Mad Men - "The Strategy"

One of the things that is surprising me about this final season of Mad Men is how optimistic it's turning out to be. Sure, there's still plenty of deep, existential sadness lurking at the core, but after the endless string of misery that was Season 6 and the pitch black final season of Breaking Bad - not to mention the foreboding "Time Zones" that kicked off this season - I had assumed we would be in for a season that followed all of the characters into their darkest hours. Instead, we've gotten a season that is certainly pretty dark on the whole but has powerful moments of hope scattered through-out the rubble. In "A Days' Work", we saw Don reconciling with Sally, something that seemed unheard of at the end of last season. And now we have something that seemed less likely - Don and Peggy mending their long troubled relationship.

Don and Peggy are interesting because, while they're probably the most important and arguably the most beloved relationship on the entire show, the amount of times we actually get Don and Peggy material is kind of slim. The two have a relationship that's as competitive as it is loving, filled with equal parts respect and bitterness. Sometimes, it's hard to imagine either Don or Peggy being what they are without the other, but then other times, it becomes frustrating just how much they hold each other back. (In particular, the way Don has continiously boxed Peggy into places to better fit his needs has gotten maddening). And yet, underneath all of the shit they do to each other, there's something so honest about them at their core that's unmatched by pretty much every other relationship on the show. It's impossible to mention Don and Peggy without talking about Season 4's "The Suitcase" (easily my favorite Mad Men episode and one of my favorite television episodes of all-time). That episode saw three seasons worth of walls between the characters crash down instantly, which is significant for a show whose characters are constantly shielding themselves from the outside world. They forgot all of the bullshit and just let it all out, getting down to the core of not only who they are, but who they're capable of being, if only they were allowed to. That episode looked like it a game changer, and in some ways it was, but increasingly it began to look like an example of who these people could be rather than who they were. Both Don and Peggy receded back into their protective walls after that episode, but the idea of it has lingered over both of them ever since. And now, three seasons later, Don and Peggy finally seem to be learning their lessons. Once again, we have the two characters beginning a day at odds with each other and ending it in a place where they're more open then they've been with anyone in quite some time. "My Way" blares over the two's (completely fucking platonic, thank you) slow dance, and the meaning is both literal - Don's letting Peggy do the presentation her way - and a bit more abstract. In that moment, both Don and Peggy let go of their guards, let go of what people expect of them, let go of what people think they should be and they just are. That results in both the likely winning idea for BurgerBoss and a seemingly deeper connection between Don and Peggy.

I keep coming back to the use of "My Way", because this episode is full of characters who have yet to follow the lyrics of that song, instead choosing to follow what others think their way is supposed to be. We have Bob Benson, who appears for the first time this season with a motherload of information. SC&P is losing Chevy, but he's going to Buick's advertising brand, meaning that he's expected to become what a "real man" was expected to be in 1969 - something it's quite clear he's not. He proposes to Joan completely out of nowhere, insinuating that both of them are in a place where society won't allow them to be what they want to be. If this was 10 years earlier, it's not hard to see someone like Joan accepting an offer like this. Sure, Bob and Joan would be living lies, but by doing so they would be conforming to a standard that's expected of them, which would undoubtedly lead them down a much easier path. But this isn't the '50s anymore. It's 1969, and suddenly not everyone wants the same thing anymore, especially if it means compromising who they really are. That's as outdated as the concept of the domestic family being brought up in the BurgerBoss ads. The answer is no, because Joan ultimately would rather live the truth and suffer than carry out a lie. That's very different from the answer Joan gave to a similar proposal by Greg eight years earlier.

And then there's Pete Campbell. All season, we've seen a Pete very different from the Pete we've grown to love. Yeah, he had the occasional bitch fit, but this was a Pete that was happy, assured and confident about where he was going. And yet, as soon as he lands in New York, it's like he entered a vortex and moprhed back down into a moaning, tantrum-prone man-child. It's more complicated than that, though - Pete has been living his own kind of lie in California, where he can pretend that he's not a person who completely screwed up the perfectly good life he had going for him. That all changes when he visits Tammy and finds she doesn't even know who he is, and his (not yet) ex wife gives so little of a shit about him that she's not even there for his return. Pete has been poised as the second coming of Don Draper over the past few seasons, right down to his Betty clone in California. He was a guy who was turning over a new identity, who rejected the suburban family life he was being forced into. But Pete Campbell isn't Don Draper. He returns home, finds he's been replaced, and isn't sure what to do with himself. Suddenly, the lie he's been living becomes apparent for the lie that it is. Increasingly, this final season of Mad Men seems to be posing the final question of whether these characters are willing to face the reality of who they really are. And though we won't see that final result for another year (thanks, AMC!), I'm getting more and more interested to see the answer.