FANS OF “Mad Men” may assume that everyone long ago lost count of how many drinks the characters in this booze-happy drama had knocked back.
Not true.
Going into the final seven episodes that wrap up this coming Sunday (AMC, 10 p.m.), the network says they had consumed exactly 369 drinks — in the office.
We won’t ask who at AMC was tasked with watching every episode and counting the drinks, but that kind of attention to detail feels quite in keeping with the show itself.
The drink total has climbed in these final episodes as everyone toasted the vanishing era. Roger and Peggy alone finished off a half-dozen glasses of vermouth saying goodbye to their old digs.
Not surprisingly, cigarette consumption was equally prodigious. AMC counted 942 cigarettes, spread out over almost every character: Don, Roger, Joan, Peggy, Betty and yes, even young Sally.
A little less open, sometimes, was the smoking of 18 joints.
By coincidence, 18 is also how many women with whom AMC calculated Don had slept. In these final episodes he added one more.
Don went through nine secretaries, two of whom he slept with and one of whom he married.
On the behavior side, 14 punches were thrown, most of them ineffective, and for all the times these characters deserved to get knocked upside the head, we only saw four actual slaps.
Candace the hooker slapped Don, at his request. Roger was slapped after his heart attack. Betty slapped Sally for cutting her hair — like that was Sally’s worst transgression — and Betty also slapped Glen’s mother, Helen, for suggesting Betty discourage young Glen from further fantasies about Betty.
Now Glen is apparently ticketed for Vietnam, where we hope he does not become the last “Mad Men” statistic.
