Yes, many of us were back watching Mad Men again this spring. We watched despite the fact that the producers split the seventh and final season into two parts, which means we must wait until spring 2015 to see how it all ends. Despite the fact that it’s been a long time since we last saw these characters and may have had a wandering eye during the hiatus. (Sorry, Don, but there are so many distractions these days.) Despite the fact that we were sick of a few characters by now (Megan, anyone?) that we had a slightly take-it-or-leave it attitude about tuning in.
But we tuned in. Maybe we just needed to know if Don would move to L.A. and start wearing madras pants (not likely), if Roger and Mona would get back together (more likely), or if Sally would catch her dad banging another MILF (most likely). But the real reason we watched was to learn a thing or two from the mistakes of these highly flawed, utterly irresistible-despite-themselves characters. Here are 10 nuggets we gleaned from the last few episodes starring our favorite Madison Avenue mod squad.
1. The best place to find a shark is the secretarial pool. Joan Harris is fierce this season, shrewder in her business dealings and more unforgiving of Don than any of the other partners as he tries to scratch and claw his way back into the agency. She cites money as the reason she doesn’t vote for his return, claiming that Don has cost her lots of it. We mustn’t forget that Joan attained her own partner status by sleeping with an important client, so clearly this is a woman who understands business much better than any of the men in her office who can’t see past her massive cleavage give her credit for.
2. Years of debauchery will eventually catch up with you. No one sets a worse example for living the clean life than Don Draper, whose many years of boozing, smoking, lying and cheating have finally caught up with him. Maybe the several months he sat home in his PJs while on suspension took its toll, but this season Don’s looking older and more outdated than the guys a generation ahead of him, when in fact he’s supposed to be only in his early 40s on the show. For God’s sake, Don, get a blood test and a good night’s rest.
3. A threesome is not a good marriage-saving strategy. Poor Megan. She slept with her boss and became Wife Number Two. She moved out to L.A. to pursue her acting career and Don refused to follow. All the mini skirts, teased hair and whispered French nothings in the world can’t bring him back to her, so what does she do this season? She invites her girlfriend into her marriage bed and treats the most undeserving husband in America to a threesome. How does that work out for her? He has his way with the ladies and makes a beeline back to New York more quickly than ever.
4. The biggest pricks sometimes make magnificent friends. Roger has cheated on his wife. Messed up his second marriage. Experimented with every drug imaginable, usually with a posse of women half his age. Screwed up business deals because of his immature and drunken ways. Sure, he’s delightfully entertaining, but you wouldn’t want to marry him or count on him for much. Except that when Don needs him this season, he’s right there, albeit at the last possible moment, saving his best friend’s job and winning his company back. And he appears to be the only one who gives a rat’s ass that Bert is dead.
5. Kids will surprise you. Sally, now all grown up and as lovely as her mummy, has had her share of childhood trauma. A child of divorce, she witnessed her dad having sex with the neighbor, family friend Roger being orally pleased by Megan’s mother from France, and a multitude of other bad behavior from the adults in her life. It’ll be a miracle if this kid ever has a normal relationship. When Betty’s college friend comes to visit the McMansion with her family, we assume the reason Sally’s prancing around the house in lipstick and skirts is to impress the hunky older brother, a high school jock. But we soon realize it’s the younger brother, a geek Sally’s age who spends time alone philosophizing and gazing at the stars through his telescope, who floats her boat. Now if only some of that romanticism would rub off on Don.
6. There will always be people who can’t handle technology. This season the agency purchases the IBM System/360, which is basically the world’s first office computer. Half the staff thinks the machine is the best thing they’ve seen since the electric typewriter, but some of the less-progressive ones are dubious. This George Orwellian creature takes up too much space. It hisses strange noises at night. According to copywriter Michael Ginsberg (who, before this season, we had no idea was a homophobe), it plans to “turn us all homo.” In a gruesome plot twist worthy of Game of Thrones, Ginsberg is possessed by the computer and goes all Van Gogh on us, cutting off his nipple and presenting it to Peggy in a box. You see, now that he’s “cut off the tap,” his love for her can flow. Ah, it all makes sense now. Needless to say, the last time we see Ginsberg he’s leaving the building in a straight jacket.
7. Love is worth holding out for. When Joan’s friend Bob Benson proposes marriage she tells him flat-out that he “shouldn’t be with a woman.” (Before this, there were only clues that he might be gay.) She also tells him that she wants love and would “rather die hoping it happens than make some arrangement.” Sure, she’s a single mom living with her mother in a two-bedroom apartment. But she’s already worked her way up from secretary to partner, and she’s got the most va-va-voom figure on all the cable networks combined, so why should she settle? You go, Joan.
8. You will get over him. When Don and Betty split, Betty remarried quickly but eventually spiraled into despair. She was perpetually grumpy with her kids and put on a lot of weight (sure, the actress who plays her, January Jones, was pregnant in real life, so it was a convenient weight gain). She even slept with Don once after the divorce, leaving viewers to believe she still carried the torch for him. But this season a slimmer, more confident, relatively cheerful Betty emerges, declaring that she now just thinks of Don as a really bad ex-boyfriend. Good for you, girl. What do you need that alcoholic womanizer for, when you now have a house straight out of Dark Shadows and a controlling politician husband old enough to be your father? Life is good.
9. Some situations require two bad cops. Roger and his ex-wife Mona drive together out of the city to track down their daughter, who’s abandoned her son to go live on a hippie commune. As expected, Mona plays the part of the worried-sick, self-righteous mother, while Roger retains his status as the cool parent who’s just here to talk, sleep in a barn and smoke a joint with the boyfriend who looks like Jesus. Eventually, though, Roger realizes that his daughter’s truly gone off the deep end and requires some tough love. He grabs her, puts her over his shoulder and tries to drive her back to Manhattan but instead ends up rolling in the mud like one of the pigs on the commune. You’re so hot right now, Roger, you just know Mona’s gonna want you when you get back to that Motel 6.
10. Some of the most beautiful male-female relationships have nothing to do with sex. Peggy and Don have had some real office (read: platonic) chemistry for seasons now. First he tucked her, fresh out of the secretarial pool, under his wing, nurtured her writing skills and helped mold her into one bad-ass copy chief. Then he assisted her in covering up the birth of her and Peter’s love child. Don’s always been in awe of Peggy’s feminist ways and chutzpah. She’s always admired his creative genius and swagger. This season Peggy is forced to act as Don’s supervisor on the Burger Chef account, an all-but-futile task until Don decides to cooperate. He eventually does so, not only because he realizes he must play the game in order to regain his former status at the agency, but also because he truly respects Peggy. The last two episodes in which he pumps her up to take the lead on the account and then dances cheek-to-cheek with her are priceless. As is the revelation that the only woman in the office Don hasn’t screwed is perhaps his favorite broad of all.
