I always understood Mad Men—with its depictions of soaring midtown office towers, smoky Village jazz clubs, and exclusive Theater District restaurants—to be a love letter to Manhattan. The definitive New York TV show. So synonymous with the city that when I think about the place where I spent most of my 20s and 30s, I don’t envision my New York of the 1990s and 2000s. Instead, I picture dark, retro-cool dive bars; battleship-size yellow cabs; and Don Draper.
But in truth, Mad Men wasn’t a New York show at all. Apart from the 2007 pilot, which was shot in Manhattan and Queens, all seven seasons of the series were filmed in Los Angeles (primarily at the Los Angeles Center Studios). The New York landmarks were usually L.A. buildings in Big Apple costumes. The Drapers’ Westchester home was in Pasadena. New York’s posh Savoy Hotel was actually played by the Biltmore in downtown L.A. The Manhattan lunch spot where Jon Hamm’s Draper and John Slattery’s Roger Sterling get sozzled on martinis and oysters was actually the legendary Musso & Frank Grill.
After years of traveling between streaming networks, Mad Men finally found a new home this Tuesday on HBO Max. While rewatching Matthew Weiner’s groundbreaking AMC series, I began to wonder if maybe I’d been wrong about its deep connection to New York. Mad Men is actually the definitive California TV show. Sure, on its surface, Mad Men is about ambition, sharp elbows, and a New York brand of snark. But deep down, the show is actually about something more existential. It’s a show about escape, enlightenment, redemption, and reinvention. In a word, it’s California.
Only 10 of Mad Men’s 92 episodes take place in California—mostly in Los Angeles, but Don also takes fateful detours to Palm Springs and Big Sur. In season 2’s “The Jet Set,” he is booted out of his house by his long-suffering wife, Betty (January Jones). But rather than reckon with his behavior, Don flies to L.A. for a working holiday. In theory, he’s there to attend an aeronautics convention and meet with some clients, but really, California offers an opportunity to get his head right.
Upon arrival, Don couldn’t seem more ill at ease in Southern California. The sight of him in a slate gray suit standing over a Hockney-blue swimming pool while smoking a smoldering Lucky Strike is disconcerting. He’s like JFK stuck in the land of Timothy Leary. The TWA flight that brought him here has lost his suitcase, and the subtext is clear: In L.A., Don has no luggage, physical or emotional. This is an alien world of bohemians, hedonists, and palm trees. California is a place that offers Don the ultimate do-over.
In a way, Don merely mirrors a larger demographic shift in America as a generation of seekers migrated west in the ’60s and ’70s. Even Johnny Carson pulled up stakes and took The Tonight Show from New York to California in 1972. As for Don, he returns to L.A. in season 4 (“The Good News” and “Tomorrowland”) and again in season 6 (“A Tale of Two Cities”). But I think Mad Men truly cements itself as a California show in its final season, when Don has hit rock bottom, spiritually and professionally, and the California coast is his only way out. And he’s not alone: By the end of the series, Don is joined on the West Coast by wannabe Hollywood player Harry Crane (Rich Sommer) and the weaselly, condescending Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser), who at least has the good taste to meet Don for lunch at L.A.’s iconic Canter’s Deli.
Still, California’s biggest close-up is saved for the show’s finale. Originally airing on May 17, 2015, “Person to Person” is set in 1970. The episode presents a brand-new decade and the same old self-loathing Don, now without the mooring forces of a job or a family. He travels to Big Sur to attend a seminar at a New Age retreat. (Esalen is not named, but it’s not not named either.) There, Don once again finds himself in an unfamiliar California environment—a cynic in a sea of satori seekers with beatific smiles. He’s skeptical, but, deep down, he wants what they’re having.
Toward the episode’s conclusion, Don participates in a group meditation exercise on a picturesque cliff overlooking the ocean. He sits in the lotus position and closes his eyes. The camera slowly zooms in on his face. And for quite possibly the first time in seven seasons, we see Don smile. The face of Zen clarity.
In the next—and final—scene of the show is a reprise of Coca-Cola’s famous “I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke” commercial. And then it hits: In his moment of cliffside contemplation, Don doesn’t find peace. He finds a new way to sell carbonated sugar water to young people. In New York, Don lied to himself. In California, he’s finally honest. And the truth is that he’s an adman.•
