Matthew Weiner may have taken Don Draper’s words to heart when he brought Mad Men to its endpoint 10 years ago when the character said, “Make it simple but significant.”
Final seasons and series finales can make or break a TV show’s legacy, and Mad Men capped off an acclaimed final season with an even more acclaimed finale, titled “Person to Person,” on May 17, 2015.
In that final hour of the AMC period drama, Betty (January Jones) refuses treatment for her lung cancer and declines Don’s offer to take care of their kids. Joan (Christina Hendricks), meanwhile, rejects boyfriend Richard’s (Bruce Greenwood) demands for her and launches a new production company. Peggy (Elisabeth Moss) declines to join Joan in that new venture, instead staying with the ad company McCann Erickson, where she finds romance with coworker Stan (Jay R. Ferguson). Pete (Vincent Kartheiser) heads out for a new job with Learjet and a new start with his family. And Roger (John Slattery) heads toward the altar with Marie (Julia Ormond), mother of Megan (Jessica Paré), whom Don had recently divorced, meaning Roger narrowly missed the chance to be Don’s stepfather-in-law.
It’s Don (Jon Hamm), of course, who’s been the centerpiece of the story all along, so it’s his ending that really brings the finale home.
After six seasons of turmoil, three children, two divorces, and one crisis of conscience, Don has embarked on a cross-country road trip that lands him in a seaside retreat in California, where he reaches an emotional nadir. He makes three person-to-person calls to three of the most important people in his life — Betty, Peggy, and his daughter, Sally (Kiernan Shipka) — as he reckons with his identity.
After Don has a cathartic moment hugging a perfect stranger in an emotionally charged group therapy seminar, Mad Men ends with a shot of our protagonist smiling while meditating on a hilltop before cutting in Coca-Cola’s famous “Hilltop” TV commercial, the one with the “Buy the World a Coke” jingle.
The implication is that it was Don who came up with the iconic commercial — which was, in fact, the work of the real-life McCann Erickson — though the ambiguity of those final moments was enough to send viewers online in search of answers.
Maybe it doesn’t matter that we’ll never know for certain if the ad was Don’s brainchild. (The shooting script isn’t saying either.) What does matter is the optimism on which Mad Men ends. As the show’s core characters head into the 1970s and face the uncertainty of new lives in a new decade, they end up a little better — or, at least, a little more settled — than they were when the finale started.
“My take is that the next day, [Don] wakes up in this beautiful place, and has this serene moment of understanding, and realizes who he is… an advertising man,” Hamm told The New York Times at the time. “And so, this thing comes to him. … I think that for Don, it represents some kind of understanding and comfort in this incredibly unquiet, uncomfortable life that he has led.”
As for Weiner — whom, it should be mentioned, was accused of sexual harassment by Mad Men writer Kater Gordon in allegations he denies — he liked the idea that “[Don’s] enlightened state, and not just co-option, might’ve created something that is very pure,” as he said during a New York Public Library Q&A after the finale. “To me, it’s the best ad ever made, and it comes from a very good place.”
For critics and viewers, “Person to Person” is often cited as one of the best finales ever made. Hamm submitted his performance in the episode for Emmy consideration and finally got a Lead Actor in a Drama Series trophy after eight back-to-back nominations. That’s an ending that should bring a Draper-like smile to any Mad Men fan’s face.