MAD MEN

MAD MEN

MAD MEN 7×12: "LOST HORIZON"

Mad Men has always been about individuals, but at its end it may be about a changing culture that has little room for individualism.

MAD MEN

MAD MEN 7×08: "SEVERANCE"

At the beginning of the end of Mad Men, the characters—and we—are already asking: is that all there is?

MAD MEN

MAD MEN 6×01-02: "THE DOORWAY"

The man born as Dick Whitman had to die once to escape who he was, and now—as the world has changed unrecognizably around him—the carefully constructed persona he created just feels like another stagnant, stifling identity he longs to shed and leave behind.

MAD MEN

MAD MEN 5×11-12: "THE OTHER WOMAN" & "COMMISSIONS AND FEES"

Our latest two episodes of Mad Men each feature a major character leaving Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. One leaves in a considerably more permanent fashion than the other, but I'd still be hard pressed to say which departure is sadder.

MAD MEN

MAD MEN 5×06: "FAR AWAY PLACES"

"Far Away Places" plays out in three short stories, occurring simultaneously, in which characters grapple with the tentative solidity of their own lives, the slippery hold they have on who they are and what is important to them, and the changing, sometimes elusive nature of reality.

MAD MEN

MAD MEN 5×04: "MYSTERY DATE"

Mad Men is largely about the moment when white, middle-class America awakens from that squeaky-clean, all-white, suburban fantasy of itself. This season is the transition point where the dark undercurrent that has always run beneath that fairy tale begins to overwhelm it.

MAD MEN

MAD MEN 5×03: "TEA LEAVES"

"When is everything going to get back to normal?" Roger asks Don towards the end of this episode. The answer, of course, is never. Normal, as Roger understands it, is officially a thing of the past.

MAD MEN

MAD MEN 5×01-02: "A LITTLE KISS"

The white men have ruled the world of Mad Men all along, and their entire way of life has been built on racial injustice and the subjugation of women. Change won't come quickly, but it is coming.