In the world of television, few finales have left an impact so strong as "Person to Person", the episode that brought Mad Men to a close after seven seasons and eight years on the air.
Viewers were left to interpret the meaning of Don's smile at the end of the show and ponder whether he was truly capable of change.
Since airing, the finale has sparked endless discussions about character growth, counter-culture and capitalism; the classic show remains in the zeitgeist thanks to the ending, and we are here to break it down for you.
Mad Men explained
The show followed Don Draper, played by Jon Hamm, as a 1960s ad man working at Sterling Cooper, the New York advertising agency. Don was a womanizer and alcoholic, married multiple times, and yet remains one of television's most complex and fascinating characters.
Mad Men's cast was rounded out with Elisabeth Moss as Don's mentee, Peggy; Christina Hendricks as Joan, the office manager turned director of her own production company, and Betty, played by January Jones, as Don's ex-wife and emotionally distant mother of his three children.
What happened in the finale?
The final episode saw somewhat satisfying endings for the characters, albeit not all happy ones. Peggy and Stan confessed their love for each other, and she chose to stay at McCann Erickson and continue being a girl boss.
Joan started her own film production company, and the show flashes forward to her life of running the business as a single mother. Betty is sadly dying of cancer, so her daughter, Sally, is seen taking on more responsibilities in the home and caring for her younger brothers.
As for Don, viewers watched as he found himself at a meditation retreat in California after years of running from the broken marriages and messes he made during the show's seven seasons.
At the retreat, he attends a meeting with Leonard, a stranger who is also trying to find himself; Leonard details how he feels overlooked and unloved, like a drink left on the fridge shelf. Leonard breaks down in tears, and Don hugs him as he cries too.
As the camera focuses on Don during his meditation, seemingly finding inner peace away from the cutthroat advertising world, he smiles slowly before it cuts to the 1971 "Hilltop" advertisement run by Coca-Cola [which is a real-life commercial!]. Showrunner Matthew Weiner called it the "greatest commercial ever made" in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter post-finale.
The ad follows a group of hippies on a hillside in Italy, singing, "I'd like to teach the world to sing, in perfect harmony!/I'd like to buy the world a Coke and keep it company."
Matthew explained how relieved he was after the episode aired, especially with the pressure riding on his shoulders to deliver. "I can't believe this happened, and I'm so grateful we got to do it, and we were allowed to end it how and when we wanted to," he said. "I wanted it to feel that there was a vision and a point to the entire thing."
Did Don actually change his ways?
The ambiguous ending has sparked discussion for years since the finale aired in 2015. Viewers were left wondering if Don had actually found inner peace or changed at all, as the show cut from his meditation to one of the most famous commercials of all time, implying that Don rejected his character growth just to return to McCann Erickson and continue as the same womanizing ad-man.
Many saw it as a criticism of how advertising tends to capitalize on counter-culture and emotions in general, particularly hope. Emily St. James wrote for Vox, "This is what advertising does. It takes authentic human experience, moments of genuine emotion or even art, and it turns them into pap. It wrings what is real from them and what is true about them, and it makes them suitable to sell products."
As for Matthew, who was the mastermind behind The Sopranos and its own ambiguous ending, he was ultimately satisfied with the show's open ending. "I have never been clear, and I have always been able to live with ambiguities," he told THR.
"In the abstract, I did think, why not end this show with the greatest commercial ever made? In terms of what it means to people and everything, I am not ambiguity for ambiguity's sake. But it was nice to have your cake and eat it too, in terms of what is advertising, who is Don, and what is that thing?
"I just want my characters to be a little more happy than they were in the beginning, and I think that's pretty much true."
What did the critics say?
Mad Men received primarily positive reviews, with a 91% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The website reads, "'Person to Person' shoulders the burden of concluding a masterpiece by avoiding predictability while still offering a sweet send-off for most of Mad Men's main characters."
For Screen Rant, writers Colin McCormick and James Hunt wrote, "Mad Men delivers a finale that is about hope, both real and manufactured."
As for Time writer James Poniewozik, he was not entirely satisfied with the finale. "I can accept that as both an example of how advertising co-opts ideals and as a statement of Don accepting that he is who he is…I wanted its last minutes to make me feel more."
Jon Hamm went on to win the Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor in 2015 for his role in the show, and Matthew was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series, so it's safe to say that their industry peers largely enjoyed the season's ending.
"I'm so pleased that people enjoyed it and seemed to enjoy it exactly as it was intended," Matthew told THR. "You can't get a 100 per cent approval rating, or you've done something dumb."
Mad Men's legacy
The fact that Mad Men is still on our lips speaks volumes about the legacy of the show and the kind of fan loyalty it inspired. It gave us complex characters who were much more human than many TV characters at the time, and Don and Peggy, in particular, will remain perfect examples of how to write a character arc.
Rumors of a reboot have abounded in the last few years, with stars like Kiernan Shipka, who played Don's daughter Sally on the show, expressing their interest in picking back up where they left off. "I'm not done with Sally," she told Entertainment Tonight. "I don't think she'd be in New York. I think she'd do LA…But I'm not done with her at all."
As for Don Draper himself, Jon was satisfied with the ending and didn't feel the need to revisit the characters. "I was so very happy, as many people were, and I think Matt was as well, with how satisfying the ending was for Don, that I think to revisit that might be…too much," he told Deadline in 2023.
"I'm not sure, but we don't really talk about [a reboot]. It's not that it's off-limits, but it never comes up. We have families and other things to talk about. So, you know, I'm a big believer in never say never…there's a lot of ways to do that."
Ultimately, Mad Men teaches us that true fulfilment will remain elusive if we pursue ambition rather than meaningful connections and self-awareness; so, here's hoping Don really did achieve enlightenment in 'Person to Person'.