WASHINGTON – Our eight-year TV bender is at its end. And as we take our final swig of “Mad Men” on Sunday, the farewell toast is bittersweet.
We’ve cherished every last drop of our beloved cocktail, certain that it will go down smoothly as one of history’s best TV dramas. And yet, there’s a sinking feeling of loss, compounded by a Season 7 that may have tasted better poured into one full glass, rather than being split into two separate snifters.
One hater griped that the glacial, two-part final season is like watching paint dry — sad hyperbole for short attention spans. What profound paint! This level of complex character study and nuanced social commentary takes time, and “Mad Men” has always adhered to a more methodical pace than the rapid cliffhangers of its AMC peer “Breaking Bad.”
If this were cinema — which television is rapidly becoming — Don Draper moves to a meticulous “Godfather” melody, while Walter White courts a “GoodFellas” chaos. Both styles create masterpieces; it all depends how you take your art and entertainment — “neat” or “on the rocks.”
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Perhaps then it’s fitting that our trusty bartender — show creator Matthew Weiner — give us a “7 and 7” to sip over two years, compared to the “12 and 9” episodes that his “Sopranos” mentor David Chase wrapped up without a tidy bow. When the final shot arrives Sunday night, expect a similar Monday morning hangover at your own Sterling Cooper water cooler.
Yes, it’s time to entertain the conspiracy theories one last time — with wild speculation and what-if possibilities for each character — all while knowing that Weiner is cooking up something far more artfully controversial, and yes, far less eventful. After all, Draper’s TV just cut to black in his Midwest motel room — like our own tubes when Tony got whacked — and Weiner never likes to be outfoxed.
SPOILERS BELOW:
Don Draper
As Don goes, so goes the show. In the third-to-last-episode, “Lost Horizon,” Don left the advertising industry for good by walking out of a Miller Beer meeting at McCann. Staring out the window at an airplane, he got up, left the meeting and embarked on a mysterious cross-country road trip.
In the most recent episode, “The Milk and Honey Route,” Don shared beers with a group of veterans and finally verbalized his sin of killing his commanding officer in Korea — the real Don Draper. Now that he has admitted his guilt, it’s time for Don to make amends once more with the family of the late Anna Draper. Perhaps he’s driving cross country to visit Anna’s niece, Stephanie, who was last seen taking a $1,000 check from Megan and driving to Oakland in “The Runaways” (a fitting title for Don).
After admitting his guilt for his war disgrace and making amends for his false identity, it’s anyone’s guess how Don will take his final bow. At this point, the D.B. Cooper conspiracies are running rampant, suggesting that Don could be behind the only unsolved skyjacking case in American aviation history. Was it foreshadowing that he stared out the window at the airplane? Was his vision of Bert Cooper a hint at his new alias — D.B. Cooper? And is our image of Don sitting alone on a Midwest road — a la “North By Northwest” — a hint that he’ll hijack Northwest Airlines as D.B. Cooper?
So far, Weiner seems hesitant to give into conspiracy theories. But the date of D.B. Cooper’s incident — Nov. 24, 1971 — coincides nicely with another development, so let’s run with it for now…
Roger Sterling
If Don survives, what becomes of the falling male figure in the opening credits? Can the “North By Northwest” office buildings and “Vertigo” paper-cutout plunge really be a coincidence?
Weiner recently showed us a loose window at the McCann office building, and unless it’s a red herring — which it probably is — the falling paper cutout should belong to Roger Sterling.
Roger has been pursued by Death throughout the show, including a series of heart attacks. When we last saw him, he was playing an organ — funeral style — recalling his comment in the Season 6 premiere, where he made a Freudian slip at his mother’s memorial service: “This is my funeral.”
The smart money is that the falling figure is merely symbolic of mankind’s plunge, rather than any literal character death. That’s more of Weiner’s style. But occasionally, he gives us lawnmower blood splatter, so if he wants to get really crazy, there’s a way to satisfy the opening credits truthers and the Sharon Tate theorists. In the words of Costanza: “You wanna get nuts? Let’s get nuts!”
You ready? Roger’s fall stems from his recent sexual encounter with Megan’s mother, Marie Calvet. It happened in Don’s empty apartment — with red wine spilled on the floor. Roger could get a phone call at the office, saying that his hippie convent daughter Margaret (i.e. Manson Family) has stabbed Megan over Roger’s affair with Megan’s mother. This could trigger a heart attack for Roger, sending him staggering backwards into the loose glass — and falling to his death like the opening credits.
Alas, this is far too crazy for Weiner’s style, but if anyone’s falling out that window, I hope it’s Roger.
Peggy Olson
After Roger’s demise, Peggy would take on greater importance at McCann.
We last saw her boozing with Roger while rollerskating around the abandoned Sterling Cooper office, then strutting into McCann with dark sunglasses to hide her hangover, puffing a cigarette and carrying Bert Cooper’s “octopussy” art, given to her by Roger.
These scenes could serve as a sort of “passing of the torch” moment from the Old Guard to the New Guard. Peggy’s confident strut sets her up to kick ass and take names in the “Mad Men” finale.
Expect her to realize her highest career goals, get a huge payday, and shatter the glass ceiling once and for all — completing the secretary-to-executive transformation in a most satisfying way.
Some have speculated that the show will end with Don inventing the famous 1971 “I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke” ad. This is clever postulating, but we should take it a step further. My vote is on Peggy.
Joan Holloway
While Peggy’s arc will go from secretary-to-executive in ultra-feminist style, Joan’s arc will show a different side of “equal rights.” Her “feminism” will be the freedom to choose her lifestyle, either as a working woman or a stay-at-home wife. It’s something Joan has struggled with throughout the show.
When we last saw her, she was railing against the sexist treatment by her male colleagues at McCann. When she threatened legal action, McCann honcho Jim Hobart offered to buy out Joan’s contract. She initially resisted, before taking Roger’s advice to take the money and run. Her escape from the Madison Avenue advertising world — perhaps with real-estate beau Richard — isn’t her failing her feminist creed. Quite the contrary. It’s an equal choice similar to Pete Campbell’s escape with Trudy.
Pete Campbell
After eight seasons of sleazy moves, Pete had his most redeeming episode last Sunday. Dining with his brother downtown, the two discussed their womanizing ways. His brother absolved any personal responsibility, saying they get it honestly from their two-timing father. However, Pete owned up to his flaws — “It feels good until it doesn’t” — suggesting that he has indeed seen the light.
Later that night, Pete barged into Trudy’s home and convinced his ex-wife that he’s a changed man. He pledged to be faithful and offered to bring Trudy and child with him to his new ad gig in Wichita, Kansas. There, they’ll lead the perfect balanced life in the Midwest — a slow-paced daily existence, with the occasional escape on a private jet, you know, for family vacations.
Again, if Weiner wants to get wild, he can have Pete go down in flames — in a plane crash like his father. After all, a plane carrying the Wichita State football team crashed on Oct. 2, 1970, right around the time Betty Draper dated a letter Oct. 3, 1970 in the most recent episode.
Either way, we’ll look back on the Pete-Trudy redemption as a well-crafted highlight of the series.
Betty Draper
While we cheered for Pete’s redemption, our hearts sunk for Betty’s bad news. Yes, the shocker twist of Season 7 was that Betty has developed terminal lung cancer after years of smoking.
This revelation was done masterfully: (a) Betty falling on the college staircase, shown through the fatalistic bars of the railing; (b) Her doctor’s visit without saying what is wrong; (c) Her husband saying the doctor needlessly scared her, then snatching the cigarette pack out of her hand; (d) The x-ray revelation; (e) Her shock and grief staring in the mirror; (f) Her disappointment that Sally was told against her wishes; (g) Her angelic entry into Sally’s bedroom, dressed in white and bathed in the hallway light, to hand Sally her will; (h) And going back to school despite her death sentence.
Betty’s cancerous fate immediately lends an aching feeling to repeat viewings of the early seasons: Don pitching Lucky Strike cigarettes, then taking out a full-page ad vowing never to do it again; Betty holding a cigarette in her mouth as she shoots the neighbor’s birds with a BB gun; Betty and Sally sharing a mother-daughter smoke in the car; and even the pre-cancer episode, where Don prophetically says, “Knock ’em dead, Birdie.” Even the nickname “Birdie” takes on new meaning, no longer just a symbol of the Draper nest, but a bird taking heavenly flight to “Bye Bye, Birdie.”
The End
This “Bye, Bye Birdie” notion could hint at the show’s final scene, with Betty’s death providing a poignant end to an era. As Weiner told Deadline: “I love that people are trying to project and guess what the storytelling is. I’m writing the finale today … and it’s set in stone.” Set in stone, as in chiseled in a headstone, the perfect reason for Don to end his road trip and reunite with his family.
My brilliant colleague, Jen Chaney, predicts a genius reinvention of “The Wheel,” as Don eulogizes Betty with family photos on the Kodak Carousel, set to the closing song of Don McLean’s “American Pie.” I love this idea, as the song fits chronologically and symbolically:
Bye, bye, Miss American Pie (Bye bye, Birdie, the epitome of American Pie — literally and figuratively)
Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry (Roger memorably secured the Chevrolet account)
And them good ole boys were drinking whiskey ‘n rye (The male workers constant boozing at the office)
Singin’ this’ll be the day that I die. (Death of characters, death of the show, death of an era)
The song debuted in Nov. 1971, which coincides perfectly with the D.B. Cooper incident on Nov. 24, 1971. That date also happens to be Thanksgiving, like Don’s missed meal after “The Wheel.” Will we see a D.B. Cooper jump to freedom? Probably not. My money is on a “Godfather Part II” style vision of a nostalgic family meal with Betty and the children. This vision is interrupted by a beautiful woman tapping Don on the shoulder. Is he a changed man? Or is he trapped in a vicious cycle? Cut to black.
This seems more like Weiner’s style. But the very fact that so many fans are using historical events and cinematic references to concoct endings for this fictional show speaks volumes. “Mad Men” invokes the past to bend the present and shape our future. At long last, Weiner is ready to make his curtain call after eight years of Draped social commentary. As Betty says of mortality: “That’s how I know when it’s over. That’s not a weakness. It’s been a gift to me, to know when to move on.”
Follow WTOP Entertainment Editor Jason Fraley on Twitter @JFrayWTOP.
