'Mad Men' finale becomes daylong celebration
Sort-of-spoiler alert: This story contains details from recent episodes of Mad Men, but not Sunday's finale.
LOS ANGELES — Mad Men turned its finale into a moveable feast on Sunday.
Creator Matthew Weiner, star Jon Hamm and cast members, producers and crew of a show about a 1960s New York ad agency held court in Hollywood at a Television Academy panel discussion before taking the festivities downtown for a reading of the Season 1 finale script, a screening of the last episode of the four-time Emmy winner for best drama and a post-finale party at the Ace Hotel.
"It feels like Thanksgiving," Weiner said at the end of the panel, noting that his both his real and Mad Men families were with him. "It feels like we're getting dressed up, we're going to have a drink around 3, we're going to open the door, let the relatives in and not forget what this day is about, which is being grateful for having this incredible experience."
Besides Hamm, other cast members participating included Elisabeth Moss, January Jones, John Slattery, Christina Hendricks, Vincent Kartheiser, Jessica Paré and Kiernan Shipka.
Highlights from the afternoon panel for the AMC drama, one of many shows that are put on display for Emmy voters this time of year, included:
• Hamm being asked how he feels about Mad Men ending. "This is like our fourth goodbye," he said, referring to the wrap of filming, the final publicity push and other markers from the seventh season. "This feels final, because it is. When 10 o'clock (he's from St. Louis), 11 o'clock comes around, that book will be shut."
• Hamm asked about Shipka, who started playing Don's daughter, Sally, at age 6. Kiernan has "been on Mad Men longer than she hasn't been on Mad Men."
• Jones on Betty Draper's cancer and her later talk with daughter Sally: "We were able to get to a place where you had never seen Betty and Sally before. It felt good. It was sad, it was very emotional. I think the hardest part for me was the scene when I come into her room and (try) not to cry."
• Kartheiser suggesting his character, account executive Pete Campbell, was wise to get back together with his estranged wife, Trudy (Alison Brie). "She was always the best part of Pete Campbell. Lots of his success comes from her and her strength and her boldness. He really didn't do right by her," he said, wondering what she got from the reunion. "I'm just amazed she took him back."
• Moss on the instantly classic shot of sunglasses-wearing Peggy Olson making her grand entrance into McCann Erickson, carrying a box and the octopus picture. "I had no idea it was going to become like this thing, with the GIFs. I was trying to hold the box and then hold the octopus photo and then have the cigarette dangling from my mouth, which James Dean makes look really easy and it's not. And then the sunglasses. I was just trying to not bump into the walls or drop anything and look cool at the same time. It was not glamorous when we filmed it."
• Slattery on wise-cracking Roger Sterling. "What's been so good about that character, just when you think he's just 'that guy,' you discover some side that's unexpectedly emotional or loyal or serious about the way he feels about something. I think it can be said for all these characters."
• Paré offering an alternative to the Megan-Don divorce. "I love Megan and Don. If it were up to me, Megan and Don would still be hanging out in Hawaii and holding hands. That's why I'm not a writer."
At Sunday's second Mad Men venue, director Jason Reitman presided over a script reading of the Season 1 finale, "The Wheel," which featured Don's nostalgic pitch for the Kodak Carousel slide projector.
Mad Men stars were in the audience, but a separate team of actors read the character parts, with Colin Hanks playing Don; Kevin Pollak channeling Robert Morse's Bert Cooper; and Fred Savage nailing the clipped cadence of Pete Campbell.
After the reading, Weiner invited the cast up on the stage of the Ace Hotel theater, where they received a standing ovation from an audience of 1,600. He then introduced the series finale.
"Weird as this is to say, this is the last episode of Mad Men. Thank you very much for watching all this time," he said. "I will be in the audience with you. Leave me alone afterwards if you don't like it."