Amph [MAD MEN] Guy walks into an advertising agency...

I enjoyed it overall, but also felt a little let down with Don's story. He is essentially abandoning his kids and focusing inward upon himself at a commune. At least poor Sally already had some idea that both of her parents had let her down and already had some emotional armor in place.

I liked how most everyone else ended up. It was good to see Pete realize how much of a jerk he was and the dinner he had with his brother in the penultimate episode seems to have swayed his decision, and so that is one ending I can enjoy. I was also delighted to see Joan and that guy break up and watch her finally get what she had deserved all along. The Stan/Peggy thing was cute, but felt a little forced. At least the acting of that scene was enough to make it seem real, but they always struck me as being more brother/sister type than possible lovers. Roger and everybody else's ending I could easily see and had me satisfied. Still, just seeing Don sitting in a lotus position at a commune isn't how I would have ended the show. Still, I miss the hell out of the show, imperfections and all.

 

There's been some back-and-forth, but they'd settled into that platonic brother-sister friendship, so what seemed abrupt was jarring them out of it without any buildup back up to it over the course of the past few episodes. If they'd had their mutual realization in season six, a few episodes after Stan came on to her and they'd had to sort out their feelings, I wouldn't complain at all. Like I said, I like them together. It's just that it happened without any organic buildup to it over the past few episodes. So it felt more like finale magic than a fulfilling development.

 

i also thought that was the first time Gene spoke.
I didn't see the Peggy-Stan thing coming. Everyone else i kind of think fit them. I knew they'd leave Don open ended , i just knew it. Are we to think he went back and the coca-cola ad was his or what?

 

I have never seen even one episode.

 

Then why are you here?

Yes guys, the implication is clear: Don Draper sure as **** wasn't going to stay in a commune. He went back, and decided to buy the world a Coke.

 

He wanted the world to experience the harmony he had finally found.

Also, McCann Erikson really did make that ad, which is nice.

Edit: And...

 

Yeah, I did read about that this morning. Funny how Hobart's whispery "Coca Cola" enticement to Don paid off in the end.

 

'Mad Men' Finale: The True Story Behind the Coca-Coca Ad

By DAN GOOD1 hour agoGood Morning America

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'Mad Men' Finale: The True Story Behind the Coca-Coca Ad (ABC News)
Spoiler alert: This article contains information about the “Mad Men” series finale, “Person to Person.”
Don Draper sits on a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean, meditating, finding peace and inspiration.
He smiles.
Footage -- and a song -- begins to play.
I’d like to buy the world a home, and furnish it with love ...
The acclaimed AMC series "Mad Men" completed its seven-season run Sunday, showing the famous 1971 Coca-Cola commercial, “I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke” in its closing moments.

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The commercial’s use marks a notable departure for the show, because it blended fictitious characters and real-life ad success. The Coca-Cola commercial was developed by an actual ad man with McCann Erickson, the company that absorbs Draper’s agency in the final season of “Mad Men.”


Bill Backer -- like Draper, an ad whiz with an alliterative name -- served as creative director on the Coca-Cola account for McCann Erickson and is credited with developing the commercial’s concept. According to Coca-Cola, Backer was flying to London to write radio commercials. But because of heavy fog in London, his plane landed in Shannon, Ireland.
Some of the passengers -- who had to remain near the airport in case the fog lifted -- were furious about the situation. But the next day, Backer saw the passengers at the airport café and they were happy, enjoying conversation over snacks and bottles of Coca-Cola.
"In that moment, saw a bottle of Coke in a whole new light. ... began to see a bottle of Coca-Cola as more than a drink that refreshed a hundred million people a day in almost every corner of the globe,” he wrote later, according to Coca-Cola.
“That was the basic idea: to see Coke not as it was originally designed to be -- a liquid refresher -- but as a tiny bit of commonality between all peoples, a universally liked formula that would help to keep them company for a few minutes."
After arriving in London, Backer shared his idea of buying everyone in the world a Coke with the group employed for the radio commercials -- Billy Davis, music director on the Coca-Cola account, as well as British songwriters Roger Cook and Roger Greenaway. The group tinkered with the concept, and eventually music was added.

The New Seekers, a British-based pop group, recorded the jingle, “I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke.”
But what to do about the visual concept for the ad? According to Coca-Cola, art director Harvey Gabor came up with the idea for “The First United Chorus of the World,” a group of young people singing together on a hillside. Coca-Cola approved the concept, and filming commenced but was delayed because of rain.
The commercial -- dubbed the “Hilltop” ad -- was eventually recorded in Rome, but cost more than $250,000 because of the delays, according to Coca-Cola.
“I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke” was released in the United States in July 1971, becoming a classic advertising moment, reflecting 1970s optimism and social awareness. A version of the song, titled “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing (in Perfect Harmony),” also became a radio hit for the New Seekers and a U.S.-based group, the Hillside Singers.
Backer discussed the commercial’s impact in a 2011 interview.
“It’s generally considered the world’s most popular commercial, and anybody’s proud to be associated with something this popular and ... I think, very good,” he said.


Backer, who co-founded the firm Backer and Spielvogel after leaving McCann Erickson in the late 1970s, was inducted into the Advertising Hall of Fame in 1995. The Coca-Cola commercial is one of Backer’s most notable pop culture contributions. He also helped to develop winning campaigns for Miller (“Tastes great/less filling”) and Campbell (“Soup is good food”), as well as Coke’s “It’s the Real Thing.”
Four decades after the “Hilltop” commercial first aired, its impact lingers -- a timeless message and earworm jingle that were already enmeshed in public consciousness, now also known for marking the close of one of the most significant shows in television history.

https://gma.yahoo.com/mad-men-serie...hind-coca-075112435--abc-news-topstories.html

 

I'm not sure Don wrote the Coke ad. Yes, that's one valid interpretation (conveniently ignoring that he says he's retired and seems quite happy about it), but it's not the only one.

 

While it's pretty clear the intention is that Don has the big Coke idea, for a minute there I had a headcanon wherein Don called Peggy back and gave the idea to her. Then I realized how bad that made Peggy look, and now I can't see any scenario where it wasn't him.

****ing Don Draper, man.

 

I think it was just the show being symbolic and meta. The reason the people at the commune looked similar to the Coke ad is the show referencing the ad, not where Don got the idea. I just see no indication Don was going back to McCann. He called Peggy to say "goodbye" and he listened to his daughter and didn't go back when he heard about Betty.

McCann was portrayed as a soulless, awful place in a soulless, awful industry. Don would never go back. I think the ad was kind of a joke. Don finally found some peace outside of advertising-- represented by a commercial for sugar water that's cynically co-opting a contemporary movement.

 

Showed on all AMC's sister stations during the broadcast. lol

 

Oh, I think he had no intention of going back until the last shot. And believe me, I want to agree with you; I've wanted Don to move on this whole time. But there's what I'd like Don to be, and what he actually is---and taking his real human experience and processing it into a commercial is exactly what he is. I do agree that he'd never have been content at McCann, but then, he was never really content as Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce West and Partners either. But I think the idea would've dragged him back. Even if it drives me crazy.

 

That is one valid way of seeing that sequence as well. Again, ambiguous ending being ambiguous. But the thing is...what the hell is that guy going to do with himself once he finds inner piece (if he does)? Go to an auto shop and become a greasemonkey? Or do that thing he did so well for more than a decade, perhaps a little wiser when all is said and done?

I do like the idea of him giving that pitch to Peggy though.

 

I think his final act as Dick Whitman was to go to Japan and push Lou off a bridge. THEN he went to McCann and pitched the Coke ad.

 

Slightly annoying bit: We never found out what happened to Jim Cutler, did we? I've sort of head canoned it that he simply cashed out, unwilling to work with Don (or McKann, or both) one second longer then necessary.

 

Yeah, that was my take--"it's a lot of money".

 

Yeah, I have no idea where anyone is getting ambiguity from that ending. McCann is a soulless, awful place, and Don Draper is a soulless, awful person, of course he's going back there.

They gave you all the information necessary to assume that the ad was Don's, the resemblance of the characters, Peggy mentioning Coke again and answering the question of whether McCann would take him back, Stan even said "he always does this and he always comes back" which wasn't really true. It's not a big recurring pattern throughout the series, he's only left and had a breakdown and returned once before, to my memory. So the only point of that line, in my view, is to indicate to the viewer, once the Coke ad airs, that yeah, that was Don's work. (Also, he couldn't have given the idea to Peggy, she wasn't on the account and clearly isn't in the position to be even able to pitch a Coke ad, much less pitch something like that and have it taken seriously.)

 

Totally agree with Dani. Apart from the imagery, Don finds inner peace and harmony right at the end. Then we go to a commercial. That's about Harmony. With a major product who's advertising is handled by the agency Don is still working for. And it's an ad everyone knows, which is probably why it was chosen.

Just because last week Don said he "was" in advertising, and in this episode said he was retired, that doesn't mean it's still the case in the final scene. He had an idea. And it was just too good to not make happen. He's an ad man.

I actually think they went out of their way to not make it ambiguous.

 

I appreciate that Weiner stopped short of showing it explicitly, though--that makes it a litmus test for how people want to see Don (which, really, is the entire essence of "Don Draper") rather than an overtly cynical final statement. But do I think Weiner believes he went back? Absolutely.

 

To me what happened with joan is not so surprising. She needed to work. Perhaps for different reasons than Peggy. It seems like all the partners with 5 year contracts ended up leaving McCann, unless Roger was just on vacation in France....and Don...well we don't know. I hope Weiner comes out and just says whether the ad was Don's or not. I was wondering while Don was at the retreat was it some kind of commentary on who Don had been or advertising? Because it seems that they've always celebrated that. Every time he's pulled himself back up they've given us iconic shots of him. Remember him interrupting Jim's meeting last year and the scene on the sidewalk where he puts them in a cab? It's like "Don Draper is back and he's the coolest man in the world". So can he be that guy, just without the neurosis and cheating? I would have liked to see him with the kids. He was always a decent dad when he was with them.
One line he had to Peggy i didn't get "I scandalized my child" What did that mean?