How good was Season One of AMC’s Mad Men? So good that Don actually learned the names of some of the characters! Of course, one of those characters is a guy named Don, but still, that’s an impressive accomplishment.
I, like many viewers, was expecting the finale to focus on the battle between Don Draper and Pete Campbell. I thought that shotgun was going to go off, or somebody would fall out of a window, opening credits-style. Those things didn’t happen. Creator Matthew Weiner learned from his old boss over at The Sopranos, and followed Stan Lee’s oft-stated dictum, “Never give the audience what they think they want”. Instead, it was an hour of emotional devastation and actual surprises.
