Meredith
First and foremost: No one died. Pete did not perish in a fiery plane accident; Don is not DB Cooper; my beloved Meredith did not fall down the elevator shaft. She did get fired -- because Roger can't manage to convince McCann that he needs her secretarial help in Don's absence -- but she very perkily assured Roger that she always lands on her feet. My bet is that when Don swans back in from being on walkabout with his great new idea for Coke -- the most famous ad campaign, arguably, in the world, and one that IS a real McCann creation, all of which we will get to, obviously -- she will get her job back. If she's not busy running a multi-million dollar design firm by then. Meredith, I do not worry about you, and I admire both your moxie and your flair for window hangings. Go forth and conquer the world with your perkiness!
Roger and Marie
Roger also gets a happy ending. Er, no pun intended. As Joan says to him later, his timing was finally right: He marries Megan's mother Marie. (This is a great scene wherein they have a fight because she saw her ex-husband one last time, and possibly slept with him, and Roger storms off with a very dramatic flap of the bedclothes that I sadly could not screengrab in a way that did it justice).
Roger and Marie 2
They seem VERY happy together and she certainly looks amazing. Christmas will be weird at that house, but whose isn't? Cheers, Roger Sterling. May your third marriage be your charm.
This Dude
I just want to give props to actor Brett Gelman here, who ALSO played a wacky dude in group therapy in the late and lamented (by me) Go On and who managed to make himself a complete and interesting glorified extra this week. I obviously wanted to show you his jaunty Breton stripe...
This Dude 2
...his extravagant nudity...
This Dude 3
...and his red man jumpsuit. We'll get to Don's retreat at Esalen before you know it. (Weirdly, as this episode was airing, I was talking about Esalen with my parents. Does the universe want me to go on a silent retreat? Will I return from it with renewed vigor for my own one true love, work? Will I have to hug people?)
Pete Campbell
Of everyone, I think Pete Campbell -- that glorious weasel Pete Campbell, who I was pretty sure was maybe going to murder a bunch of people at some point -- has changed the most. He's supportive of Peggy (telling her that she's going to be running her own shop one day; that people will say they got to work with her with pride) and appropriately self-deprecating. His tie is wide and his comb-over is extreme, and he does not act like a weasel here at alll (Unlike that dipstick, Harry Crane, whose last image for us all is of him in this ridiculous man coat, stuffing his face with cookies on the way to the elevator.)
Pete and Harry Crane
Pete gives Peggy a cactus and tells her he'll be back, and said plant " better be alive." I feel like finally Pete, who spent much of his life feeling under-appreciated and being a total blowhole, actually Learned and Grew, and managed to find an appreciation for people that he's been showing this entire season -- for Peggy, for Joan, for Trudy. He's thrown nary a hissyfit, and I shall miss him. (Remember that time he walked into the pole in the middle of his terrible office? And who could forget NOT GREAT, BOB? Oh, Pete. You were a great character and I fear Vincent Kartheiser will never get his due.)
Pete and Trudy and Tammy
And all I've ever wanted for Trudy was for her to get on a private jet in a really short skirt and a fur turban atop really fabulous hair. Fair thee well, Campbells! Stay away from the MacDonalds if you can manage it.
Joan and this guy
I feel somewhat vindicated that I was right about Bruce Greenwood. He didn't turn out to be a murderer -- AS FAR AS WE KNOW -- but I did find myself reflexively telling him to eff off, both times I watched this episode. First of all, Joan looks AMAZING here in her swimsuit and sarong, but is it ever a good sign when you say aloud to the TV, "don't you dare turn Joan into a coke whore, Bruce Greenwood"? (As opposed to a Coke Whore, which might be what Don, ultimately, finds himself to be.) Answer: it is not.
Anyway, in the final analysis, it seems that Bruce Greenwood is not into Joan being a business woman, and Joan LOVES being a business woman, and for Bruce Greenwood, this proves to be a dealbreaker. Which, okay, fine: Bruce Greenwood knows what he's looking for, and a business woman isn't it. That's his prerogative. But Joan deserves a delicious and interesting man who finds her business acumen and ambition sexy and compelling.
Joan and Ken Cosgrove
That someone is not Ken, but I am happy to get to bid him and his eyepatch a fond farewell. Kenny brings Joan what eventually turns into her own production company, and has a very funny moment where he very matter-of-factly tells Joan that his son is "weird," and he "thinks there's something the matter with him." He's nearly cheerful about it. Goodbye, Ken! Sleep well knowing that if the pirates kidnap you, you'll fit in nicely.
Joan and Peggy
So, after her conversation with Ken, Joan comes to Peggy with a proposition. (As you can see, Peggy is VERY busy at work; here, she's eating at her desk. In a scene I didn't screengrab, she HBICs all over the copy director [I think?] to get herself and Stan put back on the Chevalier account, and it's quite great. She is deliciously bossy and steely and I can't wait for Peggy to be MY boss.) There is a great little bit where Joan opens with, "so, I had dinner with Ken Cosgrove," and Peggy basically coos, "oooooh, how is he??!?!?!?!" in the way that you do when a friend sees another friend that you like very much and miss; it was a lovely warm moment the likes of which this show rarely does.
Joan and Peggy 2
(I just thought you might want to see Joan in her glasses one last time.)
Joan and Peggy 3
But what Joan really wants from Peggy is to partner up to form a production company -- Harris Olsen (Peggy doesn't point out that this would make them "HO"). Peggy's obviously delighted and thrilled to be asked to be Joan's partner, and there's something divine about the idea of these two striking out on their own. But as Stan points out to Peggy later, that's not what she does, and she's GREAT at what she does. And she does in fact turn Joan down. But Joan manages okay for herself even without Peggy. You'll see.
Peggy and Stan
While we're on the subject, Stan is great in this episode. He is, as Heather and I are always waxing poetic about because we're old, so sensible and kind and level-headed. He is highly complimentary of Peggy's talent and only mildly irked when she hears his compliments and takes them in entirely the opposite direction, and when she lashes out and calls him a failure, he handles it very well: clearly hurt, but VERY CALMLY he removes himself with a rebuke that does not sink to her level. I LOVE YOU STAN. (All I ever want is a sensible man who thinks I am brilliant and who won't let me act like a lunatic even if he finds it entertaining.) It's interesting, by the way, to note that while this scene where Stan and Peggy discuss whether or not she should accept Joan's offer plays out, the dress that Peggy wore two weeks ago when she did her Stride of Pride into the office, lit cigarette in her mouth, is hanging on the back of her door.
Joan and Roger
Back to Joan and how she's going to be Just Fine. First of all, I believe this is a jumpsuit, and she looks great in it. Second, she and Roger are on great terms -- he comes over to tell her he's marrying Megan Draper's mother, which Joan finds HILARIOUS, and also that he's leaving a giant chunk of money to their son in his will. Which gives Joan the financial security (along with her money from McCann, which has been halved but isn't so bad) to start off on her own...
Joan's Amazing Leopard Gown
...even if Bruce Greenwood isn't into it. He doesn't want to share her with her work; she isn't going to give up working for him. And so they are at an impasse, which he basically won't even discuss. He just LEAVES. To which I say: don't let the door hit you, Bruce Greenwood. Look at this woman's amazing leopard robe. Do you really want to say goodbye to that? If so....good luck to you and get the hell out.
Joan and Lilyanne Longergan
In her earlier meeting with Peggy, Joan had told her that a business needs "two names" to feel real. And so she names her production company "Holloway Harris." And why not? I fully assume she will use Holloway Harris -- HER COMPANY and no one else's -- to take over the world.
It's exceptional to me how many phone calls were in this episode -- there's a reason it's called "Person to Person" -- and how well they all worked, and the different purposes they all served. Here, Joan's on the phone doing business; earlier, a phone call interrupts her conversation with Bruce Greenwood, and her taking it is the final push he needs to walk out. Later, people have emotional catharsis on the phone; they tell truths and they confess love. You could write an entire film school paper on the use of the telephone in Mad Men, and someone probably is.
Don
And now, at last, to Don and Peggy, whose stories I could not extricate from one another. As it should be. Anyway, we open the episode with Don up to his usual: he's racing cars with these kids and sleeping with prostitutes who are trying to steal from him, and looking kind of hot and groovy without his hair slicked back. Just what you'd imagine. Lots of drinking. Terrible life choices. Me saying things like, "oh DON. Don't sleep with the hooker who just tried to steal your wallet, even if she IS that kind of sad lost soul you are always jonsing for."
Sally
But then finally he's on the phone with Sally and she finally FINALLY tells Don that Betty is dying. It takes Don a bit to believe her -- he reminds her that her mother is a hypochondriac -- and then what follows is some of the best acting on this show, ever. Not just from Hamm, although he is tremendous in this episode, but also from January Jones.
Don
Because after Don hangs up with Sally -- well, technically, Sally tells him she can't talk anymore, after a conversation in which she is as mature and measured as we've ever seen her; poor Sally has been forced to grow up -- he calls Betty, and honestly, it's heartbreaking. I don't know if I've ever seen two actors do so well, simultaneously, at Trying Not To Cry. Looking at this, a scene where they didn't need to be together to shoot (I don't know if the actors came to each other's shoot, to give them the lines to react from, though they may have) but still managed to connect so beautifully, makes me extra mad at the way The Good Wife has handled whatever happened with Archie Panjabi and Juliana Margulies. That's neither here nor there, really, but it's a tribute to how great this scene was. Jon Hamm and January Jones nailed this exchange.
Betty
Don's devastated -- there is a moment where he starts to tell Betty that he loves her, and he can't quite get it out, and she tells him she knows, and both of their faces crumble, and I cried. He wants to take the kids to live with him. Sally wants them to stay with Henry, so they can at least sleep in their own beds and go to their own schools. Betty wants them to go live with her brother and his wife, so they'll have a mother. And I can see all of their points, really, and it's heartbreaking, never more than when Betty tells Don that she wants things to be normal for the kids, and him not being there IS normal. Everyone who isn't trying not to burst into tears does burst into tears.
Don
And then Don, as he is wont to do, gets HELLA WASTED and has his Race Car Drivers drop him off in Los Angeles at Stephanie's house. You remember Stephanie. She was Anna Draper's niece, and she answers the door and she calls him Dick and ushers him inside and "opens a can of stew," which always sounds TERRIBLE to me, and then she drags Don up the coast to Esalen for some enlightenment.
I really just included this shot so we could agree that even sweaty strung-out depressed rock-bottom Draper looks hotter in sunglasses.
Meanwhile
While he's off trying to figure out his shit, Sally comes home and has this very touching conversation with Bobby -- the most lines Bobby has EVER HAD, and this particular actor acquits himself well -- wherein he is like, "I don't know what Betty THINKS I think, but I know the score." Sally tells him that she's not going to Madrid this summer after all, and then she teaches him to make dinner. She also wears an amazing pom-pomed poncho that I somehow didn't get a shot of, probably because I was too busy thinking about how Sally is being an extremely good sister.
Sally and Betty
And THIS is the last shot we get of Betty -- still smoking (why quit at this point, I suppose?) and still reading at the kitchen table, as Sally washes the dishes. In a sense, this is Sally getting something that she wanted. She begged Betty to let her take care of her in her last months, and it seems she's gotten her way. It's a very melancholy closer for them both, of course, but there's also something touching about it. In the previous bit with Sally and Bobby, I thought very clearly, "Sally is going to be a very kind mother eventually," and whether or not that actually comes to pass is, of course, for the fan-fic writers to say. But she is warmer and kinder and yet more no-nonsense to Bobby than Betty ever was, and that, I think, bodes well for our little Sally Draper. She is a straightforward and thoughtful person; she doesn't run away, like Don does, and she doesn't try to pretend everything is normal when it's not. She's going to be okay.
Hugging and Learning
So, up at Esalen, Don is dressed as much like a square as possible in great contrast to everyone else, and Stephanie is bringing him to all of these group sessions. (I like Stephanie. At the very least, she's drying him out, and this is as close to therapy as I think Draper is willing to get.) There is a great moment in this scene wherein everyone is just supposed to walk around, and Jon Hamm gives a hanging plant the most quizzical look. Anyway, once they stop walking, they're instructed to look at the person closest to them and express non-verbally how that person makes them feel. And while everyone else is hugging and touching, this kind-looking grey hair SHOVES HIM. Which feels totally right.
Stephanie
But let's get into the crux of what happens here, which I think is sort of the turning point for Don. Stephanie is talking in group about how she wants to get her life together -- and can we take a moment to note that if Lindsay Lohan hadn't totally ruined her career, she totally could have played this part? I think Caity Lotz (who's in Legends of Tomorrow on the CW next fall) resembles her -- and it turns into a whole thing wherein another group member makes Stephanie feel terrible for deciding not to raise her son (the other group member's mother left her, so it was a sort of natural response from her, as well). And Stephanie bursts into tears and runs off.
Don
And Don gives everyone a series of dirty looks and chases after her, and then gives her the 2.0 Version of, "This never happened. It will shock you how much it never happened," about her past and how she can pretend it never happened and everything will be just fine if she just denies denies denies, and he can teach her how to do this! And then there is this great moment where she looks at him with so much affection and sadness and just says, "Oh, Dick. I don't think you're right about that." And he just sort of watches her leave, and realizes that she's totally right.
Peggy and Don
And the person that Don calls when he realizes that Stephanie has actually LEFT left, and he has no way home, is Peggy. And the scene between the two of them is simply amazing. It's just so good. Of all the people Don speaks to on the phone, she is the one person who tells him to come home, that he has a place waiting for him, that everyone will be happy to see him and will take him back. And it's at work. For her, "work" equals "home," and that's true for him as well. Elisabeth Moss is amazing in this scene. You can tell that she loves Don (in a non-romantic way), that she worries for him, that she is invested in him and she still believes in him, and she might be the only one. "Don't you want to work on Coke?" is her kicker to get him to come back. And it's the smartest one she could have used.
Don
But Don is devastated; he's made a mess of his life, he tells her. He's broken all his vows, he's "scandalized [his] child," he's taken another man's name and made NOTHING of it. "That's not true," Peggy cries to him. He then says that that he only called because he realized he never said goodbye to her, and he just wanted to hear her voice and here's where everyone at home was like, "AW SHIT, is Draper going off the cliff?"
But what he actually does is hang up on her and then just burrow into a little hole by the phone, practically catatonic, until Helen Slater and her giant poncho comes and drags him off to group. Well, she IS Supergirl.
Peggy and Stan
Peggy is at a loss after this and calls Stan -- of course; he IS her best friend -- to tell him what just happened, and Stan is totally reasonable and reassuring about it. (And funny; there is this great little moment where the square behind him is totally eavesdropping and Stan gives him the hairy eyeball until he leaves.) And Peggy apologizes for saying "all those shitty things" to him, and then....THEN! Then it all turns into a DECLARATION OF LOVE. WE KNEW IT! WE KNEWWWW ITTTTT. VICTORY IN OUR TIME!
Seriously, there is something so right about the fact that this declaration of love happened over the phone. I told you their phone calls were romantic! THIS IS THE BEST THING THAT EVER HAPPENED TO ME.
STAN
STOP EAVESDROPPING ON THIS ROMANTIC MOMENT, STRIPED SHIRT!
LOVE!!
Peggy's response to Stan's "I'm in love with you. I love you, Peggy," is, of course, a sharp "WHAT?" and then hyperventilating, and then talking through her feelings and coming to the conclusion that she, too, loves Stan, like NO DUH. (There is a sharp, sharp contrast between this conversation and confession of love between Stan and Peggy, and the earlier conversation between Betty and Don where neither of them could actually say it to each other). And there is no response and it's because....
MAKING OUT
...Stan is running down the hall to her so that they can, at last, MAKE OUT.
MAKE OUT SOME MORE!!!
Fug Friend Carrie just said to me, "Peggy and Stan is really schmoopy for this show, but I loved it," and I agree. Someone on this show deserves the grand romantic gesture FOR ONCE JUST ONCE and I am obviously delighted that it was Peggy. Peggy is the one I love the most and the person for whom I want the best and I am delighted that she appears to have gotten it. The universe owes her some office romance happiness after A DUDE GAVE HER HIS NIPPLE IN A BOX. (Also Pete, obviously. Oh, and Duck. And that bs with Ted. AT LAST!)
Stan and Peggy
And so I say YAY! This is from the montage of everyone's fate at the end -- Roger's ordering champagne; Sally's washing dishes; Joan's running her media empire; and Peggy is writing brilliant copy AND has a nice boyfriend, which basically is the dream. I honestly thought it was sincerely possible that EVERYONE would end up miserable once the final credits ran here. That Peggy might have professional success, but never find someone who loves her the way she wants to be loved; that Joan would settle for a dude who doesn't want her to be all that she could truly be; that Don would die; that Sally would become a homeless hitch-hiker. It is satisfying to me that none of those things happened.
Hugs
And while Peggy and Stan are confessing their mutual love -- I trust Stan will not step out on Peggy Olsen; she did, after all, once stab a boyfriend with a bayonet -- Don is hugging a sad stranger in group therapy. And just let me say that if I thought Jon Hamm in a flannel shirt and jeans would enfold me into a tight embrace and cry with me, I would TOTALLY go to whatever crunchy granola therapy you wanted.
In all sincerity, though, I thought this scene was great. This very anonymous guy just lays it bare, about what it feels like to be overlooked and unseen and unloved. It's extremely affecting, and it's Donald Draper of all people, who gets up and hugs him and they cry together. (I also cried.) Don, who has never BEEN unseen (thanks to being so handsome and charismatic), but who has certainly felt as if his real self, his internal self, is hardly known to anyone at all.
Breakthrough
And this moment seems to have been a breakthrough, because the next time we see Don, he's all OMing it up on a cliffside, seemingly having reached inner peace. A smile flashes across his face as he does yoga, and the audience thinks, "seriously? Don Draper found enlightenment via yoga?" Not exactly. But he HAS reached inner peace. He has reached his own kind of very specific inner peace...
I'd Like to Buy The World a Coke
Namely, he's gotten back to the mindset where he is at his very best, and he's just come up with a GREAT idea for Coke. (This Coke thing has been a long time coming; If you recall, just last week, Don was literally asked to fix the Coke machine.) I'm sure there are TONS of similarities between the famous Coke ad and what we actually saw transpiring at this retreat, but the one that popped out at me most is this woman. There is a girl at Esalen -- who tells Don that people are "free to come and go as they please" (and who also makes a little Charles Manson crack) -- with this exact hairdo. Honestly, it's brilliant work and it must have been extremely fun for the costume people to look at the Coke ad and recreate the people in it, and them people them throughout the episode.
And I think there is something wonderful and right that Don's moment of zen, his perfect happiness, is coming up with the world's most famous and most successful (arguably, but certainly at the time) ad campaign ever. I've long said that one of the things that makes Don Draper likeable as a character is that he's really REALLY good at his job. And one of the things that made his downward spiral of the last few seasons so distressing was when he STOPPED being good at it. Advertising was Don's bit of magic, and when he lost that, it was distressing. This is giving that back to him, and in the most dramatic way possible, and for me, this seemed like the perfect happy ending for him. He hasn't reached spiritual enlightment -- as far as we know -- but he has gotten back to his best self. And so we can assume he has gone back home (in other words, to work), and all the rest is up to our imagination. Don's first instinct when he heard about Betty was to want to take the kids, so I have to think he's doing right by them. But as for the rest, it's up to us to decide. Wherever he is, I hope there's a smart brunette with a book who isn't married, nor a total sad-sack, but if there isn't, either way, I think things have been set back to rights.