*THIS EDITORIAL SPOILS MAD MEN, ARROW, AND THE FLASH*
Mad Men ended last night, and for nine years many viewers have turned in to what is arguably the best written show on TV. The characters and their plights have provided a great backdrop to excellent drama and comedy.
We followed these characters and discovered who they were. Compared to many other shows, Mad Men always painted its characters as real people. So when the show ended, I felt like I was seeing a logical conclusion to these characters and their lives.
Compare this to other shows like Arrow or The Walking Dead. Mad Men focused not on huge spectacle, but rather quieter, more intimate character moments. Instead of throwing flashy events at your face, the show simply established who it’s characters are, and let their interactions dictate the drama with a subtle whisper.
Last night as I watched the stories of Don, Peggy, Betty, Joan, and Pete come to a close. I thought of how it handled people’s belief, and couldn’t stop comparing that to the season finale of Arrow. Where the drama between Ras Al Ghul and Oliver lacked drama, context, and any sort of feeling as if there wasn’t any investment. The fight should’ve felt like there was more riding on it, but there wasn’t.
In the moment where Don finds peace in his beliefs, to me this was more rewarding then that Ras Vs. Oliver fight. His breakdown, telling Peggy that he’s not the man she thought he was. It meant a lot. It’s because these aren’t hollow characters occupying space, these are incredibly dense and rich characters all occupying their own little slice of life.
In a sense, Oliver and Don have more in common than most people believe. Both are men who undergo a radical transformation, and become men that challenge their previous notions of morality; what is right, and what is wrong is continuously up for debate with these men. For Don, these transformations took their toll, they have chipped away at the hardened exterior of a man hiding from his past. Oliver, while they like to provide context to who he is in flashbacks, I never really can tell if he’s changing over time. There should be this slow transformation into what he is, or his ability to rise above those challenges. Something Don did leading up to the series finale of Mad Men.
One of my biggest problems with Arrow’s sister show, The Flash, is that it never seems to respect its female characters. Caitlin’s characterization for a long time was that she had lost her fiancée; and Iris was constantly being kept in the dark regarding Barry’s secret. Both of those characters should be able to be better than that, but the show never really allowed them to move forward until sometime later in the season. For Mad Men’s women, they progressed and grew. Betty overcame her sense of being a victim, Joan realized her career was more important than relationships, and Peggy realized she needed time to show some love to the man that was in front of her for such a long time.
It may be unfair to pit a show that’s ran for nine years and seven seasons to shows that have ran for only one season, or three in Arrow’s case, but in a sense it’s not. Mad Men has always played the long game, and respected its characters from its first episode until it’s last. In that regard, whether you’re on the first episode or the latest one, the fact that most comic book tv shows try to make things so flashy, that they forget to focus on the characters. Why give Oliver a big reason to fight Ras when you can just have a choreographed fight scene that wows on a superficial level.
When people proclaim that some comic book TV shows are the best shows on TV. I can never prescribe to that. Shows like Fargo, True Detective, Game of Thrones, and Mad Men are much better written. They understand the importance of characterization, and that having mindless action or poor characterization is ultimately detrimental to the drama. It creates hollow mindless scenes that don’t engage a viewer in a way that keeps them enthralled on a deeper level.
To quote Stan from the Series Finale:
“Every time I’m face to face with you I want to strange you. And then I miss you when I go away. And then I call you on the phone and I get the person I want to talk to. But when I’m standing in front of you, I bring out something terrible. I think about how you came into my life and how you drove me crazy. And now… I don’t even know what to do with myself. because all I want to do is be with you.”
To quote Iris and Eddie in The Flash:
Iris West: You were kidnapped for nearly two weeks and your first thought was to go back to work?
Eddie Thawne: I just needed something constant in my life.
Iris West: I thought that was us.