Where the Mad Men Characters Began and Where They End Up

The shy, early-20s Peggy (Elisabeth Moss) starts out as the new girl and as Don's secretary, no less. A remark about lipstick gives her an unexpected in as a copywriter, but personally, things aren't great for her. After a one-night stand with Pete during her first weeks at the office, she gets pregnant, has his baby, and puts the baby up for adoption.

She started from the bottom, now she's here. After a few years at SCDP, Peggy leaves the agency to become head copywriter at Cutler, Gleason, and Chaough but gets put right back next to Don when they merge with SCDP. When the agency is swallowed up by McCann, Peggy finds her place quickly, and even turns down an opportunity to start her own company with Joan.

In terms of her love life, Peggy seems to get the guy she deserves, a guy who really knows her. Though we loved seeing her as an ambitious single woman (and shipped her with Brian Krakow for five minutes), it's like our dream came true when she ends up with her work husband and BFF Stan.

Joan (Christina Hendricks) holds a lot of power as Sterling Cooper's office manager, but alas, she's regarded as just the office manager. She loves using her sex appeal whenever she can, while dispensing advice to the other girls about the opposite sex and getting ahead. Though she's single at this time, she's carrying on a torrid affair with the married Roger Sterling.

Joanie's career may have had the most interesting trajectory. When a pig of a client requests an evening with her, she balks, then complies with a condition: partnership. The move makes Joan rich and powerful, but at McCann-Erickson, Joan quickly learns she's not valued. One sexual harassment lawsuit threat later, Joan takes half of what she's owed by McCann and leaves quietly. It looks like she's going to relax on easy street with her new beau Richard, but Mr. Demand-y is very put off by both her child and her career ambitions. Realizing what's most important to her, she lets him go and starts her own production company, with the all-powerful, all-Joan name of Holloway Harris.

Junior account executive Pete (Vincent Kartheiser) already has a big ego, and his only redeeming quality might be his name and connections. He's about to get married to Trudy but cheats on her just before the wedding with Peggy.

Pete's marriage to Trudy brings him a daughter, a move to the suburbs, and an ill-fated affair with neighbor Beth. His career has largely been on the upswing; he's made partner when Sterling Cooper becomes the new Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, loves working at McCann, and then has a dream job fall into his lap at Learjet. It also presents him with an opportunity to get his family back — he makes the offer to Trudy to move with him to Kansas and start over, and she accepts.

Dapper silver fox Roger (John Slattery) is at the top of his game at work and romancing Joan on the side while his first marriage and relationship with his daughter are still relatively OK.

Roger's fun doesn't last long, and he leaves his wife, Mona, for his secretary, Jane, but she divorces him, too, and his daughter also wants little to do with him. Roger finds romantic happiness, finally, with Megan's mother, Marie. He's also one of the few partners who sticks it out at McCann.

Betty (January Jones) is a bored, unsatisfied housewife in the suburbs when we first meet her, having been a young model when she met and married Don. Though she creates the illusion of the perfect nuclear family, it doesn't last long.

After Betty has another child with Don, she divorces him and then quickly marries politician Henry Francis. Betty's weight notably has its ups and downs, as does her marriage to Henry. She even cheats on him with Don once, but she and Henry remain married. Ultimately, Betty is the big death of the season finale, even though the last time we see her, she's alive. She learns she has lung cancer in one of the final episodes and mere months to live.

Bright-eyed idealist Ken (Aaron Staton) is a junior member of Sterling Cooper and has aspirations to one day get out of advertising and be a legitimate author.

The years of being beaten down by Roger and Pete turn him into a slightly bitter man (and so does that whole losing-an-eye-on-the-job incident). When he's let go of the firm, he goes to his father-in-law's company, Dow, where he exacts his revenge on his former colleagues by being a pain-in-the-ass client.

Megan (Jessica Paré) is Don's sweet, young, French-Canadian secretary. Her maternal nature seems to be what pushes Don to make her his second wife in a whirlwind romance.

Don's impetuous decision is not rewarded with happiness. While Megan's career as an actress doesn't take flight, her hair sure does. Eventually she gets sick of her cheating husband and their long-distance relationship and divorces Don with a million-dollar payday.

Remember what Stan's face looked like? Stan (Jay R. Ferguson) starts out as a misogynistic, clean-cut employee who lives to annoy Peggy.

Stan's sexist comments have decreased in proportion to how much his beard has grown. The single art director has also become very close to Peggy, and though it seemed they would remain just friends, the finale gives us a very special treat: Stan admits he's in love with Peggy, and she reciprocates!

Sally (Kiernan Shipka) is so young when the TV show starts (Shipka was just 8 in season one). The little ballerina is bright and innocent, and she barely talks back to her parents.

Her parents' divorce, subsequent marriages, and, well, walking in on her father and his lover have forced Sally to grow up fast. She's as rebellious as most teens are, and though there are many fissures in her relationships with both parents, she seems to be understanding them more as she matures. When Betty dies, she takes control and decides who Gene and Bobby should live with, handling things better than even Don could. She appears to have a very bright future (spinoff in 10 years for Sally, please?).

There's a time when Harry (Rich Sommer) is one of the nice guys at work, and he starts out happily engaged to Jennifer, with whom he later has a child.

Harry forms the television department at the agency and wrenches himself into the fabric of the company, but he's become a sleazy, womanizing annoyance.

Glen (Marten Holden Weiner) is the young neighbor boy who becomes friends with Sally and, oddly, a confidant to Betty.

The last we see him, an 18-year-old Glen heads off to Vietnam . . . and is still obsessed with Betty.

Trudy (Alison Brie) is Pete's WASP-y young wife who just wants to have a baby and a beautiful life in the city.

Trudy has now divorced Pete and has custody of their daughter, Tammy, but she's unhappy in the suburbs with few friends because her single status apparently makes her married-man bait. When Pete comes to her with an offer to move to glamorous Kansas, she finally accepts — and gets to wear a fabulous travel fur.

The heart of this show has been through a lot, but let's start with his beginning too. Under the assumed identity of Don Draper, we meet Don (Jon Hamm) when his career is still pretty fresh and white-hot. As creative director, he's able to charm clients with his words and seduce just about everyone else — which he does, carrying on several affairs. Never mind that he's married with two small children at this time.

What hasn't Don been through? He's been divorced twice; he's lost his first, "wife" Anna, Betty, a brother, and two business partners; he's been fired from SCDP then allowed back then made a millionaire. And that whole Dick Whitman thing? Not really a big deal, it turns out.

His career takes a sharp turn with the McCann-Erickson absorption, and it presents itself as a professional pinnacle; he could have had Coca-Cola, after all. He lasts for a very short time at McCann and just gets up and leaves a meeting. His destination? Anywhere but there. Don meanders for a while and in the finale, finds himself in California, where Anna's niece takes him to a retreat. After digesting the bad news about Betty and being left there alone, he appears to have a breakdown, then enlightenment. We leave Don Draper in the lotus position, a gentle "Om" and a smile on his lips.