Who are the Real Stars of Mad Men?

It's kind of hard to fathom that Mad Men, one of my favorite programs, is about to go off the air.  It's become something of an institution in the world of entertainment, a fixture of television in the same vein as The Honeymooners, Dallas, and The Sopranos.  Few would argue that it's one of the finest pieces of television put to the screens, but I am starting to wonder, especially after the way the past few weeks have been framed, whether or not we have thought of the wrong person as the protagonist of the show.

The show has always been centered around Don Draper, a man who owns the screen with a cool elegance and a blunt sophistication.  He's a womanizer, a brilliant salesman, and an enigma, frequently even to himself.  But Don Draper, unlike other characters on television, has never really changed in the course of the show.  Yes, Don's been outed as not truly being Don Draper, but he's still a womanizer, he's still a drunk, he's still a man lost in his own making.  Instead, the characters on the show that truly seem to be the stars of the series, the ones who have grown throughout the series and seem to be the centerpiece in the last few episodes of the series (when the camera doesn't focus on Jon Hamm lighting a cigarette) are Peggy, Joan, and Betty.

Honestly, doesn't anyone else agree with this?  Look at this past week's episode and the weird juxtaposition these three women have in their own careers.  We have Joan (Christina Hendricks) losing her job essentially because she can't stand being the object of men's desire anymore.  Joan, who actually advised Peggy in the first season to dress more provocatively and was sleeping with her boss, ended up being confident enough not only to stand up for herself, but to point out why she deserved to be treated as better than she was being treated.  We also had Peggy (Elisabeth Moss), who has spent her career going from a secretary to a copy editor to the copy chief, and who is now in a crossroads in her career.  We see someone confident enough to tell a headhunter that she wants to be a head of accounts someday, and someone who may be comfortable that her window to have children has gone by, and that she is okay embracing her career.  And finally we have Betty (January Jones), who started the series as a Barbie-doll housewife, perfect in every way, all-the-while becoming a character who eventually decided that she could do better in her marriage and then do better in her life, becoming a more understanding mother and going back to college to become a psychologist.

These are all pretty rich character arcs, particularly on a show that frequently relies more on mood than on character development (the show may be the best series in history to prove that people don't really change of their own accord, but their circumstances force them to do so), and quite frankly they've been central to almost every season.  While not all three women (particularly Betty and Joan) have been crucial to every season, they've all been a part of it.  Betty in particular has drawn ire from some fans, but the reality is that these characters have been the key to most of the show's most dramatic moments, and have actually grown throughout the series.

It's also a fascinating reminder, as the series closes, of how the best dramas frequently become about more than just the characters that are at the top of the credits, but also, in many cases, about the characters toward the bottom of the call sheet.  Lost is a prime example of this-while Jack may be the center of the final episode, in many ways this series became about the strange dynamic between John Locke and Benjamin Linus, two men who were eternally lost in their own making.  Great writers let the compelling narratives rise to the top, and this is why Mad Men is so special and why other shows I haven't been as smitten by in the past few years (like House of Cards) have felt less essential while others seem to get this (like The Leftovers, which realized what a joy they had in Carrie Coon and gave her a showpiece, or Girls, and the way that they made the brilliant Adam Driver central to later seasons).  Joan, Peggy, and, Betty could have all stayed roughly where they were, but that wouldn't have made them more compelling, and it certainly wouldn't have made the stagnation of Don Draper all the more jarring as a result.  Still, I think it's important to acknowledge that these three women (none of whom have an Emmy yet-HINT HINT) have been critical to the show, and in the end may just have been its stars.