SPECULATIVE SPOILERS AHEAD
I can’t post the images because we do not have the licensing rights to them, but in June of 2014, paparazzi photographers caught a few images of Jon Hamm on what was supposedly the last day of filming for Mad Men. You can see them here and here (via Reddit).
If you don’t feel like clicking over, I’ll tell you what’s in those photos: It’s Don Draper in what looks like Los Angeles. He’s apparently searching for someone in a hotel room in some of the photos, and in others he’s wearing what is clearly swimming/beach attire, similar to what you may remember from his trip to Hawaii (see header image).
Those images might not have meant very much to us when they were released, before the final episodes of season 7B began, but in the context of what we know now, they do seem to carry more weight. You can obviously make up your own mind about what you think they might mean, but consider this: McCann Erickson ruled out the possibility of a Sterling Cooper on the West Coast, so why is he in Los Angeles? He’s divorced from Megan, and he presumably has no job there (his noncompete would prevent him from opening up shop there on his own for at least four more years, unless he got out of the noncompete agreement).
What does that leave? If he’s searching for someone in a hotel — which is what one set of images seems to indicate — he could be looking for Diana. Alternatively, he could be looking for Stephanie Draper (who, last we saw, was pregnant and hitting Don up for some cash to help her out). In any case, it would seem to suggest that Don — who is not wearing a suit in any of the photos — might be out of the ad business. Maybe he’s returned to Los Angeles because that’s his Shangri La.
Recall, after all, that the most recent episode ended with Don Draper announcing to the staff of Sterling Cooper, after they learned it was being absorbed into McCann: “Hold on. This is the beginning of something.” Those lines obviously echo the exact same lines that Don wrote and that Freddy Rumsen delivered in a pitch for Accutron watches in the seventh season premiere last year (which opened with Don in L.A. visiting Megan, and I won’t even try to get into what the broken watch from the sixth season premiere might have been foreshadowing, but I do wonder if it was an Accutron watch).
Remember this ad that he created in the sixth season premiere, of a man removing his suit and running into the beach?
In that episode, someone suggested to Don that the ad made it look like someone was running into the ocean to kill himself. Don’s response was, “Maybe he did. And he went to Heaven. Maybe that’s what this feels like.”
The beach feels like Heaven to Don. Escaping the drudgery of his job. Moving to Los Angeles. Finding Diana. Becoming Dick Whitman again. Maybe that is the heaven, and the happy ending that Don Draper ends up with.
Or maybe he’s dead. After all, that very ad recalled A Star is Born, about a washed-up guy who walked into the ocean and killed himself.
via Reddit
