Mad Men sailed off into the sunset Sunday night, but not with any major death or an hour of scenes cobbled together to fulfill fan’s dreams. Creator Matthew Weiner put together the last episode of the series as if it were just another episode, revealing the last facet of Don Draper’s life.
There actually was a character death, although not a physical one. Thanks to one final meeting with Stephanie (Caity Lotz) in California, Don (Jon Hamm) goes to a retreat, where he learns to confront his own issues. We see the breaking down of the stoic American man in these moments, although Don never actually expresses through words. His emotional, tear-jerking embrace of another man who has just poured his heart out by sharing his concerns of not being loved by his own family was all the action Don needed to show.
“I want things to be as normal as possible and you not being there is part of it.”
Prior to this, Don learned that Betty (January Jones) doesn’t want him to take care of their sons, even though she has just months to live after being diagnosed with lung cancer. And then, he learns that the only person who wants him back in New York is Peggy (Elisabeth Moss). Don tells Peggy the truth - that he’d broken all his vows and even taken another man’s name, but it amounted to nothing. Peggy wants him to “come home,” but the realization for Don that “home” is the office and not actually home with the family is too tough to bare.
At that moment, Don Draper The Dashing Ad Executive we all wanted to be after smoke got in our eyes eight years ago, died. That part of his life is over.
““You act like this is happening to you, but you are making a choice.”
The rest of the episode did try to tie things up rather quickly, particularly with Joan (Christina Hendricks) and Roger (John Slattery). Joan can’t figure out how to live without work and still can’t understand why Richard (Bruce Greenwood) can’t be with her while she tries to start a successful production company. But that’s just Joan being Joan. She’s a workaholic who can’t just relax. She needs to be able to control all aspects of her life with an “on” and “off” switch. The trouble with Richard is that he always wants it “off,” and Joan can’t take that.
Roger got serious about a few things. First, he told Joan that half of his estate will go to Kevin and he will marry Marie (Julia Ormond). At the end, we see the two in France and in love.
Even though Pete’s (Vincent Kartheiser) story was tied up neatly last week, Pete did make a couple of appearances. At the last moment, we see a glimpse of his new jet-setting life, arriving in Kansas with Trudy (Alison Brie) and their daughter.
“There’s more to life than work.”
Peggy also finally found what she was looking for, but it wasn’t the highest office at the ad agency. Throughout the whole show, we have seen her struggle to find a life at home. “Well it's not my fault you don't have any family or friends or anywhere else to go,” Don famously told her in one of the show’s most beloved episodes, “The Suitcase.” But she finally learns that it was right there, as Stan (Jay R. Ferguson) admitted that he loves her.
It was probably the most poignant part of the episode. Peggy has to work it out herself. She goes from telling him that she doesn’t think about him that way to professing her love as well. It’s like she had to brilliantly put together an ad for love right then and there. Sure, it may lead to the most cheesy scene in Mad Men history, but it works so well.
The moment Peggy hesitated to respond to Joan’s offer to join her production company, it was clear that Peggy would stay at McCann. Unlike Joan’s desire to be her own boss, Peggy was finally learning that just being good at her job might be all she’s looking for when it comes to her career.
“I’m not the man you think I am.”
Of course, it wouldn’t be a Mad Men episode without something to think about. At the very end, Weiner teases us with the famous “I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing” Coca-Cola ad. Did Don really come up with it? Or did Peggy?
Personally, I’d like to think that it was Peggy. Don’s story is so neatly tied together that the idea of him returning to McCann and welcomed with open arms (even though Peggy said that would happen) and coming up with one of the most famous ads ever seems like a betrayal of the first 60 minutes of the episode. Peggy deserves to have us think that she made it.
Mad Men always felt more like a portrait of America through the ‘60s. It’s the best era to tell a story of monumental shifts in society, as the younger generation started to take over from the men who saved democracy in the world wars. The series was never just about Don Draper.
It was always a series that tracked the search in all of us to find where we belong. In the end, Don found that he might have never belonged as Don Draper. Joan found that she belonged as the boss of herself and discovered that she had to take on the system to do it. Peggy had to find that family she belonged to. The fact that these characters found their way in the turbulent ‘60s should give us all faith that we can figure it out in our own time.
image courtesy of INFphoto.com