The show is over! And what a long ride it has been! The AMC Original Series Mad Men, that really put this network, has finally come to an end. After 8 years and 7 seasons this show is over. It's unreal to think that this show first began when I was finished high school and now after college it's finally over. This finale was a fitting ending for these characters but there are a few things that I did not enjoy.
First off, I felt like it took us awhile to get here and that was mainly due to AMC's beloved use of breaking the season up into two separate parts. They did it for Breaking Bad and they also did it for Mad Men. I, however, didn't think that Mad Men benefited from this. Between the last time I saw Don at the end episode 7 to the time I saw him in episode 8, I've watched a number of shows and the amount of space I have available to me to remember exactly what has been going on with these characters is limited because, I've seen a ton of different television shows in that time from the Americans, American Crime, Halt and Catch Fire, The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, and the list goes on and on. And for the type of drama that Mad Men is, they need to keep the audience interested because it is such an incredibly slow moving drama that focuses on characters development. BUT, if I can’t even remember where the characters were a year ago, it’s tough for me to still be interested. I think the show suffered from this and like I wrote at the beginning of this final “season” it didn’t feel like a premiere to me. AMC should have just kept the show going all the way through and ended it there.
The aspects of this finale I did enjoy was that the viewers finally got to witness Don engaging in some form of therapy, which he needed from the get-go. He obviously suffered from his experience within the war and from his upbringing but his only solace was women and alcohol and finally, FINALLY, the viewers get to see Don actually allow himself to feel and be an individual.
I also feel that although we experienced closure for most of the characters, it wasn’t complete closure. It was more a see you later rather than a complete goodbye. Characters like Pete and Trudy had some great last moments while the interaction between Stan and Peggy was not scripter well but ultimately it was pretty good. Joan’s last scenes were….okay. I felt that the fact that she had to choose between work and play was a bit much because this character has already been through enough but again I liked the direction they left her in.
So what did you think about the last episode? Did you love it, hate it, feel indifferent to it? Let me know!
Also, Game of Thrones showed what I felt was its weakest episode thus far within the season which is such a shame. I am an avid book reader and a huge fan of the Game of Thrones book series so when I heard that not only was this season going to move past the books but was also going to show Dorn, I was beyond excited. I loved how Dorn was portrayed within the books and the fact that I was going to actually be surprised and have no idea what was going to happen, excited me. But, this past episode seemed to be an indication that Benioff and Weiss may not be the best writers for this series.
My major problem with this episode was twofold and involved the finale scene and the Sand Snakes. Now the Sand Snakes, in the books, are ruthless cunning powerful women and in the show they are annoying, insipid, unintelligent, and piss-poor fighters. I mean they have spent this entire time planning on taking the Princess and yet they somehow manage to show up at the exact same time as Bron and Jamie, even though they live in the same village where the kidnapping and murder was supposed to take place. But they all arrive at the same time. Okay so they are all there at the same time, so it must be time for a well-choreographed fight scene? Nope. Instead Jamie takes on whip woman and she doesn’t just pull out a sword and stab him instead she lassos his arm and there are other various weird stunts that are pulled that allowed all of the characters to conveniently not kill each other. Most of all, this scene just made the Sand Snakes storyline even more silly and could potentially close up their participation within this series which is incredibly frustrating.
Lastly, the final scene did not need to happen. I get it. Ramsay is a terrible person, Theon is broken, and Sansa is a powerless female. But really. We needed to witness another scene in which another female is broken for the purposes of what? We already knew the situation of all three characters it wasn’t like all of a sudden we had forgotten any of that. It just reaffirmed beliefs and feelings that we already had concerning the characters, it wasn’t anything new. It just seemed cheap and unwarranted. What did you think of last week’s episode? Loved it? Hated it?
Written by cwm on May 25, 2015
Oh, my sweet summer child.... revisiting my comment over 5 years later and I had such high hopes for this series. Really disappointed with how the series ended. WELP
I love GoT and have loved every episode this season despite a lot of criticism towards it. I agree that the Sand Snakes sub plot hasn't been the best, but the Sansa story arc is great. Also the last episode Hardhome (I believed aired after this article was written) was amazing, and I have great hopes for tonight's episode and the season finale. Also I believe that Benioff and Weiss are AMAZING writers, having written 80% of the episodes across all the seasons, I think it is rather harsh to judge them on one episode alone. Cheers.
Sansa is actually a very powerful woman--she simply lacks physical force, for now. But she withstands the force of a man who is impotent in every other way. It's Ramsay who is powerless and must resort to rape/torture to validate himself. His sense of power is counterfeit. The brutality of that scene, I think, is to set up the reversal of force that will bring Ramsay to his knees. Sometimes implication is better than direct viewing, but GOT is just not that kind of show.