Jon Hamm Thinks He Knows What Happened To Don Draper After Mad Men's Finale

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After over a decade, "Mad Men" star Jon Hamm has revealed where he thinks his ad man Don Draper ended up after the show's 2015 series finale. His answer? Dead.

To get more specific, Hamm appeared on "Good Hang with Amy Poehler," reuniting with his longtime pal to discuss his body of work and his current project, Apple TV's "Your Friends and Neighbors." (More on that in a bit.) "What is the last act of Don's life?" Poehler asked the Emmy-winning star, to which Hamm responded, "Lung cancer."

If you're familiar with "Mad Men," you know this is a particularly dark joke because Betty Draper Francis, Don's first wife and mother of his three children played by January Jones throughout the series, receives a terminal lung cancer diagnosis in the show's second-to-last episode, "The Milk and Honey Route." Thankfully, though, Hamm had a real answer. "I think he goes back," he told Poehler. "He is a successful advertising executive, and I think he finds happiness and peace. I think he connects with his children." (The eldest of those children, Sally Draper, was played by a then-unknown Kiernan Shipka for the entirety of the series, and she recently made waves on the excellent HBO series "Industry.")

As a reminder, the season 7 finale — and series finale — of "Mad Men" finds Don in a desperate state. After lying to, betraying, and disappointing so many people throughout his life, the man seems like he's at the end of his rope. Despite that, in the final moments of "Person to Person," we see Don sitting in the sunshine at an outdoor retreat, and he suddenly smiles; showrunner Matthew Weiner then runs the famous 1971 "Hilltop" Coca-Cola ad, insinuating that Don conceived of the ad during a moment of mindfulness.

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Elsewhere in the interview with Amy Poehler, Jon Hamm said that he was incredibly nervous about filming those final moments of "Mad Men," simply because of what the show represented for his career. "I very much felt the weight of the end of the show and the responsibility of, like, 'Don't f— this up ... This is the end of a very, very, very long story, and if you s— the bed on this, that will be what you are known for," he said. Thankfully, he nailed it ... and it's a pretty perfect ending, because I think that having workaholic Don use a mindful moment to come up with an ad that sells "the world a Coke" is just so beautifully craven.

Frankly, as dark as Hamm's "lung cancer" joke is, it's also extremely possible. Don Draper did three things consistently throughout "Mad Men," and they were lying, smoking, and drinking. ("I think somebody watched the pilot just to watch how many cigarettes I smoke," Hamm joked to Poehler, "and I think it was something like 80 in a one-hour pilot.") The lying throughout "Mad Men" is actually baked into his character; in Season 1, we learn that Don's real name is Dick Whitman, and he stole his superior's identity by robbing his corpse of his dog tags while serving in the Korean War. Not only does Don constantly lie to everyone about who he actually is, he lies to every woman in his life (he's not exactly the most faithful guy, to put it lightly) and does it all while drinking enough hard liquor and smoking enough cigarettes to kill a small horse. Now, Hamm is doing something similar on his new show, but without the cigarettes.

Apple TV

Apple TV's "Your Friends and Neighbors" isn't just the source of a really funny TikTok meme — it's also a great follow-up for Jon Hamm where he plays another man hiding some extremely dangerous and potentially life-ruining secrets. After Hamm's protagonist Andrew "Coop" Cooper gets fired from his high-flying job as a hedge fund manager, he finds himself desperate to keep providing for his ex-wife Mel (Amanda Peet) and their teenage children Tori and Hunter (Isabel Gravitt and Donovan Colan). Without a clear source of income, Coop starts quietly robbing the houses of his wealthy friends and neighbors during parties or when he knows they're on vacation, pawning everything from priceless works of art to designer watches to overpriced pens (yes, really). When he's caught by a local housekeeper, Elena (Aimee Carrero), she makes a deal with him, and the two start working together to fleece wealthy people who probably won't even notice a missing pen or watch.

"Your Friends and Neighbors" is a great return to form for Hamm, who gets to play a charismatic and ostensibly successful guy with a lot of secrets he's constantly trying to cover up — and though Hamm is an unbelievably versatile actors who can do comedy and drama equally well, this series feels like a perfect continuation of the work he did on "Mad Men." You can stream "Mad Men" on HBO Max and wonder about Don's fate, and "Your Friends and Neighbors" airs on Apple TV.