(screencaps found here)
I rehashed an old debate with my friend Jack over the weekend at a birthday party that ended up being a nerd round table on all things sci-fi, fantasy, and TV. Predicting the 5th season of LOST, he argued, was so easy it moved past satisfying and rendered the season shitty. In its defense (a place I often find myself), I said the end of a TV show full of mysteries to an intelligent person (who’s additionally carefully studied the medium) is going to be predictable. You spend all that time theorizing about LOST, the more facts you get, the more you’re going to be right. It’s in the nature of the show.
Kate, this isn’t LOST Lunch. No, I know. There’s a point I’m getting to.
Mad Men is a show about a lot of things - the changing political and cultural environment of the 60’s, the evolving relationships between men and women, the pursuit of happiness, the definition of success. This season has been - besides a beautiful, horrifying supernova of character development and story structure - a turning point in the series. I think their use of “Tomorrow Never Knows” - the hinge in the Beatles’ perfectly timed decade-long career - illustrates that quite nicely. The thing with this schism is, The Beatles don’t have two halves of a career - five years of I Want To Hold Your Hand and five of Revolution 9. Beatles For Sale and Rubber Soul have many unconventional moments, even before Revolver came around and solidified the experimental change. Songs like I Will or One After 909 are as straightforward as things you’d hear from them in 1963. The history of the 60’s doesn’t snap into a new place as 1966 becomes 67. It falls into turmoil.
So, if Mad Men is intending this season to mirror these changes, as I’ve tended to assume, the character arcs we’ve been witnessing aren’t necessarily nearing a point of monumental change, but a complete dissolution that results in change. In Lady Lazarus, I said it seemed like Don was straddling a crack in culture between progressive and regressive, between Megan’s and Roger’s worlds. But it’s beyond just those two people in his life, isn’t it? Each and every character this season is shooting in one direction or another, either up towards the pinnacle the show has set up in our imaginations (progress, success, happiness), down towards the pitfall that mirrors the same (obsolescence, failure, depression), or laterally into the unknown that doesn’t take into account either extreme (consider Joan’s morally and emotionally vague ascent to partnership).
Truthfully, our characters have been making steps on theses paths since the show began. As the seasons wear on, these decisions start to pile and push towards what we presume will be a defining moment towards the show’s end. Their directions get clearer and clearer, just as the little mysteries in LOST began to accumulate to sense. Joan’s proposition, and last night Lane’s death, have been identified as two almost glaringly overt moments in the show and arguments have been made on either side as to the effectiveness of their execution, if only because when something stands out from everything else it usually bears the most criticism and debate. I think that as we round the bend on this show, style permitting, we’re going to be seeing a little bit more of moments like this. The restraint - the push-it-under-the-rug mentality - of the early 60’s is well on its way out the door. We’re heading into late-60’s turmoil. The terrifying moments that were once witnessed on tiny office televisions or whispered about amongst the secretary pool are now hanging from the office door.
And as ever, straddling the line, in a neutral position - not unhappily wed but not confident in his happiness, not getting the success he wants in his career but at least wanting it again - is Don. It can’t be ignored that these two stand-out moments of the season that feel like they should belong solely to their intended character also reflect back onto him. What does Don’s half-hearted decent to Joan’s situation mean about their relationship, his opinions, his position in the company? How will he react to the role he played in Lane’s death? What does this teach him about happiness, power, and the decisions he’s making in his own life?
We want to assume that the end of the series - when all the characters have veered off in their own directions and landed firmly wherever they’ll land when 1970 comes around - Don will have reached a decision about the man he’s going to be, and that this decision will teach us something about the subtle and brilliant portrait of humanity we’ve watched develop over the span of the series. We want this because we always search for answers in the meaningless, often tragic and heartbreaking acts of other people. But I don’t think Matthew Weiner claims to have that kind of answer. I don’t think he’s leading us towards a light in the middle of the island. I think we’ll just, starting this season, watch things fall apart.
![accidentaltheme:
THE VERY LONG LIST OF AWESOME LADIES ON TV: Fiona Gallagher [Shameless]
Fiona takes care of everyone, but no one takes care of Fiona.
*slap on the head* “What are you gonna do? I’m not takin’ care of another kid.”](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m50wttEJqv1qffwzfo1_400.png)
