The MAD MEN third season finale airs Sunday night. Another great year. As usual, there’s been a lot of speculation as to what’s going to happen. Will the Drapers split up? Will the Sterlings split up? Will the Campbells split up? Will the Harris’ split up? Will Sterling-Cooper split up? Will the Beatles split up?But no one seems to speculate on Don & Betty’s kids. So let me be the first. This is how I envision their children will turn out.
SALLY DRAPER – Will reject everything her mother is and stands for. Lives for the day she can put her in a home. Attends Northwestern University in the early 70s and adopts the “Carole King” look – jeans, peasant blouse, long frizzy hair. Infuriates her mother by dating a Black Panther and then really sends her over the side by dating a Jew. She gets back at her dad too by sleeping with Roger and Pete. Develops commitment issues and prefers the company of married men. Sally finds herself the subject of tabloids when Nelson Rockefeller dies between her legs.
BOBBY DRAPER – Will always remain close with his sister. She’s the only person who didn’t completely ignore him. (How ignored was he? Three different actors have now played the part. Did you even notice?) Is freebasing by the time he’s 16, an alcoholic by 17, and a sex change operation by 18, where he changes his name to Sally.
GENE DRAPER – Joins the Army, becomes an Adjutant General, discovers his father’s shady military past, and sends him to Leavenworth for twenty years.
What to you think???
You forgot the part in which Sally becomes one of the contributors to Our Bodies, Our Selves.
ReplyDeleteI can't wait to see what happens with the kids. If the show keeps going, I'd love to seen teenage Sally rebel and get out of Westchester to go to Woodstock.
ReplyDeleteSally reminds me of Robin Wright's character in Forrest Gump, perhaps without the illness. She will be a flower child, travel around the country, but by the time she is doing this in the early '70's, the novelty has worn off. She takes her father up on his offer to finance Vassar for her, Don figuring that if the college is nearby he can keep an eye on her and not put them through that hippie crap again.
ReplyDeleteShe will become a lawyer but gives it up to become a wife and mother when asked to do so by the man who helped her grow out of the shadow of her parents. Too boring?
Bobby will make a discovery about himself as he approaches adolescence.
He appreciates the time his father spends with him, but it is not enough to overcome the horrible parenting of his mother. He grows to hate her as he gets older.
He is too shy to be in relationships or have friends. He's a loner. He likes sneaking out to the train and making trips into Manhattan alone as a teenager to walk around the Village and pick up underground newspapers, which he hides in his room at home. He wonders what he will do if he is drafted, go to Canada?
Working in the theatre after he graduates in '74, he hears about San Francisco and the Castro. Eventually, he moves out there where he works in a shop and volunteers backstage with the local Equity-waiver houses in the hopes of getting his union card.
Still too shy to have long lasting relationships, but having inherited his parents' looks, he is popular at the bath houses and he likes the attention, though he is easily taken advantage of. Unfortunately, he has unprotected sex in the early '80's and is gone by the '90's, dying at his sister's house shortly before his mother was diagnosed with lung cancer and his father had a fatal heart attack in bed with his mistress.
Perhaps having realized their mistakes with the first two, both parents were much better with Gene, though the shared custody after their divorce was hard on him.
Seconding "Our Bodies, Ourselves" -- she will write angry poetry and be responsible for her own orgasm.
ReplyDeleteYou are spot-on about Sally, every detail... with the capper that Oliver Stone decides to make a film about her life.
ReplyDeleteMy alt-biography of Gene: as his name almost suggests, he's at the cusp of Gen-X. Moves to Seattle and goes grunge before Kurt Cobain. Finally decides to buckle down, moves to NYC; is the only child who actually follows father's footsteps and goes into advertising. Is currently laid-off and trying to finish a novel.
Drapers-Schmapers. It was unconscionable not to have included a spoiler alert.
ReplyDelete.
Not to mention they'll all die prematurely from second-hand clove cigarettes.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, the JFK assassination coverage was brilliant. The iconic image of the CBS Bulletin on a TV they were too preoccupied to be watching? We knew the world outside their door was transforming itself before they did. Fantastic.
The boy seems like an enigma, but I've often wondered about the daughter. She always has a look that breaks my heart, as if she's carring the weight of the world inside her; she'll blame herself when her parents divorce.
ReplyDeleteShe'll end up being the girl from Two-Lane Highway, or the Susan Sarandon character in JOE.
I wonder how Sally and Bobby will handle seeing The Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show. That's about 3 months away in the Mad Men timeline...
ReplyDeleteAll three will finance a burgeoning
ReplyDeletephenom called "therapy" and Sally will write a memoir.
This was an awesome finale! I love how Sally asked Betty "Did you make him leave?" I so wanted Don to scream "Damn straight she did!"
ReplyDeleteCan't wait to see the future of Sterling, Cooper, Draper and Pryce!
Dear Mr. Levine,
ReplyDeleteI am writing you from Storyline Entertainment, a documentary film company in Toronto. We are currently producing a film for History Television Canada about MASH units in the Korean War- the real stories behind MASH the television series. Of course, we'd like to include information about the series itself, and would love to include your experiences working on the show in the film. Would you be open to this? We would of course travel to your city to conduct the interview.
Please feel free to visit our website at www.storylineentertainment.com to learn more about our company and our past work.
I can be reached by email at amanda@storylineentertainment. I hope to hear from you!