'Mad Men' Recap: The Best Things in Life
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Leave it to “Mad Men” to make an episode that kills off a major character one of the more upbeat in recent memory.
Consider the relatively positive outcomes. Don, having already fought his way back from exile, successfully fights off another ouster. Peggy makes a brilliant presentation and wins the Burger Chef business. Roger Sterling is poised to regain leadership if not control of his agency. Jim Cutler is declawed, while Ted Chaough is hanging in there. Sally chooses the good boy. Men are on the moon — and they’re Americans! Even the death of Burt Cooper is accompanied by a little song and dance, a gift to “Mad Men” fans aware of actor Robert Morse’s Broadway past.
For all the good vibes, the closing moments of the first half of the show’s final season were tinged with the ominous. In the final scene, Cooper comes to Don in a vision and regales him with a little version of a standard that Bing Crosby made famous. Sure, it’s a send-off, but it can also be taken as a criticism of the action that came before, the happy refrain actually a scalpel to pick apart what had happened moments before in a partners meeting: “The moon belongs to everyone/the best things in life are free.”
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