As Mad Men enters the final episodes of season 4 I can't help but be a little relieved. Not that it hasn't been a brilliant season, because it has and then some, but my nerves are shredded and I am exhausted. The difference with this season has been that things have been happening, a lot of things.
Series one, two and three seemed to be carried along on metaphorical imagery, dialogue that is left unsaid and sumptuous aesthetics, with a spartan but intriguing plot. Series four has made great use of all these elements but the world of Stirling/Cooper/Draper/Pryce is dingier and more claustrophobic; the office walls are closer together with walls flimsy enough that you imagine straining to hear slightly raised conversations; Don's apartment is not the hip bachelor pad it could easily have been, it's dark and poky and is only occasionally frequented by his children or the odd conquest.
The characters are all in turmoil and overtly so this time around. I've been personally gripped by the two opposing female characters, Peggy and Joan. Joan's husband Greg has joined the army and her anxiety spills over in a sharp tongued attack on creative's Joey who has done everything to undermine and insult her. She tells Joey and Stan that when they are inevitably deployed to Vietnam to remember that they won't be dying for her as she never liked them anyway. Roger and Joan's relationship is reignited for one night which is all it takes for Joan to become pregnant resulting in a heartbreaking termination she has to go through all alone. Having been through two terminations before, she treats the situation with the same stoic, keep-calm-and-carry-on attitude.
Conversely, Peggy's character is growing and changing, beginning to explore ideas of feminism through her new friend Joyce and a frustration with the limitations her sex puts on her job. Memories of the baby she had with Peter come to the fore again with the news that Peter's wife Trudy is pregnant. While she keeps this very personal hurt to herself her professional frustrations rise to the surface in the season's most talked about episode that sees Peggy and Don finally have it out and unravel in front of each other.
We also discover Lane's father is a violent, manipulative man who still has a hold over his well grown-up son; Roger loses his baby with Joan and the Lucky Strike account all in one week; Sally Draper isn't coping with her parents divorce and arrives at her father's office after travelling across New York from her therapist to be told she has to go back to the 'Francis Residence' she hates so much; even Bert shows his emotions this season when Ida Blankenship (the Joan to his Roger) dies in the office.
Don of course has the most spectacular season yet. Divorced, estranged from his children and most heartbreaking of all losing his best friend, the wife of his name-sake, Anna. He's been so drunk that he's lost days, vomited a lot and generally been a mess physically. The first episode gave an indication of things to come, calling into question his identity, 'Who is Don Draper?' His lies have been slowly unravelling, coming to a head in this weeks episode which showed Don under investigation by the government in order to secure the American Aviation account. In his panic he tells Faye everything about his past, who he seems to be carving out an honest and genuine relationship with. Pete, also privy to Don's big secret, grudgingly saves the day, losing the account and almost losing his job in the process. So Don's secret is safe. For now.
Will SCDP bounce back from the losses and heartaches or is it the beginning of a downward spiral? I hope in the closing episodes we'll see more of Pete Campbell, odious and lovable at the same time, who's been in the background for much of the series. Now I'm off to lie down in a darkened room until the next episode.
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