Mad Men: The 10 Biggest Secrets The Characters Kept | ScreenRant
From the very first episode, Mad Men was built on a house of lies. Through seven seasons, the show kept viewers guessing as the characters indulged in affairs, bribery, embezzlement, and more, at every turn. Don may have started the game by hiding his true personality, but he certainly wasn't the only character playing it.
Every episode seemed to have characters hiding the truth and fans loved to guess who would be exposed next. Whether it was Peggy having a secret baby or Lane stealing money from the company, finding out which secrets would cause chaos in the Mad Men universe was half the fun of watching.
10 Roger Had An Affair With Joan
Early on, Roger established himself as a powerful alpha male and one of the characters in Mad Men with the most influence, with little regard for women or respect for his own marriage. He was the co-leader of Sterling Cooper, and to him, that was a license to drink, party, cheat, and do pretty much anything else he wanted to do on company time.
Roger's biggest secret was that he hooked up with Joan while he was still married to Mona. It didn't get much better from there, as he also dated Annabelle and even married his secretary, Jane. Roger did whatever he wanted throughout the series but he always seemed to veer back to Joan, with whom he had a son named Kevin, in the end.
9 Roger Hid That He Lost The Lucky Strike Account
One of the biggest accounts at Sterling Cooper Draper Price was Lucky Strike, headed up by macho man Lee Garner, Jr. When Lee sits down with Roger over dinner to tell him he's moving his business to another firm, Roger refuses to accept and asks Lee for 30 days to possibly change his mind.
Once the jig was up for good, he kept the fact that he lost the Lucky Strike account from the rest of the team. As an account man, Roger knew that his worth at the company was only as good as his ability to woo clients, so he kept it a secret.
8 Peggy Had A Baby With Pete
Peggy's character arc on Mad Men began with her starting as Don's naïve secretary with some of the worst fashion sense at Sterling Cooper. After a brief fling with account executive Pete Campbell, viewers learned that Peggy was pregnant. But instead of telling Pete, Peggy kept her pregnancy to herself and decided to go it alone.
A flashback to the hospital reveals that Peggy delivers the baby but gives it up for adoption. When Don visits, he attempts to help her move on in his rather insensitive way, telling her, "It will shock you how much it never happened."
7 Lane Embezzled Money From The Company
Lane Pryce is a classic example of someone doing bad things with good intentions. He kept his salary low in order to keep Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce alive, but in doing so, caused himself to get into debt. While he should have confronted his partners about his money issues, he instead wrote a phony check to himself for an upcoming Christmas bonus.
Lane forged Don's signature on the check and essentially embezzled money from the company. When confronted by Don, Lane is forced to come clean or be terminated. In the end, Lane's guilt got the better of him and he tragically took his own life.
6 Pete Knew Don's Secret And Tried To Blackmail Him With It
Way back in season one, Pete Campbell was a young, ambitious account guy with a knack for deception. He found out about Don's secret - that his real name is Dick Whitman - and decided to keep the information a secret. When he tried to blackmail Don into promoting him, Don refused to take the bait.
Pete then went straight to Bert Cooper to try to expose Don, but that didn't work either. Bert showed apathy to the whole situation and Pete ended up lucky to still have a job. Pete's slimy ways were constant throughout the show, but backstabbing Don for his own personal gain was one of the worst things he ever did.
5 Joan Cheated With Roger While Her Husband Was Away
In season four, Joan's husband, Greg, an army medic, reveals that he's been called back to Vietnam, which upsets her. Later, Roger's secretary dies and Roger and Joan decide to go out for dinner to help them both feel better. After the couple is mugged in an alley, they have unplanned sex in the heat of the moment.
Joan later reveals that she is pregnant and that Roger is likely the father. Not wanting to disrupt her married life, Joan keeps the affair from Greg and goes on living as if the child is is. Fans later find out that Roger wants to be a part of his son's life.
4 Don Invaded Betty's Privacy
Back in season one, when Don and Betty were still married, Betty was seeing a psychiatrist. She told him that she had experienced numbness in her hands and the doctor believed she was neurotic. What Betty didn't know was that the psychiatrist was then relaying everything Betty talked about back to Don.
With intimate knowledge of Betty's private thoughts and feelings, Don exerted control over her. She became suspicious of Don's affairs and everything seemed to snowball from there. This secret, combined with Don's admission to Betty of stealing another man's identity, meant that the couple could no longer trust each other.
3 Stan Loved Peggy All Along
One of the joys of the later seasons of Mad Men was watching the back and forth between Stan and Peggy. As co-workers in the creative department, the two would bicker like an old married couple. What the audience didn't realize was that Stan was slowly falling in love with Peggy.
In the series finale "Person To Person," Stan and Peggy are talking on the phone when Stan realizes she's the one he's been looking for his whole life. They kiss and it's implied that they both get the happy ending they deserved.
2 Don's Relationship With Rachel
The most memorable ongoing affair Don had was with Rachel Menken, head of Menken's department store. Don and Rachel become romantically involved and the chemistry between the two is a hallmark of the early seasons of Mad Men. Don, a master of selling lies in some of his best pitches, is hiding the relationship from his wife and children.
Later on, viewers discover that Rachel has married another man and is terminally ill. Don dreams about her one night but wakes up to find she has died of leukemia.
1 Don's True Identity
The very premise of Mad Men is that Don Draper is not who he pretends to be. Don's real name is Dick Whitman, and he stole the "Don Draper" name from a dead soldier he fought with in the war. From there, Dick assumes the role of Don and makes the character a romanticized version of the happy life he believes he deserves.
Don is obsessed with keeping his true identity a secret and the threat of being exposed is what drives him to lie, cheat, and steal, whenever he needs to. His constant need for control is what kept viewers engaged for seven seasons. In the end, he finally finds peace, but whether this was by going back into advertising or by disassociating with it entirely is up for debate.