Mad Men: Season 5 Premiere

If ever there was a refudiation of network TV’s law of likeability in which every protagonist must remain sympathetic and incorruptible at all times, Mad Men’s season five opener is it. Picking up a few months after Don Draper’s (Jon Hamm) surprise proposal to his secretary Megan (Jessica Pare), the employees of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce face two unsettling realities: the Civil Rights Movement being waged just outside their office, and Don’s new carefree attitude towards work. As Peggy (Elisabeth Moss) exclaims after Don fails to back up one of her ideas in a crucial meeting, “Clients are right all of a sudden? I don’t recognize that man. He’s kind… and patient.”

Don’s happiness derives entirely from Megan, whose presence adds new vitality to the show and sets up a web of inter-office tension that calls into question the prudence of her and Don working together. Ironically, while Don appears satisfied with the circumstances of his life for the first time in two seasons (his persistent fear of death excepted), everyone else seems mired in the professional shortcomings that have plagued them since the series began. Pete (Vincent Kartheiser) finds himself in unwanted competition with Roger (John Slattery) over signing new clients, Peggy grows increasingly bitter over Don’s undervaluing of her talent, and Joan (Christina Hendricks) struggles to raise her newborn child as it becomes apparent that her position at the agency is in jeopardy.

Series creator Matthew Weiner has always been much more interested in examining patterns of behavior than throwing characters into hyper-dramatic storylines (i.e., when someone leaves the show it's because they've been fired, not because they're killed off). One of the more sophisticated tools he uses to reveal such patterns, and at the same time pose dramatic questions, is repetition. Pete’s first scene riding the MTA to work recalls the domesticated Don of seasons past and forces us to consider whether Pete will settle into his role as a suburban father or suffer a similar fate to Don. Roger continually doles out cash to workers in order to get out sticky situations, stirring questions about his ability to accomplish anything without his wealth. Three times during the episode we see Don and Megan enter the office together. Megan’s different demeanor in each entrance traces her evolving attitude toward Don and the agency.

Weiner gleefully challenges our ability to sympathize with the characters. In one scene, Don is making breakfast for his children and planning a trip for them to the Statue of Liberty. In the very next, he’s dropping them off at their mother’s and Sally (Kiernan Shipka) reveals that he won’t see them for another two weeks. Don’s response is an indifferent, “If you say so.” Pete comes across as the only dedicated and hard-working partner at the agency, and we see the loneliness of his ambition in a fragile moment where he eats cereal in his tiny, suburban kitchen. But as soon as he gets in the office he’s yelling at his secretary, taking his frustrations out on all those around him.

The exclusion of Betty (January Jones) from the episode is an unexpected, but not unwelcome surprise. Her absence frees Weiner to develop secondary storylines for Harry (Rich Sommer) and Lane (Jared Harris), and also creates anticipation for her entrance later in the season. The only misstep in all ninety minutes involves Joan’s mother, who has a few scenes too many in which she nags Joan about quitting her career. The exchanges between mother and daughter are repetitive (in a bad way) and the mother comes across as a blatant device to highlight the show’s ever-present tension between motherhood and professional ambitions.

The strength of Mad Men is that its writers know their characters so well that they don’t have to rely on artificial storylines to generate conflict. Rather, they allow the characters’ own personalities, combined with the historical realities of the 1960s, to dictate the trajectory of story arcs. Our own expectations for character behavior become a tool the writers exploit to confound us and sustain tension over a series of dramatic questions that we become deeply invested in. Will Don assume ownership of his responsibilities as a father and actively involve himself in his daughter’s life? Will Peggy prove definitively to the men at the agency that a woman can perform at their level and do so without sacrificing her happiness? Will Pete pull the stick out of his ass and admit that he desperately loves Peggy so that he can leave Trudy for her and the two can live happily ever after in a penthouse on the Upper East Side? At the very core of Mad Men's storytelling success is our desire to see the characters overcome their very personal flaws, perhaps because we want to believe that we can overcome ours. However, as season five commences, it doesn’t look like we’ll have reason to stop watching any time soon.