EJ - The finales for the first two seasons of Mad Men weren’t exactly what I’d call “rousing”.  Lest we forget, Season One ended with Don Draper weeping alone on the stairs of his empty house, and Season Two brought us Pete Campbell cradling his shotgun on the eve of the Cuban Missile Crisis.  And considering the two most recent episodes have been relentlessly dark, I was expecting the worst.  Who knew that at least once this week I would be saying “Oh, hell yeah!”?

Of course, the finale wasn’t without its darkness.  The Draper marriage has fallen apart, and surprisingly, Miss Farrell wasn’t to blame.  After weeks of indicating that she had a bit of the Fatal Attraction in her, she ended up backing off.  No, it was pregnancy fetishist Henry Francis who dealt the killing blow.

Don is characteristically dismissive of Betty’s mention of divorce.  (“Maybe you should see a doctor.  A good one this time.”)  Betty is being wholly disingenuous here, blaming everything on Don.  And here’s the thing, she’s right to blame him.  He’s had numerous affairs.  He’s lied to her the entire time.  But that’s not why Betty wants a divorce.  She wants a divorce because of Henry.  Let’s not forget, Betty is cheating and has done so before.  And Henry wasn’t a revenge thing, like her hook-up with Captain Awesome last season. This affair began before she ever found the Mystery Box, and she never did find out about Miss Farrell.  Betty has a lot of things she can blame on Don, but this isn’t one of them.

And it’s fair to say that an actual relationship with Henry is inevitably going to fail.  He’s only seen the version of Betty that she’s willing to present to the world.  He’s only seen the adult version of Betty, the version that keeps her sexuality at or near the surface.  Henry hasn’t seen when Betty retreats behind a childish façade.  The man doesn’t know what he’s getting into here.  And check out Betty’s visit with the attorney – women did not have an easy time getting a divorce back then.  (Though it made me angry the way she sat there with Henry and denied that there had been infidelity on her part.  Dear Betty Draper:  It turns out I do stink.  Sincerely, your shit.)

I have to say, I’m going to miss Conrad Hilton.  I love his interactions with Don, where he’s some sort of excitable yet easily disappointed oracle.  Don lets on to some genuine resentment in their scene together, though.  It’s not just that Connie is irritating, but he’s almost affectionate with Don, in that way where Don’s father issues get all short-circuited.  (He even mentions Connie calling him “son” as a point of contention.)  I think this is all what prompts Don’s flashback to his father’s death.

Don’s father died because he was stubborn, drunk, and stupid.  We see that he refused to go along with his co-op and tried to hold back on selling his wheat.  When desperation forces him to bring that wheat into town on a drunken midnight run, a horse kicks his head in.  We knew that he was killed by a horse, but we didn’t know that little Dick was right there when it happened.  I’m trying to decide what lesson he learned from this – certainly not one about drinking and driving.  At least it does give him a better motive for that cash he keeps in the drawer of mystery – he wasn’t planning on running away; he was making sure there’d be something for when winter hit (figuratively).  It makes sense that a child of the Depression wouldn’t keep all his money in a bank, after all.

Once Don learns that PP&L is being sold, it brings out the absolute best in the characters.  It takes some doing, but even Bert Cooper shows some steel.  Look at the way he folded for the original sale of Sterling Cooper last season.  It takes a little bit of cajoling from Don, but Bert does shift into action mode, which is something we’ve never really seen from him.

When the original plan is to try and buy back Sterling Cooper, there are some fascinating interactions with Roger.  Note that the scene opens with him telling Jane to “stop reading the paper”, and there’s a complete lack of an emotional reaction when Bert calls her “a trollop”.  He and Don are great together, where they’re both clearly hurt by the way their relationship has fallen apart, though neither can come out and admit it or even talk about why that might have happened.

It was great to watch the guys try to win over Lane Pryce (Roger:  “We have tea.”).  But what pushes him over the edge is that his bosses didn’t tell him that they had been sold.  Add that to the humiliation of nearly being sent off to Parts Unknown for his next assignment, and Lane is a convert.  Who would have known we’d have sympathy for the guy by the end of the season?  Heck, even Don is convinced of his usefulness, and they’ve been butting heads all year.  The plan to fire Bert, Don, and Roger is nothing short of genius.  Don has a non-compete clause in his contract, but firing him would break it.

I’m impressed that Don’s first thoughts are to get Pete and Peggy on the team.  I’m legitimately surprised by Pete, since Don has never seemed to respect his work that much.  However, Don recognizes that Pete is a scrapper, and that’s what they’ll need.  I think Don’s going to be good at this.  However, he’s not so great with Peggy, where he actually forgets to ask her to join, rather he tells her that she’s a part of it.  Initially, Peggy refuses.  Based on that pitch, that’s the right call.

As for Pete, Don and Roger do a brilliant job.  They give Pete the one thing he wants:  approval.  They recognize that Pete is the kind of guy who has a strong grasp on the future, and Don comes right out and says that he, specifically, needs Pete on the team.  Once Don says that, you know Pete is along for the ride.  I like that they make him a partner but don’t put his name in the title.  Besides recognizing what he’s good at, they also know that Pete needs a goal to reach for as well.  They’ve dismissed him for three years, but Don and Roger really have been keeping an eye on Pete.  By the way, at the end of this scene, even the musical score is jaunty.  The score sounds like a 60’s romantic comedy about a scrappy girl reporter, and it fits so perfectly.

In a nice scene with Don and Roger, it turns out that everybody but Don knows about Henry Francis and Betty.  Not so long ago, this would have sent Don into a violent fury.  And yes, he’s angry and more physical than can really be justified, but he’s quite rational when he confronts Betty.  In fact, most of what he says (with the exception of calling the mother of his children “a whore”) is completely correct.

By the way, funniest scene in the episode is Pete and Harry Crane in the elevator.  It’s so awkward and hilarious, and Pete announcing “Hey everybody!  Harry Crane is here!” absolutely killed me.  A close second is their pitch to Harry, with Bert threatening to lock him in a supply closet.  It’s a nice touch that Bert makes the pitch himself, echoing that awkward conversation he had with Harry last season.  And another thing that makes this scene great is the way nobody can figure out where the necessary materials are.  You know who Roger is calling, but that doesn’t make it any less awesome when it does happen.

Of course, before you-know-who shows up to save the day, we get a sharp scene of Betty and Don talking to the kids.  I’ve lived through this scene, and like Bobby, I wondered what I did wrong.  If Mom and Dad brought you into the living room, you knew you were about to get nailed.  This scene is just so perfect – there’s not a lot I can say about it, since it’s working on such an emotional level for me, but without knowing anything about Matthew Weiner’s childhood, it seems clear to me that he too has been called into the living room while Mom and Dad explain that it isn’t his fault.

I respect Don for coming back to Peggy with a legitimate request.  He’s a product of his time, and it’s weird for him to talk to Peggy the way he would to a man.  It’s not an easy thing for him to do, and he manages to talk honestly and directly.  He even opens up a little, which is something he tries not to do when talking to somebody who he plans to see again.  And “I will spend the rest of my life trying to hire you” is one of my favorite lines of the year, especially the way John Hamm delivers it.  It’s a brilliant scene.

After a couple of wrenching scenes, Joan shows up at Sterling Cooper to make sense of everything.  You can’t deny how fantastic that is.  And with another jaunty score, the guys begin looting the office, including Don kicking in the Art Department door.  Actually, I was really hoping that they would realize their new company is going to need an artist.  I suppose I was just getting greedy, imagining they’d bring Sal into the fold this quickly.  It’s going to happen, though.  Mark my words.  And even if he doesn’t, he could end up back at the original Sterling Cooper, since the people who fired him are gone.  (Enough main cast members remain at the firm that I think we’ll continue to see the old place.)

You know, it’ll be difficult not to refer to Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce as the Michael Scott Paper Company, but I’ll do my best.  It’s neat that they’re based out of a hotel room now – on Mad Men, hotel rooms are usually dark symbols.  You use a hotel room to cheat on your wife.  You stay in a hotel room when your wife throws you out.  They are not associated with positive emotions, and yet, this suite is absolutely bustling with energy and promise for the future.  Despite the obvious uncertainty, it’s hard not to feel a sense of unlimited possibility.  For the first time, Mad Men ends a season on a positive note.

And yes, there are some looming questions.  Considering that every time we’ve seen Lane’s wife, she’s gone on about how she hates living in New York, I can’t imagine she’ll take this well.  Can Don and Company compete with the big boys?  Is it really a good idea for Pete and Peggy to share a desk?  What about Betty and Henry?  Where’s Sal?  Will Duck directly attack the new firm?  Does this mean that Ken Cosgrove is now the highest ranking person at the old Sterling Cooper?

Even with those worries, the darkest season ever ends on an exciting and positive note.  And after the characters have been slaves to history for so long, we get to see Don and the rest attacking the future with new optimism, only three weeks after the Kennedy Assassination.  While they’re people of their time, they don’t have to be defined by it.  Don Draper and company aren’t metaphors for a bygone time – they’re characters in their own right.  One way or another, they’re defining their own futures, and it’s such an exciting thing to watch.

If you’ll excuse me, I’m now going to pretend that Trudy Campbell and Miss Farrell have somehow been displaced in time and somehow find themselves, respectively, attending community college and taking care of the child of an FBI agent tasked with solving the mysterious “Flash Forwards” that have plagued the world.

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