Mad Men is TV’s Pangaea, the supercontinent that existed during the late Paleozoic and early Mesozoic era. The plot development is glacial, yet deliberate. Relationships start somewhere and, 13 episodes and various extra-marital affairs later, end up tangled in a whole new set of bed sheets. And in the end, just like the dinosaurs, everything good and meaningful about life at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce is smashed by a meteoric-sized death metaphor.
The behavior of Don, Peggy, Pete and co. throughout season six was so dark, erotic, sweet and morally corrupted in varying measures that it’s difficult to keep up. Peggy’s incessant twittering about her Upper East Side apartment was excruciating but harmless — until she stabbed poor Abe. Joan owned Pete when she played him hard for the Avon account, but how can you sympathize with someone who visits the same whorehouse as his father-in-law? And Don the Dick shuttled from chauvinistic sex-dictator to inadequate father to sexually exploited teenager to heart-melting ad account-sealer in all of three minutes.
The weird part about Mad Men is, amidst all the debauchery and plain dickish behavior, we still kind of like everyone. (No grown-up spoilt brat works a receding hairline quite like Pete.) So, in honor of season six drawing to a close, The Airship compiled an infographic to plot the season-long, morally schizophrenic behavior of our favorite advertising world inhabitants.
Click to enlarge.
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