Any sense of contrivance is leavened by the fact that the foundation for this development was set up a while ago.
Other thoughts:
Before watching the finale, I came to the conclusion that hoping for those perfect last exchanges to line up in the final episode was unrealistic, unnecessary, and antithetical to everything that has happened in the show thus far. We entered their lives at a particular moment, and we left at another, and the authenticity of that journey is dependent on everything not lining up quite so neatly at the very end. This sort of thing shapes the expectations and evaluations of so many finales, and that can be problematic sometimes. I mean, is there a better encapsulation of the complexity of Don and Sally's relationship than what we got in episode two of this season, "A Day's Work"? Their relationship was also the focus of much of the end of season 6 and those developments dovetailed into season 7, thereby generating significant interpersonal changes that were borne out right up until the end (see: Don and Sally's conversation in "Waterloo," their storyline in "The Forecast," and their various interactions throughout this last stretch). Is there, or could there be, a better moment for Roger than his comments to his therapist about doorways in Season 6's "The Doorway," or his anguished reaction when the man who shines his shoes dies and leaves him his shoe shine kit? Don and Betty had an amazing exchange in "Person to Person," but they also had one of their very best moments in Season 6's "The Better Half," and that also informed all of their subsequent interactions in a really interesting way.
This show has already been so diligent in providing these memorable, high-water marks for all the various permutations of character interactions. This is not to say that the finale, which I thought was strong and devastating, lacked momentum or significance. I'm only noting that there was no need to try to duly replicate the power of some of these earlier moments (which emerged organically at certain periods in the show's history) out of some obligation to what a series finale "should" contain. "Person to Person" did not offer us the great Don and Peggy moment, but it was a great one, and it worked because the best of their relationship has already been settled in the back history of the show. In a recent interview, before the finale aired, Weiner said, "if we're talking about the "Mad Men" finale 10 years from now, I did a great job. I consider that a success. [...] If you do your ending right, it is a great ending. It is not a reflection on the entire TV show, but it is a great ending." Elsewhere, he remarked, "we're trying to tell a story to entertain people, and the episodes toward the end of any season do pay off, but I always want to make it clear that the journey is the point, you know? The story starts on page one--it doesn't start on page 50." If we're going to scrutinize the finale in isolation from the rest of the series, I expect we'll find it lacking in certain respects, but it makes no sense to do that, particularly for a show that has gone on for this long and, via the excellence of the storytelling and the character interactions therein, has left behind an embarrassment of riches.
I'll also add that the lack of proximity between Don and the people closest to him made a lot of sense in the context of an episode that was so interested in the cost of Don's soul-sickness and how he has often mixed up last-ditch renewals with interpersonal divestments (i.e., abandoning, in some measure, those nearest and dearest to him). The years of dissatisfaction, self-medication and palliative excursions have left him a phantom (more or less) in the lives of those dearest to him; this is not because he doesn't care about these people, but because he never learned how to reconcile his loved ones with the kind of peace he always wanted and believed lied in a vague elsewhere -- in another life waiting to be lived, perhaps. Yet in "The Milk & Honey Route," the owner of the inn tells Don that he could replace the Coke machine, but he likes the one he has, and this, alongside much of "Person to Person," cues us to the distinction of Don's latest effort.
Anyway, when I think of the end of Mad Men, there will be lots of lovely moments to retrieve from "Person to Person," and lots to elicit my continued admiration and awe. A lot to keep thinking about as we all move forward. In the interest of keeping this from reaching interminable heights, I'll just arbitrarily curtail my thoughts here and say that I'm struck by the audacity of this show and the way Weiner et al forwent so much of what typically passes as entertainment and instead focused, lucidly and poignantly, on profundities as discomfiting as, say, the fact that life can sometimes feel unbearably wanting. I found myself welling up when Don took off near the end of "Lost Horizon," and Bowie's "Space Oddity" started playing; like so much of Mad Men, it's a moment that, in miniature, beautifully captures so much about the enormous struggle and confusion of simply living, as well as the way life's meandering course can feel, at times, deeply strange and sad. Similar praise can be applied to those tremendous endings from the early episodes in the second half of this season, with the camera often pulling back from an increasingly adrift Don, suggesting, with great power, the receding of an entire life of hopes and dreams. How spectacular, then, that amidst all of this dread and melancholy, the show ultimately recommits to something like serenity and optimism.
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