Take, for example, “Tomorrowland.” The fourth season finale is likely going to be a polarizing episode in terms of audience response, taking Don Draper in what some may view as a self-destructive direction, but in constructing those moments Weiner does little to change the series’ rich thematic tapestry. While I initially felt as if the finale’s marginalization of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce and their predicament kept it from truly wrapping up the season, in thinking about the approaches taken throughout this project I realized that it is more cohesive than I imagined.

While the agency may have been marginalized in the episode, my response to the Topaz account was still influenced by Devon Powers’ look at the state of advertising in the 1960s.

When the show lost its one prominent recurring minority in Carla, Don and Betty’s nanny, I thought back to pieces from LeiLani Nishime, Allison Perlman and particularly Kristen Warner (who focused specifically on Blackness and Carla’s role in the series) which dealt with the role of race within the series.

My attention to Megan’s attire during the Los Angeles scenes may have been initially trivial, but as that story developed I considered her fashion in light of Elana Levine’s analysis of the fashioning of femininity.

As Don” fell in love” with Megan, I thought both on Jennifer Clark’s discussion of masculine detachment (and his decision to attach himself to Megan in particular) and Joe Wlodarz’s investigation of the eroding barriers between the personal and the professional (which seems apt considering he is marrying his secretary).

As Peggy visited with Joan to gossip about Don and Megan’s engagement, I returned to both Anne Helen Petersen’s take on the role of gossip in the show and Mary Beth Haralovich’s look at how Peggy serves as our guide throughout the series.

As Sonny and Cher’s “I’ve Got You Babe” swelled up during the final scene, I recalled Tim Anderson’s piece on the role popular music plays in the series’ narrative.

And as the episode came to its conclusion, and Twitter lit up with responses, I reflected upon Louisa Stein’s piece on how Mad Men’s fandom operates, and how the show’s unique fan community will respond to the finale’s event.

But, in the end, perhaps the biggest question goes back to Krya Glass von der Osten’s piece which started us off: with hype at an all-time high for the series, did season four live up to our expectations? There is no question that there were some strong individual hours of television, with “The Suitcase” likely one of the series’ best efforts, but the collective season has been more difficult to gauge. Don and the agency have both spent the season in a state of flux, while numerous other characters have had opportunities to move forward but ended up stepping back. After the substantial change created by last season’s finale, the instability of the circumstance it created has made the characters less likely to make any dramatic changes; until Don’s decision to marry Megan, the characters were reacting more than acting, whether it is Joan and Roger’s affair being the result of a mugging attempt or the agency’s collapse being the result of Lucky Strike’s departure.

However, what I find most interesting is those moments trapped between action and reaction: was Don’s New York Times ad a confident action, or a desperate reaction to Lucky Strike’s departure? And was his decision to marry Megan an action to regain control of his life, or a reaction to the short-term stability she offered and its potential role in solving his identity crisis? When we start pondering Don’s motivations, we get trapped in a vicious cycle wherein his true purpose seems hopelessly lost, but this has always been the case. Don’s actions in the finale are just as confounding and complex as they were before, and so we can still frame this finale – as disruptive as it first seemed, to me at least – in the context of previous seasons.

Perhaps what is most telling is that Don Draper did not seem to act out of desperation: while his decision may be sudden, and impulsive, it did not have the sense of fear which has driven previous behavior. And similarly, there is no desperation from Matthew Weiner in “Tomorrowland”: the episode may be eventful, but it never seems as if there is no control over the series’ future. It may not nicely bring all of the season’s themes or storylines to a close, but Mad Men’s fourth season finale offers the promise that those themes and storylines will continue into subsequent seasons, and that’s enough for me.

Despite the centrality of advertising to the show’s narrative, until this season the profession itself has received a relatively uncomplicated treatment, making it one of the more dependable aspects of this often topsy-turvy world. This steadfastness provides one of the show’s most tantalizing allures, spinning fantasies of dapper account men and dazzling creativity, of an economics of abundance and unrepentant consumerist fantasies. This season, though, the business has grappled with more existential dilemmas, ones that get at the nature of advertising itself. Mad Men, and its mad men and women, have been on a quest to redefine what advertising is, dramatizing the radical changes that the field underwent during the 1960s.

Most pressing this season has been the fate of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, the agency that dawned at the end of last season and which has shape-shifted in nearly every episode since—from scrappy start up to spunky boutique, from confident newcomer to jilted also-ran. This has not only laid the groundwork for fantastic personal drama (watch Don quake with nerves! See Roger reach new heights of tragic buffoonery!), but also made visible the pressures that face the agency as it struggles to find its competitive niche. In this episode, those stresses come to a head, as layoffs transpire, the partners put up their own money to extend the agency’s credit line, and they wrestle futilely for new work. A veritable Madison Avenue-style David vs. Goliath is at hand, challenging not just the mettle of the show’s leading characters, but also whether small business can compete against behemoth corporations. What can an agency like theirs bring to the table that a larger, more established firm, cannot?

The most surprising answer given this episode is ethics. “For over 25 years we devoted ourselves to a product for which good work is irrelevant, because people can’t stop themselves from buying it,” Don writes in his New York Times letter bemoaning cigarettes. “A product that never improves, that causes illness, and that makes people unhappy. But there was money in it. A lot of money.” For an ad man ostensibly to come out against a client base that provides ample revenue—especially during a moment of crisis, as their agency finds itself in—smacks of an almost pathological gumption, a righteousness unfathomable even a few episodes prior (especially when remembering the reaction, in an earlier episode, to Peggy’s criticism of a client that did not employ people of color). This attempt to make the agency stand for something mirrors Don’s own efforts, however fitful, to turn over a new leaf in his personal life; though like those more personal efforts, this move is primarily a creative one that does not necessarily match the gusto of its surface with substance. The deliberate images of numerous characters smoking in the show’s final movements visualize this, but that is only the most overt display of the duality, even hypocrisy, of Don’s actions. Instead, ethical advertising emerges as the most cunning sales pitch yet. And Don realizes, once again, that he is narrative to be written, a product to be sold.

From a historical standpoint, it is fitting that these introspections are entering at this juncture. The 1960s found advertising fraught with both innovation and crisis, beset on one side by the political and social changes of the era and on the other by brash new ways of thinking among advertisers. Among the changes initiated, solidified, and/or galvanized during this time period are the exploration of previously neglected markets, the establishment of new techniques of market research, and the adoption of more outlandish and unconventional creative techniques. This season has flirted with all these developments, and more—from the recurring themes of market segmentation and research, to renewed continuity with public relations and publicity stunts, to the politics of advertising as a practice. But most crucially, each of these issues comes to bear in recalibrating how the agency—and the people within it—think about what it is that they do. Rather than mere “shenanigans,” the outcome of this episode will be a new future for an agency where promotion and image may become as important as, and potential drivers for, the work of advertising itself.

As has been the case in several excellent episodes over the course of the series, a significant cultural event anchors “The Suitcase.”  The title bout between Cassius Clay and Sonny Liston provides open avenues for characterization: Trudy meets Pete at the office beforehand, creating an opportunity for Peggy to witness and react to Trudy’s pregnant body.  Even the fact that Peggy would miss the fight underlines her discomfort and disaffiliation with events and practices that are meant to be universal.

The fight also clears out the office, allowing the confrontation/reconciliation between Don and Peggy to take place in isolation.  But most importantly, the fight itself features two celebrities — two constructed images.  And what people say about these images — how they gossip — reveals as much about the speaker of the gossip as it does about the subject.

Gossip — whether about celebrities or prominent figures in our own social lives — allows us a way to work through issues.  Gossip works to socially police beauty and cultural norms, but also speaks the unspeakable, permitting us to talk about things we’re otherwise not comfortable explicitly discussing.  When Don admits his hate for Clay — “Liston just goes about his business, works methodically,” while “Cassius has to dance and talk” — he’s essentially declaring what he values and dismisses in a man.

The cultural environment of 1960s was characterized by the expansion of celebrity. With the star system dead and buried, fan magazines were increasingly turning to a broad range of public figures as grist for the gossip mill, including singers, politicians, and sports figures; Photoplay had declared Jackie Kennedy America’s “Biggest Star” in 1961.  A celebrity was more than just someone who was good at his job.  He also disclosed something about his personal life (his childhood, his romances, his favorite foods), intermingling the public and the private and offering the resultant image for consumption.

In this way, Clay vs. Liston was more than a fight between two men.  Liston was an ex-con, had mob associations, was terse in interviews, and in December 1963 appeared in close up on the cover of Esquire dressed as Santa Claus, looking, according to Sports Illustrated, “like the last man on earth Americans wanted to see coming down the chimney.”  Liston’s handlers forced him to pose for the Esquire cover; he seemingly preferred to keep quiet and do the job.  In contrast, Clay, the self-declared “greatest,” loved the spotlight.  He had a publicity team; he loved to spout bombast.  Clay was the future of celebrity, always eager to provide copy, later intermingling his personal political and religious beliefs (“I don’t have no quarrel with the Vietcong”) with his “profession.”  Of course, Clay won the fight.  And Don lost, both figuratively and financially.

Which brings us back to Don and Peggy — representatives of two approaches to the public/private divide.  Don’s attempts to shelter his past is more than a straightforward attempt to shed the remnants of Dick Whitman.  He doesn’t talk about his past, especially not at work, because, in his conception, it’s simply not pertinent.   Or, as Chuck Klosterman just Tweeted, “Don Draper would hate Twitter.”

Peggy’s past and personal narrative explicitly informs her work.  While she shields aspects of her life — her pregnancy, her relationship with Duck — she is always forthcoming about her family, where she lives, her (lapsed) Catholicism.   She recognizes that the private, whether yearnings or biographical details, are readily becoming available for exploitation and public consumption.  Intimacy — or at least the projection of intimacy — is increasingly crucial for success, as so perfectly embodied by Dr. Faye, whom Peggy clearly admires.  She doesn’t  fully embrace this shift, but also recognizes that she can’t fight it.

Something crucial happens, however, when Don chances upon Roger’s tapes, which disclose the intensely private details of Roger and Cooper’s pasts.  Peggy exclaims “Why are you laughing?  it’s like reading someone’s diary.”  And, of course, it is: a diary that Roger plans on publishing and from which he hopes to profit.  It’s gossip, intended to construct an image of Roger Sterling for public consumption.  The surprise is that Don’s eating it — and loving it.

Here’s our turning point.  In the diner, Peggy returns to the gossip about Bert, this time in giggles.  They each disclose details of their pasts, desires of their futures.  Don ends up in the toilet bowl; Duck exposes Peggy; Peggy watches Don break down and weep.  The episode culminates with an ambiguous yet intimate gesture, one that mirrors a gesture that Peggy attempted early in Season One, when she thought it her responsibility to make herself sexually available.  Don rebuffed her then, but this time, he is the initiator.

Increased Peggy-Don intimacy (romance? closer platonic friendship?) would entail a thorough intermingling of Don’s personal and private lives, and add a very different valence to the ‘Don Draper’ image.  Cassius Clay and Sonny Liston may have been the biggest celebrities of the specific cultural moment, but Don was a celebrity of both Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce and the advertising world, and what people thought and said about him revealed a lot about the image of 1960s “the ad man,” anxieties over the future of the agency, and the trajectory of the industry.

Perhaps more importantly, “Don Draper” is a celebrity of our own time.  What each of us think about him and this potential relationship whispers volumes: about ourselves, our own desires, our own acceptance or antipathy towards celebrity culture, and even our conception of how a “quality” narrative should proceed.

So what do you think?  “Open or closed?”

“Award or no award, you’re still Don Draper.” –Dr. Faye Miller

“Whatever that means.”—Don Draper

Nothing is as it was in this season’s Mad Men. From cultural mores to familial and interpersonal dynamics to workplace hierarchies, everything is in flux. And the change in masculine authority and its maintenance—figured primarily through Don Draper—is the most dramatic of these changes. Understanding what it means to be Don Draper continues to be a central concern, as it has been since Season 1, but his loss of certain power is a new, central development. This season, and especially in “Waldorf Stories,” viewers see Don trapped in a world neither of his own making nor under his control. While this character shift offers a peculiar sort of pleasure for viewers, it also underscores the means by which Don has exerted masculine control up to this point: through the uniquely male privilege of disengagement. Unlike any other episode to date, “Waldorf Stories” stresses the importance of masculine disengagement by creating a context in which this mode is no longer available to Don.

Throughout the first three seasons of Mad Men, Don has deployed detachment from others and expressed a world weariness that has placed him apart from the feminized, emotionally laden, threatening, and/or naïve attitudes of those around him. This expression of patriarchal power invites viewers to identify with a man in control because of his detached sensibilities (versus a hysterical Betty or a naïve Peggy or feminized clients and rivals). Don’s ability to detach from seemingly trivial concerns and attachments that affect others makes him admirable, even when his actions might otherwise register as despicable. Whether effectively besting a romantic rival by cynically deflating empty posturing or simply gazing poignantly into space as he contemplates serious matters while others engage in silly office politics, Don’s ability to remove himself from the world around him makes him a superior being.

The aesthetic qualities of these scenes reinforce this sense of Don’s superiority: viewers are afforded languid camera movements and extended shots of Don deep in contemplation. This not only grants us identification with Don, but also deepens his mystique and helps us to imagine that he (especially given this unique aesthetic) is unlike everyone else. Narratively, his knowledge of existential predicaments fuels his business acumen (as seen in his Kodak Carousel pitch where he philosophizes about the pangs of nostalgia) and his charisma in the public and private domain.

What we have in “Waldorf Stories” is the same aesthetic treatment, but with very different effect. In this episode, the camera lingers on Don while time lapses, but it no longer helps us imagine Don’s inner torment nor asks us to contemplate what sets Don Draper/Dick Whitman apart from everybody else. Instead, we watch an increasingly pathetic man lose control of his world and squander the power he has earned (or has been granted, depending on the particular viewer’s sympathies).

Throughout Season 4 and especially in this latest episode, Don is no longer able to sustain his aloof, disaffected stance. Instead, he seeks approval and affirmation from women (asking Joan how he looks before receiving his Clio, asking Faye Miller if she saw him win), engages in giddy emotional displays (the drunken victory lap in the conference room), and generally acts less like Don Draper with every passing moment. With this, Don risks losing control in his work and personal life. The series makes this threat clear through intertextual references to earlier scenes and visual elements intrinsic in developing the deeply intertwined nature of Don’s disengagement and his empowerment. For instance, in the series premiere, Don shuts down the firm’s emasculating female psychologist and then retreats to a reverie on his office couch while the camera lingers on his face and lighting evidences a passage of time. Here, his control over the workplace and threatening women work in tandem with his solitude and his ability to control space and protect his time of solitary thought. All of this is signified through this mode of lighting and editing. Similar aesthetic techniques are used in the Lost Weekend scenario of “Waldorf Stories,” where Don drunkenly goes to bed with one woman on Friday evening and wakes up with another one on a Sunday morning. They are used again when he retreats to his couch to recover from his debauchery. In these instances, Don has lost rather than gained control. Linked through these aesthetic commonalities, these scenes effectively contrast the commanding Don of Season 1 with the out-of-control Don of Season 4.

It is also important that Don’s loss of control is gauged by women who appear and disappear in these scenes. They leave and enter his bed without his full knowledge and break in upon his dream/drunken states. Doris, the diner waitress whom he wakes up next to, effectively traps him in his own bathroom; Betty wakens him with an angry phone call about his negligence in visiting his children; and Peggy appears at his apartment to direct him to “fix” the error he has made in stealing an insipid tag line from Roger’s “idiot” relative.

Rather than a means of controlling his world, Don’s disengagement has now become a trap (in one instance, quite literally) and a mark of irresponsibility that is now effectively disciplined by women. Rather than philosophically rich and introspective speeches, we are given bastardized, inelegant versions of them. Rather than detachment from clearly inferior clients, we are given Don’s overly eager and desperate rapid-fire pitches. Rather than protracted scenes of Don’s fugue states where we are meant to admire his indifference or complicated inner states, we are given alcohol-fuelled stupor, blackouts and hangovers. All of these changes, not coincidentally, come during the very season where we have sustained rumblings of women’s liberation and various challenges to the heterosexual patriarchal order. In the past few episodes alone, Mad Men has represented in relatively affirmative ways: lesbianism and an acceptance of women’s desires for each other outside the domain of men; global economies that introduce national and ethnic Others as significant figures and the waning currency of American men’s WWII heroism; and a growing sense of workplace equity for women.

By referencing key elements of earlier seasons that presented Don’s power as appealing, “Waldorf Stories” marks the radical differences between a Don Draper whose power is justified and a Don Draper who doesn’t “earn” his masculine prerogatives. While this might be the show’s critical reflection on the inevitable future of patriarchy in 1965, it also should remind us of the vicarious pleasures we may have experienced in relationship to the appealing, powerful, in-control masculinity of the pre-1965 Don Draper model.