Was Sunday’s finale of AMC’s Mad Men a fitting end to a fabulous TV series? Absolutely. And it not only was satisfying, it was wickedly clever, and even a little twisted. I loved it…
It’s an important enough event, as television goes, for me to have covered it for today’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross on NPR. Go to the Fresh Air website beginning Monday afternoon to read, and hear, the full report.
What I’m happy to report here, though, is that Matthew Weiner, who wrote and directed the final episode, concocted a way out that managed not only to echo the symbolism of the show’s animated opening credits sequence (Don falls fast and far, but ends up sitting pretty), but to show Don (Jon Hamm), at his lowest ebb, meditating and emerging not with a burst of personal insight, but with an idea for a career-reviving ad campaign.
Which, in turn, allows Mad Men to end -- appropriately and brilliantly -- with a full-length, real-life TV ad as its final sequence.
That’s never, ever been done before. And in the context of Mad Men, a series about advertising and the emotions it can evoke, it’s a perfect, and perfectly unexpected, ending.
It was fun to watch. And for a TV critic, especially one who has to digest it instantly and report on it almost immediately, there’s no higher praise…