4) Mad Men – Peggy’s First Day
Mad Men‘s final seven episodes were a long time coming. The show wasn’t averse to making its fans wait long in between seasons, but the half-way split of Season 7 into two runs (one in 2014, the last this year) seemed particularly cruel. It also had the unfortunate task of capping a show that, by and large, essentially never dipped below being described as Extremely Good Television. I have my own qualms with the show’s final episode, although I’m still in the camp of by-and-large adoration, but it’s the third-to-last hour of the series, “Lost Horizon,” in which Mad Men actually feels like it’s closing its doors for good.
Don’s still on a spiritual journey (or whatever), Joan is still battling 1960’s work-place sexism, and Peggy and Roger are finally bonding. “This is more attention than I’ve ever gotten from you,” she admits to her boss-of-nearly-a-decade as they sit downing a bottle of Vermouth in the cavernous and abandoned hallways of SC&P, her barred from entry to the new McCann-Erickson offices, him unable to let the past go. He plays the organ, she rollerblades through the desolate office, and they bond over just-passed-away Bert Cooper’s tentacle erotica office artwork.
[zergpaid]But it’s Peggy’s triumphant waltz down the hallways of McCann the following morning – rocking a hangover, smoking a cigarette, and carrying a box of office supplies along with Bert’s not-well-hidden raunchy artwork – that feels like the show finally confirming what everyone has known for years: this isn’t Don’s story, it’s Peggy’s.
The final hours culminate in Don’s full-circle journey from stern relic of the past to wisdom-filled vision of the future, but Peggy’s trip from scared secretary to a middle-finger meme-generator was Mad Men at its trippy best: a smart show about smart people selling dumb things suggesting that sometimes the bravest thing of all to do is sell out.
Published: Dec 29, 2015 02:57 pm