Mad Men, Season 6 Review: Don in Flames.

One of the most frustrating aspects of Mad Men's long lived and well deserved cultural relevance is how many misinterpret the entire point of the character of Don. Don isn't a tragic hero, he's a tragic monster. A developmentally arrested child who lives in constant fear of both commitment and malaise. Dana Gould (a great comedian with an awesome podcast) went on the record saying he doesn't like watching Mad Men because, and I'm paraphrasing here, "I knew Don Draper in the 80's. You don't want to see that." That's what season 6 is all about, this is the fall of Don, and it's stupendously hard to watch.

His luck was bound to run out sooner or later, but I never figured his worst enemy would wind up being himself. He's been known to skip work before, but this year he seems to spend half his day having an affair with a woman living a single floor above his wife. Speaking of, Megan Draper finally gets the soap opera role of her dreams only to have Don throw one of his classic double-speak smoulder-tantrums once she gets her first love scene. Come on Don, she was playing a french maid for Christ's sake.

His quality of work tapers off to an enormous degree, not that he's not the crack shot idea man he always was, but he's too proud now. He wrests defeat from the jaws of his agency's victory several times with long and painful diatribes to client's faces. "Don, what in the holy f**k, is wrong with you?!" was yelled at the screen several times, by me, during my weekend long binge watch. I probably shouldn't have done that in retrospect. If I had kept up week to week I may have forgiven him for his lighter crimes. But stringing it all together paints an awful portrait of a terminally selfish man that, like a bloody car wreck, is impossible to look away from. But as bad as Don's year was, someone else's was even worse:

It's the motion of the ocean, Pete.

Ol' Petey really took it on the jaw this year, and I probably should have enjoyed his well deserved misery more than I did, but there is a point where a man's torture (justified or not) goes too far and you finally feel sorry for the little creep. I suppose that was the entire point this season too. There are no heroes or villains in Mad Men. Don is not the dashing, blameless, rogue and Pete is not the social climbing brown noser. They are men, and men can be two things. With Trudy finally kicking him out of the house and his mother's mind caving in, Pete had his hands full. He never apologized to his wife or truly went out of his way to help his mother...because he's friggin' PETE, but what happens to him wouldn't be fair to any of us.

Now, I did loose the plot somewhere at the end of a caper involving a live in nurse and in that regard I need to say that the character of Bob Benson is limp and unrealized. He's supposed to be mysterious and possibly dangerous but he just winds up being kind of annoying. Esspecially after his disappointing "SECRET" is exposed. Immediately after it was reveled who he was I heard Bert Cooper in the back of my head muttering "so what?" ...Wait! maybe that was the plan the whole time. Damn Wiener, nice one.

"I wonder what happened to my cartoonishly awful mother?"

So as the Don and Pete boats sank, the tide turned for Peggy, well, financially anyway. Romantically this season was a war zone, but I'm not going to spoil it's ups and downs. I'll just say there's a scene in an ambulance, a type of scene I can't name, but its the best scene of its kind ever made. I laughed off my chair.

Peggy's new start at another agency lets her spread her wings while also coming to grips with the reality of authority. In other words, understanding that it isn't personal when people say they don't like their boss. Soon circumstances force her to once again deal with the now toxic presence of Don in her professional life, as well as her new boss, Kevin Rham's Ted Chaough. Ted's the real get this season as the best of the new blood. You finally see a different head of creative for another firm and it's fascinating to see him contrasted with Don. Ted has his faults, but is a much better man than Don will ever hope to be...and Don knows it.

"What do I have to do for more screen time? Just...tell me."

As for the rest of the cast, they have their moments, but its really hard to keep them all straight, much less follow their arcs. Joan strives to be an actual partner instead of a glorified secretary, Rodger bungees between triumphs and set backs with snagging a General Motors account and then being slowly shut out of his daughter's (and grand son's) life. Cosgrove on amphetamine is a sight to behold and Stan's new lumber jack beard is a character in of itself. Betty suddenly dyed her hair, it was weird, the writers said "screw it", and she's now blonde and skinny again (spoiler). Still, Betty does get what I think is the best  line of the season while describing Don and Megan's relationship, keep a look out for it. 

Overall I'd say this season was the best in quite a while, I felt 5 spun it wheels a bit too much and it seems like the whole series is winding to a close now, which is exactly what I wanted. Things started making more sense as chickens came home to roost and characters were held accountable for their faults, instead of them being either forgiven or forgotten to squeeze in one more season. The relationship between Don and Sally reaches a fantastic boiling point as Kiernan Shipka continues to improve dramatically (literally) with every season. She's gonna stick the adult actor landing I just know it.

I was almost done with Mad Men after last year. When this season rolled around I didn't bat an eyelash. I mean...Game of Thrones, man. It's really good. But in absence of white walkers and red weddings I came back and I'm truly sorry I doubted. I'll admit I was less enamored by Mathew Wiener pimp slapping The Walking Dead and Breaking Bad a while back and it's taken some time for me to forgive him. I still have no idea where that money went, a bigger cast probably, but it did not go to waste in my eyes. This was a great season of TV with the amphetamine episode being my new personal favorite. I'm happy with the fact it ends next year, its ready. Better yet, it knows its ready.