The high-flying (literally!) plot twists of AMC's Madison Avenue set touched down on tragedy at the end of Sunday's episode with the assassination of Robert Kennedy.
Of course, "Mad Men" viewers have been waiting eagerly to see how the show deals with the tumultuous events of 1968, and HuffPost TV predicted last week that Sunday's episode would portray the assassination in some way.
Viewers get hints about the impending death early on in the episode, when creative executive Teddy Chaough drunkenly asks the room if they're for Eugene McCarthy or Bobby Kennedy to be the Democratic Party's presidential nominee (Don Draper points out that the race is actually a three-way, as Hubert Humphrey has "all the delegates").
When a hapless underling admits to a preference for Richard Nixon, the Republican nominee, Chaough chastises him before collapsing on the desk.
"Oh, I knew it, Mathis. What's wrong with you? Don't you have any hope?"
For supporters of Kennedy's presidential campaign, all hope was lost in the early hours of June 5, 1968. The presidential hopeful had just finished delivering a speech at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, Calif. and was shaking hands with the waitstaff in the pantry when a man named Sirhan Sirhan emerged, pistol in hand. Sirhan fired several times, hitting Kennedy in the head and back. A crowd surround Sirhan to disarm and capture him and help Kennedy escape, but it was too late; Kennedy was pronounced dead at the hospital the next day.
Sirhan was convicted in 1969 for Kennedy's assassination and sentenced to death. His sentence was later reduced to life in prison in 1972.
The Ambassador Hotel was eventually demolished in 2006 to make way for a complex of six public schools. All together, the campus is known as the Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools. It officially opened in 2010 and still features a few details from the Ambassador Hotel, like an entry portal, built-in clock and the wall of the former Cocoanut Grove nightclub, reports the Los Angeles Times.
So far in Season 6, "Mad Men" has portrayed the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Past seasons have dealt with John F. Kennedy's assassination, as well as hippie counter-culture and the Vietnam War.
Related
Before You Go
