Mad Men: So this is what 1963 looks like

Ah, the Mad Men season premiere. It’s the kind of holiday that begs to be celebrated with costumed drinking parties and intentionally ironic sexist jokes. It’s a time to reflect on how much more sophisticated your tastes are than all those other Neanderthals you know who couldn’t find AMC on their remotes if they tried. (Although, granted, neither could you. Thank God for Tivo.)

I myself have been looking forward to this premiere since before the last season even ended. Yes, Mad Men is well-suited to the 13-episode format, but come on, if Fox could give us two seasons of So You Think You Can Flail Your Arms Around Prettily within, like, thirty seconds of each other, would it really have been that difficult to convince Jon Hamm not to do those three weeks on 30 Rock?

But I’m forcing out these complaints, to be honest. Because the truth is I’m still reveling from this week’s premiere. Pete got promoted! Peggy got a secretary! Sal got laid! (Well, almost.)

I loved every minute of the episode, even the parts I didn’t totally understand the first time around (why do visitors to the office have to sit in the room with the ant farm again?). So I was taken aback when, on Monday morning, I was talking to a co-worker who had never watched the show before, but decided to check out the third season premiere because of all the hype. I was encouraging her to go back and watch the DVD of the pilot episode, and said, “It’ll be different for you, though, since you already know who Don Draper is.” She looked at me blankly. She had no idea who Don Draper was. Because in the entire third season premiere, Don’s name is only mentioned, like, once.

Clearly, Mad Men is a show that caters to fans. Since I’m a relatively hardcore fan, the kind who gets excited at an offhand reference to North American Aviation being a Sterling Cooper client because I remember that Pete was desperately trying to land them at the end of season 2, but who still gets confused when we see flashbacks to Don’s Dick Whitman past because I can’t quite remember who his mother is and who all those other farm people are, I adored the season premiere more than was probably reasonable.

But let’s back up for a moment, for the sake of my poor coworker and others of her ilk.

Mad Men is about an ad agency on Madison Avenue in the early sixties. The main protagonist is the agency’s creative director, Don Draper, an advertising genius with a mysterious, tortured past who only cheats on his wife because he loves her (except when he doesn’t). Secondary protagonists include Peggy Olson, Don’s onetime secretary who’s been promoted to become the agency’s first female copywriter at the ripe old age of 23, and Pete Campbell, a young staffer who rivals Don for misogyny, hilarity, and hotness.

There’s lots more I could go into about these characters and others – there isn’t a single wasted character or less-than-perfect actor on this show – but lest this review turn into the Poptimal.com equivalent of my senior thesis on corresponding symbols of hand-washing in Macbeth and L’Etranger, let’s just focus on the season 3 premiere, shall we. If you want all the goods on the time Peggy secretly had Pete’s baby or Joan’s difficulties with her fiancé, Google it.

Last season’s seemingly climatic finale turned out to be not as significant as some of us (like, um, me) might’ve thought. Don did not march off to start his own agency, with Peggy and Sal in tow and his half a million dollars in seed money. Instead, apparently, the Brits simply fired Duck. (Poor Duck, I do miss him. I hope he found his dog. And a good rehab facility.) They’re laying people off, too, although all our old friends are doing fine. Ken and Pete even get promoted to co-Heads of Accounts. (Ken is thrilled; Pete is too, until he finds out about the “co” part, at which point he throws a hissy fit that is pure vintage Pete Campbell. Man, I love me some vintage Pete Campbell.) Don is doing just fine, too, and even gets to jet to Baltimore, accompanied by Sal for some reason, to reassure an anxious client and hook up with a flight attendant (poor Betty – but at least it’s unlikely he’ll fall in love this time).

Meanwhile, we meet a few new characters who arrived along with the merger – a Mr. Pryce, who’s some sort of new SC higher-up, and a Mr. Hooker, who demands to be addressed as such, and who serves as Mr. Pryce’s secretary – oh, excuse me, his “right arm.”

We don’t see that much of Peggy, Joan, Roger, or Betty this time around, but there are still 12 episodes to go. The premiere was, appropriately, all about setting the scene.

And what a scene it was. From Pete’s secret happy dance, to Sal’s first kiss, to Mr. Cooper’s tentacle porn wall art, the show was as good as it gets. Mr. Pryce can’t speak for anyone else, but he likes Pete. Sally’s taking to Don’s tools like a little lesbian. Sal’s never seen a stewardess that game (but we all know Don has).

All is well on Madison Avenue. Stick around – it’ll be an excellent thirteen weeks.

Season 3, Episode 1: Out of Town (originally aired August 16, 2009)

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Photographs courtesy of AMC and Carin Baer