Bye Bye Birdie

I got into Mad Men a couple of years ago and would occasionally get wound up about it. Like I'd come up with how Don should responded to Hilton during his pitch ("How do you say 'oxygen' on the moon? Hilton.") and how someone should have used Don's Hershey's breakdown to show how they could get at every aspect of the public mind. 

I love that Emily, my partner and the person who introduced me to Mad Men, thinks that Don got out in the end. His smile in the final scene was like his smile in the elevator when he tricked Roger into hiring him. He railed to his "niece" about people who believe in something, in "Jesus". Still some ambiguity; actually seemed to feel emotion, but -- obvious question -- to what end? The ultimate purpose of feeling is to sell stuff -- you're born alone and you die alone, and Don never forgets that. He walked out of that meeting about the everyman, went out to find him and when he did, hugged him. The first episode was him in a bar, having a feeling about the joy of smoking, but unable to turn it into copy, ultimately coming up with "It's toasted" -- which was actually decades older -- big tobacco would come to the "smoking is fun" pitch later. 

Contrast in the last episode, he's now cutting edge, commodifying someone else's dissent, which he'd started doing in his New York Times letter. In the end, there's an element of "jokes on you for caring about this bs" -- just as there was at the end of the Sopranos. Everyone in the end is married to work -- Don (while trippin), Peggy (Stan as work anchor), Joan (work at home), Pete (while flying the world), and even Roger -- trying to get as close to married as he can to his work man crush, Don.