Just finished watching the Mad Men Finale- yes, a little late I know. What a sh&*-show of an ending. Birdie (sorry, if you don’t know the characters, stop reading) gets cancer, when, in fact Pete Campbell should’ve gotten cancer and suffered a long, writhing death as visions of his pathetic life-a life devoid of rectitude, nobility, or shred of empathy for those in his sphere-danced in his vacuolated head . But no! He gets the girl. He gets the big job. He gets the path that will fulfill his contrived delusion of happiness!
. . . And Peggy never tells him that she had a baby . . . his baby . . . and gave it away. That would have been fitting-especially if they wrote into the script that the only child Pete was able to spawn died of acute lymphocytic leukemia. But who wants to give a kid leukemia for the sake of a script?
Peggy gets a guy and she’s happy. Fine. She and Megan are the only characters that with any virtue and are worthy of me liking them.
And Don-the character whose story lines were thrown into a Oster blender-developing relationships that bore few connections-flipping from good guy to man slut to assho^%$ to creative genius with each flutter of a hummingbird’s wing. And in the end he stands on the California cliffs chanting, “Om, om, om,” like he just solved the mysteries of string theory. And that little smirk he makes before the director yells, “Cut! It’s a wrap.” Are we to think his epiphany will lead him down a road of grace and good will? A Road he’s had a chance to travel a thousand times and never got past the first pub.
Alas the show was like a train wreck that you had to watch-just so you could look in the mirror and say “Maybe I’m not so bad,” Fine. Nearly all shows have sucky endings . . . but then there’s MASH.
