Mad Men Season 6 Finale: An Open Letter to Matthew Weiner

We’ll be back next week with a bookend stock evaluation and a full wrap up of Season 6. No matter how much we may bemoan this season, we still need as much Mad Men in our lives as possible. Today though, just as our nation needed to purge itself of the anger and mistrust of 1968, we as Mad Men fans need to purge ourselves of the anger/confusion/mistrust we feel toward the creator of this show we’ve come to love/hate. The following is one fan’s attempt at doing so.

Mr. Weiner,

First let me say that I love Mad Men. I am not an internet troll looking to throw rocks at things that shine. I couldn’t get enough of the first five seasons. Season six was a different story for me, though. I’ve watched last night’s finale three times now and each time I’ve walked away from the episode with a starkly different take on the events. Like so much of the season, I’m not sure how I’m supposed to feel. Since week one I’ve been professing about a reckoning.  I was certain that we were heading for a showdown. I saw no reckoning.

Am I missing something?  Please tell me that I am. For two months, while seemingly every other Mad Men reviewer blasted this season as lost and wandering, I kept the faith. You’ve had dalliances with random asides before and brought them back home in a masterful way. This dissociative season was surely going be rounded off after last night and make perfect sense- that’s what I kept reminding myself.  The choppy storyline full of awkwardly introduced elements, that were then just as awkwardly forgotten would all fit neatly into place as they always have. There was no fit. There were no answers. Again I ask- am I missing something?

To me, we end with far more questions than we began with. Peggy and Ted’s on again, off again romance was the only plot line to be brought full circle at all. Meanwhile we sit wondering about so many asides and why we wasted so much time on them.  Dawn’s newfound responsibility, Megan’s miscarriage, Joan’s move on Avon, Harry Crane’s partnership demand, swingers, injections, soda fountains and humping dogs all made appearances only to be forgotten by the casual viewer (and really anyone who wasn’t taking notes for a weekly review).  Considering that last night’s episode felt like a quality two-hour episode that was crammed in to fifty-seven minutes, I have to wonder if the aforementioned plot dots aren’t partially to blame.  Those dots felt like filler and the resulted in a season finale that made the whole season feel like one giant filler- a stopgap to the culminating seventh season.

While I’m venting, can we take a moment to discuss whom this season was truly about? The blogosphere is full of condemnations of the attention paid to Dapper Don on Mad Men. To those people every season is a “Don season”. If their criteria for determining whom the season belonged to are screen time there can be no doubt. It was, as always, a Don season. However if the criteria were adjusted to place greater weight on the evolution of a character, the focus shifts to Peggy, right? From my vantage point, whom this season was supposed to be about determines whether or not it was a failure.

If it was truly a Don season then, with due respect, you laid an egg. The viewers find themselves asking the same questions with Don standing in front of his boyhood home as they did while Don pondered the slightly heavy-handed “Are you alone?” If this season was meant to answer the question of Don’s redemption and only succeeded in muddying the waters, then can I please have those thirteen hours of my life back? However, if the season was about the evolution of Peggy Olsen, all is not lost. The rest of the plot is still jumbled, one story line is not a fix-all, but at least I would understand.

You know as well as I do that this season will not deter my near obsession with your show. I’ll Google Mad Men Season 7 Premier Date at least once a week until I get the answer I’m looking for. Just know that I need you to be better. We need you to be better. Regardless of whether season seven is the end of the Mad Men saga (you can say it, we know), please don’t muddle. Make bold brushstrokes. Love them or hate them, we’ll at least respect them. Last night’s finale has us at least as curious as this season made us annoyed. While you’re filming the final season, Mo Rivera will be ascending the mound for the final time. At least half the country hates the Yankees as much as they hate Don Draper, but that doesn’t mean they don’t want to see both finish strong. Bring us our reckoning, whatever it may be.
All the best,

A fan.