A Moment's Meditation on Mad Men's Dark Brilliance

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Fair warning, spoilers galore.

I've said before that Mad Men was one of my favorite shows of all time, and also that I have been known to consider it overrated for the wrong reasons, but when it hit its best notes, they could be moments of joy to behold ("I don't have a contract."), be sharply cutting ("After all, Don, who's really signing it?"), and above all at times be devastating to watch as few shows have been.

I think two of the most painful scenes to watch in all of 21st. century television were on Mad Men.

The first was when Don drunkenly slept with his faithfully adoring secretary, then after breaking her heart with his callousness, he handed her an envelope full of cash for her Christmas bonus, somehow blind to the fact he'd not only crushed her feelings by rejecting her, but left her feeling like a prostitute. My God!

The other scene was even worse and capped off season after season of Don's daughter trying so hard to win his affections, not realizing her dad's narcissism left him incapable of ever giving her what she needed in a father, she being the only person in the world by then to still believe in the good in him and love him unconditionally, and when she walks in on him in bed with the selfless heart surgeon's wife---then tries to lie to Sally about it!---you can see everything that girl held out hope for about her dad crumble away amid her agony.

I don't think TV has ever offered a moment with quite so much sheer devastation in so short a screen time or in quite so understated a way.

Overrated at times, maybe , but Mad Men was certainly great.