ONE of the great things about the “Mad Men” finale to morrow night is that it’s not. A final finale, I mean.
And that’s to the credit of AMC, which clearly is not populated by weenie-cowards like some other networks. If it were, they too would have cut their losses weeks ago when the numbers for “Mad Men” came in and weren’t great.
Hey, maybe they should have hired Sterling-Cooper to come up with the ad campaign.
Who? If you -like most of your fellow Americans – haven’t been watching the show, let me explain. Again.
“Mad Men” takes place at Sterling-Cooper, a Madison Avenue ad agency, circa 1960, where everyone smokes and drinks excessively – at work, at lunch, at meetings, after work, after after work, at dinner parties, at clients’ offices, in bed, with their kids, while fixing dinner, while eating dinner and while driving.
And because “Mad Men” isn’t an annoying morality tale, no one dies in terrifying car crashes from overindulging in either.
The rampant misogyny alone would have called for the death of at least one male chauvinist pig, as they used to say, in a conventional TV show.
But there’s nothing conventional about “Mad Men,” which is the best show since “The Sopranos” (not surprising, since it was created by Matthew Weiner, a “Sops” producer/writer). Even tomorrow night’s finale isn’t a conventional cliffhanger – or a cliffhanger at all, actually.
That’s because it was shot before Weiner knew whether it was going to be renewed. Considerately, instead of leaving us fans hanging miserably in the middle, he ended it neatly. Nasty but neatly, a whisper not a bang.
You’ll see that it’s a helluva loud whisper, with two, count ’em two, really bizarre happenings.
After last week’s startling revelation – by the disgusting Pete (Vincent Kartheiser ) – that the dashing Don (Jon Hamm) used to be dirt-poor Dick, soldier grunt, not a fancy former officer and Purple Heart winner, I will just tell you that Don makes a brilliant, poignant pitch to Kodak for their new gizmo, the photo slides wheel.
Yup, the one Draper renames “The Carousel.”
God, I love this show.
I need to go right now and make a giant novena that it continues forever.
Failing that, I shall pray that Don Draper finds my phone number scrawled inside the 10-cent phone booth in front of Sterling Cooper’s offices on Mad Ave.