While you should already be caught up on Mad Men, I’ll warn you that this is about to be a big spoiler. Sunday’s episode of Mad Men unexpectedly revealed that one of the partners at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce was in for a shocking ending. With such a big reveal and only one episode left in a season that fans had to wait over a year to see, we want to tell you both how the social web and actor Jared Harris reacted to the news.
Time for the spoiler. What started as a simple Catch Me If You Can-style check forgery by British partner Lane Pryce ended in his suicide after Don caught and fired him for embezzling the company’s money. Such a powerful and gruesome moment in the show naturally erupted the social web. We spoke with the actor who plays Lane Pryce, Jared Harris the next day.
When we asked him if he had looked at the social web to see reactions he told us that, “I haven’t look yet.” He did explain why his character was loved so much by fans. “From a dramaturgical point of view, why it made sense for Matt [Weiner] to do this – this was a character that the fans had gotten very affectionate over,” Harris described. “From that sense it would be a really juicy powerful way of surprising… it’s a way of getting something very powerful from the fans as the season ends,” he added.
Trendrr’s Mark Ghuneim provided Lost Remote with details from their real-time character and plot analysis solution on Lane Pryce and the episode:
– Twitter activity spikes when Lane attempts suicide with fans crying out and telling him not to do it, indicating their emotional attachment to the character.
– Towards the end of the episode, fans are distressed over Lane’s death but are generally accepting of it through RIP tweets (RIP is mentioned in 6% of the conversation around Lane).
– Lane’s most memorable moment other than his death is the scene where he punched Pete (14% of the conversation around Lane mentioned Pete).
The season five finale airs this Sunday 10/9c.