The Ballad of Peggy and Pete

The fourth season of Mad Men has been maligned in some corners because it “merely” continues to be superb. Such are the burdens of high expectations. The final scenes of the most recent episode, “The Rejected,” demonstrate that the series deserves those expectations by living up to them. “The Rejected” is the first episode this season not to focus entirely on the perils of being single and Don Draper, instead concentrating on Peter Campbell’s continued development into the person his wife thought she married and Peggy Olson’s somewhat reluctant embrace of Beat ethics. The closing scene—or scenes if you want to be technical—simultaneously links the two of them while showing the growing distance between. It begins inside the offices of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce with Campbell doing a man thing with other men:

This is the world Peggy can never enter. It is medium long shot because business isn’t personal, even when conducted with your father-in-law (who is square in the center of the frame). Director John Slattery then cuts to a long shot of the Beatnik crowd Peggy now runs with:

They continue to approach until they walk into medium long shot, at which point they are stopped short by the glass doors of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. What follows is unsubtle but effective: as these people belong neither to the world of the firm nor the one it appeals to, they are denied entry. Slattery shoots them through the material barrier separating them from that world, then cuts to a long shot of its smiling Cerberus:

Continued at my place because embedding that many frames in WordPress is a tedious process…