In case you haven’t been on Facebook, Twitter, any sort of arts and culture site or just the Internet in general over the past month (or two, or five, or 18), “Mad Men” is back.
The booze-and-perfume-soaked AMC drama has been absent from our airwaves for a year and a half due to messy contract disputes between the network and creator Matt Weiner (protip: give that man whatever he wants and let him work his television magic), and its return last week was cause for celebration among fans.
Season five has continued the trend seen in previous “Mad Men” seasons of showcasing a few key characters per episode, and viewers have been treated to colorful updates to their favorite characters’ lives.
Don Draper (Jon Hamm), the show’s impeccably suited protagonist, is months into a turbulent marriage with his former secretary Megan (Jessica Pare), a 26-year-old French-Canadian beauty who has somehow reined in Don’s defiant urges while still having no deeper insight whatsoever into his true personality.
Upstart Head of Accounts Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) has struggled with being a new father, while fighting to assert his dominance in the offices of SCDP over old-timer Roger Sterling — who, by the way, has returned this season just as sharp-tongued and exuberantly racist as ever.
Peggy (Elisabeth Moss) has risen to a more established position of power at SCDP; Joan (Christina Hendricks) is a new mother (and still looks fantastic); Harry (Rich Sommer) is firmly in the grips of a mid-life crisis and Lane (Jared Harris) is as stoic and seedy as ever.
“Mad Men” is a show that operates in its subtleties, giving the endlessly detailed episodes infinite re-watch value; but this season’s first two episodes have chosen to portray the show’s conflicts through blatant, laugh-out-loud moments rather than shrouding them in mystery.
To showcase Megan’s inability to understand Don as a person, the last episode showed Megan throwing Don a surprise birthday party and, in one of the funniest and most painfully uncomfortable moments in the show’s history, performing a special burlesque number in front of all the party’s attendees.
And Sunday’s show chose to represent the trapped-housewife angst of Don’s ex-wife Betty (January Jones) not through the nuanced psychological struggles she suffered from in seasons past, but rather through saddling Betty with 50 extra pounds and stuffing the show with winks to her weight gain.
But season five hasn’t been all fun and games thus far, as viewers have witnessed the characters grappling with the conflict between the younger and older generations.
The show has already introduced social change as another primary theme. One of Don’s publicity stunts inadvertently desegregated their Madison Avenue office, so expect radical social change to slowly work its way into the all-white (save for the new black secretary), defiantly chauvinistic SCDP office.
“Mad Men” has ballooned into a hard-drinking, impeccably tailored cultural phenomenon, so don’t miss your chance this season to watch these topics develop over the course of the season and to know the infinitely fascinating characters of the show.
“Mad Men” airs Sunday nights at 10 p.m. on AMC. All four previous seasons are available on Netflix, so don’t be the last one to join the conversation.
