“Whatever happens is supposed to happen.”
For Mad Men fans who have been frustrated this season with the concentration of focus on Don Draper and Matthew Weiner’s insistence upon belaboring some of his thematic points, last night’s episode, “Time & Life,” must have felt like a fresh breath of air. It was easily the most entertaining episode of the season and, for once, gave Pete and Peggy some much-needed screentime.
The episode also took us through a familiar routine on Mad Men: The Sterling Cooper scramble. Having started as a fairly small advertising firm seven seasons ago, Sterling Cooper has managed — for the most part — to navigate in such a way as to maintain its independence. Each time it’s threatened, Sterling Cooper zig-zags its way through the corporate minefield and maintains its identity. It looked for much of last night’s episode that Don Draper would be able to zag them out of another pickle, but the 1970s and corporate conglomeration finally caught up to the firm. It was absorbed into McCann Erickson, and despite the fact that Don, Pete, Joan, Ted, and Roger managed to land five of the best jobs in the industry with the biggest clients in advertising and all the resources they could ever want, it felt like an empty Pyrrhic victory, like the beginning of the end.
For the first time this season, we also really got the sense that Mad Men was ending. Sterling Cooper was absorbed, and it was hard not to feel sad for these multimillionaires with dream jobs who had just lost the one thing they valued the most… their independence. There was something so heartbreaking about watching Don and Roger attempt to spin it as good news to the rest of the staff, only to be rebuffed with grumblings of discontent. They’ve already lost their hold on the company. They may be higher ups at McCann Erickson, but it’s not their company anymore.
It’s hard not to imagine that where Mad Men ended last night would’ve been an almost perfect David Chase finale; one full of all-encompassing ambiguity, and it would’ve been the perfect bittersweet note to end on, if Weiner were interested in bittersweet endings. What will happen to Don, Roger, Pete at McCann? Will Joan finally find some respect? Will Stan and Peggy end up together? Will Pete and Trudy reconcile? Will Don and Diana find each other?
It could go either way at this point, and there’s something very exciting about that. With three episodes left, Weiner could give us a tragic or a happy ending, or he could do what he and the rest of the cast have been stressing all along: The characters will end up exactly where they should end up, based on what we’ve known about them since the beginning. “Whatever happens is supposed to happen.”
Stan and Peggy have been circling each other for years now, and that relationship at this point makes perfect sense. They respect each other. They know each other. They can be themselves around each other. They’ve exposed their vulnerable sides to each other, and they quite clearly have an immense affection for one another. (Peggy’s feminist speech about the double standard when it comes to men and women and their children was also absolutely brilliant, and that’s the scene that should finally win Mad Men an acting Emmy). It makes total sense for them to end up together, except that maybe Peggy shouldn’t end up with anyone. Because, as lovely as it might be to see her and Stan together, it also sells her character a little short to suggest that she needs a man to make her happy. Why can’t she just find happiness in her career, and in the family of her co-workers?
Chase might have left us hanging, but he allowed us to make up our own minds about Peggy’s future.
Meanwhile, Trudy and Pete are very much better off together. They need each other. Trudy misses the city, and she doesn’t want to end up alone. Pete is clearly still very smitten with Trudy, enough to throw a punch to defend her. Trudy wants a man to protect her and look after her. Pete wants someone he can protect. They make sense together, but will Pete f*ck it up again, like he always does? Will his temper drive Trudy away? Will he shoot himself in the foot and sleep with someone else?
Chase might have left us wondering about that, too. Just as he might have left us wondering if Don and Diana end up together. Or if Marie Calvet will become Roger’s third wife. Or if Joan and Richard Burghoff end up together. Or if Don and Roger and Pete quit because they have too much pride to take orders from someone else. It’s exciting to see the two paths that the Mad Men characters are standing before, and I almost wish that Weiner would leave it up to us to decide for ourselves which path they take. Almost.
What I always return to, however, is the knowledge that — at the end of Season 1 — Matthew (who didn’t know there’d be a Season 2 at the time) wanted Betty and Don to get back together because, at the time, he wanted his characters to end on a happy note. I think, ultimately, that’s still what he wants for his characters. He wants them to find happiness while still staying true to his characters’ DNA. Knowing also that the endings won’t be a surprise, as Weiner has reiterated, we can see the paths laid out before each character. All Weiner has to do over the final three episodes is tie the bow into a perfect knot. Weiner’s old boss, David Chase, might have let us tie it up in our own imaginations, and it’s hard not to wonder if that would’ve been a better approach because I almost would’ve been satisfied if the series had ended last night with Don telling the staff of Sterling Cooper, “Hold on. This is the beginning of something.”
It is the beginning… of the end, and those shots above are the perfect bookends to Sterling Cooper.
