Mad Men ended more optimistically than viewers, who thought Don Draper might plummet to his death or become famed hijacker D.B. Cooper, expected.
Ten years after the pilot episode, Don thinks up his next great ad and is at peace.
Pete and Trudy have reconciled and he is already thriving in a new job.
Joan is the head of her own production company.
Roger and Peggy have both found love in Marie and Stan.
Except for Betty, who represents the true death of the 1960s, the future looks bright for these characters.
Do we believe that will last though?
Mad Men is filled with hopeful moments that disintegrate when characters quickly return to their old ways. Season 2 ends with Don returning to Betty as a “changed man” after a transformative trip to California where he realizes that he loves and needs his family. Season 3 opens with him sleeping with a random flight attendant while Betty is pregnant at home.
Change is often just another broken promise for Don Draper and company. So, do these happy endings in 1970 last?
Their stories are done so we can only hope.
There is one character; however, who the viewer takes absolute confidence in the future of. As the world around her becomes harsher, she stands up and makes life better for others by making it harder for herself.
Our last image of Sally Draper is of her washing dishes as her dying mother smokes facing away from her. She is an adult now.
Sally Draper is the future. Not just of the 1970s, but the future of the 80s - 90s - 00s - 10s - and 20s we are in now. We are confident that despite her horrible childhood, Sally has a bright tomorrow. That bright tomorrow won’t be in advertising, though.
There are two certainties I have about Sally Draper:
She will seek a partner who is the opposite of her father. I think Sally is so horrified by her father’s affairs that there will be a lingering trauma that causes her to question aspects of her relationship. If a man shares anything in common with her father, it will cause a divide between them. She will want someone who is in no way like Don Draper and who allows her to thrive in her career rather than be a stay-at-home suburban mom.
She will seek a career that is the opposite of her father’s. I think Sally sees advertising as a business of lies which her father excels in. As a young idealist, she’ll want to enter a business of truths.
I believe this gives her three options:
Publishing
Politics
Broadcast News
I did a poll on Twitter asking what fans thought her career would be of those choices and publishing won. This may have been due to the film The Last Days of Disco (1998) about two young publishing employees in 1980 NYC which fans have said feels like what Sally Draper may be doing 10 years after the finale.
Politics is also an attractive answer due to how outspoken Sally is.
We see her in season 7 yelling at creepy, childhood friend Glen when he says he is going to Vietnam. As every life choice she makes will go against how she was raised, Sally would be a Democrat. Her first election would be voting for Jimmy Carter and it may seem to the young idealist that the country is beginning to change in the right direction.
Then the Reagan years begin.
*ominous thunderclap*
I believe that politics on any level would frustrate Sally and she would lose friends who sell their souls over it. I could see her working at the United Nations or as an ambassador. That said, I do not believe politics is her future career even if she will remain politically active.
My chosen career for Sally Draper is in broadcast news.
The choice became clear while writing last week’s episode recap for Season 3: Episode 4 “The Arrangements.”
Ignored by her parents following the death of Grandpa Gene, Sally has only the TV to keep her company. Watching a news report, she witnesses the immolation of Thich Quang Duc in protest of the South Vietnamese government’s persecution of Buddhists. This traumatizing and historic event that captured the nation appears to lock Sally in rather than discomfort her further.
She is shown that the world is full of suffering and pain, these feelings are not just in her own life. In the following episode, Sally’s teacher tells her parents that she has been asking questions about the murder of civil rights leader Medgar Evers.
Sally Draper is empathetic and invested in “the first draft of history” as news began to be referred to in the 20th century. We later see her horrified as she becomes absorbed in the 1966 Chicago Nurse Murders. It is as if she is the sole survivor hiding under the bed from murderer Richard Speck.
Her empathy and her interest put her in the middle of a story.
I think her childhood being raised by the TV during defining moments would lead to a career in the newsroom. She would see an opportunity to inform the public instead of telling a lie and selling something.
Sally’s life work could become the opposite of her father's.
Broadcast news is a career where Sally could utilize all of her skills and beliefs that define her as one of Mad Men’s most hopeful characters. If we were told that Sally Draper ended up in a newsroom, we all know she would do a great job.
What kind of stories would Sally have covered?
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