"Mad Men" Finale Quick Take

I had been preparing a post for last week as a sort of lead in to the big Mad Men finale last night, but pastoral concerns kept me from engaging in my favorite leisure time activity, writing. So just a quick take on last night's Mad Men wrap up. A more detailed reflection to follow.

Matthew Weiner has said that he always knew what the last shot of Don Draper would be, though he wasn't always sure how he was going to get there. Well, our man in creative, sitting lotus position on a Northern California cliff overlooking the Pacific, facing east to meet the sunrise, eyes closed with a Mona Lisa grin, letting out a heart felt "Ommmmm," was quite a sight. So, Mr. Materialistic Consumerism is embracing Eastern Mysticism and letting go of his attachment to the material world so as to find inner peace and enlightenment? Not so much. As the coda more than implies, he's thinking up an ad campaign for Coca Cola.

And not just any ad campaign. Probably the most iconic, true to it's period, exploitative of it's period and successful ad campaign in the history of advertising.

Many commentators have said that the great theme of Mad Men revolves around the issue of whether people can truly change. One can make an argument that all the main characters here do experience some change in their seven season journey (ten years in the show's story line). But, while Don didn't die as many had predicted, and he does seem to be happy, he really is the same as he was when the show started: running from his past, and believing that running from one's past is the answer to life's problems, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary. And most of all, he is the job. Even in the midst of this last half season where he seems to be stripping off the fake self to get back to who he really is, it proves to be a failed project. He may have changed names, stealing a dead man's identity, it was always a paper identity. Don Draper is Dick Whitman; a hustler looking for an angle. Don Draper does find peace by embracing who he really is, but who he is is the same person he always was: a high priced snake oil salesman who's never satisfied until he gets 100 percent.

As for the parting shot and coda: brilliant. It's ironic, and brings things to a close while still leaving room for our imagination to wonder where things go from here: for Don, certainly, but for the others as well. More on Don, and the rest, soon.