One of the best TV show’s in history, Mad Men, is coming to an end next Sunday night (5/10/2015) which is very sad for me. I love this show because it was so well-written and showed so much about the creative process in the advertising world. I loved the time period it covered too, the 1960s. Yes, it was not a good time for women in the workplace nor the liver (too many wet bars in offices) but that’s what it was like back then.
Everyone is speculating how the great show will end the series. I have a wild and crazy theory that I hope is not going to happen. It goes something like this:
Don Draper will awaken in a foxhole as his mortally wounded true self, Dick Whitman and realize that it was all just a dream. He may or may not die….the show’s creator Matt Weiner might toy with us and leave us hanging and wondering whatever happens to Don…or Dick. Does he survive and assume his already dead comrade Don Draper and begin everything he envisioned in his dream or does he just die there? Perhaps January Jones (Betty) and the waitress and other women he was intimate with appear as nurses trying to save his life. Wouldn’t that be interesting?
I know this would be an unpopular ending because it’s been done before like Bob Newhart and DALLAS. I’ve also seen this twist in films like “JACOB’S LADDER” where the lead was a dying soldier. Let’s hope I am wrong and I’m pretty sure I am. I just wanted to capture this theory before the final show airs to document it.
Are there are clues that this could happen? Well, let’s see. For one, remember that Don saw his dead ex-partner at the firm while driving. Why would that happen? Perhaps to foreshadow what’s ahead next week? Don sees dead people because he’s dying? Also, what about the comments from the waitress’s ex husband about finding Jesus? Hmmm… could it be because the military chaplain is reading him last rights? Don’t laugh… it could happen.
In any event, no matter how it ends, Mad Men will forever be one of the best TV dramas ever. It won the Best Drama Emmy Award for its first four seasons and rightfully should’ve won 5 in a row but Homefront stole it for some reason. Still, it ties the record for most wins in a row. I think it will be a crime if Jon Hamm doesn’t win at least one Emmy for his amazing turn as Don Draper. He’s been nominated so many times but Breaking Bad’s Bryan Cranston won several awards (some deservedly but certainly not all of them). Even if Hamm never gets his Emmy, his performances will never be forgotten, nor will the show.
