As suggested in the headline, slight series spoilers lie ahead.
For six seasons now, Don Draper’s brilliant (if sadistic) puppet master, Matthew Weiner, has taunted viewers with a poignant opening-credit sequence that features a suited ad man falling from a Manhattan office building to his presumed death. And although many of us have assumed that the series would eventually end with Don leaping to the same fate as his animated surrogate—and some of us have bothered Matthew Weiner in real life with these hunches—Weiner reveals that this is not how the beloved AMC drama will end.
In a new interview before this weekend’s season finale, the Mad Men creator explains that when he does wrap up the series, he will not put his miserable, philandering alcoholic of a protagonist out of his misery—at least via death-by-office-leap.“That jump out the window was always meant to be symbolic and internal,” Weiner tells The Wrap. “I never meant it literally. I think it’s fascinating, though—I think people think it would be cool. But it hasn’t been an option. And now that we’ve had this conversation, I really can’t do it.”
In other series-finale clues, Weiner reveals that he came up with an idea for the conclusion several years ago. “I sort of figured out what I wanted to do about two seasons ago now, and I’m gonna stick to it,” he says. “You’ll have to trust me when I get there that I thought of it a long time ago. I didn’t write it down and lock it in a box.”
Weiner also says that he “admired” how The Sopranos ended its run on an ambiguous note that left “the rest of the show intact.” The showrunner echoed this statement in an interview earlier this year, when he told NPR’s Terry Gross, “You know the show is going to end on an ambiguous note. My god, people must be prepared for that.”
So. . . Don pours himself a drink and looks out his office window, which, he realizes, has been seductively left open. Fade to black? Submit your last-scene best guesses below!
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