The DU Lounge
Related: Culture Forums, Support ForumsMAD MEN Finale Predictions? Let's hear them....
3 MAD MEN endings that I could love:
The last vestiges of Don Draper have been shed on the road across country, only Dick Whitman exists now, smiling and happy, at that bus stop in OK where we last saw him.
1. Dick Whitman, international jet setter.
While passing through Palm Springs on his cross country journey Dick bumps into jet set Joy, Viscount Willie and their nomadic crew. They stay in Edwards room, go skinny dipping again, and she convinces him to forget his past completely and travel the world with her.
They fly away on a Lear Jet.
Dick doesnt return to America until Sallys wedding day.
2. Dick Whitman, President, Hilton Hotel Corporation
After hearing about Dons exit from McCann Conrad Hilton pays private detectives to track him down. He finds Dick on the beach in Santa Monica where Dick confesses the truth of his past to Connie.
Connie offers Dick the moon, he accepts, moves to Bel-Air and ultimately becomes Paris Hiltons godfather.
3. Whitman Motors: Dick works with hot rods and race cars in CA
Its literally one of the only set-up scenes in the entire series that has never been paid off.
During his runaway bender, while visiting Anna Draper in California at the end of S2, Don chats with a group of guys customizing hot rods to race in Long Beach. Don claims to be looking for a job, they dont have one for him, but he clearly admires these guys doing something he, and they, have a real passion for and love.
It was never talked about again.
I actually expect Dick Whitman to wind up living in CA near the beach working with/on cars in some way. This ending would also include him raising his kids after Bettys death.
The Velveteen Ocelot
(115,836 posts)I'm old enough to remember the clothes, the weird hairstyles, the orange interior decor, the non-stop smoking and drinking, and the awful, sexist ways women were frequently treated at work. It's been an interesting adventure in déjà-vu.
dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)They were "sheaths", the patterns and colors are exactly what I remember.
I had forgotten how orange was used so much.
I remember the "Harvest Gold" and "Avocado" refrigerators. We had harvest gold one.
hunter
(38,326 posts)As a little kid our household appliances were sensibly white.
Then we moved to a place that didn't have appliances, which is where I acquired my mad living-without-a refrigerator-skills. (It's really not that difficult, especially if you have goats, pigs, or chickens, or you are a vegetarian with some space to make compost. My wife has never considered going without a refrigerator a reasonable option. We have a refrigerator and a freezer, both white.)
Then my parents bought a house with the avocado kitchen. What were people thinking in the 'seventies??? Pink and baby blue colored appliances from the 'fifties were much nicer than that.
The "stainless steel industrial look," which seems to be going away at last, does not appeal to me at all.
dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)Up until then, my family always had white bed linens, as did my Grandparents, and I assumed, everyone else.
In 1969 or so, after I was married, we bought a house, and it had that harvest gold fridge.
I made the bold step of buying solid color sheets.
The first night of sleeping on them, I was so aware they were "loud", that I had insomnia.
hunter
(38,326 posts)I also remember they quit making it because some people were allergic to the dyes, and worse, some of these dyes turned out to be carcinogens that survived various sewage treatment processes and ended up in the environment.
TeamPooka
(24,254 posts)so I pulled out her old pics and showed her the under counter rolling washing machine we had in the kitchen....in avocado.
For the win.
Sheldon Cooper
(3,724 posts)I totally agree with your third scenario!
Don pretty much has to return to New York and take custody of his kids. With Betty gone, I can't imagine he'd just leave them with Henry. Don has many issues but he's not a terrible father. I do see him moving the whole clan out to Cali and doing some sort of manual labor, with car work being the most likely choice. I think he'll keep the Draper name, though. Desertion is still a crime and I don't think he'd risk the consequences of going back to Dick Whitman.
What becomes of Peggy? Surely her sassy strut through the halls of McCann wasn't her swan song. It's hard to say where they'll go with her. I'd hoped she'd end up with Stan.
Roger? Who knows? And I think Joan ends up with her beau from Cali, living in Cali.
dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)Did he sell Anna's house?
TeamPooka
(24,254 posts)dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)Did Don buy it for her niece?
TeamPooka
(24,254 posts)SleeplessinSoCal
(9,145 posts)I want a new agency. OHS&D. With Sally as all purpose office administrator.
TeamPooka
(24,254 posts)SleeplessinSoCal
(9,145 posts)My brothel idea is stil in the realm of possibility.
SleeplessinSoCal
(9,145 posts)MY GOD!!!
TeamPooka
(24,254 posts)SleeplessinSoCal
(9,145 posts)perfection.
Loved it all.
TeamPooka
(24,254 posts)SleeplessinSoCal
(9,145 posts)Coke was to be Don's client at McCann . . . .
napkinz
(17,199 posts)https://www.facebook.com/MadMen
Orangepeel
(13,933 posts)First, that would annoy me because a real person wrote that real Coke ad and it wasn't Don Draper. Second, I don't think he did, or should have, gone back to advertising.
The yoga guy at the end said something about "a new you" before it cut to Don who had a twinkle in his eye. He reinvented himself again for a third life.
The Coke ad was a sign of the times and a way to show that it was a new Don for a new era. I don't think he was supposed to have gone back to McCann and made that ad.
SleeplessinSoCal
(9,145 posts)Like with The Sopranos
https://masterofsopranos.wordpress.com/the-sopranos-definitive-explanation-of-the-end/
SleeplessinSoCal
(9,145 posts)".....And then there's a coda: In a nod to the series' advertising world, to the real-life agency McCann-Erickson where several of the characters have been hired this season, and to its real-life client, Coca-Cola, "Mad Men" concluded with the classic 1971 peace-and-love Coke commercial where a hillside collection of young people from all over the world , each holding a bottle of Coke, sang the jingle, "I'd Like to Buy the World a Coke." The jingle carried the reminder that Coke, of course, is "The Real Thing."
http://www.usnews.com/news/entertainment/articles/2015/05/17/ad-it-up-a-splendid-drama-mad-men-as-it-comes-to-an-end
Orangepeel
(13,933 posts)I didn't look to see wrote the final episode. Are you saying that it was researched that he or she meant that Don wrote the Coke ad?
The show always used real companies as clients and McCann is a real agency. To my knowledge, however, they never (before) took a real person's actual creative work and claimed a fictional character wrote it. I could be wrong about that, of course, but I'd be disappointed.
SleeplessinSoCal
(9,145 posts)Don's job would have been to pitch the idea. Then Creative would've hired someone to compose the song.
napkinz
(17,199 posts)more at: https://www.facebook.com/MadMen
CBGLuthier
(12,723 posts)or came up with the real Lucky Strike slogan.
But I do think that in the universe of Mad Men Don Draper went back to Mccann, which by the way is a real agency and also is the real agency responsible for the coke ad, and created the ad for them.
It is called dramatic license. Forrest Gump did not invent any of the things he was credited with either.
Don did not reinvent himself but he learned to accept himself. This was shown by his hugging the refrigerator guy.
Kashkakat v.2.0
(1,752 posts)an alternate universe - essentially fictitious with some fact woven in - eg all those fictitious ads for real clients. Just finished another excellent series (Treme) that did a similar thing - fictitious characters, characters based on real people, real people playing themselves, real events, fictitious events, fictionalized events based on real events, etc. - all masterfully woven together in a thoroughly satisfying story.
Orangepeel
(13,933 posts)I like that Mad Men has existed inside the real universe. I've enjoyed seeing the characters interact with others in history without rewriting history.
To me, it was interesting that the firm worked on Nixon's campaign and that the neighbor volunteered for Kennedy. But I wouldn't have wanted Burt to be Nixon's running mate or for the neighbor to stop JFK's assassination (well, that would have been bad writing in addition to bad history).
To each their own, of course. To me, it wold be a more satisfying ending for Don to start another new life rather than going back to do the same thing again. But if he did go back, I would have preferred that the show not appropriate a specific piece of intellectual property.
*shrug* Oh, well. It's only a story. Maybe someday there will be another show where a fictional character creates Mad Men but gives it the ending I like.
TeamPooka
(24,254 posts)Mad Men S3 E6 "A Guy Walks Into An Advertising Agency" -
Joan greets their British parent company execs. She tells them she has tickets OLIVER! for them.
"Sijinn" Saint John Powell, CEO, Putnam, Powell and Lowe replies "A tragedy with a happy ending. My favorite kind of story."
I call that foreshadowing.
They did a lot of that on the show.
Go back and look at how much talk there was of Betty being dead or in the ground figuratively.
Joe Shlabotnik
(5,604 posts)The lawn mower episode is a classic. As is Betty shooting pigeons. Oh lord, I could go on all night...
TeamPooka
(24,254 posts)fishwax
(29,149 posts)SleeplessinSoCal
(9,145 posts)Joe Shlabotnik
(5,604 posts)Last edited Mon May 18, 2015, 02:05 AM - Edit history (1)
Edit to add: I hope that the new Don picks up some government work promoting the newly formed EPA, and also pitching the idea of 'Earth day'.
SleeplessinSoCal
(9,145 posts)They love advertising. I wanted a phoenix from the ashes ending by the time the finale was upon us. TV critic, David Bianculli's review is spot on, I think.
And to top it off, his "Aha smile" was the inspiration for another great ad which turned out to be one of the most memorable TV commercials of the past 50 years. This was before the Superbowl big deals too.
http://www.npr.org/2015/05/18/407713839/the-mad-men-ending-a-twisted-and-perfect-conclusion
MADem
(135,425 posts)But I'm sure he'd like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony....
Mad Men. More like Sad Men.
Signed,
A Sad Man
SleeplessinSoCal
(9,145 posts)TeamPooka
(24,254 posts)Peggy is such a good marketer she convinces herself that she loves Stan.
Joe Shlabotnik
(5,604 posts)But I'm glad for her and Stan. Stan was always very likeable. I also liked to see Trudy and Pete boarding the Lear jet, but that might also be because I love the Trudy character, and am glad to see her return to high society (even it its in Utah), I love Alison Brie.