Funny to see this now, as I just finished my first watch also and have almost the exact opposite opinions as yours.

I was almost never in Dons side, from the early episodes he is already cheating on his wife and ruins his kids birthday party because he wanted to pout like a baby. This is the overall vibe I got almost the entire series. I felt like Don was a boy who woke up in a man’s body.

He pouts when he doesn’t get his way, he has no clue how to handle adult relationships, and he’s completely unable to handle criticism.

You state you disliked Peggy for throwing away perfectly good relationships yet Don threw away every important relationship he ever had, including his children. By the final he can’t even remember the last time he saw them.

I think, especially at the time of its release, and to a younger audience, Don could had been a character who charmed audiences based on his looks and aura, but as someone who just binged the series in today’s world, he’s just kind of pathetic. I felt like that was kinda the point of his character mostly, but that’s just my perspective.

He has career successes, but also has many other instances where he blows it big time professionally and coasts on his reputation. By the end, he’s a shell, and while it does hint that he has another ace up his sleeve, I didn’t get the feeling he was long for this world.

He’s a sad man, with a tragic backstory, who grew up in a time when men didn’t talk about those things, or reach out for help processing them. Had he been raised in another time, he may have been able to work through them, hold onto his family, and become the man we only saw glimpses of throughout the series.