Mad Men Ending Explained: Did Don Change… Or Did He Win?
I wanted to start here because the first time I watched Mad Men, during Covid, with my parents, they didn’t understand how it ended.
The screen cut to black after the famous Coca-Cola commercial, and I said, “I’m glad he went back.”
My parents looked at me like I had three heads.
Went back where?
If you’ve seen the finale, you know it ends with the real 1971 “Hilltop” Coca-Cola ad, the “I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke” commercial that actually aired on television. It’s not labeled. It’s not explained. No character turns to the camera and spells it out.
But the implication is clear: Don Draper created it.
The Retreat, the Smile, and the Ad
At the end of the series, Don is at a spiritual retreat in California. Isolated, stripped of status, disconnected from the ad world that defined him. He’s meditating. He’s unraveling. He finally breaks through emotionally in group therapy.
Then: the faint smile.
Cut to the Coke ad.
The commercial mirrors the retreat setting almost exactly. The hillside, the diverse group of young people, the peaceful, quasi-spiritual tone. Even small details echo the retreat environment. The visual language is deliberate.
The show never says, “Don went back to advertising and made this.” It shows you.
That’s the point.
Don didn’t abandon advertising. He absorbed the counterculture moment, and commodified it.
Why This Ending Confused People
Part of the confusion comes from how we’re trained to watch television.
For decades, TV was what media theorist Marshall McLuhan called a “cool medium,” something that required the audience to fill in gaps. Sitcoms especially were built on shortcuts:
Three plots in 22 minutes
Reset to normal by the end
Character inconsistencies ignored
Laugh tracks guiding emotional response
This is commonly parodied by shows like The Simpsons, Family Guy, and Community.
Prestige television changed the contract.
The Prestige TV Shift
In the late ’90s and early 2000s, something shifted. Writers and producers (all of whom were deeply knowledgeable of McLuhan’s work), started treating television like cinema.
Shows like:
The West Wing
The Sopranos
Mad Men
Breaking Bad
expanded the canvas. Even shows that are definitely structured and written as classic sitcoms started bending the rules and playing with standards like Malcolm in the Middle, The first single-cam half-hour sitcom.
Bigger budgets. Longer arcs. Visual storytelling. Psychological depth. No reset button.
Audiences didn’t need to fill in sloppy gaps anymore… because there weren’t any. Every costume, framing choice, and line reading mattered. A single shot could carry narrative weight.
But that required something new from viewers: attention.
So… Did Don Change?
That’s the real question.
The optimistic read: Don finds peace, integrates his fractured identity, and creates something hopeful.
The darker (and more “Mad Men”) read: Don achieves self-awareness and immediately monetizes it. He turns the ’60s counterculture movement into a soda commercial.
The show isn’t just about Don Draper. It’s about America. About reinvention. About selling identity. About absorbing rebellion and packaging it.
The Coke ad is the perfect ending because it works on both levels:
It’s beautiful.
It’s cynical.
It’s sincere.
It’s manipulative.
Just like Don.
And that’s why when the screen went black, I said, “I’m glad he went back.”
Because of course he did.
