Season 3 finale was a shocker.
Everything has been going down the toilet. Kennedy is assassinated. Sterling Cooper is being sold. Betty tells Don "I don't love you any more". Life is disintegrating around Donald Draper. He is losing his grip.
Bang! Comes a fantastic, kickass Episode 13: "Shut the Door. Have a Seat."
In a way the finale reminds me very much of the kindhearted Maugham: Everyone gets what he or she wants in the end.
Betty gets her new upper-class Daddy figure in the politician. Roger gets Joan back. Joan gets her old job back -- with an upgrade. Lane Pryce avoids the fate of being shipped to Bombay and gets to stay in New York. Pete gets to be the head of accounts and makes partner. Peggy gets respect from the man she has looked up to and wants to become. And Don Draper gets to reinvent himself all over again, this time to start his own agency, as well as a new life.
The scene in which Don begs Peggy to come with him is the closest to a lovemaking scene for him throughout the entire series. He has never had as much chemistry with any of his lovers.
The episode is also brilliant observation about corporate mergers that reminds me of the pharma industry. After all the critique and revelation about the dark side of the American Dream, here Weiner and co. take a U-turn and give us the upside, the spirit and joy of reinventing oneself. 置之死地而后生。
The episode is also hilarious and fully of clever one-liners.
A triumph.
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