Don Draper is one of the biggest mysteries, as well as one of the most anti-heroic anti-heroes, on TV. The temperamental artist, serial philanderer and distant father has been undergoing a transformation in the seventh season, however. He offers to do the right thing by Megan. He hands off a successful pitch to Peggy, who had, probably rightfully so, grown tired of the behavior of her mentor. He turns down offers from women who fling themselves at him well, mostly; does the threesome that included Megan count?
While we might have had a sense of forbidding about Lane Pryce a couple of seasons ago, this past season or two Weiner has been stringing us along with foreboding balconies and Sharon Tate hints. Who would have thought we would reach the final episode before the last seven episodes only to find that Don has mostly righted himself? Enough success to choke schemers and graspers β even enjoyable ones β like Pete and Harry. As, as Entertainment Weekly pointed out, the end credits even gave her character a name: Lee Cabot.
True, too many of the timeslots are filled with inferior stuff. Rosen, whom Don is boinking? The wife, that is. Good god, people.
The credits went by way too fast to catch a name, so I turned to online sources and was shocked to discover the character was played by Linda Cardellini. There seems to be less pressure without a episode, big network season. Less expectation of Super Bowl-sized ratings. Less expectation of quickly meeting the episode threshold for syndication. With those shorter seasons, you can weed out the deadwood episodes.
While the season had its critics, I thought almost every episode was riveting. Would that have been the case if the creators had been compelled to turn out twice as many episodes to fill out a network season? There are some drawbacks. Out of sight, out of mind. It was torture but it made us look forward to their return even more.
