Mad Men Is One Big Mess -- Death, Prostitution, Dis-loyalty and Blood

Why did we love Mad Men?   At its core Mad Men presented us with adults (don't see much of them anymore) in pressurized and dramatic situations, in a world many have never know but just as many hold in dear memory.   We watched them interact, fight, lie, cheat, and love.   We watched them have fun, too.   We got to know and like them.   We felt we were part of the furniture, what made it work.   And it worked.  Man, did it work.  It unfolded before us like literature, a good novel, or epic film.   While we were surprised at times we were rarely shocked.   But if we were shocked it caused us to learn more about the character and their world.   It was enlightening.

Then, something happened this season.   The writers were sitting in a room one day and said, "Look we have to cause a splash.  I suggest we have Joan prostitute herself for the good of the firm, you know, sleep with some big wig so that they will give SCDP its business."   Then the writers went about the task of creating a plot line that would lead to that goal.    At another meeting a writer stood and said, "Hey let's keep doing that!   I suggest the grisly death of one of the main characters in an especially ugly way, maybe by hanging himself in the offices of SCDP,  while the partners have to cut him down!"   Another writer shouted, "Sounds great!    That'll be sensational."   And so it was,  sensational.  And another plot line was contrived.   That is the key word.  Contrived.

And it was  sensational.  Merely sensational.   That's all.   In fact, these plot lines any sense of reality, of drama or sensibility, and although some may have been pulled in, they were not "moved."

What we have been dished out in the last two weeks of Mad Men, the best show on to hit TV in many years, is a train of contrivances.   It feels phony and substantially artificial.   The drama no longer unfolds slowly, naturally, as if we were given a portal into another world, but shouted out by the writers, "Hey!   Look at what we're doing now!!!   Didn't expect THAT did you?   Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, haaaa!"

Example:  Peggy leaves SCDP.    Why?   Because, as we used to say as kids, she got "yelled at."  Whoa!  Her overbearing boss yelled at her and threw money in her face.   She finds herself in the company of Teddy Chaough, a man whose principles and opinions of other human beings may be a notch below G. B. Shaw's, but nevertheless, we are to assume that Peggy has decided, "Yes.  I'll get more respect, and better treatment at a new firm, with new co-workers who don't know me at all, and working for a boss who's obnoxiousness is legendary!"  Yeah.   Good move.

Nope.  Don't believe it.  Not over money in the face.

Peggy, in seasons past, would have taken Don aside at a later date and read him the riot act, calmly.   He would have listened and been contrite.  Problem over.  And she gets a raise!   At SCDP she has some seniority, the respect of her very influential boss (at least his professional respect) and the admiration of many she works with.   With Teddy, she'll have none of that.  Bad move.  Really bad.  And not in Peggy's nature or character.

Lane.   Tax trouble?    Forgery?   Embezzlement?   Are you serious?   Do I have to explain how illogical all of these acts are for Lane?    Come on.

Don.   Don, without hesitation: you're fired!   Things are never that simple for Don.   They never have been and shouldn't have been now.   When he was ordered to fire Freddy Rumsen, he said, "I don't want to throw him away."   Roger's reaction, "You're loyalty is getting in the way."

That's why we loved Don.  He could be mean, and cheat, yell, but he was loyal.   Don, of the previous 4 seasons would never had blithely said, "I'll expect your resignation," and, "I can't trust you."  Nonsense.  Who CAN you trust in this life?   From old Don's perspective, NO ONE.

That's why I cannot join the celebration of two "fabulous" weeks of Mad Men.   It's not the Mad Men I knew and loved.

And did we really need to see Sally's bloodied undies???   Please.   Really.  I mean, please.