The Mad Men Finale

Sonia Soraya of Salon has a good take.

There’s a part of me that hopes that Don was able to find some kind of self-acceptance and closure through his meditation and chanting and therapy—to take his adventure entirely at face-value, and see his adventure in Big Sur as Don learning that settling for being merely himself is not that bad. There’s also a part of me that doesn’t believe it could be that simple—surely “Mad Men” is not so naïve as to be wholly credulous of the hippie, New-Age spin on Eastern philosophy, even if Don Draper might be? And there’s a part of me that gets that one of the takeaways of the finale is showrunner Matthew Weiner reminding us that Don Draper isn’t real, but this era was (and in some ways, still is) very real.