They keep going back to that sound clip of Don saying, "Things have to change" but it's not clear at all that he'll be capable of changing.

Even as the women characters, especially Peggy and Joan, have changed tremendously over their time at the agency.

I was just chatting with a friend on the subject and mentioned that just as you only have to adjust your perspective by a few degrees to see the whole Harry Potter series as a story about Hermione as the main protagonist, that you can just as easily see this series as being Peggy's story. More than Don's. At this point, it's Peggy's interactions with Ted, Pete, Joan, Stan, Ginsburg that are the source of positive, deeper sparks.

Though Don making baby noises and Joan being an old Jewish lady was pretty amusing.

Honestly I would have liked Harry Potter more if it had been told as Hermione's story. I would definitely like Madmen more if it were told as Peggy's story. But you know both works have enormously successful without my input. I always crack up with a great deal of sympathy at Kirk Douglas saying way back when "Rambo should have died at the end of the first movie. Stallone would have lost all the money he made in the sequels but it would have *right*. I don't have much of an opinion on the Rambo thing. But I can totally sympathize with having a view on how a movie or a book should have been different even when it was enormously successful the way it was.

Though Don making baby noises and Joan being an old Jewish lady was pretty amusing.

Totally great.

Also, I don't think we've seen Don *hide* his drinking before, so that's a pretty big red flag.

I always crack up with a great deal of sympathy at Kirk Douglas saying way back when "Rambo should have died at the end of the first movie. Stallone would have lost all the money he made in the sequels but it would have *right*.

Rambo (actually, First Blood) was a novel before it became a movie. In the novel, Rambo did die at the end. At least, according to the Foreword of the novelization of the second movie (the one I read).

Interesting. Kirk Douglas had not read the novel, Just thought that was really the only ending to the movie that was true to the characters.

For, the record my prediction foe Necessary Roughness is that Nico is undercover be ause V3 is into something shady. Dani is going to find ou and do something stupid.

I'm glad we're getting some of the Ravens stuff still, even if we've lost Riley. I like TK the most out of everyone, although he can't sustain too much of a plot. Nice to see the QB stuck around on the show.

Both Nico and Sark just looked like they would be doing battling shadiness, but I also think Uncle Jesse is too good to be true.

I remembered what happened to her son when they were cleaning house, but there was a daughter, right? What did she do? Move in with dad?

How much good can the pure-hearted Santino do while the men around her are more fiscally and shadily motivated? STAY TUNED TO FIND OUT.

But in the meantime, killing time with Sinqua? EXCELLENT CALL.

Well, instead of running away to California, Don does a favor for Ted, and is honest (and incredibly unprofessional) in a client meeting about his horrible upbringing. For which he gets a forced leave of absence and possibly the end of his marriage. Partners have had enough of his shenanigans. (Apparently Joan got Avon too.)

But instead of crawling back into the bottle he moves into the honesty and takes his children to the whorehouse where he was raised. So Sally (at least) will know who he really is.

He's done a lot of shitty things this year (in particular). I don't think he's redeemed himself by any means. I don't know if he even cares about redemption. But he does seem to have made a decision to change. To be honest. To take the consequences.

He's tried to change before. This felt a little different. Not choosing a new set of circumstances, but confronting his past.

I'm going to miss Pete's Mom!

A theory on how Mad Men ends: [link]

So, I liked where the season ended. I'm still kind of tired of Matt Weiner making excuses for Don, but whatever, it's TV. (I actually think Jon Hamm has been brilliant this season in making Don truly pathetic, but in Q&As, Weiner always seems surprised when people ask why Don is so unlikeable this season, and I think it shows in the choices he's made, hitting us over the head with flashbacks, etc.)

Peggy's "Well isn't that nice for you, to have decisions" was dead-on. Fuck you, Ted.

Pete's "NOT GREAT BOB" in the elevator killed me. We rewound the Tivo to watch it again, it was so perfect. Holy crap. And then Pete and his brother deciding not to even pursue Manolo, because it would cost too much! Campbell family, what the hell is wrong with all of you. You are THE WORST.

I would like to state for the record right now that I would watch the hell out of a Pete Campbell spin-off, in LA, in the 1970s. AMC MAKE THAT HAPPEN.