Mad Men Season Finale Review: "In Care Of"
"I don't know what I brought out in you, but I know there's a good man in there somewhere." --Ted Chaough
Mad Men's season finales, like those of Game of Thrones, tend to be relatively underwhelming, often serving the role of a gentle comedown after the climactic notes from preceding episodes. However, all of Mad Men's season-enders, even the weaker ones, are afforded the unique responsibility of taking the various thematic through-lines and character development put in place throughout the season, and snapping them all deftly into place. In each of the previous finales, there's always been that moment of clarity: "So that's what they were building towards. That's what this has all been about." Well, the third-season finale "Shut the Door. Have a Seat." basically consisted of an endless series of these revelatory moments, which is what makes it one of the most universally revered episodes of the show. Fortunately, the finale of the penultimate season, "In Care Of", takes cues from this strategy and throws nearly all our preconceived notions about this show and these characters right out the window in 45 minutes.
In case long-time viewers haven't noticed by now, it bears noting that one of the series' most consistent themes has been developing a structure that is ultimately cyclical. This applies to the plot beats of each episode, the recurrence of ever-present social and cultural upheavals in the 60s, and the stubborn inability of the show's characters to transcend their own faults, their prejudices, and their past mistakes. As Roger Sterling observes in a therapy session in this year's season premiere: "Look, life is supposed to be a path and you go along and these things happen to you and they're supposed to change you, change your direction. But it turns out that's not true. It turns out the experiences are nothing. They're just some pennies that you pick up off the floor, stick in your pocket. You're just going in a straight line to you-know-where."
The cyclical structure of life applies to this season even more than others, and nowhere is this fact more evident than in "In Care Of". There are a number of callbacks to the sixth season premiere, to the first season finale, and even to the show's pilot itself. This element of recurrence points to the idea that Mad Men is a show about the tension inherent between our American ideal that life is a path of growth and redemption and absolution, and the ugly reality that suggests that life is really just an ellipse; a Mobius strip; an endless purgatorial rehashing of the darkest parts of your past, no matter how hard you might try to keep that darkness at arm's length.
This is not to say that these characters are incapable of change, of growth and self-actualization. But Mad Men drives home the point, again and again, that the first step toward bettering yourself is to accept the person you are, the choices you've made, and the consequences of your own flawed nature. It's about self-acceptance, something Don Draper, Pete Campbell, and Ted Chaough have always been struggling with. Which is part of what makes this episode as jaw-droppingly, sphincter-clenchingly cathartic as "Shut the Door" was. For the first time since burning his bridges at the dying Sterling Cooper three seasons ago, Don has decided to break the cycle, even as it threatens to grind him into oblivion once and for all.
When the end-credits started rolling Sunday night, and the sixth chapter of Dick Whitman's saga of rebirth closed, I wondered to myself why I came away feeling so goddamn happy for the guy. In this episode alone, he got blackout drunk, beat up a preacher, spent a night in jail, gave up drinking and subsequently suffered from alcohol withdrawal, and consciously sabotaged his own successful pitch to a major potential client. He was fired from his job, humiliated by an old rival, and left by his second (technically third) wife. How is any of this at all a cause to feel good about Don's future?
Because he's finally taken his first steps to remedying the central flaw in his being, the source of his self-loathing and existential anguish. He's beginning to break down the great wall between Dick Whitman and Don Draper. He is becoming whole, which is something we've never seen in him. For once, Don has passed through one of life's doors and comes out on the other side with a real sense that things can change for him. The three big positive events for him this episode--his raw, achingly real pitch to the Hershey execs; his selfless gesture to Ted at the end of that pitch; and the momentous decision to take his three children to the see the 'home' he grew up in--these three moments are examples of the long-repressed Dick Whitman coming up for air. Don's life completely falls apart in this episode, and now only Dick is left to claw his way out of the ashes. Season seven, the last of the series, will show us if this divided house of a man can go all the way toward making himself whole.
Written by Modern Sin