To watch this megamovie as it should be watched, as a 26-hour (and counting) cycle, and to read McLean’s dissection of its intricacies, is to grasp Mad Men’s triumph: its emotional intelligence—evident not only in its writing and acting but in its exquisite direction, lighting, and photography—overwhelms its mushy ideology and whatever Important Points it wants to make. At its best—and it usually hits that mark—its characters are true to themselves and therefore to their time and place.
from the Atlantic.
