Mad Men - "Lost Horizon" - 5/3/2015

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That's actually pretty standard. They converted their ownership to shares of the company stock at some conversion ratio. Those new shares were put on a clock, to give an incentive to stay. Usually anything that was vested prior would have just been cashed out. Assuming the old firm was just a partnership and not an option granting entity, then almost anything could be done.

 

Roger laid out part of the terms in the episode where they purchase was announced. I think that the partners got 25% of their ownership stake upon signing with the rest paid out over the 5 years of their contracts.

 

that doesn't sound right. i thought Joan had like 1.5 million stake or something, so for her to be worried about 500k would mean her stake was only 667k or so.

But in any case, I guess i'm not familiar with how partnerships get bought out.

 

Tom & Lorenzo's Mad Style recap is posted:

http://tomandlorenzo.com/2015/05/mad-style-lost-horizon/

 

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MM seems to be ending like a concert where one band member walks off the stage at a time.

Do you think we will see Roger or Joan again in the last two episodes?
Ken is gone for good, and I think Harry too.

Pete was in the coming attractions. The story is Don's story, so he'll be in until the end.

 

Schedule update:

May 10 episode running time (with commercials) is 1:11.
May 17 finale, 1:15.

 

I was fully expecting we had seen the last of Betty with that final interaction between Betty and Don in this episode ("Knock 'em dead, Birdie"). But then Betty was in the scenes from next week, so I guess not.

Tim Goodman from THR.com wrote a column this week speculating that with only two episodes left and Don clearly trying to distance himself from New York, we may have already seen the last interactions between Don and most of the SC&P characters.

However, I don't buy that. Mad Men typically has about a month between episodes, so I highly doubt that Don will spend the next two months away from New York and that we won't get some kind of final scenes with Don, Joan, Roger, Pete, Peggy, etc.

 

It would be really disappointing if there is no emotional scene between Peggy and Don, which has been the core relationship binding the whole series together. The only good scene I think we've had with them was the performance review scene.

 

Excellent point, Z. I want to see that too.

 

She is? Not seeing it.

 

Agreed. She just seems to be very earnest and focused on doing a good job. I haven't sensed anything from her that she is interested in Don.

 

I wonder if Don's signature on the agreement is worth anything if he came forward and claimed to be Dick Whitman. He never legally changed his name. But, as someone else mentioned, Dick Whitman is "dead." There's no DNA--how could he even prove he is himself?

Not interested in chasing the waitress. But I guess it's typical Don behavior.

I wonder what Joan would have done if she didn't have her rich new boyfriend.

 

Last Season (or sorry, last year -- first part of Season 7) when Don got the letter that he was being fired.

And you can tell she was acting differently than then she is acting now. She is not hitting on him now -- she is being a mother figure to him now.

 

That's why I thought it was interesting they focused in on the SS card. Could be something or nothing. I wish I knew how to use my google-fu to figure out what the laws were back then just for the ID theft. It seems like if that is the Real Draper's SS# that even back then sooner or later (likely later) some kind of foul play would be detected. I'm not sure how they in-process soldiers now or then...perhaps someone else knows if they fingerprinted soldiers back then which would be one way to lead back to his origin. Of course all this is real world speculation, not TV world so no way to tell.

 

I don't think it does any good to speculate about Don getting busted for identity theft. That's simply not the type of show this is and there's no way that's the direction Weiner would take the story in the final two episodes.

 

My quick summary: Drunk Rollerskating Peggy morphing into Bad-Ass Peggy, FTW. That is all.

BTW, I think Peggy will have major challenges but ultimately will be ok. She never did (never had?) to trade on her sexuality to establish herself so she will be able to adapt in that regard better than Joan did. I've always thought Peggy represents the next wave in feminism.

 

I felt like the focus on the card was mostly "hey, look, we did our research, and this is the Social Security card someone would have in 1970!"