Lane Pryce – Mad Men
The spectre of death hung heavy (no pun intended) over the course of the fifth season of Mad Men. We knew something bad was going to happen, it was just a question of when and where. We finally got our answer when Lane Pryce, caught in an embezzlement scheme to cover his growing debts and forced to resign, hanged himself in his office. It was a bold move from the series, which typically found other ways to use story to surprise the audience.
But suicide has been a subtle theme of the show since the very beginning, when we first saw the man in the opening credits experience his literal fall from a skyscraper coupled with a metaphorical fall from grace. Whatever viewers may have been expecting, Lane’s short precipitous fall from grace was an undeniable jolt, and quickly became one of the season’s biggest talking points.
Now, with the show reaching 1969 and Megan out in a Los Angeles that’s about to be shaken to its core by Charles Manson, the murmurs of an impending death are on the rise. And who knows? Mad Men has proven that it isn’t afraid to take things down a dark path, as evidenced by poor Lane’s fate.