DAILY DRAPER
DON ON SMALL TALK
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How will Mad Men end? Four of the best theories
At a recent Guardian event to mark the final run of Mad Men, the conversation kept returning to one subject above all others – how would it end? Would Don Draper kill himself? Would he keel over of natural causes? Would there be a time jump? Would we see him in the present day – still charismatic at 90 – presenting a nostalgia-tinged advertising pitch for a selfie stick?
We won’t find out until the series finale next week. Until then, our best guess is to trawl the internet for its most pervasive theories. Here they are, in descending level of likelihood.
Don Draper is DB Cooper
One of the most popular online Mad Men theories, now that Megan definitely isn’t going to be Sharon Tate, is that Don Draper is really DB Cooper, a mysterious real-life figure who hijacked a plane for a $200,000 ransom in 1971, leapt out with a parachute over Oregon and was never heard of again. Don has links to French Canada, as did Cooper. He fell to Earth, like the figure in the show’s opening titles. Don worked at a company called Sterling Cooper. DB sort of sounds like DD, Don Draper’s initials. The list of coincidences goes on. But not for long.
Pete Campbell gets eaten by a bear
This one is a couple of years old, but still completely compelling. An article on Uproxx asked: “What if a bear just, like, walks off the elevator, strolls into the Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce offices, nods at the receptionist, then heads straight for Pete’s office and mauls him to death?” This theory isn’t entirely beyond the realms of possibility – substitute “bear” for “lawnmower” and “Pete Campbell” for “Guy MacKendrick” and you’ve got one of the biggest turning points of the third series – but, still, killing Campbell and letting Lou Avery live? Unforgivable.
Don Draper has syphilis
A month ago, a Reddit user posited that Draper was suffering from neurosyphilis, the final stage of untreated syphilis. Symptoms apparently include confusion, depression and hallucinations, all of which have plagued him in recent years. In fact, the theory goes, syphilis has already done Don in. His quest for redemption, of sorts, in these last few episodes has actually been a sort of Jacob’s Ladder ending, experienced at the point of death. As we all know, this is the world’s most frustrating sort of ending.
There is a happy ending
Everything works out great and everybody has a wonderful time. Another Reddit theory: “Don Draper finally kicks alcohol and reconciles with Megan … they all live happily ever after and Duck Phillips dies in a plane crash.” Even the writer doesn’t want to see this happen. Now, if there was a bear involved …
Don buys the world a Coke
I think I know how Mad Men is going to end I am of the firm belief that Don is going to head back to New York. Indeed, I suspect he's already decided to head that way again eventually at the end of "The Milk and Honey Route." I am also of the firm belief that he might believe he's done with advertising — and McCann might believe it's done with him — but neither will prove to be true. Just as Don has finally assembled all the pieces of his life into something like a coherent, whole human being, he'll be shattered again, because I think ultimately Weiner's cynicism will win out over his optimism when it comes to his main character. There's also the matter of Don's children now needing him more than ever in the wake of their mother's death — and the matter of all of that money Don has been giving away all season long. I doubt he's anywhere close to destitute, but his cash flow problems have to be substantial at this point. So I think Don is going to go back to New York. I think Don is going to go back to McCann. I think he is going to win back his job with a brilliant pitch for a McCann client. I think we're going to think we're on the verge of the Don Draper pitch to end all Don Draper pitches. Picture it, if you will. Don walks into the room with the client. Everything is on the line. His career. His family. His future. Everyone leans forward (including us). He smiles, launching into his pitch with something like "I'd like to talk to you about family," and then either the door to the room closes (shutting us out) or the screen fades to black. And out of the blackness, we begin to hear perhaps the most famous ad of the 1970s. Eileen first mentioned this idea to me a few weeks ago as where she thought things were headed, and it instantly became my favorite endgame theory, even as I found it implausible for various reasons. (For one thing, Mad Men does its best not to ape actual campaigns.) But as the weeks have gone on, Eileen's theory (which I have embellished upon above) has stuck with me. It explains the season's obsession with Coca-Cola (which turns up even in this episode, in the form of the broken Coke machine). It explains the season's obsession with connection. And it explains the long, long wait we've had for a vintage Don Draper pitch. (By my count, we haven't gotten one since the sixth-season finale, which was the Hershey's pitch that lost Don his job.) Why shouldn't the last Don Draper pitch ever be one that gives us a famous ad that feels like it came out of a Don Draper pitch? What I also love about Eileen's idea is that it has a baked-in, awful cynicism to it, laced with a childlike sweetness. That's an ad about world peace and people coming together in harmony — and it's being used to sell soda. It's the ultimate in commodification of powerful ideas by the wheels of commerce, and it's the ultimate in America's blithe belief that if it could just shut out the bad parts — or share a Coke — with the world, everything would be a little bit better.
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