Talking ‘Mad Men’: The Season Finale

Michael Yarish/AMC, via Associated Press Don Draper (played by Jon Hamm) on “Mad Men.”

Every Monday morning, Sloane Crosley and Logan Hill have been offering their post-”Mad Men” analysis here. Read on and share your reactions to the season finale as well as your favorite moments from the entire season in the comments.

Logan Hill: Well, Sloane, we made it. I thought this was perhaps the series’s weakest season, but one of its best finales, full of great one-liners and even better acting. Most of all, something was really at stake in each storyline. What did you make of it?

Sloane Crosley: Because of the nature of this episode’s dits, at times I felt like I was watching Megan’s soap opera. So we don’t see Don sock an evangelizing Jesus freak in the jaw and we don’t see him announce the L.A. move just like we don’t see Trudy’s response to Pete’s request to say goodbye to his daughter. But mostly I thought the cuts were a brilliant way to sidestep all the foregone conclusions. I wish the show had done more of it throughout the season.

LH: The episode certainly sped along. A lot of this season felt like Pete driving the Camaro: speeding in reverse. But this episode finally plowed ahead There was a certain amount of fan-base wish fulfillment: That dinner with Roger and Joan was tantalizing - -especially with Bob there. I suppose the big takeaway from Season 6 is: Bob wins.

SC: I mean, that and the fact that Pete’s mom pulled a reverse Goldie Hawn â€" Rich Lady Loses Mind, Forgets Who She Is, Falls Overboard! . But speaking of all being in the same boat â€" suddenly everyone and their mother wants to move to California? What did you think of that?

LH: I thought all the California Dreamin’ worked. It was as if Don’s irrational escapism suddenly became contagious â€" and I think everyone understands that thirst for change, especially “Mad Men” fans who’ve been clamoring for it. But I think this show has consistently refuted that hope: It gets better? Maybe not.

SC: Not according to Betty, it doesn’t. When she says, “the good is not beating the bad,” I thought that was her most redeeming moment since the start of the show. Truly. With one line I felt like I saw her whole childhood -  the basic tenets with which she was raised- come into sharp relief and I didn’t need to sit through a bunch of Little Whore on the Prarie flashbacks to get it. But anyway, I did love watching the flicker of escape cross Don’s mind, ad then, at long last, he makes a decision. His life doesn’t simply happen to him, but he chooses to give Ted the freedom they both need. It is a far far better thing he does …

LH: Speaking of choices, I admire how open-ended the finale is: Matt Weiner, the show runner, has left himself more options than any of his characters: Likely, Don and Megan are over and we’ll see less of Pete and Ted, but who knows? We’ll definitely get more of Bob. He obliterated Pete, who seems to have lost all his ambition. He can’t even muster the indignation (and cash) to chase down Mom’s murderer. Is Bob a kind of advertising antichrist?

SC: I have a strange lack of investment in Bob after the penultimate episode. It’s a why-buy-the-cow-when-you-can-get-the-milk-for-free situation and I have already drank Bob’s milk. But I agree that just when you think everyone is painted into a corner, Matt Weiner up and presents us with this magical land that’s “like De! troit wit! h palm trees.” This is certainly an oversimplification, but last season felt very much about the women and this season felt like the men had the floor. I think the pendulum will swing back for the final season. My own last thoughts were: Yes, Peggy’s in Don’s chair, but will this make Peggy hard? Don was an accessory to her heartbreak. And what does Megan do? Meanwhile, that was a hell of a final exchange of glances between Don and Sally. (On a side note, would that summons from the State of New York really be addressed to her? She’s a minor.)

LH: Some will say Megan’s character was thin â€" but I liked that she was a decent person swimming with sharks. And I’m talking about her in the past tense because I think she’s done. Peggy got the best line of the show: “Well aren’t you lucky: to have decisions.” (Second place: “Not great, Bob!”) But she might only be temping in Don’s office until Duck head-hunts Don’s replacement. I agree that the women were lost inthe shuffle, and, yes, I only fear that if Bob is Don 2.0 we’ll get another round of B-movie flashbacks.

SC: Ha! No way, the best line was Peggy diagnosing her terrible date. “He works in finance and ate with his hands.” All I could think of was Barry Pepper in “The 25th Hour.”  Meanwhile, lucky for us I think most fans actually see what you see in Megan. Even if she seemed like a cheerleader at first, her morality has become more layered as everyone else around her becomes increasingly amoral. I just don’t think Bob will play that major a role in next season. But I look forward to more Joan and Roger.

LH: I think Bob becomes a kind of superhero nemesis in the next season. Like Anna Paquin in “X-Men,” he just seems to absorb the power of everyone he touches. B! ut if any! one can fight brimstone with brimstone, it may yet be Don. This season began with Dante’s “Divine Comedy.” I haven’t read it in a while, but I’m pretty sure sucker-punching a minister lands you in one of the lower rings. Do you think he’ll finally reconcile with his past? What would an honest Don look like?

SC: You see Bob on the rise and Megan on the decline and I see the reverse. As for an honest Don? Can he be taught? I do think there’s hope for him because he’s starting with his greatest shame, and working (in concentric circles, if you will) outward. More than California and Hershey’s and his marriage, Sally is his greatest problem. It bodes well that he is starting the honesty train with his kids. Even though he did make an attempt with Megan as well.

LH: Yes, I’m skeptical that self-revelation leads to progress, anyway. But progress probably isn’t the point. Will Sally understand why he cheated on Betty a little better? Maybe. The epsode ended with the song “Both Sides, Now” and it’s obsessed with bicoastal possibilities, motivated by Bob’s likely bisexuality (or sexual practicality), and led by characters (Roger, Don, Ted) who want it all but can’t have much of anything. In the end, Don’s left jobless and wifeless and it’s going to be fascinating to see how Matt Weiner rebuilds him.

SC: Best use of a Joni Mitchell song since “Love, Actually.” The show is at its strongest when it pivots harder on truth than slapstick. I was grateful to see the finale go back to basics (with the exception of Kenny’s eyepatch, which was just consistency, and Pete’s mother, whom we never see because she is lying somewhere at the bottom of the Caribbean like a gaudy necklace). I guess the progress I hope for is more the show’s than Don’s. Just so long as it rains Sterling Cooper & Partners wall calendars and pens next season.

LH: A! nd coffee mugs! (At times, it felt like Don was doing product placement for AMC, which has been doing promos with those mugs.)

SC: If it rains coffee mugs, someone’s bound to get hurt.

LH: Ha â€" fair enough. To be safe, I’ll wear Stan’s plaid jacket and paisley tie, which should repel anything.

SC: Just tilt your chin up and let your Stan-like beard cushion the blow. You know? I take back what I said before. I think Roger has the best line of the finale because it embodies this whole season so well: “It’s all fun and games until they shoot you in the face.”

LH: After all of this season’s business about sex and money and pennies left on doormats, I did like Don’s riff on Hershey as the “currency of love” seguing into his bizarre, go-for-broke confession. But, to me, the great line that summed up this Dante-obsessed, hellishly repetitive season was the one shouted at the whorehouse’s preachy john “I’d tell you to go to hell but I never want to see you again.”

SC: Indeed. Actually, since there’s no “next week” for us to predict, it might be fun to ask the commenters for their favorite moments of this season. Me, I’m partial to tap-dancing Kenny (despite my overall anti-slapstick stance).

LH: For me, it’s the last half of the merger episode â€" when it felt like the show was truly firing on all cylinders, focused on business and Peggy, Don and Roger. I’d also like to hear readers guess at what’s coming next season â€" because it’s supposedly “Mad Men’s” last. My only prediction: Betty stays thin.

SC: My only prediction: Fax machines

Sloane Crosley is the author of “How Did You Get This Number” and “I Was Told There’d Be Cake“; Logan Hill is a journalist who has contributed to The New York Times, New York, GQ, Rolling Stone, Wired and others.