"Mad Men" is one of my favorite shows of this past year. I love the period-specific details, from the clothes to the furniture. I also love the writing. Each character seems fully realized, full of secrets and complexity. And the settings and dialog perfectly demonstrate the larger theme of how America had been changed by three generations of war.
At the center of the series is Don Draper, the enigmatic creative director at Sterling-Cooper, who is both wonderful and horrid, a man who feels deeply, but hurts everyone around him. This clip, from the first season's last episode, shows him doing what he does best: spinning words into gold.
The level of emotion that is slowly and subtly reached in this scene is sublime. So many elements have come together by this, the end of the season, to make his simple pitch pack the emotional punch that it does. It shows all that Don has and all that he has lost in a lovely little tale of a happy family. And indeed it reflects the series' overarching themes: is family enough? How do you witness cruelty and horror and then function in the world? How much of yourself is consciously created and how much is made against your will?
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