What a moment … the intensity… the pit in my stomach … knowing what he was about to do…

Yeah, they (the analysis videos maker), and we (the audience), hate McCann for what they did to Joan, but just like everything in this show, no place or person is completely good or evil.

Analysis compared McCann to hell on earth, soulless, where creativity goes to die, etc. But everyone who stayed are all creative people from the show. Don (that Coke ad is McCann), Peggy, Stan, Ted, and, ugh, Harry.

The non-creative, the account exec and partners, were actually the people who left, Pete, Joan, Roger, etc. That's the point. Could it be that McCann is actually the advertising heaven Hobart promised?

And I do not think this is the "Don't you get it? The characters are just making the best out of a bad situation" situation. They were happy. It was a happy ending.

I watched this show as it was being rolled out, and despite the window jumping tease, I remembered how confuse some people were with the final episode. ESPECIALLY, people who wanted the show to be something it's not. Condemning the characters. Everything is doomed. Some even wanted Pete's plane to crash. And then tell themselves their lives will be miserable. Like... okay... I mean, it's possible... But why??? Why would you go there? You think Pete deserves DEATH?

There are two things that I feel most analysis videos missed. And I'm not condemning these videos by the way, I love them, and it's a way for me to reexamine Mad Men.

1. Matthew Wiener like these characters and, his word, wanted to be kind to them in the end. And 2) It's obvious some of these characters are based on the writers' parents.
2. The most obvious is Betty, the only one who get the worst ending, are probably some of the writers (who are mostly women)'s mother, and Sally was a stand in for them.

And honestly, rewatching it again, Don got his comeuppance when he was fired, and when he was hired back he was stripped down and built himself up again. That was satisfying enough for whatever mistake he made in the show for me. But the final punchline is not a condemnation at all.

ONE MORE THING: Another common trope in analysis video of Mad Men is making New York to be this evil seductive city. They pointed to Pete moving away from New York to be away from Trudy, and most commonly: Lane and how he got his ending. He was seduced by the evil of New York... Watching it again, he was doing fine until England demanded he paid back British tax (add to his father came over to beat him). That's how he died. New York is the evil one? When Britain actually came to collect and killed him?

I love these analysis videos, they are ways for me to relive shows I love. But you can't make it while going in thinking it's DARK, and characters are EVIL and it's a TRAGEDY. and the city is bad and the plane will crash, like. Why be so cynical when the show isn't?

Feel free to let me know how wrong I am in the comments.

I truly loved this character. I thought Ted complemented Don’s dark and nefarious side. Ted sees through Don in a way that I’m not sure others who work closely to him do (which is why he wasn’t truly Don’s equal). I always thoroughly enjoy the scenes where Ted stands up to him.

Also, I was trying to find the hilarious clip where Roger Sterling purposely mispronounces Ted’s last name (season 4?).

Edit* I grew up with a couch that color. Pumpkin and corduroy baby. 🍄‍🟫🍁🥃

If I’m just missing something or there are theories I don’t know about forgive me

Edit: I meant Grandpa Gene! I think taking Grandpa Gene into his home was the most unselfish and generous thing Don ever did. It was no secret Gene despised Don, and the feeling was mutual. I think doing this for Betty showed that he did care for her deeply on some level. Maybe it was also an attempt to repair something in her family that he could never repair in his own. Maybe he was trying to reduce the stress she was feeling because she was pregnant. It was probably a lot of motives, but each time I re-watch this season I’m impressed that he did this.

Little question… what’s the deal with Conrad Hilton at his pitch?

Does he really want a “moon” ad? He didn’t really express his need for the concept in a way that would be automatically considered genuine. I feel like that would go against his savvy characterization. I don’t think,up to that point he’s shown as someone who’ll have a moody over something that Don himself immediately says he’ll fix if Conrad wants him to.

Is he big dicking Don? Using a flimsy ruse to get a shot a Don?

It’s a weird scene for me.

I’ve watched the whole show at least 5 times. I get she’s supposed to be very pretty and vain, someone who loves male attention. She’s got a great face but I find her frankly a little bland and unsexy, like she can’t inhabit a sexy woman’s body. So it kinda takes me out of it when men drool over her (like when she lost weight on season 6 and the gas station kid was staring at her, or when Harry’s “friend” told her he wanted to spend all night with her).

I found her very alluring in Italy, but at least 50% of that was her clothing and her role playing with Don and the black lingerie and push-up bra. Otherwise she’s very unsexy. January Jones makes a great vain, neurotic, narcissistic and sad Betty (I always cry when she cries), but I don’t buy men go awoooga-wolf-with-huge-eyes when they’re around her. (Joan I get…)

Anyone else feel the same?

Edit: TOO...manyiest. WHATEVER!

Coming back to the end of the series yet again and I picked through the sub and was wondering if anyone here or elsewhere ever had a good analysis of Diana Bauer. I'm still lost all these years later and analyzing art is literally my day job 😂

Was it ever mentioned? I assume they must have started either when both partners were away or by meeting at a hotel. I wonder who approached who.

This is an aspect that has always confused me.

First of all, it feels like a downgrade to go from a powerful governor and party leader like Rocky, to this new Mayor.

Secondly, ideologically Francis is more of a conservative, whereas Lindsay was so liberal that by his second term he had to switch to a Democrat.

And thirdly and most important, Lindsay was objectively way more incompetent than Rockefeller. He was a poor Mayor who greatly struggled to get his agenda through and to deal with the city’s issues, receiving low polling.

Meanwhile Rockefeller, although has his own issues, overall is widely praised and admired as a Governor and political figure.

So again I feel confused by the decision behind why would Henry Francis do this.

I always thought it was a bit extreme, when Greg fails in his bid to become a surgeon and has also screwed up his first interview for psychiatry, when Joan whacks him over the head with a vase. She breaks it over his head after he whines about how badly the interview went, that he doesn't want to take any more interviews, that she couldn't understand what it's like to do everything you need to live your dream and how disappointing it is to not be able to. Why would Joan hit him when he's down like that? And then I realized--because her dream was to be married to a MD, and she knew exactly what it's like. In that moment she was resentful of him, not sympathetic. Am I the only one who missed that on my first few rewatches?

I seem to remember it was suggested that Betty took after her mother physically.

I like to imagine that Joan looks like her paternal grandmother, with Gail’s hair color. Her figure and features come from her father and paternal grandmother.

And we don’t know of course but I like to imagine Sally’s daughter is a blonde and comes out to look more like Betty, because it’s fun.

How do you think Trudy reacts when Peggy and Pete’s 50-year old son shows up at their doorstep after doing 23andMe?

Finished these two masterpieces in a span of a week. Not sure if i will ever recover

- Written as a sleazy dealership leader for specifically NJ
- Weiner was a Sopranos writer who loved working with Gandolfini.
- Imagine the two greatest television actors of all time going head to head

In the part where Don writes Midge a check for her painting (while she suffers from heroin addiction), she says “Don, what am I going to do with a check?” And he ends up giving her a lesser amount in cash.

Why can’t she cash the check?

Edit: ok, so sounds like she could probably could have done it, but needed cash in hand at that literal moment. I admit I was a bit naïve about the immediacy of heroin addiction lol

Edit #2: y’all, I know dealers don’t take checks. This is why I say CASH the check

ive seen sm posts on this subreddit abt s6 being shitty. i js finished watching it for the first time. its not. its great.

I saw Freddy last night at a Who’s Live Anyway? show. He had some pretty good humor and managed the whole show without pissing himself.