Mad Men - Season 2

Premieres July 27th at 10 pm. There's a marathon of the series that airs on the 20th starting at noon and running all 12 episodes.

Spoiler: No word whether or not they're going with the "series jumps ahead three years each season" take that I heard talked about a while back.

Ed's right, it was spoiler: two years, not three. Which is kind of disappointing, because as much as it's been done to death, I really would have liked this show's take on the Kennedy assassination.

Upon rewatching the series, my gut tells me that the second season will open with Peggy and Don divorced. However, I know that would be the easiest way to go, and my other gut says that the divorce scenario is something they would build on through the seasons. (Other lame prediction: Roger will be dead/written out of the show.) But I do worry that there's so much that they left open in the last couple episodes of season one that the first couple episodes of this season will be "here's what happened in the last 14 months." There's one in particular involving a certain character that I worry about, although the finale made their intial reaction pretty clear.

The big thematic question is how they're going to continue the series' central theme, which is "Who is Don Draper?" (identity) There are certainly a lot of places to go, and my recent Season 1 marathon leaves me convinced that this is one of -- if not the -- best show on TV right now, and really, I haven't been this excited for a returning series since "The Wire." But I'm, you know, like that.

Yeah. I'm a moron. I was trying to tip-toe around some of the larger spoilers in the first season finale and tired when I was typing that, so stuff got jumbled around in my mind.

I sort of agree with you, but I thought the point of the whole sequence where she tells Don (through her shrink) that she knows wasn't her fishing for information, but that she's realized all the signs that Don's been cheating on her were there and she had been ignoring them or whatever.

I agree with this too, it's sort of what I was trying to say. I don't think that the Drapers, if they do, will get divorced until later in the series run (if it makes it that long), I was just saying that that's how my always-wrong gut felt. And on the other hand, having a couple on the show get divorced would feel like they were hitting the greatest hits of the decade (also why although part of me hopes that they do explore Sal's homosexuality in future seasons, we won't see him participating in the Stonewall riots, although that's a case when it would be appropriate) and this show is so not interested in that kind of NBC-miniseries storytelling.

Chase was a long-time supporter of the show. The pilot script is why he hired Weiner for Sopranos. It was HBO that said "Not our thing."

Hildy side-boob was unexpected and glorious.

Just an FYI for spoiler phobes -- the recent review in EW is one of those that gives too much away. I wish I hadn't read it.

I think the finale made it pretty clear that Pete doesn't know he's a dad. His queasiness came more from the fact that he's been reduced to begging his rich in-laws for table scraps at work.

As for the Peggy thing, it's not that unrealistic, especially in 1960. They portrayed her as being pretty dedicated to her job throughout the season, and were clever about suggesting the weight gain was the result of her eating habits. There were enough "clues" through the season that explain why a young woman in her situation may have not noticed she was pregnant. It's kind of a stretch from a story standpoint, but it's not a huge one.

January Jones is so fantastic, although a lot of that comes from the hair and the clothes.

"What else do you have?"
"Several more Indian puns."

I couldn't have been happier. The Draper impotence thing was kind of cliche, but ties in nicely with the big theme of the series, which is "Who is Don Draper?" The first season seemed to be about the most surface interpretation of that question, but I liked how they're continuing with that question and in turn following up on things in the first season. The O'Hara and his interest in it was a natural progression of Draper's flirtation with bohemia in the first season.

In a way, this really felt like it was taking a page from 'The Wire,' in that many things were set up but it felt like nothing really happened. But the things that we did learn kept set things up very nicely. I also want to find out about Sal and his beard, and what happened to Peggy/Pete's love child. (It seems like they're setting that up as the big "mystery" for the season. That and ZOMG who is Draper writing to?!)

Elisabeth Moss really impressed me in this episode -- I wasn't a huge fan of her in the first season, but moments like the one with Draper's new secretary and just the way she played those scenes with Pete and the later one with Draper. Her reactions/facial expressions knocked me out.

That scene with Draper over the ad is probably more crucial than the copier as metaphor. I really think Draper's obsession with nostalgia and sentiment is what's going to be the eventual death of him.

Speaking of the credits, I noticed at the end that Draper's silhouette was a bit more filled-in than the strictly black-and-white one we got in season one. I wonder if that was intentional.

I also liked what a bitch Joan was, and I liked how Pete's wife (who I find hot for some sick reason) was presented as somewhat sympathetic without betraying her stuck-up, spoiled character we saw in the first season. And John Slattery's a regular! Yay!

But man, those last few minutes, so great. Jon Hamm is my new god.

I'm rambling. More to come. (Oh, and that scene with Betty and the mechanic was unbearably tense. And how fucking great was "Take off your hat?")

Mad Men fans should check out Alan Sepinwall and The House Next Door the day of/day after each episode for unmissable commentary and analysis. It was at Sepinwall where I learned, for example, that the credits listed the woman Sal was with was his wife. His wife. And House Next Door suggested that one way to read the scene in the elevator and the O'Hara stuff was that after years of being "Don Draper," Don doesn't like who he's been playing, and is on a course to self-improvement that may lead to disaster.