What did ya'll think of Lou Avery's call with Don? I thought his exit could've been done better. Lou was always a smug SOB who needed to get canned. Instead he gets to pursue his dream.
I think it's going to end just in contemplation, of a life and a generation left hollow and meaningless by the false promises of commercialism.
Do you honestly think "Scout's Honor" is going to take off... in Japan???.... hahahaha. Remember this is the late 60's, early 70's... Japan is not what it is today. It really is an exile/exit for Lou... nobody thinks he "won".
Except for Lou himself and that's kind of the point. Lou is the only one so far that has been both exiled from the business that none of them are truly fulfilled by and has found an escape to his true passion. To fit the theme of the season, Lou is so far the only character that has gotten what he truly wants.
Perhaps... but if Scout's Honor goes down as a colossal failure and embarrassment for him, he's totally "ruined" (as he told Cutler last season). I also think Cosgrove is happy where he is right now. Along with Peggy, who still doesn't deserve the job she currently has, but is good enough at it to keep that role.
What makes you think Peggy is happy? The last episode ended with her begrudgingly accepting a role at McCan, sharing her adoption secret with Stan and she's made tough choices for a job that, presently, isn't as fulfilling as the visions she has for her own future.
The point is> nobody is happy. no one has a committed love interest, no one is invested in their family, no one has a network of friends outside of work, the work is ultimately unfulfilling outside of money, the money does not buy happiness
Probably not "happy"... And she aknowledges what she had to give up to be where she is... But in the end she still knows she's lucky/fortunate to be where she is.
I probably should have said "materialism" not commercialism. As Admen, it's their job to make people feel that material things are emotionally fulfilling. That's what Don does better than anyone, while paradoxically being totally unfulfilled. ma·te·ri·al·ism məˈtirēəˌlizəm/ noun 1. a tendency to consider material possessions and physical comfort as more important than spiritual values.
Yeah that's the joke. that phone call & don's reaction to it were awesome. Like the "Jump to conclusions" mat guy from office space.
Nah, Ken took a job he didn't want to spite his former colleagues for kicking him out of a job that he didn't want back then and was unhappy in (an eye for an eye...) rather than become a writer like he wanted to. He's probably the most miserable of the lot. And even his grand revenge scene had an undercurrent of being unfulfilling.
Eh, he can always quit now that there's no former employer to spite.... I don't see him stressing as much from here on out. And while "unfulfilling", it pretty much eliminated any aspiration that they'd ever be able to make a go of it without McCann. They were still willing to be subsidiaries without Dow, as there's not "that" much other business out there in California.
Unlike the rest of them, Ken has a wife who he loves and loves him, what seems to be a stress-free career, and autonomous from the micromanaging of McCann. There are worse fates in life than to be wined and dined by people who want your company's business. And if he wanted to write, he'd write no matter what he was doing, or what anyone told him. If he's not writing, it's because he doesn't want to. Out of all the people at SCP, he's the happiest.
He could have quit in Episode 1 of this season when his wife told him to but he didn't. That was the point. He keeps not walking away even though he is miserable in his role. That's probably what he tells himself but the writers are making it fairly obvious that it's a lie. Did he savor his victory and finish the expensive wine? Nope he just walked out.
Sure... and he could have not taken the job with Dow after he was fired... but he did it to spite the company (and for the first time, he actually had "fun" at his job). Now that its not going to be there anymore, he can always quit... or find more ways to have fun at the current job he couldn't care less for. At the very least, he's not going to be "more" miserable than anybody else.
Sure... because he stuck it to them. That was the point of that scene. When you stick it to somebody, do you stay? Ken admitted he could have dragged it out longer, but he chose not to... probably because he's still a decent enough person and he knows that SC&P is already dead.
The writers made nothing obvious. As far as I could tell, he is chill and relaxed with where he is in life, unlike the SCP who are all mourning their lives of indentured servitude to McCann. He walked out because that was his final goodbye to SCP. It basically told them that he was the one making the decisions now, and the one in the position of power.
Or because it sucked, and now he has a lifetime of doing a job he hates in order to obtain what was ultimately anticlimactic revenge. Which he didn't want and now is pointless for him to have. They basically bashed over the head with this the whole episode. The clowns who reveled in their "revenge" were idiot Lou and the schoolmaster who got punched in the face.
If a high paying salary and stress-free job where you get mandatory fellatio is pointless, sign me up. Ken has the good life. Nothing in your argument is convincing enough to conclude Ken is the most miserable one out of the SCP family. More miserable than Don, Pete, or Joan? I think not.
