After watching Mad Men for 8 seasons, I felt compelled to weigh in on the series finale and where the main characters ended up. It’s not going to offer the deep criticism of some other pundits. Rather, in broad strokes, this will be about the impression I was left with, or stuck with, as someone who’s appreciated this show for as long as I have, as we have.
I didn’t have the same compulsion to write something like this for my beloved Breaking Bad, but then again, I thought that show was not only stronger in many ways. It certainly had a better, more fitting, and perhaps more convincing finale overall. It didn’t need excessive punditry because the show capped itself off well enough on its own. Also while BB had a decidedly artful, “down” wrap-up, MM’s was decidedly “up” finale all-around. Most or all of the characters’ end-beats seemed a little forced after enduring so much of the show’s darkness, ambiguity and mystery. The feel-good shift in tone and abruptness of loose ends and messy lives being tidied up so quickly felt like a bit of a betrayal of sorts at best, cheap and lazy TV at worst.
I didn’t have the same compulsion to write something like this for my beloved Breaking Bad, but then again, I thought that show was not only stronger in many ways. It certainly had a better, more fitting, and perhaps more convincing finale overall. It didn’t need excessive punditry because the show capped itself off well enough on its own. Also while BB had a decidedly artful, “down” wrap-up, MM’s was decidedly “up” finale all-around. Most or all of the characters’ end-beats seemed a little forced after enduring so much of the show’s darkness, ambiguity and mystery. The feel-good shift in tone and abruptness of loose ends and messy lives being tidied up so quickly felt like a bit of a betrayal of sorts at best, cheap and lazy TV at worst.
But that’s not to say the finale, and the series overall, was lacking in bright spots. There’s light and dark in all great art—and highs and lows in any great TV series—and this was no exception.
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| Don Draper, suave but tortured |
Let’s start with where Don Draper ends up. It was nice for him, and nice for us that he ended up in a nice place, at least for that moment. But this season and so many of the last spent so much screen time on his affairs and self-destructive behavior without him really hitting bottom or mining the kind of intense dramatic possibilities of his past, his flaws, and identity crisis, all of which are of course intertwined. By his last moment of the show, Don is a rich man who’s essentially been freed of family obligations, a job, and even guilt, it seems.
Things seemed to be going in the right direction in the last few episodes, when he stripped himself of his job, his car, and even his sense of place by leaving New York and his apartment. It’s worth noting that Don voluntarily gave these things away instead of them being taken from him, as they were when he was demoted last season.
What if Don hadn’t just been demoted from the partnership, but fired, and he spent this last season re-discovering who he was without money, or being forced to become a more responsible parent or adult, especially when faced with his wife having cancer (Sorry, I always liked Betty’s character and thought this trope felt especially lazy and soap-operish)?
What if he got thrown in prison for taking Don Draper’s name, his past finally catching up to him? I feel like the show gave him a pass on many fronts by not making him suffer more, which would have simply made for better television. It feels like his finding peace as a rich unemployed person on the freewheeling left coast, however temporarily, felt almost like some soft of bachelor fantasy that failed to evolve his character beyond reaching a crisis point that had been built up over eight years and resolved in 50 some minutes.
I would have been more convinced if Don had run away to Canada, or even upstate New York, to write the Great American novel, to provide one potential alternate scenerio. Don’s creative integrity and deep aesthetic soulfulness had always been hinted at in the show with shots of him reading, his guilt and regrets, his creative genius, his ability and apparent satisfaction with being alone, and in his powers of perception about the true nature of the world—at least as he sees it.
Aside from relating to a complete stranger’s confession about feeling invisible and unloved, none of this depth was realized in a way that authentically integrated or expressed Don’s character. And even that scene failed to convince me as there didn’t seem to be any real connection between this man’s feeling invisible and Don’s feeling like an empty shell or phony.
The whole series teased us with Don’s impending destruction in a very real way, in a way that would force him to face his fractured sense of self before he could put himself back together. This search for identity—along with the pitfalls, crises, and growth that come with it—is a fairly common journey in truly great movies, and depicted in less than 100 minutes, let alone 8 seasons. It seems like the internet water cooler would disagree, but I’m going to chalk up where we were left on Don’s character arc and redemption as not necessarily a terrible failure, but rather a somewhat unconvincing and sterile letdown overall, at least dramatically.
Things seemed to be going in the right direction in the last few episodes, when he stripped himself of his job, his car, and even his sense of place by leaving New York and his apartment. It’s worth noting that Don voluntarily gave these things away instead of them being taken from him, as they were when he was demoted last season.
What if Don hadn’t just been demoted from the partnership, but fired, and he spent this last season re-discovering who he was without money, or being forced to become a more responsible parent or adult, especially when faced with his wife having cancer (Sorry, I always liked Betty’s character and thought this trope felt especially lazy and soap-operish)?
What if he got thrown in prison for taking Don Draper’s name, his past finally catching up to him? I feel like the show gave him a pass on many fronts by not making him suffer more, which would have simply made for better television. It feels like his finding peace as a rich unemployed person on the freewheeling left coast, however temporarily, felt almost like some soft of bachelor fantasy that failed to evolve his character beyond reaching a crisis point that had been built up over eight years and resolved in 50 some minutes.
I would have been more convinced if Don had run away to Canada, or even upstate New York, to write the Great American novel, to provide one potential alternate scenerio. Don’s creative integrity and deep aesthetic soulfulness had always been hinted at in the show with shots of him reading, his guilt and regrets, his creative genius, his ability and apparent satisfaction with being alone, and in his powers of perception about the true nature of the world—at least as he sees it.
Aside from relating to a complete stranger’s confession about feeling invisible and unloved, none of this depth was realized in a way that authentically integrated or expressed Don’s character. And even that scene failed to convince me as there didn’t seem to be any real connection between this man’s feeling invisible and Don’s feeling like an empty shell or phony.
The whole series teased us with Don’s impending destruction in a very real way, in a way that would force him to face his fractured sense of self before he could put himself back together. This search for identity—along with the pitfalls, crises, and growth that come with it—is a fairly common journey in truly great movies, and depicted in less than 100 minutes, let alone 8 seasons. It seems like the internet water cooler would disagree, but I’m going to chalk up where we were left on Don’s character arc and redemption as not necessarily a terrible failure, but rather a somewhat unconvincing and sterile letdown overall, at least dramatically.
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| Roger Sterling, Mad Men's comic relief |
Roger Sterling: His scenes with his new French wife were cute and seemed true to his character. After this, I can see him actually drifting away from the ad business, and perhaps business in general, to do something different and more genuine and satisfying for him. As adventurous, sharp, and funny as Roger is—and with his military background—I think he’ll end up driving his wife crazy checking certain things off his bucket list before having a heart attack while skiing in the Alps, dying on his back with a smile on his face. Or something like that.
Roger’s final scenes with Megan’s mom seemed about as realistic as any marriage we’ve seen on TV or real life. He’s always wanted to have a good time and doesn’t take himself or all of it too seriously. As such, his end beats were more consistent with his character and convincing to me than the other characters’ end beats. In many ways, he’s always seemed like one of the happiest characters on the show, however one might define that. It’s fitting he leaves us this way.
Roger’s final scenes with Megan’s mom seemed about as realistic as any marriage we’ve seen on TV or real life. He’s always wanted to have a good time and doesn’t take himself or all of it too seriously. As such, his end beats were more consistent with his character and convincing to me than the other characters’ end beats. In many ways, he’s always seemed like one of the happiest characters on the show, however one might define that. It’s fitting he leaves us this way.
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| This was an iconic shot and yet I can't see Peggy doing this. |
Peggy Olson: Full disclosure, I have to say I’ve never been terribly interested in Peggy’s character even though, like Don, she’s a fellow writer. She was too mousy for too long, and too brassy too quickly. Since she got promoted, other characters have been telling us how great/promising she is—including Don, Joan and Pete, and even Roger (!). Aside from a nice pitch or two, have we really seen this? Her development from office wallflower to assertive powerhouse seems more convincing than this often told-not-shown perception of her as a creative genius, let alone her role as Don's protege. Her presence on the show, right down to her affair with Pete Campbell, never quite added up for me—and I qualify this by saying that I've always thought Elizabeth Moss is a very good and appealing actress. I just never feel like Peggy really needed a spotlight or fit on the show in a way I found to be super-convincing or interesting.
I don’t think there’s too much to say about Peggy and Stan’s hurried, romcom get-together that hasn’t already been said, or that’s not totally obvious. I can’t see a cool guy like Stan, with his self-image as an artiste, getting romantically involved with someone as driven and sometimes people-clumsy as Peggy. Plus, as other pundits have pointed out, it undermined their formerly platonic, often funny office relationship—one in which they seemed to see through each other’s self-image in ways that should have ultimately driven them apart, which is where I thought that last scene could have gone. Hear me out here.
Stan’s fear of Peggy taking Joan’s offer and the prospect of her leaving his work life seemed much more true to me than leaving him romantically, let alone his confessing his love for her in such a sappy manner. They should have stopped at Stan trying to get her to stay in his work life, with us knowing that eventually won’t happen, either through Peggy’s promotion at the agency or leaving it altogether. Peggy has always been trying to actualize herself in a way that will leave Stan behind, which would have been sadder for both of them, and of course, for us. Just seeing Stan be vulnerable like that, and Peggy responding to it with her mask and defenses down, however briefly, would have set that trajectory in motion in a way that could have been so much more satisfying.
I don’t think there’s too much to say about Peggy and Stan’s hurried, romcom get-together that hasn’t already been said, or that’s not totally obvious. I can’t see a cool guy like Stan, with his self-image as an artiste, getting romantically involved with someone as driven and sometimes people-clumsy as Peggy. Plus, as other pundits have pointed out, it undermined their formerly platonic, often funny office relationship—one in which they seemed to see through each other’s self-image in ways that should have ultimately driven them apart, which is where I thought that last scene could have gone. Hear me out here.
Stan’s fear of Peggy taking Joan’s offer and the prospect of her leaving his work life seemed much more true to me than leaving him romantically, let alone his confessing his love for her in such a sappy manner. They should have stopped at Stan trying to get her to stay in his work life, with us knowing that eventually won’t happen, either through Peggy’s promotion at the agency or leaving it altogether. Peggy has always been trying to actualize herself in a way that will leave Stan behind, which would have been sadder for both of them, and of course, for us. Just seeing Stan be vulnerable like that, and Peggy responding to it with her mask and defenses down, however briefly, would have set that trajectory in motion in a way that could have been so much more satisfying.
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| Joan Holloway: a bombshell who's all business |
Joan: I don’t have much to say about Joan. Christina Hendricks is a wonderful actress playing a very well drawn and well written character. She looks and plays the part and and epitomises the show’s notions of feminism in ways that seems very real and convincing. In many ways, I’ve always felt like the show’s creator seems to know her character—how she reacts, her motivations—best. The show, and maybe its viewers, have become increasingly invested in Joan over time. The temptation of a leisurely life with a pretty cool guy, and her turning it down, convinced me.
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| My favorite character, Pete Campbell |
Pete Campell: I’ll admit that Pete has always been my favorite character on the show, with Don and Roger close seconds. He’s easy for me to relate to in certain ways, but it has more to do with Vincent Kartheiser’s portrayal of him and the humor and pathos he brings to the role.
Throughout the series, Pete is an essentially unhappy and sometimes morally challenged character. He’s a classic small man who wants to be bigger and has always been relentless and ruthless in his pursuit of that. He feels less-than, maligned, entitled, upstanding, judgemental, angry at the results of his own moral failings, and smug—sometimes all in the same episode. Some of the show’s biggest laughs come from his raging that the world isn’t rewarding him for his importance as he simultaneously doubts it. He’s a Napoleon complex with a heart. In many ways, I’ve always seen him as the show’s most brutally honest expression of its cynicism, humor and existentialism—especially when he’s stymied, which is often.
I personally thought Pete’s reconciliation with Trudy in the show’s second-to-last episode was one of the show’s most touching and memorable scenes in its history, maybe even TV history. It took an alcoholic headhunter’s flattery and an even better job offer to make him feel big enough to realize and admit his mistakes, and that it wasn’t too late to rectify them. I like to think he and Trudy (played by the wonderful Alison Brie) will be happy for the rest of their lives, because Pete’s smart and experienced enough not to blow it again. I loved where the show left him and wish them well. I will miss them both as fixtures in my TV fantasy life.
I personally thought Pete’s reconciliation with Trudy in the show’s second-to-last episode was one of the show’s most touching and memorable scenes in its history, maybe even TV history. It took an alcoholic headhunter’s flattery and an even better job offer to make him feel big enough to realize and admit his mistakes, and that it wasn’t too late to rectify them. I like to think he and Trudy (played by the wonderful Alison Brie) will be happy for the rest of their lives, because Pete’s smart and experienced enough not to blow it again. I loved where the show left him and wish them well. I will miss them both as fixtures in my TV fantasy life.
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| Poor, misunderstood Betty. I'll always be a fan. |
Betty Draper: I never understood why a certain set of the audience hated this character. She’s always seemed the most self-aware and pragmatic of all—clear-headed and decisive in a sea of flawed men. It doesn’t hurt that January Jones is a beautiful and superb actress whom I hope will enjoy a long career (she’s been a welcome addition to The Last Man on Earth). I wish Betty’s end hadn’t come on in such a cliche manner, but giving her cancer gave her a chance to shine and put on full display what I think are her defining, admirable qualities.
During her phone conversation with Don, I like to think he said something like, “I screwed up. I always loved you and I always will.” To which she replied on-camera, “I know.” It was a beautiful, touching scene I’ll never forget.
RIP Betty, you cold-hearted but noble ice queen smokeshow.
During her phone conversation with Don, I like to think he said something like, “I screwed up. I always loved you and I always will.” To which she replied on-camera, “I know.” It was a beautiful, touching scene I’ll never forget.
RIP Betty, you cold-hearted but noble ice queen smokeshow.
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| The eyepatch is a lost piece of Ken's soul. |
Ken Cosgrove: I always liked Ken. He was a normal, nice person swimming in a sea of sharks. Early in the show’s run, he got a story published in the New Yorker, which back in the day was akin to getting on the launch pad for a serious literary career. I liked that his character naturally got figuratively chewed up in the ad game to the point of getting overrun by roughneck clients and getting shot in the face. The eyepatch was a nice cinematic symbol for this, carrying into the last season.
Ken truly became someone who lost a part of himself, including his true calling and peaceful nature. Instead we saw him descend into prideful revenge and spite by his staying in the ad game and taunting Pete and partners with potential business he knew he’d never grant. The real tragedy is that he could have been happy writing the Great American Novel in that farmhouse his wife tried to sell him on.
I didn’t think the show really gave Ken an ending or beginning, if you will, the way it did the other characters, which is too bad considering his arc from nice guy to embittered prick played out nicely and convincingly. I like to think that at some point after the series finale, after he finally gets over getting let go, his wife can talk him into his pursuing his true calling once again.
But... maybe by now he’s lost too much, and that can happen. And that’s just as tragic as never being able to regain it again—especially since, more than any other character, Ken had the potential to realize and be at peace with himself by the End, meaning the end of his life. How many of us can truly say that? (< deep thought)
Ken truly became someone who lost a part of himself, including his true calling and peaceful nature. Instead we saw him descend into prideful revenge and spite by his staying in the ad game and taunting Pete and partners with potential business he knew he’d never grant. The real tragedy is that he could have been happy writing the Great American Novel in that farmhouse his wife tried to sell him on.
I didn’t think the show really gave Ken an ending or beginning, if you will, the way it did the other characters, which is too bad considering his arc from nice guy to embittered prick played out nicely and convincingly. I like to think that at some point after the series finale, after he finally gets over getting let go, his wife can talk him into his pursuing his true calling once again.
But... maybe by now he’s lost too much, and that can happen. And that’s just as tragic as never being able to regain it again—especially since, more than any other character, Ken had the potential to realize and be at peace with himself by the End, meaning the end of his life. How many of us can truly say that? (< deep thought)
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| Stephanie calls the Don Draper hotline (collect). |
Anna Draper's niece, Stephanie: Too much screen time for this character... Also seemed like the wrong device or character to pull Don into the hippie den and have that blissful moment at the end.
What about the real Don Draper’s wife? Could her ghost have haunted him instead? Could the police have caught up to Don’s ruse instead? We haven’t seen or been invested enough in Anna’s story or relationship to Don for me to feel like this was the best impetus for his personal crisis, which really should have come about a long time ago.
A key component of any great storytelling is integration. Things come full-circle, the world stays within itself, relationships and events follow a natural order specific to the characters’ motivations and the show’s world-building. Stephanie just seemed like an outlier, a dramatic deux a machina that didn’t work and stymied Don’s ending and the episode as a whole.
I loved Mad Men. I always thought of it as a soap opera that transcended that genre by becoming art—ironically when it seemed to be trying least to do so. For me, it worked best when it was less about Don and more about work and business, and how people projected their self-image, ambitions and fantasy in the communal, hierarchical workplace. The Office, especially the American version, intrigued me for those same reasons. What better venue to put on display and contrast a character’s true nature against their private life than the workplace?
Not surprisingly, much of the show’s running time outside the office or a business context—as necessary as it was—was often the least interesting to me, dramatically or otherwise. When was Roger most interesting than when he was told he’d be losing Hilton’s business? Or Don than when he took that huge risk by crashing a reluctant client’s office to make a pitch? Or Pete when bitching in his office about others, his life outside the office, his wants just out of his reach?
There’s so much I will miss about the show. It’s artfulness, it’s depth, mystery and darkness. The time it took in developing its characters. The business machinations that led us to the partnership leading to their selling out to McCann.
Sure, the show has always been hamstrung by a certain inconsistency in quality and even tone, along with writing that was at times much too writerly and clearly influenced by a playwriting style of writing: longish monologues, static locations, bonds formed over meals, forced situations (Peggy and Roger's final scene together coming to mind, where again, he tells her how great she is and will be), on-the-nose dialogue.
Sadly, the last episode especially seemed to succumb to these weaknesses, maybe because of overinvolvement from Weiner and his writing the last episode (...and I say this with all due respect). It seemed more soap-opera-ish and suffered from more conventional TV "wrap-up" tropes than ever.
Ending the final episode on the classic ‘70s Coke ad, in my view, was a mistake. From as early on as the weekly opening credits sequence, the show had always been a character study of those spiraling past the illusions they peddled and chased after for themselves. At the end of the sequence, the silhouette of a man we presume to be Don remains in his office, an illusion himself puffing on a cigarette, perhaps still contemplating or feeling that suicide attempt.
The Coke ad is a ridiculous kumbaya spot that hinges on an insipid song that cynically positions mass-produced bottles of sugar water as an elixir that gets the whole world—people of every color, every walk of life, every age—singing together in harmony.
Maybe it was simply used as a device to show us where the ad world and show ended up along its trajectory of America history and ad culture.
Pundits seem to assume or suggest that Don himself went on to create this ad. Perhaps it’s the kind of the touchy-feely, cloying, populist, cynical dreck he goes on to specialize in.
As the series’ final images, this commercial seemed to say little about the characters’ journey, who they were, or what they became, and what they wanted or thought they wanted. I feel like if Don were going to get back into the game and create a new spot in the ‘70s, it would be something more artful and lasting (at least to industry types like me), like Ridley Scott’s classic “1984” ad for Apple. Something that showed him as someone who realized his own emptiness, and thus at least evolved into someone who strove to “create something of lasting value”—a goal of Peggy’s he recently “shit on,” as she put it. After all, why else would Don read novels? Surely he’d at least see those as something of lasting value, even if he wasn’t capable of seeing his own children in that way.
Maybe I’m just projecting, wanting to think he’s—that we’re—better than that.
Addendum 5/21, one day after writing the above post:
He says:
"I did hear rumblings of people talking about the ad being corny. It's a little bit disturbing to me, that cynicism," Weiner said. "I'm not saying advertising's not corny, but I'm saying that the people who find that ad corny, they're probably experiencing a lot of life that way, and they're missing out on something. Five years before that, black people and white people couldn't even be in an ad together. ... That ad in particular is so much of its time, so beautiful and, and I don't think, [is] as... villainous as the snark of today."
I still think it's just a bad/corny ad, and as such not a good way to end/begin Don's story and the series.*
I found this interview and quote with a legendary McCann art director somewhat validating:
"The ads they come up with at Sterling Cooper are pretty crappy. There’s no way Draper did the Coke commercial."
- Greg Birbil was an art director and executive at McCann Erickson [for four decades], the giant ad agency that dominates the last episodes of Mad Men.
(100% agree. That's what I said above yesterday*.)
*But hey, I'm not Matt Weiner.
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