--- title: Mad Men Finale: I Hope Peggy Becomes a Creative Director description: Mad Men gets a lot right, like the three-martini lunches canonical: https://time.com/3864742/mad-men-finale-peggy/ author: Jane Maas article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-05-15T21:39:26.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T08:05:15.041Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Real-World Peggy Olson on What She Wants for the Character After the Finale og:description: Mad Men gets a lot right, like the three-martini lunches og:url: https://time.com/3864742/mad-men-finale-peggy/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt20161d565d8d2b9a/698846b48e06010fad45f77f/mad-women-cover-final.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1688 og:image:height: 950 og:image:alt: Mad-Women-cover-final og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Real-World Peggy Olson on What She Wants for the Character After the Finale twitter:description: Mad Men gets a lot right, like the three-martini lunches twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt20161d565d8d2b9a/698846b48e06010fad45f77f/mad-women-cover-final.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 video:duration: 03:31 video:published: 2014-03-19 section: entertainment topics: Mad Men, behind the scenes, set design, period detail, advertising, youth culture, television drama, final season genre: documentary, behind the scenes tones: reflective, admiring, observational, nostalgic emotions: nostalgia (medium), admiration (medium), wistfulness (low) sentiment: positive audience: TV fans, Mad Men viewers, pop culture readers, media enthusiasts people: James Poniewozik, Don Draper, Alex Majoli organizations: TIME products: Mad Men, Rolodex, iPhone, Samsung Galaxy transcript_source: automatic transcription transcript_reviewed: not applicable ---  # Real-World Peggy Olson on What She Wants for the 'Mad Men' Character After the Credits Roll > Sponsored content. 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It explains how TIME's journalism is made, from the first pitch through the editorial decisions behind a finished story or cover. #### How can I read about how TIME chooses its covers? Inside TIME is the newsletter where TIME's Editor-in-Chief explains cover selection and the editorial reasoning behind major stories. It is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who is the editor of TIME? Sam Jacobs is TIME's Editor-in-Chief. He writes Inside TIME, a twice-weekly newsletter about the newsroom's reporting and editorial decisions. #### Is Inside TIME free? Yes. Inside TIME is a free newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-inside-2026q3/newsletters?i=964718b4-83b3-4a33-a507-4d83c349f817&cr=time-nl-inside-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Behind the Scenes of 'Mad Men' [Watch (HLS stream): Behind the Scenes of 'Mad Men'](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/iDVLbkAz.m3u8) (3:31)  _Published 2014-03-19. TIME gained rare access to the set of 'Mad Men' before its final season. TV critic James Poniewozik narrates. Photographs by Alex Majoli._ Description, summary, key points, chapters, key quotes, questions and transcript, where present, were produced automatically from the video or its captions and were not reviewed. ## Summary The video offers a behind-the-scenes look at the set of Mad Men before its final season, narrated by TV critic James Poniewozik. He discusses the show's secretive production, its portrayal of 1960s advertising and youth culture from an outsider perspective, and how small personal secrets drive its drama. He also describes the meticulous period detail on set and the actors' sense that their final season together is approaching. ## Key points - Mad Men is described as history told by the losers, focusing on people just a little too old for the growing youth culture. (00:35) - The show's advertising setting suits its story because advertising grabs cultural trends to sell products, letting it tell a story of change from an unusual angle. (00:57) - Mad Men shows that small personal secrets, such as who Don Draper really is, can create dramatic stakes as exciting as big conspiracies. (01:09) - Set details such as Rolodex addresses and hand-typed papers are procured and art directed to a level of detail often not visible on screen. (01:31) - Period-accurate sets and costumes make walking through the set feel like an American office in the late 1960s. (02:29) - When the director calls cut, actors in 1960s costume pull out modern iPhones and Samsung Galaxy smartphones. (02:42) - Actors sense finality as the final season approaches and they realize it is the last time they will work together. (03:08) - The show is described as possibly the best TV drama of its time and a historic television show. (03:16) ## Chapters - [00:00 to 00:38] Secrecy and the show's perspective. Poniewozik introduces the show's guarded secrets and frames it as history told by outsiders. - [00:38 to 01:09] Advertising and youth culture. The advertising setting is explained as a way to examine cultural change from the margins. - [01:09 to 02:05] Small secrets as drama. The show's storytelling relies on personal mysteries rather than large conspiracies. - [02:05 to 02:36] Meticulous set and prop detail. Rolodexes, typed papers and period costumes are shown to be carefully crafted on set. - [02:36 to 03:31] Modern phones and final season. Actors' modern phones contrast with period sets, and the cast reflects on the show ending. ## Key quotes - [00:35] James Poniewozik: "Mad Men is sort of history as told by the losers." - [01:09] James Poniewozik: "One thing that Mad Men showed is that you can make dramatic stakes out of very small stories" - [02:42] James Poniewozik: "And then the director will call Cut on a scene and everybody whips out their iPhones." - [03:08] James Poniewozik: "Among the actors, I think there's definitely a sense of finality, of it setting in that this is going to be the last time that they're working together" ## Questions this video answers - Why does Mad Men set its story in the advertising world? [00:57] - How does Mad Men create dramatic tension without big conspiracies? [01:09] - How detailed are the props and sets on Mad Men? [01:31] - What do actors do between takes on the Mad Men set? [02:42] - How do the cast members feel about the show ending? [03:08] by [Jane Maas](https://time.com/author/jane-maas/) ## Jane Maas May 15, 2015 9:39 PM UTC  Thomas Dunne Books by [Jane Maas](https://time.com/author/jane-maas/) ## Jane Maas May 15, 2015 9:39 PM UTC As a woman in advertising in the 60s and 70s, I’ve been called a real-world Peggy Olson. In the finale of _Mad Men_, I think Peggy will become a creative director. When I became a creative director at Olgivy in the early 70s, I had men working for me as well as women, and there was really no problem. But I think it’s going to be important for Peggy to soften a little. She’s scrambled her way up and had to develop a tough hide, but I think she’ll do just fine. _Mad Men_ gets a lot right. The look and feel— you can almost smell the cigarettes—is right. But it’s carried a little far. I don’t think men were hitting on women so overtly. When a new secretary arrived, you didn’t get 12 men gathered around her, but you did get glances. I don’t remember any bottles of booze coming out at 10 in the morning, but certainly at 5 in the evening if we were working late. There were indeed the three-martini lunches. Men took part in that, and they did happen every day. Women didn’t—in part because we couldn’t afford it because we being paid 50 to 60% what the man in the next office was. It was also a matter of calories. And we also had a firmer work ethic: Someone had to be in the office at 2 o’clock. The senior men had couches in their office and could take a nap. The senior men also had the most amorous relationships in the office: They had offices with doors that locked, and couches. I wasn’t aware of any industry except the world of advertising where sex was so prevalent. There was a lot of adultery and sex going on, in the office, at night when people were working late, and in hotel rooms near the agency. We women copywriters and account executives were so grateful to be allowed into this male world that we didn’t feel that we were being treated badly. _Mad Men_ has women such as Joan realize they’re being ill-treated. But I think it took us a long time. There were a lot of protest movements—the Civil Rights Movement, the Gay Rights Movement—before women began to think that we’d better do something about our status. It wasn’t until the end of the 1970s that the women’s rights movement raised its head. I remember one time when we were representing Maxim Coffee, the world’s first freeze-dried coffee, and Patricia Neal, the Academy Award winning actress, was our spokeswoman. I wrote commercials for her where she’d say, “I think Maxim is a wonderful coffee. But more important, my husband thinks so, too.” I look at that commercial now and I think, “Oh my God, Did I write that drivel?” But that’s the way the world was. Advertising at its best mirrors society. It doesn’t lead society. Only about 3% of the creative directors in advertising are women today. You know the advertising slogan, “You’ve come a long way baby”? I don’t think we’ve come such a long way as we think, baby. ## Transcript [00:00] [ BLANK_AUDIO ] ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3864742/mad-men-finale-peggy/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3864742/mad-men-finale-peggy/"},"headline":"Real-World Peggy Olson on What She Wants for the 'Mad Men' Character After the Credits Roll","datePublished":"2015-05-15T21:39:26.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T08:05:15.041Z","description":"Mad Men gets a lot right, like the three-martini lunches","url":"https://time.com/3864742/mad-men-finale-peggy/","keywords":["Media","entertainment"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt20161d565d8d2b9a/698846b48e06010fad45f77f/mad-women-cover-final.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Jane Maas","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/jane-maas/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt20161d565d8d2b9a/698846b48e06010fad45f77f/mad-women-cover-final.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Mad-Women-cover-final","caption":"","creditText":"Thomas Dunne Books","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/tag/media/","name":"Media"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3864742/mad-men-finale-peggy/","name":"Real-World Peggy Olson on What She Wants for the 'Mad Men' Character After the Credits Roll"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Behind the Scenes of 'Mad Men'","description":"TIME gained rare access to the set of 'Mad Men' before its final season. 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