.

But I digress. Back to Don. And his clear decision to take a baby step toward progress. The suggestion of total upheaval — which the strong, smart, principled and accomplished (yet still not super likable) Faye ever so gently encouraged — was violently shot down when Don proceeded to fall in love with his young, idealistic and open-hearted secretary who trusts him to make the right calls because she “knows” he’s “a good man.” Faye thinks Don is a good man too, but she doesn’t look at him with wide-eyed adoration. She’ll call him on his shit. In Megan, he’s got a girl who’s not quite there yet. She’s smart too, but still looking for guidance. She’s calm and she’s cool and she just thinks that he’s the greatest… and oh my God, she’s so damn good with his kids! No conniption over a spilled milkshake on her nice, white dress? No time wasted before praising his impulsive New York Times publicity stunt? No hurt feelings over a one-night stand?!!

Well, of course he chose Megan. We can’t help but like her too.

And Joan and Peggy (two women who are smart, strong, accomplished and likable) are left to sit back and marvel at the cliche of it all. Even a man like Don whom they both clearly respect — just like Roger or Harry or Henry Francis offering to marry a beautiful damsel stuck in a seriously distressed marriage — is just a man at the end of the day.

What is the lesson here?

That men need to be needed? And coddled? And worshipped?

Or maybe this lesson only pertains to the outwardly strong, inwardly weak ones trying to wade through life, saddled with the weight of their flaws?

To be honest, I don’t know that I can answer that as my understanding of common human behavior just isn’t on the same level as the geniuses who write MAD MEN.

Guess I’ll have to wait until next summer to learn more.

Or maybe we can all discuss now.

What do you make of Don’s decision to marry Megan?

Will Don be a better husband this time around?

Will the smart and awesome Sally thrive with the benefit of a loving maternal figure in her young life?

Will Henry, who now knows that his damsel in a once distressed marriage is kind of witch, leave his lady in the dust?

Weigh in…

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