Mad Men - S03E11 & S03E12

Mad Men season three is coming to an end next Monday and I still feel that it has been the weakest season so far for the series, it's especially apparent since I re-watched season one two weeks ago and that season is television perfection. I think this shift in quality is mostly due to the more stand alone nature to the episodes this season which made the show feel like it was drifting around without a clear plot for most of the season. I also felt a lack of truly outstanding episodes like The Wheel, Meditations in an Emergency, Babylon and Smoke Gets in Your Eyes which stood out from seasons past as the best god damn television I have ever seen. However I should point out that at least the show has been consistently good despite this and there was no episode that felt truly out of place like in season two when Don went to Los Angeles. Basically this is still the best show on television right now despite having a weaker season than usual and when I think about it I can't really blame the creators for not being able to recreate the sheer perfection of season one.

However today I finally caught up with the show with the latest two episodes that I had missed The Gypsy and the Hobo (S03E11) and The Grown Ups (S03E12). I must say that the show finally seems to be tying up all the small plots throughout the season and is returning to form in an incredible way. Sure this season still had great episodes like Love Among the Ruins (S03E02) and Seven Twenty Three (S03E07) but these latest two episodes leading up to the finale next week have been absolutely superb. In The Gypsy and the Hobo (S03E11) we finally get the confrontation between Don and Betty about his fake identity that we've been waiting for and it was more intense than I could ever have imagined and you could really see the power shift happening in front of your eyes between these two characters. The Grown Ups (S03E12) deals with the death of Kennedy, how shocking it must have been to everyone back then and how it almost marks an end of an era. This horrible event in American history really seems to reflect how Don's manufactured life is crumbling around him, right in front of his eyes. I am now impatiently waiting for the season finale and judging by seasons past it ought to be the best episode of the season.