Unlike everyone else, I actually did not find the scene with Betty and Sally to be sad. To me, it seemed to indicate that they had at long last accepted one another, and that Sally was ready to step up into her new maturity and caring for others, and Betty was, as she indicated in her letter to Sally, willing to see Sally as an independent and admirable person, instead of a defective appurtenance that she had to try to control and restrict into being the “perfect” female trophy wife: the thing that she had felt SHE had to be.
I was talking to an actor friend at the gym this afternoon and he was horrified by the idea that Don made the ad. He thought that interpretation undercuts the entire reason for the show and that it would be a true downer of an ending in which the most this character is capable of is self-destructive behavior without actual insight into himself.
And I agree. Maybe Matt Weiner wanted the ending to be a hidden downer but it seems, from reading here and elsewhere, that many people are charged up by the idea that Don Draper abandons his quest to find a reason for his own existence to come back to advertising with, as presented, the ultimate sell out, one which trivializes the entire notion of enlightened self-awareness. If that’s the point of the show, then Weiner has made a truly subversive piece of art that reveals exactly how shallow America is.
Or maybe he wanted to set up a contrast between the journey across America, across space, with the journey into the self. I hope it’s this one because the other, to me, is a horrible thing.
I agree with this. The final scene with Betty and Sally was shot as a peaceful domestic scene. It felt right.
Lergnom what is your opinion about the scene when don embraces the man in group? Significance?
I’m surprised at the contempt for the “hippie” retreat here. It seems to me that some of the attendees, including Don, were making genuine progress towards self-awareness. I don’t think it was BS.
I think that Don embraced the man for several reasons: firstly, he identified with some of the things the man said, notably about people trying to give him something that he couldn’t accept because he didn’t recognize it AND the fact that the man said he felt that no one, not even his family, really, truly saw HIM (I’m not the man you think I am…); secondly, because Don is the catcher in the rye who is always trying to rescue people; thirdly because in his flight literally to the edge of the continent he has gradually left behind and stripped away all of his defenses and pretenses; and lastly because this was a normal middle class guy who works in an office, a kind of person he could perhaps understand and identify with to a greater extent that most of the other people there, and therefore that man’s despair and self-revelation has the ability to break through the last barrier of his defenses and enable him to fully acknowledge his own despair and their brotherhood under the skin.
I agree with Consolation. I think Don finally felt “safe” enough to reach out to someone else and offer true compassion and let go behind some of the barriers he had set up his entire life.
Coca cola had been on Don’s mind since at least the “advertising Heaven” speech in which the head McCann guy listed off their huge accounts and saved the.best for last…he lookedat Don and whispered “Coca Cola”…Don knew he had to live up to his “white whale” reputation, and would need all the creativity he could muster to deliver a home run for Coke. So he already shed his apartment, furniture, wife, kids,; now he shed hisy job, Seratary, car, clothes, etc., and went as far anda s fast as he could…eventy finally leaving even his Dick persona in the dust. At that place they even took his language away. It wasn’t till he had nothing left but himself and one syllable , “om” that he was free enough of the past to see the optimism and idealism of the future that is shown in the Coke commercial. A less subtle character would have leaped to his feet and screamed, “I’M BACK!!!”. But the whole series was told thru Don’s subtle facial gestures, and that faint smile was perfectly in his character
Remember, it wasn’t till he was herded into that big room and handed a bag lunch that he realized he couldn’t exist as just another cog in the McCann machine, and fled. He knew ehe had to do something drastic to escape that mob scene and re-assert his superiority…and fulfill his white whale expectations.
Sally’s 6th birthday party was depicted in the 3rd episode of season 1 (“The Marriage of Figaro”). I just rewatched season 1 during the Mad Men marathon and I’m sure they said she was turning 6.
Here Jon Hamm Discusses the final scene - and episode
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/05/18/mad-men-finale-jon-hamm-interview/?_r=1
Those last few moments of the episode, and that transition from Draper’s bliss to the Coke commercial, has raised many questions about what it means. Is there a correct answer to that question?
Do you have an interpretation ?
Have you had any opportunity to digest other people’s reactions to the finale?
A.
Wow…just watched it last night! What an incredible ending, the more I think about it. My take is the more simplistic view. He had an epiphany on how to do the Coke commercial. He loves his kids, he knows the right thing to do. He went back to McCann and did that commercial and took care of his kids. Not they they necessarily lived with him, but he was there in their lives. He will always be an ad man. I loved it…never expected that ending, and it was sort of right under our noses…hints constantly.
I enjoyed the rest of the gang’s story. I thought the Peggy/Stan was a bit awkward for some reason, but I’m glad she’s happy.
I watched a few episodes of MM in the beginning and enjoyed it, but never really kept up. I started to watch the finale but I’m out of it enough that I knew I wouldn’t follow all the people / story lines. But I am retiring next year and on my bucket list is just to binge watch all of MM on Netflix!
just thoughts on kids ages:
i do think that bobby didn’t look nor act his age at the end. It seems like he didnt grow along with it all like sally. oh well; the story wasnt about him. ( i have 12/13 yr old boys in my life now. )
loving all the thoughts above.
It struck me at the time but I thought it might just be me, until I read it elsewhere - the Coke commercial has a closeup solo of a young woman singing who looks a lot like Stephanie. Weiner said he had the ending in mind from day 1, so the casting would have been intentional. And it also clearly means that Don didn’t somehow give the idea for the ad to Peggy over the phone (which makes no sense anyway).
I think the ending as it has been taken is stupid or intentionally subversive. I described the subversive in my last comment, so here’s the stupid: it’s the same “realization” Don had just 7 episodes prior when he gives the big “I found I needed this” speech to a deeply depressed Ted so he’ll agree to sell to McCann. He doesn’t have to realize he likes advertising; we’ve seen it before. Even when he gets put on leave by SC&P he keeps working with Freddy Rumson as his front man doing free lance work for agencies, including Accutron for SC&P. So this time, this huge journey across the nation, this abandoning of maybe $2M due to him is all about … coming to the same spot he’s been before? To me, that’s stupid.
Put aside that it’s a huge assumption McCann would take him back in any capacity; he lasted a few minutes in one meeting before bolting. Put aside that Coke already has at least one creative director working on its ads and the slogan “it’s the real thing” had been in place since 1969. Put aside that we’re supposed to believe Don shows up in NY in his suit and pitches this ad to what we must assume would be a hostile Jim Hobart and everyone is so wowed by it that they accept his feckless and, let’s be honest, despicable abandoning of his contractual responsibilities because that pitch is soooooo much better than anything they can do. Nope, it’s Don Draper and he can do anything … except of course we’ve seen that he can’t. He can’t maintain relationships. He can’t examine himself and actually get anywhere meaningful. He can’t stop lying. He can’t even visit his children. He can’t even talk to his son Bobby after he’s heard that Betty is dying.
So we have this Don Draper who is so wrapped up in his failures as a person, not as an advertising director, but as a person that he can’t even be a father to his children when we see his youngest son unwrapping cheese slices in a dark kitchen so his older brother can feed them. And this Don Draper learns … he has an idea for Coke. Wow. That’s really deep. Why the bleep have the show? Why bother making an audience care about such a pathetic person? Screw the idea of the kids living with him: he can’t even go back so he can see them on weekends and be a father when they absolutely, desperately need him the most.
Here we’re presented with this good looking, aging liar finally running out of people to “save”, finally unable to say “move forward and it will get better” and he hits bottom and comes out as a good looking, aging liar. I thought or maybe hoped the point was that he was meandering across America, even racing across it at Bonneville, because that was a metaphor, as in On The Road, for the real journey you need to make within yourself, that you can search for excitement, search for the next jolt of happiness, and all you’ll get is the need for more excitement, more happiness. We’ve heard that speech: he gave it to Dow.
Maybe Matt Weiner is saying America is empty, that it’s just a good looking, aging liar whose idea of soul searching and personal growth is “I’d like to teach the world to” buy more of my product. I’d like to sell you more stuff you don’t really need. I’d like you to have “family supper at Burger Chef” tonight. It’s not the real thing. It’s just an ad but it is what we do. And more than that, it’s actually what we are. The unreal thing.
Or maybe Matt Weiner is, as I believe, yanking our chain, putting out there this obvious misdirection so people can reveal themselves: I’m so glad Don rises like a phoenix from his own ashes to become Don again. Says a lot about Americans. Versus Don starts on the road inside himself; the 70’s were, after all, “The Me Decade”. A misdirection fed to us by Peggy saying McCann would take him back and, “Don’t you want to work on Coke?” when she has no role in deciding what McCann does and who works on Coke. She’s dangling the ultimate carrot in front of Don. That to me gets at what Matt I hope meant: the Coke ad is the big carrot dangling in front of you, but it isn’t the goal of your life. That goal is being happy, not the kind of happiness that requires another jolt of happiness, but a deeper acceptance of who you are as a human being.
Not at all. It’s not personal, it’s business.
The president of McCann told Don that they bought SCDP for one reason, which was that it was the only way they could get Don. Doubt that one of Don’s legendary benders - as Roger said, “he does this” is reason enough to say, “never mind.”
I don’t see the two as mutually exclusive.
@lergnom I’ve reread your last post several times. As the " CC madmen guru" clearly you are disappointed with Matt Weiner’s finale. I’m curious how Don’s journey " on the road" may have culminated to your satisfaction, and in line with the values/ message you feel Weiner has developed all these years. What kind of ending would you have liked?
You wrote :
Lergnom, is it possible Don had a personal epiphany, after " confessing" to Peggy, the fraud, and despicable person he had been? Is it possible when Don embraced the stranger, he embraced his long repressed pain, admitted to the group, and to himself the depth of his personal abyss?
Isn’t this the process for personal growth and change, and ultimately an deeper acceptance of " who you are as a human being"?
I think Don would have returned to NY, changed, and happier.
Would it last???
…let me shake the 8 ball…“Doubtful”
Personally, I wanted to see Don punished, and think the ending was too saccharine, for all the difficult issues tackled by Weiner for all those years.
Despite, what Weiner says about no sequels, I have doubts.
It’s surprising to me that people are so angered by these things. It doesn’t have to be a choice between evil (cancer sticks) vs stupid (sugar water). It’s art. People are free to either like it or not – to come and go as they please.
Personally, I am obsessed with MadMen. I was born in 1957, grew up in Westchester county; oldest of 7 (born to a doctor and nurse who BOTH smoked.) I was somewhat flummoxed by the finale. Don’t think Don would have gone back to THAT agency, Coke or no Coke! I still feel like he might have fed Peggy the ad campaign . but I am obsessed, I tell you!