“Midway through our life’s journey I went astray from the straight road and awoke to find myself alone in a dark wood.”
The sixth season of Mad Men begins with Don reading a line from Dante Alighieri's Dante's Inferno. The quote sets the mood for the rest of the episode, which is mopey and obsessed with death. I was disappointed with the season premiere, which felt overlong and underwhelming, despite some highlights from the main story line that I'll get into.
My main issue with the episode was with Don. The episode starting out strong, I liked the scenes of him in Hawaii and his interactions with the young soldier. It was a nice way to callback to Don's past life and gave us some insight to the way he might be feeling. However, that stopped there. Since Don doesn't talk about his feelings, we're left to wonder why he is so mopey and out of it for the rest of the episode. Is he fearing death? Having a mid life crisis? Roger seems to be in the same place Don is in but is more vocal about it, at least in his scenes to his psychiatrist. We get a little more insight at the end with the big reveal that Don is cheating on Megan, but the episode spent too much time for me on Don standing around being unhappy for no reason.
The stuff that I missed about the old Don Draper seemed to be present in Peggy, which for me, was the best part of the episode. I liked that her work in this episode shows that she learned from Don all those years she was working for him. Her no-nonsense attitude to her coworkers reminded me of the the way Don used to treat her back in the old days of Sterling Cooper. Her headphones pitch idea was also more exciting and fresh than Don's Hawaiian hotel pitch, which was again, about death. I'm looking forward to more of her story lines this season, since after she left SCDP, I was worried we would stop seeing more of her. It's good to know that won't be the case.
Some of the other scenes I enjoyed: I liked Ken dressing down that brown nosing new guy who was hanging out in the lobby trying to suck up to people. Betty and Henry Francis's bedroom conversation about raping Sally's friend was disturbing and weird, but also hilarious and entertaining. I'm not sure how I feel about her story arc of trying to track down Sally's friend. I think I liked it, it showed a nice side to Betty that we haven't seen in a while. Roger's mother's funeral was a highlight, both funny and sad at the same time.
Overall, an uneven episode and an unimpressive season premiere. It didn't contain the excitement or freshness of the other Mad Men season premieres and felt more like a contemplative mid season episode. I remain optimistic the best is yet to come in the next couple of episodes.
Observations:
- Besides the voiceover, Don didn't speak until about 7 minutes into the episode.
- That new guy came into the elevator with two coffees. One was for Don and the other one went to Pete, which I thought was hilarious.
- Betty's idea of "spicing things up" is dirty talk about tying up and raping Sally's friend.
- Megan seems happier than ever. Apparently she plays an evil maid in some tv show?
- There's a lot of weed in this episode. Everyone except Don and Roger also seems to have a new haircut or a new mustache.
- Looking forward to see more from Pete, Joan and Sally. Sally's in full teenager mode now.
- Blonde Betty> Brunette Betty. And I usually prefer brunettes.
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