"The bad is beating the good", Betty's line which can define this whole season.
Don at the end finally broke. He no longer can handle being a mystery, an enigma. With the Hersheys pitch, what he was actually doing was engaging in confession. He's confessing his soul as a way to open a door or window to get out of his own self.
When the john got tossed out of the brothel and we saw young Dick standing there, to me the house was supposed to be a ghost image of a church: grand, white, and much larger than the two tiny figures around it. Art history teaches you that's why churches in the middle ages were built that way on purpose, to be grander than you, than the human experience. You always have to look up. Your life is about something more grand than you. Very apropo of Don, just he in a different meaning. The camera angle had us somewhat looking up as well, and the structure itself was on a slightly elevated piece of ground. However opposites and contradiction have been the theme within Don and the greater theme this season. This obviously was a house opposite of the meaning of church, but the visual was still there to put the idea in our head that it should be a nice bright home, as a church should be; a further exploration of the idea of what home should be, and what it unfortunately sometimes is.
Then more of the opposite was present with the stark cut right after: Don in jail, aka hell. The photography was similar to when Betty was in the tenemet: very stark, dreary, what fears are in all our minds, the listless lost souls here around Don laying in similar fashion to pain. Don was there for rejecting, punching in this case, a minister. So he found the opposite of salvation due to his own self and his own act. And his yelling out, " I shouldn't be in here". In every movie or work of literature, don't all characters cry that out when in either jail or hell?
Great photography and storytelling with that little sliver of photography and film bookending that great edit.
This whole season was about him seeking some sort of salvation, but he can't get there until he first comes forward with it. That's what the Hershey pitch was about, and then his bringing the kids to the house; his confession.
He sought salvation through yet again the symbol of California that had a beginning back with Anna. In that season we saw him at the end of the one episode wading into the ocean, arms out in salvation, the bright sun. Isn't that what the religious belive of salvation and church, arms out and brightness. He's trying to get himself to the church of the California ocean. He's not making it but he's going back and forth trying to get there. He can't right now but he at least got to his own confession, and got his children to his confession.
He also sacrificed his salvation for Ted's, very unlike him. He's making efforts. In my opinion Sylvia wanted to be an angel for him as seen through some of her lines to him. He screwed that up and handled in many ways that relationship wrong, and there have been consequences. But it vaults him to keep moving forward. I think Sylvia is gone for good but the relationship affected him in his battle for his own self. His own self seems like it will only be found through the vehicle of others.
He rejected the minister and went "down" after that. In the end, in the office he walked "up" the stairs, only to have another experience with rejection and made the walk "down" again. I think it was meant to be symbolic, they shot his walk down the stairs more than just a necessity.
Sally has to go to court. Don, getting in trouble with the law will be in court. Don just left court in a panel of judges of his fate in that walk down the stairs to what is below. Court, Don will give a confession, Sally is a witness (to not just the burglar), judgement, all of it.
Don gave a family love speech in the middle of broken families all episode. Ted mirroring Don in "I have to hold on to them or I'll get lostin the chaos". Don then gathers the kids and takes them to his original home trying to hold on to them by opening to them. You had Ted and the idea of home, and to an extent Peggy. And you had Roger as well, in giving Bob a lecture then showing up for Thanksgiving dinner at Joan's in addition to his own dealing with family and Margaret. And you had Don, exploring home in he and Megan ending theirs, and then he's gathering the kids to go to his first torn home. 3 torn homes for Don since we've knnown him.
Peggy has to watch right in front of her Ted's home, in the office. Peggy has, for the most part good reasons, has rejected her own home with her impossible at time family then her home with Abe. Then her whole situation with Pete can open up other broken home analogies, with Betty throwing something in the ring with her mentioning Sally comes from a broken home.
Analogy with whole country at this time a completely broken home.
I think this season has used religion and religious overtones in a literary tool sense. The basic ideas of symbollism, redemption, pain, sacrifice, salvation etc are all powerful things. And my guess is the MM gang used these notions to bring great weight to the Don Draper character and therefore great weight upon us and the noodle between our ears.
Like probably everyone else, I had my own idea for seasons now how I thought it would all end. I'm on the fence now after this on-deck season for the final season. I originally believed and still kinda do that Don would end up an adult runaway, literally, and just get a job in line with the "hobo and gyspy" idea.
My big thing has been the idea of a carousel since the episode we met Suzanne, and marrying that with the Kodak pitch 2 seasons before about travelling around and around like a child travels with no beginning or end. We had that visual of him leering at Suzanne while there's the visual of the maypole dance as a skeletal carousel. The kids literally look like the outline of a merry-go-round under the implied outline of a canopy. I've felt they'd end it as he'd literally run from everything and go where you don't need an identity but can play like a child, and be some kind of carny or gyspy-hobo etc, that type of thing. No one could find him, no woman, not Betty, not kis kids, not even the government etc. I just had this visual in my head of him scruffy, at night with bright lights, sitting on a crate, operating a carousel and smiling, alone, as the last shot ever.
But this season was so weighty it had your brain muscle working and got me thinking of the idea about "your demons are only your demons as long as you fight them, once you accept your demons, they stop chasing you and you realize they're only angels, to take you away and it's ok". Don is clearing confronting his own demons in an effort of personal salvation. We all agree with that. But what does that exactly mean?
What they could do is have this be all about the scene in Korea with the explosion and the blending if you will of Don/Dick at that moment, and the whole series is happening in only that instant; in the moment of facing death and demons etc. What we've been watching for 6 seasons is what's happening right only in that moment of death and the mind. Confronting of demons before death, and since the original real Don Draper was a scumbag, (as we found out through Anna in that great noir-esque scene when she finds "Don" and he confesses [ahh there's that theme again] )...maybe this whole series is all about HIM, the ACTUAL real original Don Draper, in a twist. Know what I mean?
THAT guy is the one fighting death, and as long as he does, he's the Don Draper that we know, in hell. If he lets go, it's heaven and he's ok and the Don Draper that we know fades and never existed, the sickly limping Anna we saw was never the real Don Draper's wife Anna, just made that way progressively worse through the seasons because he won't let go. And finally comes your happy ending, once the original Don who this was always all about finally lets go. The Don Draper that we know was a demon. The real Don Draper in a moment of firey (<--season 6 theme) death, finally gives in and is redeemed. The real Anna Draper now is perfect and loves him and misses him.
Right now now I can't decide if it's a total twist and this is all really about the original real Don Draper and his dying and "Don/Dick" as we know him doesn't actually exist, OR if it's about the happy redemption of escapism, a guy just doing what he wants: running away and spinning around and around like a child he never was with no beginning or end; except he's now the one in control, he's operating the carousel.
3 comments:
"The bad is beating the good", Betty's line which can define this whole season.
Don at the end finally broke. He no longer can handle being a mystery, an enigma. With the Hersheys pitch, what he was actually doing was engaging in confession. He's confessing his soul as a way to open a door or window to get out of his own self.
When the john got tossed out of the brothel and we saw young Dick standing there, to me the house was supposed to be a ghost image of a church: grand, white, and much larger than the two tiny figures around it. Art history teaches you that's why churches in the middle ages were built that way on purpose, to be grander than you, than the human experience. You always have to look up. Your life is about something more grand than you. Very apropo of Don, just he in a different meaning. The camera angle had us somewhat looking up as well, and the structure itself was on a slightly elevated piece of ground. However opposites and contradiction have been the theme within Don and the greater theme this season. This obviously was a house opposite of the meaning of church, but the visual was still there to put the idea in our head that it should be a nice bright home, as a church should be; a further exploration of the idea of what home should be, and what it unfortunately sometimes is.
Then more of the opposite was present with the stark cut right after: Don in jail, aka hell. The photography was similar to when Betty was in the tenemet: very stark, dreary, what fears are in all our minds, the listless lost souls here around Don laying in similar fashion to pain. Don was there for rejecting, punching in this case, a minister. So he found the opposite of salvation due to his own self and his own act. And his yelling out, " I shouldn't be in here". In every movie or work of literature, don't all characters cry that out when in either jail or hell?
Great photography and storytelling with that little sliver of photography and film bookending that great edit.
This whole season was about him seeking some sort of salvation, but he can't get there until he first comes forward with it. That's what the Hershey pitch was about, and then his bringing the kids to the house; his confession.
He sought salvation through yet again the symbol of California that had a beginning back with Anna. In that season we saw him at the end of the one episode wading into the ocean, arms out in salvation, the bright sun. Isn't that what the religious belive of salvation and church, arms out and brightness. He's trying to get himself to the church of the California ocean. He's not making it but he's going back and forth trying to get there. He can't right now but he at least got to his own confession, and got his children to his confession.
He also sacrificed his salvation for Ted's, very unlike him. He's making efforts. In my opinion Sylvia wanted to be an angel for him as seen through some of her lines to him. He screwed that up and handled in many ways that relationship wrong, and there have been consequences. But it vaults him to keep moving forward. I think Sylvia is gone for good but the relationship affected him in his battle for his own self. His own self seems like it will only be found through the vehicle of others.
He rejected the minister and went "down" after that. In the end, in the office he walked "up" the stairs, only to have another experience with rejection and made the walk "down" again. I think it was meant to be symbolic, they shot his walk down the stairs more than just a necessity.
Sally has to go to court. Don, getting in trouble with the law will be in court. Don just left court in a panel of judges of his fate in that walk down the stairs to what is below. Court, Don will give a confession, Sally is a witness (to not just the burglar), judgement, all of it.
Don gave a family love speech in the middle of broken families all episode. Ted mirroring Don in "I have to hold on to them or I'll get lostin the chaos". Don then gathers the kids and takes them to his original home trying to hold on to them by opening to them. You had Ted and the idea of home, and to an extent Peggy. And you had Roger as well, in giving Bob a lecture then showing up for Thanksgiving dinner at Joan's in addition to his own dealing with family and Margaret. And you had Don, exploring home in he and Megan ending theirs, and then he's gathering the kids to go to his first torn home. 3 torn homes for Don since we've knnown him.
Peggy has to watch right in front of her Ted's home, in the office. Peggy has, for the most part good reasons, has rejected her own home with her impossible at time family then her home with Abe. Then her whole situation with Pete can open up other broken home analogies, with Betty throwing something in the ring with her mentioning Sally comes from a broken home.
Analogy with whole country at this time a completely broken home.
I think this season has used religion and religious overtones in a literary tool sense. The basic ideas of symbollism, redemption, pain, sacrifice, salvation etc are all powerful things. And my guess is the MM gang used these notions to bring great weight to the Don Draper character and therefore great weight upon us and the noodle between our ears.
Like probably everyone else, I had my own idea for seasons now how I thought it would all end. I'm on the fence now after this on-deck season for the final season. I originally believed and still kinda do that Don would end up an adult runaway, literally, and just get a job in line with the "hobo and gyspy" idea.
My big thing has been the idea of a carousel since the episode we met Suzanne, and marrying that with the Kodak pitch 2 seasons before about travelling around and around like a child travels with no beginning or end. We had that visual of him leering at Suzanne while there's the visual of the maypole dance as a skeletal carousel. The kids literally look like the outline of a merry-go-round under the implied outline of a canopy. I've felt they'd end it as he'd literally run from everything and go where you don't need an identity but can play like a child, and be some kind of carny or gyspy-hobo etc, that type of thing. No one could find him, no woman, not Betty, not kis kids, not even the government etc. I just had this visual in my head of him scruffy, at night with bright lights, sitting on a crate, operating a carousel and smiling, alone, as the last shot ever.
But this season was so weighty it had your brain muscle working and got me thinking of the idea about "your demons are only your demons as long as you fight them, once you accept your demons, they stop chasing you and you realize they're only angels, to take you away and it's ok". Don is clearing confronting his own demons in an effort of personal salvation. We all agree with that. But what does that exactly mean?
What they could do is have this be all about the scene in Korea with the explosion and the blending if you will of Don/Dick at that moment, and the whole series is happening in only that instant; in the moment of facing death and demons etc. What we've been watching for 6 seasons is what's happening right only in that moment of death and the mind. Confronting of demons before death, and since the original real Don Draper was a scumbag, (as we found out through Anna in that great noir-esque scene when she finds "Don" and he confesses [ahh there's that theme again] )...maybe this whole series is all about HIM, the ACTUAL real original Don Draper, in a twist. Know what I mean?
THAT guy is the one fighting death, and as long as he does, he's the Don Draper that we know, in hell. If he lets go, it's heaven and he's ok and the Don Draper that we know fades and never existed, the sickly limping Anna we saw was never the real Don Draper's wife Anna, just made that way progressively worse through the seasons because he won't let go. And finally comes your happy ending, once the original Don who this was always all about finally lets go. The Don Draper that we know was a demon. The real Don Draper in a moment of firey (<--season 6 theme) death, finally gives in and is redeemed. The real Anna Draper now is perfect and loves him and misses him.
Right now now I can't decide if it's a total twist and this is all really about the original real Don Draper and his dying and "Don/Dick" as we know him doesn't actually exist, OR if it's about the happy redemption of escapism, a guy just doing what he wants: running away and spinning around and around like a child he never was with no beginning or end; except he's now the one in control, he's operating the carousel.
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