[Discuss Thrower]

I think the most important thing is the meta-commentary on consumption that Weiner et al are making.

It's clear, to me, that..

Spoiler!

... in the Season 7a finale with Peggy, Don and Pete making the Burger Chef pitch contrasted with the Apollo 11 moon landing. We're shown the effort that went in to this pitch (just as we've seen with every other pitch) in order for SC&P to land the business. It's a big moment when Don turns the reins over to Peggy as it's a signal that the student has become the master. And we see Peggy nail the pitch, but she distorts the truth in order to execute their plan -she spins her relationship with her tenant's son as if she was Julio's mother in a pitch that supplants the kitchen table of the home in all of its place as a nexus of family life with one of countless tables of a fast food chain. Don watches in awe as she does this, for only he and Pete know that Peggy is, in fact, a mother but also know that she gave up that child for adoption.

All-in-all we're shown that the prep work done by our SC&P friends pays off and they get the business.

In the background of the episode and just prior to Peggy knocking the Burger Chef pitch out of the park, is one of the greatest achievements in human history which took billions of dollars, thousands upon thousands of man hours and cost a handful of lives (RIP Gus, Ed, and Roger) to reach fruition with Armstrong radioing to Houston to announce "The Eagle has landed." America has done it: they've won the space race and has succeeded in doing what Jules Verne and the Melies Bros. could only dream of doing in setting foot on the Moon.

We watched Bert Cooper's reaction to the landing in delivering his last lines as a living character. "Bravo" indeed, you proto-Hentai loving, sock wearing, endearingly bigoted human gelding. Cooper passes away soon after and this is, as we now know, is the catalyst to the effective end of the firm that bears his name with Roger's preventative maneuvering to keep Jim Cutler from exiling Don. But what many have missed here is that Cooper represents the old guard of advertising that existed before the post-war boom and the generation of Roger and Don.

They -and therefore their generation- ushered in the culture of consumption that we live in today through effective use of their skills as majordomos of account servicing and genius creative mastermind respectively to survive and thrive as a small firm that could go toe to toe with the likes of BBDO and McCann Erickson and further perpetuate the ability of producers -from carmakers to pantyhose manufacturers to fast food restaurants- to inculcate the need the average person has to be consumers.

Roger and Don have figuratively lived and died in advertising. Roger sustained a heart attack cavorting with a set of twins as a married man in the Sterling Cooper offices while the other nearly self-destructed the Don Draper persona by revealing Dick Whitman's roots growing up in a whorehouse to executives with Hersey's. But -until the events of Season 7b- they were poised to trudge onward with schmoozing clients and grey matter muscling out of new images and ideas for approval by clients for the growth of their businesses so that Roger and Don's business continues to survive.

SC&P lives and dies with their ability to win clients over with pitches. Again, we watched SC&P -via their younger generation of Pete and Peggy- succeed in winning over Burger Chef in the biggest victory the firm has had since the old guard of Don and Roger managed to win over Chaough and Cutler to join forces and win over Chevy. Burger Chef was Peggy and Pete's Moon landing -it was a victory for their spot in perpetuating American consumerism.

But in the end what happened to Burger Chef? They were taken over and gradually erased from the United States in the 1980s though their use of kid-targeted meals and rates of Americans eating out instead of at home persist to this day. As someone born in 1988, I would have never known Burger Chef was a real company had it not been for an Internet search. I can guarantee many of my generation wouldn't have a clue about the company either -but we all know about the Moon landings.

But we go back to the era of the Apollo missions and back to the SC&P offices where Roger announces the passing of the agency's last living founder. Don slinks away to head back to his office as Peggy announces the news that they've won over Burger Chef -their own version of a moonshot- but he continues on his way saying there's work to do. And then we're greeted with a waiting spectre of Bert Cooper. "The stars in the sky, the Moon on high, they're great for you and me, because they're free," he sings. Don watches in awe as his old boss turned partner dances gracefully across the SC&P floor in argyle socks with a complement of pretty secretaries singing the tune from 1927 that extolls the virtues of things that advertising can never convince us to buy more of -birdsong, earthly flora, sunshine, the glimmering moon and glittering stars- because they cannot be offered for sale by any company in the sense that DeSylva and Brown penned about for the "Good News" musical.

The most important free thing imaginary-Bert is singing to Don about, love, is especially salient to Don since he and Megan came to the agreement to officially end their marriage -one that was began largely because of Don's wealthy status and sustained through the efforts of Don to grow his wealth through Megan's help (as copywriter and an effective account tool as she demonstrated in saving SCDP's business with Heinz as well as their ability to be the model of a married couple that Cool Whip wanted to see) along with Megan using Don as the conduit to breaking in as an actress without having to slum it as other aspiring actors and actresses have done (and continue to do).

Don's expression shifts from surprise to muted amusement with what his creative imagination has decided to show him with a Broadway-esque production put on by a former mentor turned equal. But the good feeling of seeing Bert again -even if it's a figment of imagination- tidally shift to sadness as Bert's dancing secretarial escorts exeunt stage left and right and Bert enters what used to be Roger's old office, gives Don one final wave as the office door magically closes forcing Don's reverie to an end. Where the feelings in his heart -whatever they may be- bring him to lean onto his secretary's desk as he processes the scene that just played out before his eyes.

It's this literal song and dance that Weiner's meta-commentary should become apparent to us: the old guard of advertising as symbolized by Bert is dead and that Bert as a symbol is telling us that what we should consume never needs to be purchased at all! The middle guard of advertising, as shown by Roger and Don, prove to be victims of their own success where they're a target for takeover by the big boys of the business and are destined to irrelevancy but both have figured out that seeking wealth has gotten them nowhere to this point. The tragedy lies with the vanguard of advertising -Peggy and Pete- for neither of them have reached the point that Bert, Roger and Don have in realizing that there's more to life than money and that happiness can be acquired for free. Seeing as Peggy is the in-show audience proxy, we should be keen to realize that our own "Burger Chef pitches" -our personal victories in seeking wealth which could be seen as our own Moon landings at the time- could very well be fleeting and lost to the mists of history, that our own quests to desire which is pitched to us as what we want and as what we need could very well by folly, but redemption through love and enjoying the things which have no price in the beauty of just living each day is easily attainable if we realize it soon enough.