i was sitting on the edge of my sofa the entire episode!

SO GOOD to see Big Red (joan) back in the mix!

i wonder if brian batt will join them as art director next season?

betz is making a GD fool of herself.

"You're a whore!  You know that?  You got everything and you loved it!"  Classic.

I hope Betty is happy in her palace of ice, riding about in her reindeer sleigh, offering Turkish Delight to young British children.

Don is going to be a multi-millionaire and we all know that Henry's Rockefeller support isn't going to mean squat.

Joan is indespensible, yes.  Good to see Peggy along for the ride too.  I liked that scene in Don's office when he got that reaction from her.  I would have laughed if he had mouthed "Fuck!" as she walked out the door.

Great season finale!  Now I have to wait til next year to see how SCD&P turns out?  Damn!

Good to see Betty flying out to Reno.  Maybe Frances can have a heart attack out there in the desert during the "vacation".  Nice move leaving the kids at home with the housekeeper, Mom!  Especially during the Xmas season.

Also glad to see the core cast reassembled into a new operating unit.  Good way to clear the scoreboards and start fresh.  Thumbs up all around, I think.

Sterling, Cooper, Draper, and Price?

That's a bit of a mouthful, isn't it?

Its hard to say who I am most happy for.   If I had to pick one it would be Price.  How they treated him like shit on their shoes.  A vile mixture of contempt and indifference.  The flameout firing and his chipper response with a smile on his face was so classy.  I hope he returns their snake basket gag gift with a thank you card with something clever.  Second would be Peggy as she deserves her due as she wasn’t Don’s puppy.  Next person would be Pete who from the very first pilot had more vision than Don with the smoking account pushing to use psychological studies pushing the danger aspect.  He’s been forward thinking and has overcome almost more baggage from his past as Don has.   And I love Trudy her capacity for forgiveness great spirit for change and her support of Pete who I think has been worth supporting since season 2.


Joan next, was always good a what she did.   She was good at finding the male version of Betty,  Pretty shallow,  she helped and nurtured the monster that make’s her a victim/with any luck or assistance from a subordinate a grenade will go off in his tent.

Henry is also a visionary with media and could be the captain sitting on top of Rolls Royce twin 1,000 hp turbo engines that will propel the firm.   Quiz Shows are just around the corner,  Harry could be the one who pulls off the biggest game show that never gets caught   

Rodger serves as both the court jester and the King.   At SC when Paul bust into Petty’s office is was a towfer amn! They didn:t take me and Damn with Peggy gone who’s going to pull my worthless as out of the fire in every pitch/

Small point, but I think you mean Harry. Henry (Francis) is that boring old guy stuck in the 50's whose methods and life would be swept aside by the spirit of the sixties, and is someone whom Betty would regret to have met.

BUt yeah, I sympathize with the original poster.  What an episode!  A fresh start almost.  In a way i feel cheated in that next season's mad men wouldn't be the same Mad men.  But.. that's life.  The 60's has kicked in, albeit a bit belatedly, just as the 00's for us didn't really kick in until those two (three? maybe even four) planes made history.

I guess I'm the only one who thought everything was a little dull (aside from the "you're a whore" scene).  I thought something big would happen.  The idea of all the main dudes breaking away from SC was not very surprising, was it?  That's what they do in that business, over and over again. And Betty left to get a divorce?  Didn't we already know this?
Maybe I'm being unreasonable, but that's how I felt. Don't forget, I leave my house to go watch this.

I get what you're saying, Becky. But I think MadMen is always understated in that regard. I'm just miffed we have to wait a whole year to see it again.

I have to say I got a tad teary when Don said to Peggy "I'll just spend the rest of my life trying to hire you." I'm so glad she got credit. I'm glad Joan is essential. And Harry should have been the first person they brought on board. The media department is where all the money is made in an agency.

You're right, adgal.  Understated.  I agree with that.  I also love Roger, who makes me laugh out loud.  Do you see Peggy as sort of a Mary Wells prototype?  If the show continues, I see her going out on her own too.

I watched the episode last night not realizing it was the season finale until my husband told me this morning.  It doesn't seem that long ago that the season began.  At any rate, I enjoyed the ep immensely.  So glad to see Draper and Sterling re-united.  Their interplay gives the show some extra crackle.  I am really glad Joan is back - for a number of reasons.  She is a great character and I am convinced Roger will one day wake up, dump the teenager and realize Joanie has been 'the one' all along.

It was good to see Peggy stand up for herself and nice to see Don appreciate her.  Good to see Pete stand up for himself in a non-whiny, non-manipulative way.  I love his wife!  He may not fully realize it but, she is the best thing that ever happened to him.  As for Betty whose character I have defended a number of times, why the hell is she leaving her two kids alone to go to Reno?  Why not let their father stay in the house while she's away?  At least they'd have one parent in this time of upset.  That behaviour is disgusting.  Unfortunately, for everyone who wants to see Betty and Don come to an end, I don't think it's going to happen.  Somehow they will stay together.  I think that Don's line to Peggy about spending the rest of his life trying to hire her, was also meant to refer to his relationship with Betty.  Don is much more impulsive and emotionally reactive than he first appears.  The scene with Peggy came right after a scene with Betty, just as his over-reaction and firing of Sal was preceded by another unpleasant scene for him.  Also, even with all the change afoot, it's hard to picture Mad Men without Don having the homelife. 

I am glad to see Price along with the gang.  He's been crapped on from all sides and is basically a good guy.  Wonder how his wife will react - if she's still in NYC.  Hopefully Sal goes to the new agency.  I want to see Don acknowledge Sal's talent and realize what a dipshit he was to fire him. 

All in all a great finale.  Just wish we didn't have to wait so long for the next season.

Dull maybe from the point of view of no biff, bop bam, but not from the point of view of watching everything unfold.  This episode was off to the races from the get-go, with Connie dropping the bomb on Don, the scramble to get a new firm up and running, the Drapers domestic situation coming to a head, and Joan getting back in, and tons more, whew!

Gotta hand it to Mr. Weiner - it was a "re-build in place".  Everything old is new again.

In rethinking the show it was kind of like an Andy Rooney “let’s put on a show” combined with an Ocean’s Eleven movie. “Let’s round up the old gang” could have kicked off the negotiations for starting the new firm.  It was a little too ‘by the numbers.’  It seems that MM could wrap nicely without a fourth season as everyone has found their place.

Can anyone give insight to how Roger, Bert and Don are financially?  Did the big sell of SC come in cash, stock, or I am assuming a combination of both.  If in stock did they just kill off the value by jumping ship?  They will recoup but could the SC stock loose all its value in a few years?

I think maybe you mean Mickey Rooney/Andy Hardy.  While I do agree that there was an element of deus ex machina about the whole episode, I thought on the whole that it was entirely satisfying, with Don, Peggy and Pete coming more into their own.

Based on Cooper's conversation with his sister at the end of season two, PPL paid SC a fixed amount of cash for the principals shares of stock over time (ten or fifteen years, I forget).  I can't imagine the terms of the initial sale of SC to PPL being linked to a future sale, so the cash should keep rolling in to the principals (Don, Roger and Bert) for the remainder of the term.  ME would have had to agree to assume PPL's debts as part of the sale.

Price made sure they brought along enough accounts to keep the firm solvent and provide cash flow, so they should not have to put their own money into the deal (except perhaps for start up until the billings start coming in).

"I think maybe you mean Mickey Rooney/Andy Hardy."

You are correct - an Andy Rooney movie would start, "You ever wonder why we have to put on a play in a barn?"

I was thinking exactly the same thing with the Ocean's 11 thing, James.  Every time their little caper got rolling a little faster, they'd play that jazzy, Green Onions-like track. I half expected to see a midget acrobat walk in.

The only thing missing was Salvatore. Poor guy. As long as SCD&P keeps the Lucky Strike account, Sal's out of luck.

In thinking about it some more, I wonder if M. Weiner had envisioned the three seasons as a trilogy.  Season one introduces the characters, season two introduces the plot complications for each of them and season three provides the resolution.  In some ways, many of the characters come into their own in season three.  The only one who really doesn't change much is Cooper. 

Pete is more mature, less of an ass and I think humbled by guilt over the nanny experience (which was an interesting contrast to Don, too); Peggy has achieved a level of recognition commensurate with her abilities; Don seems to have been humbled, reached a new level of insight, resolved his domestic situation (for now - like Adgal posted elsewhere, I don't think we've quite seen the end of the Drapers just yet); and, if Roger is to be believed, he's not the womanizer he once was, having found true love. 

Finally, and maybe this is wish fulfillment on my part, if he had the least sense that the show would not be picked up for another season, maybe he purposely left the fans in a good place by tying up so many loose ends (unlike the debacle at the end of "Deadwood" - I cancelled HBO over that one).

He could have envisioned it as a trilogy, for sure.  With all the things you hear about contentious negotiations between Weiner and A & E and with conjecture about MM going to Showtime, it's conceivable that he wrote it to wrap nicely in case the show went no further.

I thought he did the same thing with season 2.  He resolved Betts' and Don's marital woes @ the end of last season, Peggy gave it to Pete really good over the baby thing, and they all got rich off the sale of SC (by all, I mean Sterling, Cooper, and Don).  He tied up the major loose ends there as well.

That said, I have read a lot of stuff about the show's probable longevity.  They renewed for a 4th yr after week 2 or 3 this year.  Elizabeth Moss was interviewed recently and opined that the show would be on for a long time.  And several critics who I have read have said they have heard that the series has a 5 or 6 yr story arc.

As for Deadwood, I believe you are wrong.  How can you not love Deadwood?  I understand the outrage and felt it when they did not renew and tore down the set and all that.  But they were struggling to put together an arc for season 4.  If they could have, it would have been renewed.  Deadwood is so time sensitive...they really have to get back on that period set very quickly.  Their creator, from what I understand, went right into "John from Cincinnati."

When Deadwood ended, the big propspector had left town, and that had been the major plot intrigue for about a season and a half.  They would have had to come up with something major.  What more could have happened there?

Al wasn't going to get married and have kids.  Things had calmed with Montana.  Trixie found love with Saul.  And Dan and Wu were still gonna be up to their tricks.  They gave Deadwood almost a yr to put two 2 hour films together in lieu of a 4th season, and the plot never transpired, so they finally tore it down.

So get your HBO back, friend.  Trueblood, Hung, In treatment, Flight of the Conchords, Entourage, The Life and Times of Tim, Bored to Death, Summer Heights High...all tremndous shows and are worth having the channel.

Hey everyone, I'm brand new to the site. I've been watching since episode one and totally hooked on the show. My ibggest complaint would have to be the amount of episodes per season. Why do cable shows feel that a measly 12 or 13 episodes is enough to quench our thirst ? Especially when we have to wait so long for the following season to begin. Even LOST has cut down their seasons to 18 episodes compared to the standard 22 to 24. WE NEED MORE !!!! Anyone else feel the same way ?

Maybe we need to pace ourselves.   I haven’t grown tired on any of the charters.  I do so desperately want to see more but if I did would it get old quicker?   But overall you’re right either a few more episodes or less time between seasons.  Hence my suggestion, my post from this week, about Lounge Members writing their own weekly installments to fill in the down time.  So far I only have one other member interested in the project.


I don’t watch enough TV to make such a bold statement as to say it’s the best show ever on the tube.  Deadwood, Curb Your Enthusiasm & Mad Men are all tied for me as the most enjoyable/memorable.

I couldn't have asked for more in this finale, it was so clever. For some reason it almost feels like Season 4 will be the "real" beginning for the show. I hope this show goes on for awhile and that Betty dies in a grease fire.

I'd like to see Sally out for a joy ride in the Lincoln and "accidently" run down Betty. Not kill her, but leave her scarred for life. Lets see how far she gets without her looks !!!!

That made me laugh out loud, Cornelius.  Good one.