"This is where I grew up."
There was a lot of promise in that line. No, it wasn't a great episode like of old but it had its moments and that was the best of the bunch. And did you notice that they changed Don's hat. The brim on his fedora has narrowed just like Frank's did at the end of the 1960s. In fact, that look he gives Sally at the end is pure Sinatra.
Which makes it all the more painful that we had to listen to Joni Mitchell drag us through her second-rate Annie Ross imitation in that lame-ass song about Clouds right afterwards. Of course, to a lot of the people who watch this show, Joni Mitchel is a classic along with Sgt Pepper and a lot of other pretentious crap.
But before going on, I'm going to take a victory lap because you can read a lot of high-priced commentary out there but I got it better than anyone. No, we don't knowwith absolute certainty that Don and Megan are finished yet although it sure looks like it. Barring next season starting with Don stepping out of the shower and Megan telling him she dreamed it all, we have lots of reason to be hopeful. No matter what happens, we can be certain it's not going to be like before.
Can Don make it on his own? Well, we know he cam, he did it before. Besides, he doesn't really need to because he's rich.
And it could be so awful. We got a lot of Freudian crap this year and we could get an awful lot more of it next year. And I don't think we should be in any hurry to forgive them for putting us through this stuff. But there is a hope here and it is that they went with the Don Draper mythology in the end.
I don't mean mythology in the sense of being untrue. Quite the opposite in this case. He is telling the truth. No, the point is, as I have been saying over and over again every year (and especially this year), he is the centre of this show. Take him away and it's worse than boring. Take him away and it's stupid and pointless ... and boring as hell. His story, the story of how a modern, hopeful America grew out of the depression and then was lost in the late 1960s to all the Woodstock bullshit is the story people need to learn right now.
They'll never be allowed to tell it completely honestly just yet but this has promise.
There was a lot of promise in that line. No, it wasn't a great episode like of old but it had its moments and that was the best of the bunch. And did you notice that they changed Don's hat. The brim on his fedora has narrowed just like Frank's did at the end of the 1960s. In fact, that look he gives Sally at the end is pure Sinatra.
Which makes it all the more painful that we had to listen to Joni Mitchell drag us through her second-rate Annie Ross imitation in that lame-ass song about Clouds right afterwards. Of course, to a lot of the people who watch this show, Joni Mitchel is a classic along with Sgt Pepper and a lot of other pretentious crap.
But before going on, I'm going to take a victory lap because you can read a lot of high-priced commentary out there but I got it better than anyone. No, we don't knowwith absolute certainty that Don and Megan are finished yet although it sure looks like it. Barring next season starting with Don stepping out of the shower and Megan telling him she dreamed it all, we have lots of reason to be hopeful. No matter what happens, we can be certain it's not going to be like before.
Can Don make it on his own? Well, we know he cam, he did it before. Besides, he doesn't really need to because he's rich.
And it could be so awful. We got a lot of Freudian crap this year and we could get an awful lot more of it next year. And I don't think we should be in any hurry to forgive them for putting us through this stuff. But there is a hope here and it is that they went with the Don Draper mythology in the end.
I don't mean mythology in the sense of being untrue. Quite the opposite in this case. He is telling the truth. No, the point is, as I have been saying over and over again every year (and especially this year), he is the centre of this show. Take him away and it's worse than boring. Take him away and it's stupid and pointless ... and boring as hell. His story, the story of how a modern, hopeful America grew out of the depression and then was lost in the late 1960s to all the Woodstock bullshit is the story people need to learn right now.
They'll never be allowed to tell it completely honestly just yet but this has promise.
I think it was Judy Collins at the end, much better than Joni Mitchell.
ReplyDeleteNow that Don has all the time in the world I think he'll go to California with Megan, if only to see what his options are out there. Its interesting that his revelation following the Hershey presentation seemed to take the other partners by surprise. That seemed to be the final straw.
Your probably right about that being Judy Collins' version. I think it's a crappy song either way.
DeleteDraper's problem with the women he marries is that they're all wrong for him. As I see it, without getting all Freudian here, the type of woman Draper is probably attracted to and he could be happy with would be like the young woman who worked in the whorehouse, the one who took care of him when he was sick and then took his virginity. I don't condemn her for that by any means, she did a nice thing for him, remember Tea and Sympathy? So why doesn't he find a girl like that, because she would not be consistent with the type of woman he thinks Don Draper should marry. This is part of the problem with creating a fake persona, he ends up trying to be true to the persona and not to himself, so of course its doomed to failure. I don't think it has to be that way, people can reinvent themselves without losing their (dare I say "authentic") identity, but he hasn't done that. Maybe he'll begin to understand that in the last season.
ReplyDelete