Person to Person (Mad Men)

"Person to Person"
Mad Men episode

The final shot of Don Draper. The scene caused several critics to interpret the ending of the series in different ways.
Episode no. Season 7
Episode 14
Directed by Matthew Weiner
Written by Matthew Weiner
Featured music "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing (In Perfect Harmony)" by
The Hillside Singers
Original air date May 17, 2015 (2015-05-17)
Running time 57 minutes[1]
Guest actors

"Person to Person" is the series finale of the American television drama series Mad Men and the 92nd episode of the series overall. The episode was written and directed by series creator Matthew Weiner, and originally aired on AMC on May 17, 2015.

Plot

In the fall of 1970, Don calls Sally from Utah, where he's witnessed Gary Gabelich's Blue Flame break the land speed record at the Bonneville Speedway. Sally gives Don the news about Betty's cancer diagnosis and states her desire to have the family stay with Henry. Phoning Betty next, Don implores to have his children live with him. However, Betty insists upon leaving them with her brother and his wife, stating they need stability and "a woman in their lives," things that Don cannot provide. Making his way further west to California, Don reunites with Anna Draper's niece Stephanie, who has left her child with her grandmother. She is en route to an Esalen-like, oceanside spiritual retreat further up the state's coastline, and decides to take Don with her.

Meanwhile, Joan and Richard discuss relocating and starting a new life together when she receives a business proposition from her old colleague Kenny. She then offers Peggy a partnership in a film production company she is starting. Richard is displeased with Joan's professional ambition and leaves. Roger tells Joan he is marrying Marie, and he wants to give a large part of his estate to his and Joan's son, Kevin.

Back at the Francis residence, Sally has returned home from boarding school. Explaining that she missed her family, she cancels her summer plans to travel to Madrid in order to spend more time in the household. Noticing that Bobby has burned his toast, Sally offers to show him how to do it properly.

Later at the retreat, Stephanie abandons Don after receiving troubling feedback about leaving her child with his paternal grandparents. Stuck in the coastal region with no means of leaving for several days, a distraught Don calls Peggy in her office. Peggy pleads for him to return home and to his job, insisting McCann Erickson would gladly take him back and there is work to be done with the Coca-Cola account. Don then confesses many of his wrongdoings to Peggy: stealing another man's name, breaking his marriage vows and scandalizing Sally, and confides that the main reason he called was he never bid her goodbye.

After Don hangs up, Peggy discusses her disturbing call with Stan. Though Peggy is concerned for her mentor, Stan reasons that Don has disappeared off the radar many times before, often returning revitalized with bigger and better ideas. When the discussion turns into another argument, Stan reveals his true feelings for Peggy. Peggy initially seems flustered, but realizes she loves him too. He then rushes to her office where they kiss. Peggy also ultimately turns down Joan's partnership offer.

A counselor at the camp notices that Don is upset and persuades him to attend the retreat's confessional seminar later that evening. During the meeting Don sees a fellow attendee (Evan Arnold) confess to feeling unloved and overlooked, at home and at work. At one point the man, named Leonard, speaks of a dream where he is an item in a refrigerator no one selects and this leads him to break down. Don, in commiseration, embraces Leonard and breaks down as well.

The episode (and the series as a whole) ends with a montage of the fates of the major characters: Pete, Trudy, and Tammy board a Learjet that will take them to their new lives in Wichita. Joan operates her new business, Holloway Harris, from her dining room while her mother looks after her son. Roger and Marie sit in a cafe in Paris during their honeymoon and muse about an elderly couple seated nearby. Sally does housework and tends to her younger brothers, while Betty smokes a cigarette and reads behind her. Peggy, hard at work on an assignment, receives a loving embrace from Stan. Finally, Don, seated in the lotus position, meditates and chants at the ocean-side retreat when a half-smile comes to his face. The show then smash cuts to the groundbreaking 1971 "Hilltop" television advertisement for Coca-Cola, created by McCann Erickson.

Reception

Critical reception

The finale received a 92% rating at Rotten Tomatoes with an average score of 8.7 out of 10 based on 52 reviews. The site's consensus reads, "'Person to Person' shoulders the burden of concluding a masterpiece by avoiding predictability while still offering a sweet sendoff for most of Mad Men's main characters.[2] The episode, however, also inspired diverse reactions from critics.

Maureen Ryan of The Huffington Post felt that "some past season finales were more satisfying and resonant than the series finale was" but felt the ending for Stan and Peggy was great.[3] Alan Sepinwall of HitFix felt the Stan and Peggy aspect, while "as sappy and wish-fullfillment-y as Mad Men has ever gotten", was "a fair way to end things" for her character. At the same time he expressed concern that Don's ending might well be "a very cynical and dark take on a man I wanted better from."[4] Although Megan Garber of The Atlantic found Don's ending "a pleasant shock".[5] John Teti of The A.V. Club gave the episode a perfect "A" grade.[6]

Evan Arnold's brief role as "Leonard", and his "refrigerator speech" also received notice and praise.[7][8]

Ratings

The original broadcast on May 17, 2015, was watched by an estimated 3.287 million viewers.[9]

Ending interpretation

The series finale ends with Don Draper meditating on a hilltop and cuts to the iconic 1971 "Hilltop" television advertisement for Coca-Cola, which leaves viewers to interpret whether Don created the ad. In real life, the ad was created by Bill Backer of McCann Erickson — the agency for which Don works at the time of the finale.[10] Many critics interpret the ending as the commercial having been created by Don,[11][12][13] as does actor Jon Hamm.[14] Both McCann Erickson and Coca-Cola interpret that Don created the ad.[13] Critics also have noted similarities between the woman working at the commune where Don stays in the finale and a woman in the Coke commercial.[13] Other critics say writer-creator Matthew Weiner left it deliberately ambiguous,[15][16] with Sonia Saraiya of Salon.com encapsulating it as: "It’s not subtle; it’s just really ambiguous. Maybe, when Don finishes his meditation, he stands up and walks out of the California retreat that he hobos his way into and gets on a plane back to New York City, with the fully formed idea for 'I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke' in his head. Or maybe, when he finishes, he gets up to spend another day living a new, possibly purer life, as neither Don Draper nor Dick Whitman but whatever he is that is underneath both of those costumes."[17]

Series creator and episode writer Matthew Weiner said in an interview after the finale:

I did hear rumblings of people talking about the ad being corny. And it's a little bit disturbing to me, getting back to this sort of cynicism, I'm not saying that advertising's not corny, but I'm saying that the people who find that ad corny are kind of — they're probably experiencing a lot of life that way and they're missing out on something ... and the idea that some enlightened state and not just cooption might have created something that is very pure.[18] [...] In the abstract, I did think, like, y'know, why not end this show with the greatest commercial ever made? Y'know? But in terms of what it means to people and everything, I am, again, not for ambiguity for ambiguity's sake. But it was nice to sort of have your cake and eat it too, in terms of what is advertising, who is Don and what is that thing?"[19]

Weiner has also said of the ending, "We leave everybody slightly improved".[20]

Accolades

Matthew Weiner was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series and the episode received four further nominations in technical categories.[21][22] Both Jon Hamm and Elisabeth Moss submitted this episode in consideration for their Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Lead Actor and Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series, respectively.[23] Hamm won the award at the 67th Primetime Emmy Awards ceremony on September 20, 2015, after being nominated eight consecutive times.[24] Weiner was nominated for the Writers Guild of America Award for Television: Episodic Drama for this episode.[25] Weiner was also nominated for the Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directing – Drama Series at the 68th Directors Guild of America Awards.[26]

References

  1. ↑ "Mad Men, The Final Season". iTunes. Retrieved July 25, 2015.
  2. ↑ "Person to Person". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved July 17, 2015.
  3. ↑ Ryan, Maureen (May 18, 2015). "'Mad Men' Finale: What Was Awesome, What Was Frustrating And Why It's Hard To Let Go". The Huffington Post. Retrieved July 17, 2015.
  4. ↑ Sepinwall, Alan (May 18, 2015). "Series finale review: 'Mad Men' - 'Person to Person': I'd like to buy the world a Coke?". HitFix. Retrieved July 17, 2015.
  5. ↑ Garber, Megan (May 18, 2015). "Mad Men: A New Day, a New You". The Atlantic. Retrieved July 17, 2015.
  6. ↑ Teti, John (May 18, 2015). "Mad Men: “Person To Person”". The A.V. Club. Retrieved July 17, 2015.
  7. ↑ Zuckerman, Esther (May 18, 2015). "Meet the Actor Who Made Don Draper Cry on Mad Men". Time. Retrieved July 17, 2015.
  8. ↑ Harris, Aisha (May 19, 2015). "How Do You Make Don Draper Cry? An Interview With the Actor Who Played Leonard.". Salon. Retrieved July 17, 2015.
  9. ↑ Kondolojy, Amanda (May 19, 2015). "Sunday Cable Ratings: 'Game of Thrones' Tops Night + 'Keeping Up With the Kardashians', 'Mad Men' & More". TV by the Numbers. Retrieved May 19, 2015.
  10. ↑ Nordyke, Kimberly (May 18, 2015). "'Mad Men' Series Finale: The Real Story Behind That Coke Ad". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on May 20, 2015. Retrieved May 20, 2015.
  11. ↑ Hill, Logan (May 18, 2015). "Mad Men’ Series Finale Recap: The Door Closes, The Light Goes Off". The New York Times. Archived from the original on May 20, 2015. Retrieved May 20, 2015.
  12. ↑ Maerz, Melissa (May 17, 2015). "'Person to Person': The AMC series comes to an end... or is it a beginning?". Entertainment Weekly. Archived from the original on May 20, 2015. Retrieved May 20, 2015.
  13. 1 2 3 McDonald, Soraya Nadia (May 18, 2015). "Did ‘Mad Men’s’ Don Draper go back to McCann-Erickson just to give the world a Coke ad?". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on May 20, 2015. Retrieved May 20, 2015.
  14. ↑ Itzkoff, Dave (May 18, 2015). "Jon Hamm Talks About the ‘Mad Men’ Series Finale". The New York Times. Archived from the original on May 20, 2015. Retrieved May 20, 2015.
  15. ↑ Sepinwall, Alan (May 18, 2015). "Series finale review: 'Mad Men' - 'Person to Person': I'd like to buy the world a Coke?". HitFix. Archived from the original on May 21, 2015. Retrieved May 20, 2015.
  16. ↑ Raczka, Rachel (May 18, 2015). "‘Mad Men’ finale: Did Don Draper create the Coke ad?". Boston.com. Archived from the original on May 20, 2015. Retrieved May 20, 2015. Cut to Coca Cola’s famed Hilltop ad spot, and we’ve been left to wonder: Did Don write this?
  17. ↑ Saraiya, Sonia (May 18, 2015). "'Mad Men' finale recap: 'Someday, people are going to brag that they worked with you'". Salon.com. Archived from the original on May 19, 2015. Retrieved May 20, 2015.
  18. ↑ Matthew Weiner LIVE from the NYPL (Part 2). Event occurs at 52:05. Archived from the original on May 21, 2015. Retrieved May 21, 2015.
  19. ↑ Matthew Weiner LIVE from the NYPL (Part 2). Event occurs at 55:19. Archived from the original on May 21, 2015. Retrieved May 21, 2015.
  20. ↑ Birnbaum, Debra (May 21, 2015). "Matt Weiner on 'Mad Men' finale: 'We leave everybody slightly improved'". Variety. Retrieved May 22, 2015.
  21. ↑ "Emmy nominations 2015: The list". CNN. July 16, 2015. Retrieved July 17, 2015.
  22. ↑ "Mad Men". Television Academy of Arts & Sciences. Retrieved July 17, 2015.
  23. ↑ "Emmys 2015: Complete List of Episode Submissions". GoldDerby. Retrieved August 22, 2015.
  24. ↑ Gettell, Oliver (September 20, 2015). "Jon Hamm wins lead actor Emmy for Mad Men after eight tries". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved September 21, 2015.
  25. ↑ Hipes, Patrick; Andreeva, Nellie (December 3, 2015). "WGA TV Nominations: 'Better Call Saul', 'Mr Robot', 'Kimmy Schmidt' Lead Cable & Streaming Domination". Deadline.com. Retrieved December 3, 2015.
  26. ↑ Kilday, Gregg (February 6, 2016). "2016 DGA Awards: The Complete Winners List". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved February 9, 2016.

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Monday, April 25, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.