The final seven episodes of AMC's "Mad Men" kick off Apr. 5, and TV Guide chatted with the cast and creator Matthew Weiner for some juicy spoilers. The back half of Season 7 has been a closely guarded secret, but Weiner told the magazine that the final episodes will "advance the story in a different way."
"They're different because the experience of ending the show is different," he continued. "The show's become so much more concentrated on these characters. The last seven episodes, I would say each one of them feels like a finale of the show."
Weiner added that he's very excited to see how fans will react to the series finale admitting that he didn't want them to "walk away angry."
"I'm extremely interested in what the audience thinks. So much so that I'm trying to delight them and confound them and not frustrate and irritate them," he said. "That said, a huge part of entertainment can be catharsis and bad things happening are considered a good thing in entertainment."
So, how exactly will "Mad Men" end? The cast wouldn't give away too many details, but offered little teases about what fans can expect.
"Part of our story in this last season [is], people do change, but then in a lot of ways, they don't unfortunately," Elisabeth Moss offered.
January Jones simply said, "It's a beautiful story. It's perfect in a way." And John Slattery told TV Guide that "it was surprising to the end."
Jon Hamm said it would be "super-painful" to see the show come to a close, but he's also happy that he won't have to pretend like he doesn't know what will happen in those last final moments. There were reports that Weiner only discussed the finale with Hamm.
"I will be happy when the show airs and I don' have to fake like I don't how it ends or make up some ridiculous story about robots or zombies... [but] I will never be able to have this again and that's a drag," he told TV Guide. "It's become, you know, for better and worse, but mostly better, just a part of my life, a significant part of my life. There's not a lot of jobs you can point to, at least in our world, that have that impact."
"Mad Men" returns Sunday, Apr. 5 on AMC.
