If you ever wanted to watch a show where the lead character is a suave, brooding, impossibly well-dressed advertising executive who just can’t stop self-sabotaging, Mad Men was your dream come true. But what if that same character, known for juggling mistresses like an overworked circus performer, suddenly decided to be… faithful? That, dear reader, is exactly what happened in season five, and let’s just say fans were not ready.
Don Draper, played by the effortlessly cool Jon Hamm, built his entire brand on forbidden glances, office affairs, and emotionally charged existential crises. But when he tied the knot with Megan, a bright and ambitious young woman who actually loved him, things took a turn. Not a turn toward happiness, mind you, this is Mad Men, after all, but a turn toward something fans apparently found even worse, marital stability.
The Don Draper dilemma
According to show creator Matthew Weiner, viewers felt they had been robbed of the dramatic tension that made Don’s life such a beautifully chaotic mess. When Don remained committed to Megan, audiences were baffled.
Where was the illicit romance? The guilt-ridden cheating? The inevitable downward spiral? Turns out, people had gotten a little too comfortable with Don being, well, bad. He told Time,
I can’t take my cues from the audience anyway, because the one thing they hated the most was him being faithful to Megan. They were just tortured by that. People felt that we had taken the tension out of the show.
And really, can you blame the fans? Watching Don Draper struggle to be a good husband felt like watching a shark attempt to be a vegetarian, it just didn’t seem natural. His affair-free phase wasn’t seen as character growth but as something completely out of sync with his tragic, brooding, womanizing soul.
Did Don and Megan really love eachother?
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Weiner, however, insists that Don’s fidelity to Megan wasn’t just a random detour, it was a critical part of his character’s journey. His second marriage wasn’t about convenience or obligation, it was about trying to do it right this time. But, as anyone who’s ever watched even one episode of Mad Men can predict, Don’s understanding of love is, to put it politely, deeply flawed.
The return of the classic Don
Predictably, things did not stay wholesome for long. The moment Megan stopped being the bright-eyed, adoring wife and started carving out her own independence, Don fell apart. It wasn’t love he wanted, it was control wrapped in a shiny package of romance. And once that illusion shattered, he was back to his old ways. Then enters Sylvia, his next conquest, and his classic pattern of self-destruction.
The irony? Don wasn’t even that interested in Sylvia at first. But the moment she rejected him, suddenly, she became the most important person in the world. Classic Draper logic. And just like that, the show was back in its usual groove, filled with affairs, regret, and whiskey-fueled bad decisions. Somewhere out there, fans breathed a sigh of relief. The order had been restored.
Mad Men can be streamed on Amazon Prime Video.
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