The Real Thing

Last night's series finale of "Mad Men" was very satisfying for me. As someone who has watched every episode more than once, I had imagined several different ways that Don/Dick's story might have ended. But the image of Don "finding" himself at the Northern California retreat - putting himself through the hippy-dippy seminars and using his experience as a vehicle for his own self-discovery - was wonderful. That he came out of that with the concept for the iconic McCann Erickson Coca Cola ad was so perfectly cynical and so perfectly reflective of what the show has always been about that it almost brought me to tears. Well, not really. But you know what I mean.

And I love the way Matthew Weiner inserted a sneaky preview in the penultimate episode, with Don attempting to fix the motel Coke machine, of how Coke would be at the core of Don's epiphany on the mountaintop.