Seriality and expressiveness in Mad Men

This chapter addresses one of the most obvious, distinctive, and compelling features of ongoing television series: That they allow actors to inhabit and shape fictional characters through regular screen appearances over long periods of time. I develop my claims through a reading of the closing sequence of Mad Men’s season five finale (“The Phantom”) and its relationship with the finale of season one (“The Wheel”). My contention is that to clarify the source of the sequence’s effects and significance, we need to think about seriality in television drama beyond the sheerly narrative aspects around which it is routinely conceived and discussed in television studies. My account highlights how, in certain moments, we register the drama’s serialization in more than the episodic interruption of narrative and its promise of continued story developments. In the moments that the chapter examines, we feel the weight of seriality more strongly through the presentation and expressive presence of the people shown onscreen. The weight of seriality is, in other words, embodied. The chapter deepens these observations through a close reading of the sequence, in particular its interest in the depiction of intimate companionship, and traces out its implications for the significance of serial form.