Welcome to the ’60s, Don Draper

I have to admit it: Mad Men totally has me back. After the first episode this season, I thought I might not watch all the episodes. I enjoyed singing “Zou Bisou Bisou” around the house afterward as much as the next person, but it would take more than a sexy French number by Don’s new young wife to keep my interest.

The last two episodes, however, have fully convinced me this remains one of the best shows on television. I’m quite uninterested in the Dick Whitman/Don Draper plot line, and although there are shades of it returning, I’m so glad they’ve gone a different direction with his character. Namely, Don now has a ’60s wife, not a ’50s wife. He can’t leave her at a Howard Johnson’s without consequences. She’s  not going to give up her work as easily as Betty left adverising/modeling.

The whole show exhibits this shift in attitudes. Roger has suddenly become a dinosaur. The drinking lunches and breakfasts won’t get him as far with clients as they used to. He has to poach appointments from Pete. The clients want interesting work, not prostitutes, or they want both but know they need a solid agency that works more than parties. One thing they know is they don’t want either from a woman (i.e., Peggy), who is clearly not going to be able to drink her way into the boys’ club. Luckily for her, there’s pot! and radical lefties around.

Don Draper has been on a long honeymoon, checked out for the most part, but his wife’s reaction to his boorish behavior (and probably the failed Heinz pitch) has woken him up. Last season Don vanquished Roger by drinking him under the table then making him walk the stairs. Roger was old and washed up, not virile and manly like Don. This season, Pete has locked horns with Roger. Pete is more savvy, but still playing by the old rules. That works better if you’re a young turk– but Don is not a young turk anymore and he’s going to have to learn how to harness and apply his talent in the new world, as a middle-aged man in a more professional and demanding environment.

Betty, the 1950s wife, is probably the most tragic figure of all, having sunk into a depression even Valium can’t rescue her from, gaining weight and languishing in the dark dreariness of her husband’s castle with a wicked witch of a mother-in-law and three bored, whiny kids.

For Joan, there’s still hope. She has inner resources, not just outward assets, and I can’t wait to see how she’ll find opportunities and grab hold of them. She didn’t get her dream of marrying a doctor who would take care of her and treat her like a princess, but it turns out she likes to work and feel useful, and she’s perfectly placed to navigate the tensions between the old world and new. Her handling of Lane when he made his ridiculous pass at her shows grace, maturity and self-respect.

As always, there’s a style and sharpness to some scenes, like the dinner party at Pete and Trudy’s house. The LSD trip with Timothy Leary was great with just the right freakiness– even as it rolled out an important plot development, the end of Jane and Roger’s marriage. At other times, particularly in the playing out of rivalries or roles, there are true sparks and I’m left reflecting long after the show has ended and looking forward to what is to come.