OK. Here we go.
First some ground rules from my “mediabastard” POV on the Show and its characters. As for what it’s creator want’s to do in his final 60 minutes, it’s all good and god speed.
Ok.
1. Don He’s always represented not a man, but a country, US. the USA. A Nation of Dickish Whit(e)men. He’s America of his time. 1950-70 (or up through the 80s i’m gonna guess) He is the MIPS man as much as the Marlboro Man he is given credit for creating and destroying.:) He’s the “wanna be grown up” child from the Changeling. . He went to war as one Dickish Whiteman and came back pretending to be a Dapper King -Don Draper) The Great Gatsby’s son, and while Gatsby dies, i don’t think Don will. He has one more transformation in him, just as America did in 1970. California awakes and awaits, and so does the 70s and early 80s. Media has yet to become our reality and the “LOOP of tech and media” has yet to take hold.
2. Betty We’ve known shes toast since episode 1. Killed by the medium of advertising that Don (america) became post war. How to be happy when we might not really need to be. A Smoking hot babe, dies grizzled from smoking. Shes been representing the casualties of the post war American family culture of the time for the series. Always neen a Lucky(stripes) Gal, as her good guy god fearing believer 2nd husband has told her this week. Her story ends by the 1970s as it did for all those who were f the rule players of the Grapes of Gatsby Playbooks. While
3. Joan and Peggy (who fought to get rules broken) enter into the 70s gaining all the evils of America (Don) as they get also get the equal rights to make a crappy world:) or a better one ? maybe- but now they matter . But DON/America still will unleash it’s/his final transformation. One so large they can they can ride along for, but cant deny.
4. Back to Don. Yeah i ignored Pete, he’ll either get his survivor reward for playing the game, or he’ll be torture fodder for Weiner, who’ll pull the Job from him and fridge his happy soap opera ending in a way that leaves him a zombie, compared to Betty’s actual corpse. He’ll kinda end up like most older republicans during the Reagan years.;) Or maybe that’s actually Rogers fate, He’s already shown as history’s war stories in the old age home floor. So Don/ Americas makes his last transformation in the final episode.Either shown or time jumped, It allows the mediated loop and MIPS to take over in the 1980’s. And after that, its just all reruns for us. He’s out west, CA. either North or South CA, it really don’t mater, hes Producing Movies or Running Studios. Hell he’s just read the Godfather, and for all we know he’s meeting with or AS Robert Evans to produce it.:) He’ll be helping Steven and George make movies based on the Comics/themes he grew up on and that they saw in early TV between his cowboy commercials for cereals… He’ll be hanging out in garages with other Steves and more Steves talking about computers and TM and will finally try LSD from his neighbor Tim in 1971.
By 1980 he’ll have both capitalized and corporatized the modern culture of the west. Both Hippies and Reagan Republicans, and served them up into a world view that is the perfectly both Dickish and Donish. A fantasy that can never be found out against reality, since reality can never return to the system. Its the American mediated dream, one that can never be woken from , perpetual repeats in syndication. the Carousel realized, finally in true reality of form.
Without any VR HMD’s or Computer Graphics (yet;) , Don will deliver the Mediaverse, ready for it’s close up by 1984. After that, we are all of us, just the characters in a show. And Dick Whitman/Don Draper/Mr. Captain America? he never dies. he’s always falling. As in any dream turned nightmare that one cant awake from.
Mediabastard 
just re-watched the first 3 episodes.. from lucky stripes to betty’s luck, to ayn rand, to not working to elect richard nixon in 1960… its all there. the 1980s awaits. and my guess is weiners wife handed him the fountain head in aprox 1994. From there it was all written to see.:)
I’m convinced the only question now is how much weiner enjoys his pool;)
howdy again, i really know nothing about the shows creator other than recently reading his wikipage. i did see a video interview today that says he figure out how to end the show in the 4-5 th seasons. and as he said it, and in how he said it, i saw baby boomer;) I think we end up at Bettys funeral due to cigarettes, and its still 1971. we dont have a story that goes on and on like the Sopranos. Don’s final act is the COKE COMMERICAL, everyone singing on a mountain top. happy and now hippie and completely made up. Ad culture has won. too bad we dont get to see the world by 1980, or maybe that’s a followup show for weiner. and then in that way, he really is genx;) the final song a commercial jingle.:)
this last post, makes it v2.5 🙂 its totally an acceptable MIPS ending and the public will eat it up.. good thing they havent figured out the last 30 years yet;)
ok one more thought, Dons maybe actually through with advertising as he says, he might just DIRECT and produce the COKE AD in Italy. then come back to CA and make movies with copola and lucas…etc.
remember, all CDs and ad art directors by the 80s really want to direct;)
a new thought. don HAS given the keys of the future over to the con kid. Andy? . he now has the cadillac. pink slip, and don draper’s name. so in one way, if don is going to be a character and not a symbol, he has moved the future closer, not just in his kids, and Sally. Betty was in those “garden party” promos and what seem like scenes leaked in jpgs, its not her funeral then. nor sallys wedding since it would be too soon,My last guess is that its Roger Sterlings Retirement party. hes ending the age of MAD MEN. of sterling cooper, And Don then is free, not be “be” Tom Joad, but to just be Dick Whitman again, the dick whitman prior to his sin in Korea.
he may or may not deliver COKE and change the last song into a commercial, he wont have to deliver us the 1980s, Andy will as he hits wall street and the new madison ave with a case of new coke.. “cocaine”…
Don can then, sit on the wests beach, or a key west barstool. The only win really available to his soul.
Thats it. its Friday. Ive massaged this message to a v.3.0 and now it’s time to just let the weekend come. Sunday will be the final show. Of course both AMC , Mr. Weiner, and all of us go on. and on and on. None of us ready to fade to black.:)
read em and weep … i cant even believe i foresaw a superman connection. well Weiner gets to keep his pool. and we still get the 1980s. MIPS. and eventually the 1% and mad max sequels.
im available- call me the MIPS whisperer. and please contribute to making the mediaverse.net happen
if i could predict the end of madmen so accurately, think of what i can do for you.:)