Matthew Weiner is “so pleased” with the Mad Men series finale — but it could’ve gone many, many different ways.
For example, it would’ve been quite different if the second half of the seventh season addressed Don’s lost flame Dr. Faye, early Sterling Cooper employee Sal (“What happened to him?”) or former client Lee Garner Jr., whom Roger sends a Christmas gift every year until he dies.
Or, even more so, if an episode touched on the Israeli tourism board, featured a new client selling guns and ammunition or included a subplot with a “Wall Street component. End of Bull market, gold prices are up. The firm’s doing so well, people could be investing, etc. Like the idea of Wall Street types selling the salesman.”
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These are the bullet points of the “WISH LIST: Things We Want to Deal With Before the Series Ends,” which the showrunner — along with writers Janet Leahy, Erin Levy, Tom Smuts, Lisa Albert, Robert Towne, Jonathan Igla, Carly Wray and Josh Weltman — reportedly revealed at a Writers Guild Foundation event in Los Angeles on Thursday night.
Many of the list of items to address is crossed out because they did so in the season’s second half: Duck Phillips, Ken’s writing, Glen and Betty together again, Roger and Joan’s baby, “Rachel Menken (maybe not),” plus a “Wrap Ad” of some sort. Other items are marked, possibly because the ideas to include Jimmy Barrett and Cooper’s family were tossed.
But many are left unmarked, like “Peggy’s baby (Catherine could die and bring it back up on her deathbed). We don’t need to see the baby, but the emotional content of it could be revisited via Catherine.”
The bullet point that’s nixed: “Pete could finally climb up to his name — interacts with the upper-crust that once judged him, and/or reconciliation with mom (in a moment of dementia, she reveals respect for Pete, or in a moment of clarity, she seeks Pete’s insight over Bud), See Pete usurping Bud in family importance.”
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See the list below, tweeted by Entertainment Weekly’s Anthony Breznican:
At a @WritersGuildF Q&A for MAD MEN. Here’s Matthew Weiner’s “WISH LIST” of plot points to cover before the finale: pic.twitter.com/y0TtAzVUFp
— Anthony Breznican (@Breznican) May 29, 2015
