Hasta La Creative!

Much of “Mad Men” has been about luck, or rather the difficulties that vex even those who have the best of luck. In many ways, the show is #FirstWorldProblems forty years before the hashtag. This has been especially clear in the episodes following the McCann acquisition. Now the characters aren’t just affluent; they’re straight up rich. But they’re still searching.

In the penultimate episode of “Mad Men,” we see this theme made quite literal. Two characters, in two very different contexts, are told they are lucky. First, Betty Francis hears it from her husband, in the initial moments following her terminal lung cancer diagnosis. “You’re a very lucky woman,” Henry says. Though designed as support point for his argument that she should fight the disease with whatever care was available back in October 1970, it just comes off as a ridiculous statement to someone about to be cut down in her mid-30s.

Later, a drunken, raving Duck Phillips tells Pete Campbell pretty much the same thing. Pete is in line for a job at Learjet that would get him a raise, a signing bonus, and stock options worth in the neighborhood of the $1 million left on his earnout at McCann-Erickson — all despite blowing off a meeting with his suitor.

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