What happens at the end of Mad Men? Why that final shot still divides people
Mad Men ended on 17 May 2015 with "Person to Person" — seven seasons, 92 episodes, and one of the most argued-about final shots in television. Don Draper closes his eyes, smiles, and the show cuts to a real Coca-Cola advert. More than a decade on, people still can't agree what it means.
Where everyone ends up
- Peggy — stays at McCann and, in a phone call that turns into a confession, gets together with Stan.
- Joan — loses her boyfriend Richard but gains a business, founding her own production company, Holloway Harris.
- Pete — boards a Learjet with Trudy and Tammy, off to a golden new life in Wichita.
- Roger — marries Marie Calvet and finally provides for his son with Joan.
- Betty — diagnosed with terminal lung cancer, resolves to spend her remaining months on her own terms while Sally quietly comes home to help.
- Don — AWOL from McCann, washed up at a spiritual retreat on the California coast, seemingly at rock bottom.
That final shot
After a devastating phone call with Peggy — "I broke all my vows, I scandalised my child" — Don breaks down, then embraces a stranger named Leonard whose group-therapy speech about feeling unloved mirrors his own life. The next morning, Don sits cross-legged on a clifftop, chanting "om" with the group. A bell rings. A small smile crosses his face.
Cut to Coca-Cola's "Hilltop" advert — the real 1971 commercial in which young people on an Italian hillside sing "I'd Like to Buy the World a Coke". It was made, in reality, by McCann Erickson. The agency Don works for.
So did Don write the Coke ad?
That's the intended implication: Don returns to New York, goes back to McCann, and channels his hilltop epiphany into the most famous commercial ever made. Creator Matthew Weiner confirmed as much at a New York Public Library event days after the finale, and pushed back on anyone calling the ending a sneer:
"Why not end this show with the greatest commercial ever made?" — Matthew Weiner, New York Public Library, 2015
Jon Hamm read it the same way, telling the New York Times in 2015 that Don wakes up in that beautiful place, realises who he is — and who he is, is an advertising man.
Why it still divides people
The optimistic reading: Don finally achieves a moment of genuine peace, and — being Don — turns it into something beautiful that the whole world sang along to.
The cynical reading: the smile is the moment enlightenment becomes a sales pitch, and Don's great awakening lasts exactly as long as it takes to monetise it.
Ten years of hugging strangers and finding yourself, bottled and sold with a jingle.
Weiner's own view was closer to the first. The show's genius was leaving room for the second.
For the record: the real "Hilltop" ad was created by McCann's Bill Backer in 1971 — the very year the finale is set. The song became a global hit in its own right. It's the real thing. That's the joke, and the point.