Wow, Mad Men. I saw this CS Lewis quote in an entirely different context, and it bore to mind Don Draper's transformation this season: "When a man is getting better, he understands more and more clearly the evil that's left in him. When a man is getting worse, he understands his own badness less and less."
Don Draper spent a lot of time this season getting worse. Some thought he regressed: his affair with Sylvia, his fling with Betty, his excessive drinking, his experimentation with drugs, his sabotage of ad pitches, his back-stabbing of Ted and Peggy, his oblivion of Megan's career.
But in that last scene, after he received his leave from Sterling Cooper & Partners, as his daughter had angrily snubbed his name, as his he coped with her drinking at school, as his wife left the apartment after he told her he would forego moving to California...all of that. He had that moment half-way through, after the preacher told him about sin and forgiveness and Christ, and he had that moment with the Hershey's chocolates, it almost seemed like he was getting better. He understand a little more the evil within him, and he could not cope. And he returned with his children and his pained teenage daughter and they returned to where he came of age. And he revealed his pain there, and then the scene faded to black, until next Spring.
Don Draper is no more black or white than one of the most nuanced characters. You want to hate him, and you can't understand him. But his humanity is revealed and you fall all over again. Bravo, Matthew Weiner.
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