well, at least no one offed themselves

I can't believe it's the last episode of Mad Men season 4. That certainly swooshed right by, didn't it? This finale, Tomorrowland, seemed to get a lot of mixed reviews and I personally thought it was...okay. It doesn't hold a candle to the finales of seasons 1 (Peggy was pregnant!) and 3 (Sterling Cooper Draper Price!), nor to the much-beloved season 4 episode The Suitcase (pretty much my favorite MM episode, bar none). It was just kind of..odd. Everything was predictable and unpredictable at the same time. I know that doesn't make too much sense on paper (er, on LCD screen), but it makes sense in my head. The foreshadowing was so obvious, yet we were still saying WTF when it happened. Case in point:

early in season four, Faye predicts Don Draper will be married within a year. We see him (and Sally) get closer to Megan the receptionist. In this episode, we get the horribly unsubtle engagement ring appearance. Yet Don getting engaged to Megan = a WTF moment if there ever was one. I even saw spoiler pictures of Megan and the Drapers in California and I was still flummoxed. Let's get on with it:

The good:

Pete Campbell is a great character: spineless, simpering, hilarious. But can we discuss the awesomeness of Ken Cosgrove, the Toby Flenderson to Pete's Michael Scott? How lucky is that Alex Mack Ken refuses to jeopardize his marriage for his job, he has no problem letting Peggy control the meeting with the Topaz pantyhose guys, he and Peggy have cute celebratory hugs sans drama! Matthew Weiner, please let's not pull another Harry Crane and slowly turn Ken from a cute, normal guy into a smug lecher.

I may be torn on Megan (more on that later) but the scene with her in the diner having lunch with the Drapers was hilarious due to Don, Sally, and Bobby's reaction to her non-reaction to the milkshake spillage. I love how they were looking at her like she'd sprouted antennae from her head.

Peggy and Joan's bitchfest was so great. I loved how Peggy called Joan on her bullshit.

The middling:

Joan's pregnancy. Did we all call it when we saw her slightly swollen abdomen in her first scene? I'm glad Joan's having a baby and it sure will make for an interesting season next year, but I'm not crazy about the whole passing-off-someone-else's-baby-as-yours thing. And, uh, her husband is a doctor. Also, he can COUNT. Is she really going to be able to pull that off or will it not matter when he kicks it in Vietnam? And I'm pretty sure Roger will notice eventually.

I was never very fond of Dr. Faye Miller but she definitely got the fuzzy end of the lollipop this season. Is this the last we're going to see of her, or will she go all Fatal Attraction on Don next year (let's hope)?

The downright ugly:

Betty. When Betty fired Carla I wrote HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE (yes, seven times) on my scratch paper. Congratulations on making Betty as hateful as she's ever been. We get all these sympathy-inducing snippets of Betty's issues, but they are almost always completely overshadowed by her CRAZY BITCHINESS. There'll be a lot of digging to get Betty out of the "Worst Mother in the World (Who Doesn't Have A Problem With Wire Hangers)" ditch, writers. Though Glen continues to creep everyone out, Betty's fixation on him is downright weird. We're almost starting to feel a little sorry for January Jones.

Don Draper does not do doe-eyed well. Mon Dieu, he was like a pod person! What exactly comes over Don whenever he hits the Best--I mean West--Coast? As far as I know, there's nothing floating around in the air (well, unless it's Venice Beach or the back of some dorm room) so why does Don go all dreamy when he's in California? Too much sun? (By the way, I love how in the Mad Men universe, California is so perfectly sunny with cloudless blue skies, like a Hollywood postcard or a Doris Day movie locale.)

What, what, WHAT are you doing? Did you really propose to your 20-something secretary that you slept with all of three times simply because she is good with your children and (let's just admit it) has really cute dresses? You're in love with her, you say? WHEN did that happen? Oh Don, you are such a moron.

Okay, Megan. There appear to be differing opinions on her. My dear colleague is taking the glass half-full approach in her assertion that Megan is just a beautiful, smart, French-speaking pseudo-nanny who is going to get burned when Don inevitably screws up. Or maybe he won't this time (lol, yeah right). I'm taking the glass half-empty approach in that Megan may be more calculating than we've been shown (coming in to "check" on the kids in her Whiskey-A-G0-Go dress? And does she really want to be a copywriter or was that BS?). Either way, we can agree that 1. we really don't know too much about Megan (whether it's due to bad characterization or deliberate ambiguity remains to be seen) and 2. things probably won't end well for Don.

By the way, how crappy was it that Don basically told Peggy that Megan was just like her, only Megan is pretty! Peggy should have slapped him silly.

Minor notes:

-Is it weird that I love Sally's little jumpers? If I were ten I think I'd love having a plaid jumper with suspenders.

-Lane Pryce is a good guy. He had good intentions with Joan's promotion-but-no-pay-raise thing (which of course, just means more work for the same amount of money). He seemed more chipper, so maybe we can take him off Suicide Watch until next summer.

-It was beyond cute when Don flopped on the bed with Sally and Bobby.

-I'm no Betty fan, to state the obvious, but I did like her scene with Don. I can't help it, I'm such a sucker for their dysfunction.

Characters who were/are probably too good for this show:

Ken Cosgrove

Carla

Mrs. Blankenship

This season's depressing coda, in quote-form:

"Things aren't perfect."

"So you'll move again."

This is why I sometimes I think it's a lost cause to hope that this show will eventually end well for Don. He tries to change but always defaults to the easy way out. He just makes the same mistakes over and over and over again.

And on that uplifting note, we're dunzo! That is, until next summer, when we find out how many inches Sally grows, how Don will mess up yet again, and whether Megan makes the opening credits.

(P.S. It's the last episode of the season and so I went a little crazy with the tags and Blogger has the nerve to tell me "the combined length of all the labels must be at most 200 characters." Way to stifle my creativity, Blogger.)