Mad Men
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Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
1960s Madison Avenue; Peggy and Joan as the two routes a woman could take through a building full of Don Drapers.
In March 1960 Don Draper is the brilliant, womanising creative director of Sterling Cooper, a Madison Avenue advertising agency, with a beautiful wife, Betty, and children in the suburbs. Peggy Olson arrives as his new secretary, and the office manager, Joan Holloway, shows her how the place works. Don is not who he says he is. Born Dick Whitman, the son of a prostitute, he took the name of his lieutenant, killed in an accidental explosion in Korea, and built a life on the lie. When his half-brother Adam finds him, Don pays him to disappear, and Adam takes his own life. Peggy becomes a copywriter, and at the end of the first season gives birth to a son by the account man Pete Campbell and will not acknowledge him.
In the second season Joan's fiancé rapes her in Don's office; she marries him all the same. Betty uncovers Don's past and his affairs, and after Kennedy's assassination, in the third season, she asks for a divorce and marries a political adviser, Henry Francis. Don and the partners walk out to found a new agency, Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. Drifting and drinking, Don proposes to his young secretary, Megan, at the end of the fourth season. In the fifth, the agency wins Jaguar after Joan, promised a partnership, sleeps with a dealer who has demanded her as the price of the account; Peggy leaves for a rival firm; and Lane Pryce, the British partner caught forging a cheque, takes his own life.
In the sixth season, pitching to Hershey, Don breaks down and tells the clients he grew up in a brothel. The partners suspend him, and at Thanksgiving he shows his children the house where he was raised. Megan leaves him. In 1970 the agency is absorbed into the giant McCann Erickson, and Don walks out of a meeting there and drives west.
In the final episode Sally tells him that Betty has terminal lung cancer. Joan, harassed out of McCann, starts a production company from her apartment. Roger is to marry Megan's mother. Peggy turns down Joan's offer of a partnership, and her colleague Stan tells her he loves her; she realises she loves him too. Pete leaves for Wichita with his wife and daughter. At a spiritual retreat on the California coast, Don phones Peggy and confesses his wrongs, then, in a group session, embraces a stranger who feels unseen. The last shot shows him meditating on a hilltop, smiling, before the 1971 Coca-Cola advertisement, made in real life at McCann, begins to play.
Starring
Jon Hammas Don Draper
A brilliant creative director who stole another man's name in Korea and keeps reinventing himself at others' cost.
Don Draper’s story
In 1960 Don is Sterling Cooper's star, with a wife, Betty, children in the suburbs, mistresses in town and a secret: he was born Dick Whitman. He pays off his half-brother, Adam, who then takes his own life. Betty learns the truth and divorces him; he helps found a new agency, drinks, and marries his secretary, Megan. Pitching to Hershey, he tells the clients he grew up in a brothel and is suspended; at Thanksgiving he shows his children the house. Megan leaves him. He works his way back under Peggy, and when McCann swallows the agency he walks out of a meeting and drives west. Told that Betty is dying, he phones Peggy from a retreat on the California coast, embraces a stranger in a group session, and is last seen meditating on a hilltop, smiling.
Elisabeth Mossas Peggy Olson
Don's secretary who becomes a copywriter and then a creative leader, paying for every step up in a man's world.
Peggy Olson’s story
In 1960 Peggy sleeps with Pete Campbell and, after a lipstick focus group, is made a copywriter. At the end of her first year she learns in hospital that she is in labour, gives birth to Pete's son and will not look at him; she gives the baby away and, on Don's advice, moves on as if it never happened. At Don's new agency she lands a client when the biggest one leaves; humiliated by him, she becomes copy chief at a rival. After the firms merge she and her boss, Ted, finally sleep together, and he leaves for California. With Don working under her, she leads the pitch that wins Burger Chef. At McCann she turns down Joan's offer of a partnership, takes Don's troubled call, and realises she loves Stan, who has just said he loves her.
January Jonesas Betty Draper
Don's wife, a former model trapped in suburban perfection, who leaves him when she learns who he is.
Christina Hendricksas Joan Holloway
The agency's commanding office manager, who rises to partner through everything the men around her demand.
Joan Holloway’s story
Joan runs Sterling Cooper's secretaries and was once Roger Sterling's lover. Her fiancé, Greg, a doctor, rapes her in Don's office; she marries him anyway, leaves work, and watches his career stall. Back as office manager of the new agency, she conceives a son, Kevin, by Roger while Greg is in Vietnam, lets Greg believe the boy is his, and throws Greg out when she learns he chose to go back to the war. When a Jaguar dealer demands that she sleep with him as the price of the account and Pete brings her the proposal, she agrees in exchange for a partnership. Harassed at McCann and scorned by its head, she takes half of what her contract is worth and leaves; when she starts a production company in her apartment, her lover, Richard, walks out.
John Slatteryas Roger Sterling
The agency's witty, hedonistic senior partner, who inherited his place and spends the series looking for meaning.
Vincent Kartheiseras Pete Campbell
An ambitious, resentful account man who fathers Peggy's child, uncovers Don's secret and finally starts over in Wichita.
Why it matters
Mad Men looks at the decade when America learned to sell itself, from inside the rooms where the selling was done. Its hero is a man who invented himself, and its sharpest subject is what that invention costs the women around him. Peggy and Joan take the two routes open to them in a building run by men, one through talent and nerve, the other through beauty and management, and the series is unflinching about the price of each, down to the partnership Joan is made to earn in a client's bed. It was the first basic cable series to win the Emmy for best drama, four years running, and by its third season seven of its nine writers were women. Its last scene is its most argued over: Don smiling in meditation, then the most famous Coca-Cola advertisement ever made. Whether that is enlightenment or the oldest trick he knows, the show leaves open.