Well, the show that really put AMC on the map and made a legend out of John Hamm ends next week. Am I the only one who still watches the show? It certainly has not gone down hill quality though at this point it feels a little played out. One of it's obvious central themes - that people don't really change - just kind of naturally lends itself to that type of fatigue, which is why it is a good thing they're ending when they are, in my opinion.

We knew Betty is going to die, Pete gets a happy ending, Joan is still a basket case. The shows 3 best characters - Don, Roger, and Peggy - seem like they will get the bulk of the finale attention.

Thoughts?

I still watch and honestly the final stretch of episodes have been boring (though Christina Hendricks was fantastic last week). But it's had a good run.

Yep I still watch it - though im about 2-3 episodes behind. Need to catch up before the finale.

I feel like the redundancy of the Don Sylvia storyline in S6 was the show's only real blemish and unfortunately it took a lot of wind out of the show's sails. But Season 7.1 and Season 7.2 have both been great and this week's was an all time great

Feels like the show is leaving on a positive note in terms of characters learning

- Roger gets together with someone his own age
- Peggy starts to realize her career and proving people wrong is not as all-essential as she thought
- Pete become a better man, reaches the top career wise and gets empty satisfaction, realizes the Trudy relationship is most important
- Betty finds some emotional clarity with Sally
- Sally forgives Betty
- Don gives up his dream of rural Americana=happiness, when he realizes people are just as broken and messed up down there, scolds Andy for running away cause he knows it's not the answer

I started watching the show a year ago and for some reason haven't finished season 3 yet even though I thought Season 1 and 2 were both great. Will hopefully go through the series this year...

The series peaked real early. Season's 1 and 3 are all time great. 2 and 4 are pretty good too though not as much. 5 was all over the place with Megan and what not. 6 felt extremely redundant. Season 7 feels like its wrapping up a lot of the story lines that began in the first few seasons.

Seasons 1 and 3 will never get old. The rest is just pretty good.

To be honest I forget a lot of the plots of Mad Men and I think maybe we're supposed to, because for the characters vacant affairs and the advertising chases, mergers, sales, etc., both end up largely meaningless and a blur in the end, compared to if they had spent there time doing things the right way emotionally. But I feel like S5 is the best: Megan and Don marriage, Lane's downfall and suicide, Pete reaches peak desperation and patheticness, Roger hooks up with Megan's mom and gets high, etc.

Did we know Betty was going to die? I certainly didn't and am very saddened by her unexpected cancer. Damn you smoking!!!

I'm so happy for Pete. He's been the MVP of the season. And it turns out his family inspired the Red Wedding on Game Of Thrones! "The King ordered it!" What a great character. Definitely one of the core four reasons this show has been so great along with obviously Don, Peggy and The Man Roger Sterling. Finale should be great. I think Don lives now. It would be too cruel to his kids to kill him or even fake his death after Betty dies.

Everyone always discuses Don's refusal to change, but I've never really watched the show that way. Don has never had a good reason to change. He is a genius tha tis always seeking to file a black hole inside of him and is financially successful because of it. Sure this leads to lots with other women, yet again, there really aren't too many consequences. The worst thing he did was shun his brother, but even that was a panicked decision, one that could have been undone in time. Don is certainly no Walter White IMO and I hope the finale reflects this with a satisfying ending for his character. Not one where he gets killed by the heartlanders lol.

Don is def not a villain like Walter and Tony, just a helpless mess - when it comes to something like Megan marrying him, it's kind of her responsibility to recognize you don't marry/try to fix the bad news emotionally unavailable guy, the other ho's knew who they were dealing with in Don, her head was in the clouds

The only true shitlord of the regular characters is Harry.

One of my all-time favorite shows. While I'll be sad to see it end, it's certainly going out on a strong note. The beginning of this half-season was bumpy, but it quickly picked up steam with the McCann absorption. I need one more Peggy/Don scene in the finale and I'll be happy.

Also, I'll just leave this here:



Legend.

Finally caught up. Cant wait for the finale (bittersweet though).

Aww, I LOVED the finale. It was so good and the performances were amazing. January Jones and Jon Hamm were incredible. Also so glad to see Peggy and Joan get such happy endings.

Found it to be largely an epic cop out.

Don went and spent almost the whole thing with hippes. Like, wtf? He embraced beinh a dead beat Dad? We didn't get one last great Don-Roger thing.

That felt way to Entourage-y thrown together for something they supposedly planned out years in advance. NOT A FAN. Draper deserved way better.

Perfect Mad Men finale. Nothing too dramatic happened, yet everything worked out for the people we like .. well except for Betty who still has cancer. Joan was the big winner. I was fully expecting her defeat to be her end game, but girl totally turned it around.

I believe it was meant to show Don came up with the famous buy the world a Coke commercial, meaning he went back to McCann and his kids. His smile when meditating was him thinking about that commercial, his next great advertising idea.

Don realized hippies are a commercial identity, not much different than a 1950s housewives. It doesn't stop people from being judgmental and surface-centric. It doesn't really matter if someone is a rural Okie or a hippie instead of a NY, the same rules about unhappiness and the need for emotional connection and the same ability to be a fraud is there. So he went back to the people he had the most emotional connection with and who loved him the most. He realized they were as good as any other kind of people if they had the ability to share love with each other.

I would argue it was the biggest ad in tv history. People don't remember at the time, but Coke was in a demographic death spiral. The under 25 age group was Pepsi's. Coke was the choice of the WW II generation. Almost overnight Coke was cool with the kids again.

Great finale as far as I am concerned. Ending could be open to 3-4 interpretations depending on level of cynicism of the viewer.

I like how it paralleled the pilot in some respects and even tied into the carousel episode as well.

I didn't realize until this week that Ken Cosgrove's character was loosely based on James Dickey who I had no idea worked on Coke campaigns in the 1950s. The penultimate episode had a Deliverince vibe to it at times. The last few episodes basically reiterated Dickey's themes of little change in people in the long run and life no matter how chaotic at a climactic moment or period of time returning back to a pattern of normalcy.

The last words of the series are from the iconic Coke jingle "It's the real thing." What could be more ironic or fitting?

I thought the finale was wonderful. It really all makes sense that that's where it was leading. Stan and Peggy made me unbelievably happy.