(I avoided spoilers in the headline, but fair warning: from this point on, this article contains spoilers for the series finale of Mad Men.)
After seven seasons, AMC's Mad Men came to a close last night, and as is often the case with series finales these days, there's a lot to discuss and break down. This piece, however, is only going to concentrate on the very end of the show. I'm assuming you've all seen the episode by now, so let's go ahead and dive right in.
Don embraces a man who tells a heartfelt story in a therapy session/seminar, does some yoga on a cliffside, the camera pulls in close, and he smiles to himself. Immediately, the iconic "I'd Like To Buy The World A Coke" commercial begins to play, and that's the end of the show. Everything I've read online since the finale aired assumes that Don returned to McCann and came up with that commercial, but that wasn't my first thought at all. I didn't think Don was responsible for that piece of advertising...I thought it was Peggy Olson.
Earlier in the episode, Don says he's retired. He's all but abandoned the Don Draper persona, embracing his true name by going to see Stephanie, Anna Draper's niece, in California. She's one of the few people who knows him as Dick Whitman. For Dick, California has always represented a place where anything can happen, a carefree landscape free from the confines of work, family, and the responsibilities of his world in New York City. When Don walked out of McCann during that pitch a while back, it was partially because he was no longer the big fish that everyone looked to when a problem needed solving. After Sterling Cooper was acquired, he just became one of many creative directors, and in a meeting in which he thought he'd be asked to save the day, he had to sit there and listen to someone else's pitch. That's not his style, so he bailed.
Peggy, on the other hand, has spent the past few episodes struggling with the decision to stay or leave the new agency. She checks out other prospects and discovers that McCann is the best option for her career, and she even turns Joan down in the finale when Joan offers Peggy a partnership at her new production company. Peggy stays, though, and the last time we see her, she's typing away at the office with a supportive Stan standing right behind her. She's been Don's protege for years, and though she's tried to be his friend, Stan rightly tells her that she's eventually going to have to move on because that relationship can be destructive. She doesn't need Don anymore. Peggy asserts herself at McCann (remember that badass entrance in the penultimate episode?), and in the finale she gets back on the campaign she wants because she knows how to stand up for herself and get sh*t done. As Pete Campbell says, one day people are going to brag because they were able to work with her.
So Don's gone, and Peggy's staying. That's in the text of the show. Matthew Weiner obviously left the ending up for different interpretations, and I'm sure you could point to a number of things to indicate that Don was responsible for the Coke campaign. But what if Dick Whitman finally shed his Don Draper persona forever out there on the California coast? What if it took a commune of hippies — ironic, considering his disdain for them that goes back even to the pilot — to get him to accept his true self? Not just to find a temporary solace away from his life, but to achieve real serenity? And what if it's Peggy, who started off as a lowly secretary, who is responsible for one of the biggest and most popular ads in the world? Her dream is to create work that has real meaning, something that lasts, and that certainly fits the bill.
Like David Chase and the question of Tony Soprano's fate, I'm sure Weiner will be asked about his ending dozens of times over the next few years, and he may even provide what he believes to be the definitive answer to the questions posed in the finale. But for right now, the show belongs to the viewers, and it's up to us what to make of the ending. What do you think happened in the Mad Men finale?
