Everyday this week, up until and on Sunday, I’m going to post some reflections on Mad Men characters. Each day will feature one of the main cast, along with a host of supporting characters. Enjoy. I didn’t say this on the first post, but I’ll say it here: Spoilers. Major spoilers for any and all episodes leading up to “Person to Person,” which no one but Matthew Weiner has presumably seen yet.
Harry Crane (Rich Sommer), first appeared in “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” (season 1, episode 1), most recently appeared in “The Milk and Honey Route” (season 7, episode 13).
Someone please kill Harry Crane. We still have one more episode for him to go flying out a window, or have his foot run over by a lawn mower–SOMETHING. For all that people may complain about Don, Roger and Pete, Harry Crane is really and truly the most despiscable Mad Man. Which is kinda sad considering how he started.
He was supposed to be the nice one–he slept with a secretary in “Nixon vs. Kennedy,” but he immediately felt remorse. He burst into tears at Don’s Carousel pitch, hinting at some sort of sentimentality.
But now, he’s a bastard. It’s been a gradual shift, one mainly fueled by his own ego and the dollar signs in his eyes, but dear god is it ever irritating. A good episode is one where either Don or Roger spit acid at Harry Crane; I don’t care what else happened in that episode, if someone puts Harry Crane down, it’s a good episode.
Gosh, I’ll miss those Harry Crane-aimed barbs.
Where Will He Be in 2015? Dead by Chauncey’s hand…paw. Seriously, that dog should’ve gotten more than Harry Crane did on this show.
Lee Garner, Jr. (Darren Pettie), first appeared in “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” (season 1, episode 1), (likely) final appearance in “Hands and Knees” (season 4, episode 10).
I think it speaks to Lee Jr.’s oppressive influence on the first half of the show that it genuinely shocks me that he was only in four episodes of the entire show, according to IMDB. He’s terrible in his first appearance, and he’s terrible in his last appearance. This is the guy that tried to seduce Sal, nearly ruined Roger and SCDP and was just generally the worst. His ego was Sterling Cooper’s and SCDP’s worst enemy–until he up and left, partially thanks to Don. There’s part of me that wonders if he might be back in the finale–after all, the show began with cigarettes, and considering Betty’s fate (more on that on Saturday), it may very well end with them.
Where Will He Be in 2015? Getting his ass kicked by Betty all over the afterlife, because I’m guessing he died from lung cancer too.
Mona Sterling (Talia Balsam), first appeared in “Ladies’ Room” (season 1, episode 2), most recently appeared in “Waterloo” (season 7, episode 7).
Mona Sterling, love of my life. Jesus Christ, Roger did her wrong. I love Mona–she’s one of the few wives on the show who just decided to stop taking shit from their husbands. (Joan, Betty and Trudy are the others.) Yet, she’s still there for Roger when she needs to be. And she tries to be a mother to her impossible daughter. She really does try.
Mona’s probably one of the wisest people on the show, and it’ll be a pity to see her go. I think she’ll be in a finale, because I can’t see us saying goodbye to Roger Sterling without bidding her farewell, too.
Where Will She Be in 2015? Sadly, probably dead. I’m actually guessing that she and Roger might reunite in the finale–Roger needs something, and I could see Mona willing to deal with his shenanigans one more time. After that, I assume she lives the rest of her life as a society lady, aging gracefully and being a class act to the very end.
Margaret Sterling Hargrove (Elizabeth Rice), first appeared in “Babylon” (season 1, episode 6), most recently appeared in “The Monolith” (season 7, episode 4).
Margaret is her father, plain and simple. If you didn’t get that yet, “The Monolith” finalized that legacy. Roger probably would’ve run off to a commune too in her situation–instead he ran off to join a war. In that light, she’s a bit more sympathetic than a bratty daughter. Similar to Sally (we’ll get to her later), she carries both positive and negative traits of her father: she’s imaginative and prone to flights of fancy and she’s also deeply unhappy and impossible to satisfy.
She might appear in the finale–I’m honestly not sure. I can’t see her just being left on that commune, but who knows?
Where Will She Be in 2015? I see her fate as very similar to Paul Kinsey’s, actually. She’ll leave that commune eventually–she’ll have to. I can’t really see her becoming a professor, though, but I can’t see her returning to her old life, either. She’ll probably become a cat lady, or an early champion of yoga. Still, I hope she’s happy.
Duck Phillips (Mark Moses), first appeared in “Nixon vs. Kennedy” (season 1, episode 12), last appeared in “The Milk and Honey Route” (season 7, episode 13).
This guy’s like a bad toothache–just when you think he’s gone for good, he comes right back. And he is bad. He’s the worst, really. Won’t miss him one bit.
But gosh, he’s had a weird journey–started at the top of the agency, then he was revealed to be a horrible drunk, then he abandoned his dog, and he slept with Peggy and he tried to take a shit on Roger’s nice chair…he’s just a trip, man. We’ve probably seen the last of him…I hope.
Where Will He Be in 2015? Dead by Chauncey’s paw. No, that joke will never get old.
Jane Siegel-Sterling (Peyton List), first appeared in “The New Girl” (season 2, episode 5), last appeared in “The Doorway, Part 2” (season 6, episode 2).
Jane was the Jackie Kennedy to Joan’s Marilyn Monroe. And boy, did that pay off. Watching Jane in her depressing marriage to Roger was just a little bit heartbreaking. I’m honestly glad that she’s free from that marriage. Go live your life, Jane. I doubt she’ll be back for the finale?
Where Will She Be in 2015? She’s either going to be Gloria Steinem or some rich, old heiress. I’m not really sure what path she’ll take. Now that she’s free from Roger, the sky’s practically the limit.
Jim Cutler (Harry Hamlin), first appeared in “The Flood” (season 6, episode 5), last appeared in “Waterloo” (season 7, episode 7).
What ever happened to Jim Cutler? People (reddit) tell me that he left the agency entirely at the end of “Waterloo,” taking his money and running instead of joining SCDP, a subsidiary of McCann-Erickson. Probably a smart move.
Every main character on this show has their anti-thesis. Jim is Roger’s. Jim and Roger are both controlling and demanding–but Jim is something Roger could never be–utterly ruthless. For all that SCDP was turning into a creative wasteland under Cutler’s guidance, it was, at the very least, thriving. Roger doesn’t know how to control his company–and that’s why SCDP doesn’t exist anymore. Cutler exists to prove a tragic point about Roger–without a guiding hand, Roger loses his way fast–and then he loses everything.
Cutler won’t be back. He doesn’t need to.
Where Will He Be in 2015? Shadowy Republican billionaire donor.
Roger H. Sterling, Jr. (John Slattery), first appeared in “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” (season 1, episode 1), most recently appeared in “Lost Horizon” (season 7, episode 12).
OMG, you guys. Roger turned into Ted Turner.
Well, physically. Deep down, he’s still the same Roger. Just totally defeated now. Poor Roger.
Roger Sterling is a complicated case–you want to feel sorry for the guy, but then you remember that this is the guy who ruined his own company, betrayed his partnership with Joan, and for that matter, Mona, for a newer model, performed in blackface eagerly and a host of other sins. Will I be happy with Roger gets his happy ending? Sure. I’ll be happy if any of these characters get a happy ending.
But I don’t think he will. I don’t think he’ll die, either–Betty’s filling that role–but I don’t think he’ll be happy. Bittersweet, maybe. I could see him staying at McCann-Erickson until the bitter end, or I could see him taking Don and Joan’s lead and leaving in the finale.
A Roger moment I’ll fondly remember is that time he threw up all those oysters and all that liquor onto the floor of Sterling Cooper. The man knows how to party, at least.
*Joan voice* Oh, Roger.
Where Will He Be in 2015? Roger will be dead before the end of the 70s, I’m pretty damn sure. I can see Watergate killing him, but I hope he lives to see Star Wars and take his grandson to it. He’ll probably stop going on LSD trips, though.
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