Still, something about Lane’s suicide didn’t sit right with me, and I think the problem is one of execution rather than of intention. Perhaps they lost too many episodes with that character to Jared Harris‘ Fringe commitments, but I didn’t see enough of his desperation to truly believe he had had no other options at each stage of his downward spiral. In “Commissions and Fees,” I believed he saw himself as having no choices, but I wanted to see more of the process of getting him there. It is almost as if the show decided to rely on heavy foreshadowing to give us that sense of inevitability in order to get around Harris’ lack of screen time. Similarly, I’d have liked to have seen a bit more of Joan being in a position in which she’d agree to sleep with the Jaguar dealer. It just didn’t seem like a choice she would have made in the past, and so the decision needed more development.
Even though Lane’s suicide was not a huge surprise to viewers, Joan’s actions were less telegraphed. The show is therefore still capable of surprising us, though this was surprising because it was not too believable. I also don’t think many of us predicted Peggy quitting, even though her dissatisfaction was depicted all season. I think we just never believed she would leave Don or possibly even the show. This twist works the best of the three twists from the final few episodes because while it came from a believable place for the character, it didn’t seem like something the show was willing to do.
What about Don? Rather than leaving his wife, as many predicted (or perhaps hoped), he sets her free to act but seems to use that an an excuse to revert to his bad boy ways. Interestingly, the sequence in the finale in which he watches Megan’s reel and then gets her the commercial role seems to me to be a return to the more subtle storytelling of the past seasons simply because the show does not make his reasoning clear. Does he want to give Megan what she wanted so that she wouldn’t end up like Adam or Lane? Or does he want to give her what she wanted to he could just have an excuse to go back to his old self, since she had refused to be what he wanted her to be? I think both are possible, or even a combination of the two.
Will the show be bringing more ambiguity back in its storytelling? Too early to tell. Maybe the show’s new storytelling style reflects not just the times, but Don’s attempts this season to be a person that he is ultimately not comfortable being. If he reverts, maybe the show will, too. Or maybe it’s just lazy storytelling, though I tend not to think so; I think it was a calculated risk that didn’t work for all viewers. Even I don’t think everything in the finale regarding Don worked: the clunky tooth symbolism fell flat, for instance. I can definitely appreciate that many fans may miss and prefer the earlier version of the show. Heck, even I may miss and prefer the earlier version of the show, but I am still curious to see where Matthew Wiener and company take us as the show closes out the decade. Like it or not, this may be the new face of Mad Men.
Clacked by Christina Furtado 
on Jun 13, 2012 @ 13:00 EST5EDT
