WhenMad Menmade its television launching nearly eight twelvemonth ago , its storyline seemed straightforward enough : When he ’s not creating smart as a whip advertising campaigns for some of the country ’s most successful corporations , a freehanded Madison Avenue executive named Don Draper like to smoke , drink in , and cheat on his wife .
But as the series keep , cracks began to show in Don ’s dead chiseled exterior . Who is Dickie Whitman ? And where is this house of ill repute in which he was raised ? As such , Mad Mentook on a much more mysterious tone , one that ultimately led devoted viewers to wonder whether the show had ever been straightforward at all . Or if it they had been hoodwinked , andMad Menhad been some variety of strange 1960s febrility dream all along . And so began the onslaught of elaborate rooter possibility about the hare hole thatMad Menjust might be ( some of them unbalanced , others altogether plausible ) .
1. DON DRAPER IS D.B. COOPER.
epitome acknowledgment : Frank Ockenfels 3 / AMC
On November 24 , 1971 , a well - fit out human race in his mid - forties walk up to the Northwest Orient Airlines tag heel counter at Portland International Airport and purchase a one - way ticket to Seattle under the name Dan Cooper . Once on board , he made his fashion to a seat at the back of the sheet , order a Bourbon dynasty and soda , and unhorse a coffin nail … then go by a note to the flight co-occurrence , inform her that he had a turkey . His demands were simple : $ 200,000 in Johnny Cash , four parachute , and a fuel truck awaiting the plane upon its arrival in Seattle . farseeing story short : after being informed that his demands had been met , the woodworking plane landed , refueled , and took off again . Twenty minutes by and by , Cooper — who wouldbecome eff as D.B. Cooperbecause of a dewy-eyed media miscommunication — parachuted from the plane , ransom money in tow , never to be heard from again .
Could D.B. Cooper — infamous hijacker and all - around man of closed book — and Don Draper be one and the same ? The physical description sure sounds familiar . And considering Don ’s association with Bert Cooper and the Sterling Cooper ad agency , the false name would for sure make signified . Which could very well be why this theory has attain so much grip , particularly withLindsey Green at Medium , who wrote an in - depth breakdown of the reasoning behind the mind , take down that the conclusion has been suggest at since the very beginning . “ There ’s always been something in the air withMad Men , quite literally , ” publish Green . “ From Mohawk to American , North American Aviation , and Ted ’s own little two - seater , airlines and aviation are about as prevalent on the show as alias and imitation identities . Even when Joan was upset after being do divorce papers from Dr. Harris , it was a theoretical account airplane she grab and cast off at the unassuming receptionist as Don stood in the doorway . sick Menhas been telling us how the story terminate from the very beginning . It ends on an airplane . ”
2. MEGAN DRAPER IS SHARON TATE.
Of the many theory that have down up beleaguer potential plot lines , one that posit that aim actress Megan Draper isMad Mencreator Matthew Weiner ’s interlingual rendition of Sharon Tate — and is designate to suffer the same fate — has amass rearing attention . It all start out when someeagle - eyed viewers noticedthat in season six , Megan wore a liothyronine - shirt that was spookily similar to one worn by Tate . From there , additional “ test copy ” began mounting , let in a glimpse of Sally Draper readingRosemary ’s Baby , the book that Tate ’s married man Roman Polanski adapted for the big - screen . When require about the connection , Mad Mencostume designer Janie Bryant swear to Yahoo!that the option of turnout “ was n’t about Sharon Tate . It was about Megan just being political . That T - shirt [ boast ] the Vietnam star , and in retiring shows you cognise Megan has made reference to not really support the Vietnam War . ” For his part , Weiner himself tell HitFix : “ The Sharon Tate matter , you acknowledge , it ’s so flimsy and fragile , and at the same meter , I ’m like , ‘ Wow , that ’s a wad of coincidence . ’ I do n’t know what to recount you . I would like to remember that people would roll in the hay that the show ’s striving for historic accuracy that I would not lend a person who was not hit by the Manson family into that murder . So that in itself is the obtuse argument in the world for me . ”
3. MEGAN DRAPER IS A GHOST.
Mad Menviewers trusted do have a pathological fascination with Megan . Shortly after the show ’s Divine swore that the younger , shining Mrs. Draper would not be murdered by Charles Manson , fan theorists direct another shot at localise Megan in the afterlife : she’salreadydead ! Mainly , this train of mentation seems to have sprung from an episode in which Don nearly drown at a pool party and , in that quad between life and death , sees and is comforted by a hallucination of Megan . As Uproxx excuse it : “ The wording during [ the pool party ] chronological succession is very thrifty . During the hallucination , in gain to finding out that Megan is pregnant , Don asks , ‘ How did you find me ? ’ Megan responds , ‘ But I livehere . ’ The ‘ here ’ is not California ; it ca n’t be the political party . She ’s clearly not actually there , but shecouldbe in the afterlife . A few seconds afterward , Draper regard a dead Private Dinkins , who says , ‘ I heard you werehere . ’ Again , ‘ here ’ is in the afterlife . ”
4. FORGET MEGAN. IT’S BETTY WHO’S THE GONER.
After all of the talk about Megan ’s ( take ) at hand demise , Esquireposited a new theory in the summertime of 2013 : that if any of Don ’s wives were start to plain the bucket , it would — and should — be Betty . “ Think about it,”wrote Jen Chaney . “ We already got to seeDon and Betty together again this season , which seemed to bring closure to that kinship , for Betty at least . Betty is barely in the show these days , so losing that character makes sense from a narrative efficiency viewpoint . If we agree that Don Draper ’s individuality as Don Draper will probably cease to exist this season , it would make complete sense for Betty , the symbol of Don ’s previous life as Don , to be gone . ”
5. DON’S GOING TO DIE.
Image Credit : YouTube
Mortality has ( obviously ) always been a recur theme inMad Men . And as with any serial publication that ’s readying for its last episode , watcher are prognosticate some sort of finality with their finale . Being that Don Draper is the maddest of the titularMad Men , his destruction is the only one that would be meaningful enough to really matter . watcher have combed through hours of footage to head out bits of imagination that hint at Don ’s ultimate demise ( admit the fact that he choseThe Infernoas his Hawaiian beach read ) . But mostly , people cite a potential predecessor that ’s been in front of their faces all along : the series’iconic opening move credit , which feature a faceless man fall out of a window .
6. PETE CAMPBELL WILL FALL OUT OF THAT WINDOW.
Oh , Pete Campbell . Smug , smarmy Pete Campbell . While plenty of viewing audience have probably joyously envisioned an instalment in which the querulous , overprivileged up - and - arrival who everyone loves to hate say bye - bye to the world , Salon dedicate more than 2400 Scripture to the topic in 2012 . “ Pete Campbell will take a lintel out a Time & Life Building window , probably around Thanksgiving on the show . ( I ’m flukey on the when but feel unanimous on the who , what , and where),”declared writer Robin Sayers . “ I can argue that I came to this finale logically , because I was a sociology of media John R. Major in college , focused on film and goggle box theory and I did intern as a script psychoanalyst for the late , peachy Alan J. Pakula ( All the President ’s Men , Sophie ’s Choice , Klute ) . Plus , I work out in the T&L Building for nearly a decade , so I know that , indeed , its windows can in fact be ‘ spread ’ … And now I can only see poor Vincent Kartheiser dropping on thatstark posterheralding Season 5 , even though the cut of that guy ’s jib is more Draper than Dyckman . ” Okay , so the details on this one are admittedly dated — but it could still happen . Right ?
7. DON IS JEWISH.
This one is n’t so much a fan theory as it isonefan ’s theory . In talk about the many hypotheses viewers have put onward , Weiner admitted that he kind of enjoys it . “ I have no complaint,”Weiner told HitFix in January . “ I do n’t deal how it ’s being take in . I intend , I hate the covert within a screen door within a screen watching , but I love that citizenry watch the show . ” He then recite one unusual encounter with a fan : “ You get in this weird situation the first time of year where citizenry were like , ‘ I know Don Draper ’s closed book . He ’s Judaic . ’ And I was like , ‘ Did I ever put anything in there that said he was n’t ? ’ Because he ’s not . I entail , I know that . ”
8. IT’S ALL LEADING UP TOMAD WOMEN.
Don Draper may be the star topology ofMad Men , but neither he nor his business concern ventures would have been as successful if it were n’t for the women behind the men — namely , Peggy Olson and Joan Harris . Throughout the series ’ seven seasons , we ’ve seen each of their characters grow , both in their personal lives and their professional positions . Maybe it ’s clip they strike out on their own ?
InThe Hollywood Reporter ’s recent oral history ofMad Men , Lionsgate COO Sandra Stern recountedthat “ when we first started talk terms with AMC , one of the things they wanted was a spinoff . We sing about doing a contemporary one . grant the fact that [ Mad Men ] ends virtually 50 years ago , most of the character would be beat . Sally was the one character youthful enough that you could see her 30 or 40 years subsequently . There was a sentence we want a Peggy spinoff , too , and , a laBetter Call Saul , a minor eccentric going off to L.A. Matt was n’t well-heeled consecrate to a spinoff . ” Which does n’t necessarily think itwon’thappen . Even if Christina Hendricks , a.k.a . Joan , has n’t heard anything about it yet .
Earlier this week , theHuffington Post asked Hendricksabout the rumour of a Peggy and Joan spinoff . “ You ’re the first I ’m pick up it from . It has n’t reached my ears yet , ” she replied . Then added : “ That would be amazing . If they wanted me , I ’d be there . ” ( Are you listen , Matthew Weiner ? )
