Now I’m thinking that was supposed to be the Esalen Institute and not est, which apparently started a little later.
Yes. That’s it. Mom and step-dad used to go there as well. It was something along those lines.
… You know what, I know a Peggy at work with that last name. That’s kind of funny to make that mistake.
I think we left Don genuinely smiling.
And he just had an epiphany that while he never felt loved, the people in his life probably were trying to love him as best as they could. He won’t be bailing.
They isolated him. No booze, no work, no tv, not in charge of where he goes. Betty didn’t want him to come home, Stephanie didn’t welcome him with open arms, he couldn’t charm anyone there and he finally had to face himself. He broke, called Peggy (the person most similar to him in his life) and finally made a real human connection with the invisible man.
He can now rebuild himself and be real.
I am reasonably sure, with that smirking smile at the end, that Don goes back to New York and writes the Coca-Cola jingle. It’s the only thing that makes sense to me. I was not happy with finale.
No, he didn’t just get pop psychology.
Dick/Don spent his entire life being someone he wasn’t.
He was raised with no stability, so I can see him not return (no matter how much it may tear him up inside) to take his sons, especially Gene, from the only family they’ve ever known.
Dick wasn’t really anybody and Don was just a character he was playing. Working in an industry who’s main aim is to present products into something they’re really not, making consumers need them, though they really don’t, was easy for a man who wasn’t really who he was.
What I got from those last scenes, where he says goodbye to Peggy then hugs “the man that nobody notices” and the final “ohm” wasn’t falling four some pop psychology, it was finally discovering the man he really is.
I think that you’re right.
Check this out: Remember that girl at the front desk? She is wearing a white and red top and has braided pig tails with red ribbons in it. A girl that looks just like that appears about three seconds into the Coke commercial.
I have mixed feelings about this finale, but leaning toward liking it overall I suppose. I think that it’s entertaining and fitting that Mad Men ends with (the implication that) Don Draper at a low point in his life having a sudden hippy epiphany that inspires one of the most iconic TV ads of all time. Joan and Peggy starting their own (likely successful) business venture together is a nice bookend and contrast showing the progress of females’ roles in society during that decade…and since.
On the other hand, this show has usually been too soap opera-y for my taste, and this episode was no different. Also, a few more loose ends could have been tied up IMO.
Voting ‘like’ but feeling a tad underwhelmed. MM is one of the most acclaimed series in the history of TV, so I recognize that it’d be difficult to really write a series finale episode that satisfies most fans’ expectations and hopes.
Huh. … Interesting Joan assured her kids future thru Roger, letting her live off her own money and saying sayonara to her sugar daddy, and starting up her own agency…I teared up twice. I thought Betty and Dons phone conversation was wrenching. And Peggy and Stan getTing together, well,it’s about time! That was just romantic and sweet. I don’t know what’s I think about it the ending with Don, but poor Sally, this is a really rough patch to go thru.
Yes, and it’s hilarious. I thought the finale was great, personally.
I meant that he came to that exact realization through pop psychology.
Peggy stayed at McCann.
Also liked how the final episode’s title is “Person To Person” the old term people used to make phone calls, and some of the best scenes are all telephone calls:
Don calling Betty
Don calling Peggy
Peggy calling Stan
At least one can of Coke featured prominently.
Joan and sugar daddy doing coke
Peggy saying Mcann will definitely take him back
Red-ribboned girl (good catch hajaro)
I bet you’re right.
Yeah, if that’s the case it would pretty much undermine absolutely everything about this show and where Don has been heading.
And I think we went over in last episode’s thread that the timing doesn’t work out for Don/Peggy to become involved in either this jingle or the other one that’d been thrown out.
JOAN and PEGGY DIDNT START THEIR OWN BUSINESS! Joan started HER OWN business, not not not with Peggy.
Yep, that’s exactly what I got, but I loved it. It was perfect Don Draper; he sees the way the world is moving and uses it to sell to the masses.
Enlightening Meditation wins User Name of the Thread for 2015.
Fourthed. A moment of enlightenment. Peggy said they’d take him back.
I was fairly young when that commercial hit, but I do feel like it was the first entry/acceptance of peace, love and good vibes - the Cali paridigm - into mainstream America.
Still not sure I’m happy about the whole episode…felt it could have been more somehow.
This.