Mad Men – Season 7, Episode 10 – Grinding Down the Home Stretch ← FREE KRAUT!

Mad Men – Season 7, Episode 10 – Grinding Down the Home Stretch 3

I was somewhat ambivalent about this episode, but the show has become as subtle as the crappy metaphor that crossed my mind.

I should have liked this episode, with several of the more interesting characters playing major roles. And Sally is an interesting character who plays well off her parents. But the show seems determined to beat its themes into our skulls as if we hadn’t been watching it for what increasingly seems like forever. Yes, here we get more “empty apartment, empty life” metaphors, as if that wasn’t obvious enough from the last episode. We get the random young creative guy who lashes out at Don after he repeats Don’s old anecdote to a former client, word for word, and then blames Don for it. Shut up, you know-it-all. You deserved to be fired. But of course, the scene isn’t really about the random guy – his name is Mathis, I looked it up. It’s meant as more commentary on Don, coasting through life on good looks and charm. OK, fine. He takes advantage of his looks. But Mathis, after screwing the pooch, is hardly in a position to judge Don or anything about him.

Sally is another story. She is in a position to judge, and like any teenager, she judges away – with plenty of justification. Sally has already had to deal with her mother flirting with her friends in front of her (not to mention behind her back). And then when Don is flirting with her 17-year-old friends, and one in particular, Sally is disgusted. While Don tries to blame the girl, Sally is having none of it. And good for her. It’s the best scene of the show. But it comes during an episode, and a half-season, that just keeps hammering away at Don’s limited authority, both in the office and with the one child with whom he interacts on screen. Even his real estate agent gives him endless grief.

Don is supposed to write a mission statement for the company, but he’s having trouble with it, in part because he is unmotivated and directionless. Peggy’s ambition, to be the first woman creative director at the agency, seems legitimate. But Don treats her aspirations with thinly-disguised scorn that doesn’t feel deserved. He’s acting like a jerk, and I’m tired of him, because he’s the same jerk, over and over.

Glen is back, having decided to go to Vietnam because (it turns out) he flunked out of school. This is a character that’s been trotted out since the first season, and he still apparently has the same weird crush on Betty that he did in elementary school. Now he’s 18, though, and Betty is all aflutter. Sally, as noted above, is angry, both at her mother’s flirting and the news of Glen’s decision. She rushes off, then tries desperately to reach him but only gets (apparently) his mother on the phone. Only Betty gets a personal goodbye, and a kiss. Betty turns down the roll in the hay, which counts as progress, I guess.

While Glen’s reappearance is a callback, the other characters – thankfully – aren’t returning to past pairings. That’s to the show’s credit, even if it seems to have inspired some grumblings – by me, included – that the show keeps throwing in new characters down the home stretch and expecting us to care about them. But life isn’t neat and clean like that, and I will give Matthew Weiner credit for taking the more difficult road, creatively, because that’s far more realistic.

 

 

3 thoughts on “Mad Men – Season 7, Episode 10 – Grinding Down the Home Stretch

  1. FreeSeatUpgrade Apr 21,2015 9:22 am

    Another disappointing episode. Don left standing alone with no place to call home…again. Every scene seemed more about setting up each character’s ultimate ending place than actually delivering any drama. This show is ending with a whimper not a bang.

    "Kraut will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no kraut."
    • lenscrafters Apr 21,2015 4:46 pm || Up

      When I was watching this episode, I wasn’t sure who I felt worst for: Don, cause, oh look, his life still really sucks. Or us, the viewers, who had to endure the horrible acting of Weiner’s kid again.

  2. nevermoor Apr 21,2015 1:21 pm

    I like the idea I’ve seen a couple places that the last half-season was really the finale, and the point of this is that even after you get everything and have a big boisterous sendoff, everything sucks and nothing matters.

    "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"

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