I thought those were the three main underlying themes we saw and their interweaving and escape of each other.
Does liftoff give you freedom, or does liftoff give you control? Does control limit freedom or is freedom based on your own having of control?
I thought Roger rather than Peggy was the most interesting tonight. The basic outer shell of the story was lifting off and breaking away etc obviously. However Roger was the only one fighting to stay the same amidst all this.
Historical events, people like to feel they were changed by them. However people rarely witness first hand a historical event and are motivated to stay the same. So Roger witnesses liftoff, and to keep his own control, to keep his own freedom he fights to stay the same. Don, Peggy change, Don lifts off from his Cali ties and Megan, Peggy now has control in her own liftoff (you can also say the same for Joan at the end when she raises her hand), and they have some sort of freedom from their current roles. So the episode kinda questions the idea of are freedom and control mutually exclusive, or are they actually defined by each other. Don relents control to gain freedom, Roger exerts control to keep freedom.
Ted was strange here. The only thing I can get was part of the whole moon landing is that some marveled yet some felt mankind is disturbingly insignificant as a result. I didn’t think the plane scene in the beginning was about Ted being nutty as much as it’s about last time we saw Ted manning a plane, he was the macho cliche, the man in control and all that. Here you have the huge rocket about to do something even beyond anything Ted can be. Kinda the bully kicking sand at the beach. It’s wrong for him to feel that, but that will happen with the macho sect and the ego. And you couple that with Ginsberg having his own meltdown at technology, Ted kinda was the same as well. Technology still does that to people this current day. So these past episodes you’ve had marvel of technology, and fear and loathing of technology. So that leads Ted to do what many people do and just want to give up now on everything due to being upset at a lot of things coming to a head.
What I liked about Cooper and his own lifting off if you will, was when Blankenship died he said of her, “she died an astronaut”. Remember? Also Cooper is WW1 generation, and people and history classes seem to now forget how horrific WW1 was, with the marriage of technology and war. Cooper goes from that literal Hell (and cue the reference to Hemingway last week, where Hemingway was the figurehead for the post-WW1 “Lost Generation”) to literally witnessing the Heavens on his last day, the the marriage of mankind and technology to bring about Heaven rather then Hell. The handling of the character was excellent decision making I felt.
I liked, at least how I saw it, the foreshadowing of Peggy where she was looking up at her half-finished ceiling. You have the corporate metaphor of ceilings but the way I saw it was also the white drop-ceiling was half white like clouds and she’s peering up through her half overcast ceiling to the dark beyond that is above; which is what rockets experience as well as the obvious analogy with her soon to be experience.
So we ended with Cooper on stage performing at the end. The Moon, and the best things in life etc done right in front of, and for, (and actually by) Don. Liftoff, freedom and control, those concepts interacting with each other for good and bad have been central to Don and his inner struggles. We end here with Don now having that question playing out in the form of stage performance in front of him in his head, what really is important and how does it differ from what seasons prior was important to Don?
Also what was interesting was the visual reference last episode to the family idea, how in the hotel room none of them are with family, yet with each other, and in more in depth Peggy gets her and Don a beer and no one else as they sit close to each other like the parents with adult beverages.
Apparently I saw something way different that most people. I thought it was about the idea of facing the question of what is important now, and what was important prior. We all ask these questions in the face of death, don’t we.
And when we ask these questions, we all answer them to ourselves. However, do we then actually live up to our answers? Most of the time, if we have the courage of honesty to answer, probably not.
I saw the Cooper number supposing to be more reminiscent of the Ghost of Christmas Future from a Christmas Carol than anything else.
This is your last chance….
Given that we have had, so blatantly and not as subversive as this whole project usually has been, the family theme given so unusually easy to us last episode, attempting redemption via struggle with booze and making a little headway, shooting for the moon and escape and everything that has come with that theme through the seasons, and change etc and a host of the usual themes, it makes me think we’re getting set up for the Don triumph just so the Don final Greek tragic fall is that much more dramatic for us the viewer.
I think Cooper is a ghost of Don’s future (and possibly a form of foreshadowing bc I thought foreshadowing was an element they broke out this mini-season a lot) in the same use of Scrooge and Ghost of Christmas Future. As in, this is gonna be you unless you change when Scrooge sees his own grave. To be clear no direct actual analogy with Dickens, just reminiscent.
The thing about the tragic fall if you remember is always about the question of misfortune vs tragedy. Misfortune is when you get your foot cut off by a lawn mower in an office, tragedy is when your damage or downfall is your own fault due to your own inability to “3..2..1.. we have liftoff” from your own grounding flaws and therefore your fall from prominence was your own doing.
I think the whole thing was about the question of what is important now vs what was important prior; and this time for the last time, Don. You’re getting no more chances.
I just can't picture him making it because it’s seeming to be too neatly headed that way and I think we're all being set up; and instead we’ll witness quite a great literary fall. This is Mad Men, nothing ends up with a bow on it. And given this scene was a finale (technically), the Bert scene is possibly demonstrating the final tipping point through the vehicle of the questioning of what is important.
3 comments:
Liftoff, Freedom and Control
I thought those were the three main underlying themes we saw and their interweaving and escape of each other.
Does liftoff give you freedom, or does liftoff give you control? Does control limit freedom or is freedom based on your own having of control?
I thought Roger rather than Peggy was the most interesting tonight. The basic outer shell of the story was lifting off and breaking away etc obviously. However Roger was the only one fighting to stay the same amidst all this.
Historical events, people like to feel they were changed by them. However people rarely witness first hand a historical event and are motivated to stay the same. So Roger witnesses liftoff, and to keep his own control, to keep his own freedom he fights to stay the same. Don, Peggy change, Don lifts off from his Cali ties and Megan, Peggy now has control in her own liftoff (you can also say the same for Joan at the end when she raises her hand), and they have some sort of freedom from their current roles. So the episode kinda questions the idea of are freedom and control mutually exclusive, or are they actually defined by each other. Don relents control to gain freedom, Roger exerts control to keep freedom.
Ted was strange here. The only thing I can get was part of the whole moon landing is that some marveled yet some felt mankind is disturbingly insignificant as a result. I didn’t think the plane scene in the beginning was about Ted being nutty as much as it’s about last time we saw Ted manning a plane, he was the macho cliche, the man in control and all that. Here you have the huge rocket about to do something even beyond anything Ted can be. Kinda the bully kicking sand at the beach. It’s wrong for him to feel that, but that will happen with the macho sect and the ego. And you couple that with Ginsberg having his own meltdown at technology, Ted kinda was the same as well. Technology still does that to people this current day. So these past episodes you’ve had marvel of technology, and fear and loathing of technology. So that leads Ted to do what many people do and just want to give up now on everything due to being upset at a lot of things coming to a head.
What I liked about Cooper and his own lifting off if you will, was when Blankenship died he said of her, “she died an astronaut”. Remember? Also Cooper is WW1 generation, and people and history classes seem to now forget how horrific WW1 was, with the marriage of technology and war. Cooper goes from that literal Hell (and cue the reference to Hemingway last week, where Hemingway was the figurehead for the post-WW1 “Lost Generation”) to literally witnessing the Heavens on his last day, the the marriage of mankind and technology to bring about Heaven rather then Hell. The handling of the character was excellent decision making I felt.
I liked, at least how I saw it, the foreshadowing of Peggy where she was looking up at her half-finished ceiling. You have the corporate metaphor of ceilings but the way I saw it was also the white drop-ceiling was half white like clouds and she’s peering up through her half overcast ceiling to the dark beyond that is above; which is what rockets experience as well as the obvious analogy with her soon to be experience.
So we ended with Cooper on stage performing at the end. The Moon, and the best things in life etc done right in front of, and for, (and actually by) Don. Liftoff, freedom and control, those concepts interacting with each other for good and bad have been central to Don and his inner struggles. We end here with Don now having that question playing out in the form of stage performance in front of him in his head, what really is important and how does it differ from what seasons prior was important to Don?
Also what was interesting was the visual reference last episode to the family idea, how in the hotel room none of them are with family, yet with each other, and in more in depth Peggy gets her and Don a beer and no one else as they sit close to each other like the parents with adult beverages.
Apparently I saw something way different that most people. I thought it was about the idea of facing the question of what is important now, and what was important prior. We all ask these questions in the face of death, don’t we.
And when we ask these questions, we all answer them to ourselves. However, do we then actually live up to our answers? Most of the time, if we have the courage of honesty to answer, probably not.
I saw the Cooper number supposing to be more reminiscent of the Ghost of Christmas Future from a Christmas Carol than anything else.
This is your last chance….
Given that we have had, so blatantly and not as subversive as this whole project usually has been, the family theme given so unusually easy to us last episode, attempting redemption via struggle with booze and making a little headway, shooting for the moon and escape and everything that has come with that theme through the seasons, and change etc and a host of the usual themes, it makes me think we’re getting set up for the Don triumph just so the Don final Greek tragic fall is that much more dramatic for us the viewer.
I think Cooper is a ghost of Don’s future (and possibly a form of foreshadowing bc I thought foreshadowing was an element they broke out this mini-season a lot) in the same use of Scrooge and Ghost of Christmas Future. As in, this is gonna be you unless you change when Scrooge sees his own grave. To be clear no direct actual analogy with Dickens, just reminiscent.
The thing about the tragic fall if you remember is always about the question of misfortune vs tragedy. Misfortune is when you get your foot cut off by a lawn mower in an office, tragedy is when your damage or downfall is your own fault due to your own inability to “3..2..1.. we have liftoff” from your own grounding flaws and therefore your fall from prominence was your own doing.
I think the whole thing was about the question of what is important now vs what was important prior; and this time for the last time, Don. You’re getting no more chances.
I just can't picture him making it because it’s seeming to be too neatly headed that way and I think we're all being set up; and instead we’ll witness quite a great literary fall. This is Mad Men, nothing ends up with a bow on it. And given this scene was a finale (technically), the Bert scene is possibly demonstrating the final tipping point through the vehicle of the questioning of what is important.
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