‘Mad Men’ season 7, episode 8 preview: Are we expecting almost too much?
We have yet to even see the first of the final seven episodes of “Mad Men,” and yet at the same time we can already envision the way in which this story is going to end: With a ton of complaining. This is the landscape that we live in these days with social media and opinions so readily available. Just as everyone is perpetually outraged over something, everyone also is a tough critic.
In terms of longing, this nine-plus-month hiatus for Matthew Weiner’s opus has been successful. We want to know what happens next to Don Draper more than we have ever before. Even though we do not care for Don the person at all most of the time, we’re still invested in his journey and want to see if he will flourish or fail; will he take the lessons of his past and move forward, or fall victim more to his own predictability as a character? In a sense, both are possibilities that we could face.
Unfortunately, this wait has also possibly created undue expectations that Weiner is suddenly now going to reward this patience with an ending that will actually tie together all loose ends, and we personally believe that the odds of this happening are slightly above 0%. This has never been a series that capitalizes on that huge “shocker.” It’s almost the anti-“Scandal”; while the ABC series hypes up its “OMG moments,” “Mad Men” just gives you a series of tiny, out-of-context clips that really could mean anything.
The best way to approach these final seven episodes is a search for emotional fulfillment and understanding. These are not going to be people who get everything that they want. We have to understand that. We also have to understand that their story will not end with the series finale. We just want to get a sense of where that journey is going, and that the time we’ve spent with them matters.
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