Cross Town Thoughts
Starbucks on every corner.
Adam Driver disintegrates Hannah. Solo.
Trump-Palin v. Hillary-Warren.
MadMen returns. Season 8.
Manhattan view.
Great new novels. City on Fire not yet.
SuperBowl. Anybody but the Pats.
Freshest fish.
Little Blue Corvette. Wish I’d kept my 1963 baby blue split-window fast-back Stingray with the Hurst stick shift. The one Seinfeld and Obama had coffee and comedy in. Would’ve been a lucrative bet.
GOOD
MadMen ending. The real thing.
The Affair. Ray Donovan.
Pope Francis charms the U.S.
New York weekends. Ocean Grill. Mermaid Inn.
Forked around Long Island twice. 
Ogilvy Account Director mAdBen. Seattle star.
BAD
End of MadMen.
Emojis. Symbols that replace words.
ISIS thugs. Paris. U.S. World. Under Siege.
Guns. Guns. Guns,
SAGs. Golden Globes. Oscars. ‘Tis the Season for Depressing Gay Abused Stories Glorified. Children in Pain. No wonder Star Wars is so anticipated. El Trumpo? No. Trumbo. Haven’t watched Fargo, lots of noms. Winter binge idea. Ray only one? The Affair, too. These awards are lame. The Big Short is Carol’s game.
MadMen!? Seriously.
As someone who thinks they watch too much TV. Can’t believe how few shows I’ve seen from Emmy nominees. House of Cards. MadMen. Homeland. Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. That’s pretty much it. Hope Jon Hamm’s year. Ray Donovan best of the bunch.
Hillary does well when she conversationally talks issues. Not when she laughs. Ben Carson is fine with a Christian theocracy.
Forty Niners’ new thug uniforms. Look more like Raiders. Sun low as a cool wind blows right on cue. Autumn rolls in. Can it be true?
Imagine what happens to our favorite characters post-MadMen7 in the ’70’s:
Don Draper changes his identity again to hide more bad behavior. He moves to San Francisco and becomes ‘Hal Riney’ where he builds the West Coast network of Ogilvy & Mather. Then, he starts his own eponymous agency and launches “You’ve Only Just Begun” campaign with Paul Williams for Crocker Bank.
Sally stays close to her Dad and moves to L.A. to study acting. She is the youngest winner of an Oscar for Paper Something. Her brothers are much happier with a loving aunt and uncle. Creepy Glen forever goes away. Yay.
Pete is recruited as CEO of Procter & Gamble. He hires Salvatore as his CMO. Peggy ditches Stan and rises to Creative Director at McCann. Roger tires of zou bisou Marie and returns to his original wife, also his real life Talia Balsam. Zou bisou Megan back in New York is the “Irish” ingenue star of Ryan’s Hope.
Joan, the smartest best business person of the bunch, my fave, leverages her success in the new entrepreneurial venture to become Managing Editor of Cosmo Magazine in its heyday. Yeah. I know. I can’t let go.
Thank you, Matthew Weiner. For the fitting finale. And best television show of our era. Person to Person. Call from Don to Peggy where she reminds him how much he is missed and puts the Coke account in his head. Call from Don to Betty where they make their poignant peace. And the right plan for the kids.
Pete’s life looks ideal as he boards a LearJet with his original family. Joan stays true to character and chooses financial and career independence. Roger is a standup guy assuring their son’s future. How long will his new zou bisou wife last? Who cares? It’s Roger. Peggy continues her career at McCann. Albeit with a bit of a schmaltzy twist. That was the only unlikely and unsatisfying storyline.
Sally stays strong and will hopefully have many adventures. And then there’s Don. Just as his struggle with Dick is about to hit bottom again, he is resurrected from the ashes. Yoga. Connections. Revelations. Survival. Take him back to McCann with the biggest campaign in its history. Of course, Don creates the iconic Coke ad, hippies on a mountain singing about love and harmony.
It’s the Real Thing?! It’s the Draper thing for sure. Well done.
Hopes dashed for a fond farewell. Penultimate episode devolves into personal story lines. Unlikely reconciliation. Dick Whitman stranded at a seedy motel. Betty and Sally’s relationship wrought with realism. Rang true. But, please. Let’s get back to the Ad Biz! It’s time to plead for a truly Mad End. How about Sterling, Draper, Campbell & Holloway get swept up by dragons. They are dropped into Khaleesi’s Crownlands to promote her rule. Game of mAd thrones. Tyrion hooks up with Joan.
In golf. Players. No orange is the new red. Rickie ditched his traditional Sunday color and won. 3-hole playoff was so much fun. Plus one.
Joan continues to be the stalwart survivor. Sizes up the situation, takes her $2.5 mil and splits. Never will she rely on a man to rescue her. Baby Daddy Roger can’t be trusted to step in. He’s making excuses to Peggy as she roller skates into her new career at McCann. Hope the others take my advice.
And then there’s Don. Betty doesn’t even want a back rub from him. At McCann, as he sits in the conference room with a cast of too many around the table and watches some guy give his original best schpiel from five years ago, he bolts. In search of the elusive ideal mommy. Windows loom. He always likes playing the stranger. Lost horizon. Ageless? Or. Still wishing for Shangri-L.A.
Sterling, Draper, Campbell & Holloway
Who will survive the transition from Sterling Cooper to McCann Erickson? Staff seems smart enough to know their days are numbered. Don may have a role, but he will be a little fish in a big pond. Roger’s corporate power is gone. Pete has always appreciated Joan’s value. Without his nudge, she wouldn’t be a partner. Now, as Joan faces a frat culture, she is rightfully realistic about her future. The consistent pragmatist, will she choose old rich dude or stay the course until she’s sidelined? Peggy will survive as a creative soldier. Her heart-wrenching sacrifice cannot be in vain. Everyone has made trade-offs. Careers over family.
In the end, they are all just prey. I hope there will be a new agency in L.A. Sterling, Draper, Campbell & Holloway. We’ll see. Last three.
Creepy Glen, Weiner’s son is back and uses his Vietnam-eve deployment to give Betty one last shot. He’s unrecognizable as a tall skinny eighteen, but still creepy. Meanwhile Don is encouraging Sally’s friend to flirt with him. Always wiser than her parents, she tells him that they both are immature gluttons for attention. Joan finds new love in an older rich guy from L.A. with an eye job. She remains centered if a little rattled by what having a young son means to her personal life. Peggy retains her creative career dreams as Don’s are becoming more dim.
Take away. Wish I’d bought a penthouse on the Upper East Side in the early 70’s for $85,000. Or kept a little apartment on 12th Street in the Village. 4 to go.
Side Trek . NYC 