Mad Men: Season 2

This is the first television series I've seen that feels like a theatrical movie rather than another jittery, overly busy, manipulative made-for TV video, with frequently good acting wasted on formulaic, or non-existent plots relying upon sensation, violence, and cheap digital effects to hook and maintain the viewer's interest. Moreover, the characters are not cardboard stereotypes but multidimensional and complex. Women viewers need not feel guilty about watching it on the basis of qualities that will undeniably attract a large female audience: the compelling if not magnetic quality of the flawed but strong and reassuringly attractive lead, John Hamm, who plays the ultra-cool ad man Don Draper (he's got the right charisma to anchor an entire James Bond movie series); the representation of women in the 1960's, a period that requires a woman to be at once a "toy doll," a "perfect housewife," and of course an absolutely competent secretary, who has nothing but time on her hands to perform her duties with mechanical precision, never failing with the proper smile or facial expression at the proper time.The primary subject of Season Two continues to be Madison Avenue and the ruthless world of selling and buying. The game of "programming" consumers to consume intensifies, with the spoils going to the winner (who now faces the challenge of not being consumed by his own success). But the stakes are now higher, deepened and made more complex by company mergers and staff turn-overs. And while "age-ism" becomes the source of character biases and motivation, the series continues to focus most heavily on one exploited group. While people of every race, religion, and status are subject to failure in the ruthlessly competitive, Darwinian struggle, the series suggests (and increasingly less subtlely) that if one group has suffered the most unfairness--to the point of being excluded from the free-enterprise game itself--it's women. By the 1980s, the protests concerning injustices suffered by women were too loud and frequent to be ignored, especially in the academic world. But "Mad Men" probes deeper, exposing the very sources of unrest among women in the 1960s--not on college campuses but in the more "mature" world of Madison Avenue professionals. Without resorting to propaganda or sensationalism, the series makes it possible for any attentive viewer, whether female or male, to experience a startling wake-up call, a revelation made all the more powerful by the filmmakers' artistry, which allows viewers to make the discovery for themselves, or to "construct" an interpretation that consequently becomes the viewer's own understanding rather than a didactic finger-pointing lesson (the approach of the majority of shows that continually scapegoat child-molesters, internet child predators, sexual deviants, serial killers, drug lords and other "safe" objects of blame).This theme of the objectification and belittlement of women (nothing so obvious as "harassment") culminates in a chilling episode, appropriately titled "A Night to Remember"--episode 8 from the 2nd season (2008), The episode is a cinematic tour deforce, thus far the most ambitious chapter in a series that seems to be reinventing itself as it goes along, always improving. This particular segment is like vintage Robert Altman in its cross-cutting among the three women who have received the most attention. The time, historically, is the days immediately following news of Marilyn Monroe's suicide, and each of the three women--Joan, the queen-secretary who is herself a combination of keen intelligence in an hour-glass figure; Betty, the manipulated, blonde showgirl/perfect housewife/showcase trophy of Don Draper; Peggy, the innocent "country girl" who has wised-up sufficiently to the ways of men to play their game, attaining power to make decisions that will influence consumers throughout the nation--each of the three will receive potentially shattering epiphanies, showing them the emptiness of their programmed existences in a male-run world that expects of them only compliance along with adoration beyond any they themselves might receive for their physical attributes. The realizations of all three occur in a breath-taking "tour de force" of characterization. The potent mix of minimalist but thoughtful script-writing, artful directing, and "parallel" editing allows the viewer to receive the full force of three separate "actions" (actually, internal "epiphanies") occurring simultaneously.Needless to say, the women who "succeed" are those who are, by definition, academy-award winning actresses, either landing a man who is a paid ticket to a suburban castle with earning children (and servants to help out) or, miraculously, carving out a place where they are recognized for their actual abilities, talents and potential.Episode 8 of the 2nd season (2008) is, thus far, the most ambitious single episode of a series that seems to be reinventing itself as it goes along, always improving. This particular episode is like vintage Robert Altman in its cross-cutting between the three women who have received most of the viewer's attention. The time, historically, is the days immediately following news of Marilyn Monroe's suicide, and each of the three woman--Joan, the queen-secretary who is keen intelligence in an hour-glass figure; Betty, the manipulated, blonde showgirl/perfect housewife/trophy of Don Draper; Peggy, the innocent "country girl" who has wised-up sufficiently to the ways of men to be omitted to some of their decisions that will influence consumers throughout the nation--each of the three will receive potentially shattering epiphanies, showing them the emptiness of their programmed existences in a male-run world that expects of them only compliance along with adoration beyond any they themselves might receive. The impact at this point is least felt by Joan but numerous subtleties expose her gradual awakening; Peggy's comes as a result of the hypocritical, self-serving actions of her Parish Priest, who doesn't even know how to play the man's game that she has by now mastered; Betty's is the most disturbing of all--to her as well as the viewer. She is at this moment no less than Nora Krogstad from Ibsen's "A Doll's House." She has been shattered by the discovery of Don's philandering, his lies, his use of her as a means to his own career ends. At first we see the life literally drained from her former color, a ghostly apparition about to follow Marilyn Monroe to a similar dark place. But then the sight of a particular television ad and actor triggers her dramatic action: she calls her husband Don at work and, in a reversal of Nora's slamming the door of her "doll house," tells Don never to come home. She no longer has any use for this stranger.Most of the above occurs in a mere five minutes--a tour de force of characterization through script-writing, directing and "parallel editing" (cross-cuts). It's only the last 20-30 seconds of the episode that become a bit didactic, or over-done, as the Priest's picking up a guitar and singing a song about salvation, felt by the viewers as his release from his own sexual frustrations, dominates the soundtrack, segueing into a "production number" as the episode fades to black.The series represents the early '60s with stunning verisimilitude, not only in its portrayal of male-female relationships in and outside the workplace but in the continuous gauzy veil of smoke thrown off by the chain-smoking characters along with the ubiquitous portable bar in the office of each hard-drinking executive. Most of the "action" is internal yet riveting, occurring on a large office stage that seems both capacious and capable of showing the viewer surprises and new discoveries with each episode. The colors are richly saturated--a technicolor effect representative of movies of the day (not the faded, irridescent reds, blues, and greens that would replace the slower technicolor process beginning in the late '60s with "Easy Rider" and continuing throughout the 1970s), the resolution has a sharpness that will score heavily with big screen viewers at home; the camera work--striking angles but a steady camera with shots of sufficient duration to allow the spectator to see each crucial detail--has the professional quality of a bonafide filmmaker "auteur" such as Douglas Sirk.I had given up on television--turning for relief to the talking heads on MSNBC or mindless reality shows like "Pawn Stars" and "American Pickers." But this series, sponsored appropriately enough by the American Movie Classics channel, is the most refreshing television drama since "All in the Family." We should all hope that it represents a new beginning rather than an anomaly, as unique and distinguished as it is.

The second season of MAD MEN is even better the first, which already established it as perhaps the best series to debut on American television in this decade. The pleasures are not simply in the plot (although it moves quickly and constantly surprises you) or in the acting (though it is also topnotch), but in the details: in some ways this series is the early 21st-century equivalent of Edith Wharton's 1920 novel THE AGE OF INNOCENCE, in that it brings us back to a more conservative time among some very privileged and powerful New Yorkers, and immerses us completely in the precisely observed anthropological details of their lives. (The attention given to the clothes, hairstyles, design, and mores of the early Sixties period is, as in the previous season, breathtaking.) But here the top of the heap are not marked out as in the Wharton novel by familial connections (though those too are represented here--and shown to be largely dying out) but, as fitting the Kennedy era, by capitalistic endeavor.The series's central characters, by the beginning of the season, have achieved certain prizes for themselves, but all at a price. Don Draper (Jon Hamm), the creative head of the Madison Avenue agency Sterling Cooper, has been promoted to the position of partner. His beautiful blonde wife Betty (January Jones), has worked out some sort of arrangement with her husband after the first season's finale that he will no longer stray from her or be away for long unexplained periods. Roger Sterling (John Slattery), Don's arrogant and entitled boss, has overcome two coronaries and is back in the office. His former mistress, the office manager Joan Holloway (Christina Hendricks), finally has landed the handsome man with a bright career she's dreamed of finding, while her former charge in the secretarial pool, Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss) has climbed her way to become Sterling Cooper's first woman copywriter. Even the slimy Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser), whom Don vanquished at the end of the previous season, is married to a woman who adores him and enjoys a Park Avenue apartment. But no one is happy, or willing to settle for what they have; they all feel they could somehow do better. Their ability to jeopardize everything they have for what more they might get is what makes the series so brilliant a commentary on the America of 1962. The best of the actors, Hamm, Slattery, and Holloway (and also Melinda McGraw as a new character, a Borscht Belt comedian's tough and sexy wife), disappear so into their characters you would be able to recognize them walking down the street just by their postures; the writers are up to the same high level, and most every gesture or line of dialogue has layers of meanings. (Pay attention, for example, to the multiple subtexts of a bit of business in the season's second episode, when Pete Campbell's mother, during the midst of a family crisis, insists on giving her daughter-in-law Trudy a porcelain elephant tchotchke.)One of the pleasures of this beautiful DVD set is that the series creator Matt Weiner provides commentary for almost all the episodes; he has such a firm sense of what he wanted to do with every scene that his commentary is terrific and tells you how almost everything you caught the first time round was intentional. (Also, he blessedly mostly eschews the jargon most television writers use in describing their work.) The season is worth multiple viewings, and is as textured and finely worked as a great multi-plot novel. The DVD set also comes with some dandy other extras besides episode commentaries, including an overview of Jacqueline Kennedy's February 1962 televised tour of the White House (which features importantly into the season's first episode), capsules of the era's historical events, and an informative guide to 1960s fashion styles, which covers the entire decade and might be a clue to what we'll see in upcoming seasons.

Les années 60 c'était hier, c'est aujourd'hui. Certainement la meilleure série sur le monde de l'entreprise et les relations femmes-hommes. Profond. Intelligent. Eclairant.

Man, what an underrated series. It's been on many years and I first gave it a shot this year (2014). It took more then 4-5 episodes to get in to but Don, Betty, Peggy and so on... the show is just AWESOME. I'm not very good at film review, and this show isn't for everyone. I love history, and I love the 60's era as well as the early 1800's and early 1900's. This one is a diamond in the rough and a seriously good show.Don (Jon Hamm) is now on my radar for movies and shows. His acting is phenomenal in this.

La mejor serie documental sobre los años 60 y 70 en USA. El drama mejor escrito que recuerdo. Unos personajes inolvidables. Será más dura la vida cuando el año que viene me termine de ver la serie, no sé como va a ser esto después de despedirme de Donald Draper

VERY important story for our times, explaining what the 1950's and '60s were REALLY about. HIGHLY recommended.

In der ersten Staffel war Peggy Olsen der Charakter, der mich am meisten zu fesseln vermochte. Auch im zweiten Jahr gefällt die Figur und die Dartstellung durch die großartige Elisabeth Moss; obschon mein Hauptinteresse dieses Mal einer anderen Person galt: Betty Draper. Keine Figur hat im Vergleich zu Season 1 eine derart radikale Wandlung durchgemacht. Ich möchte nicht zu viel verraten, aber es hat mich doch erstaunt, wie die einst so devote und schüchterne Betty in dieser Staffel plötzlich Entscheidungen mit weitreichenden Konsequenzen trifft, die insbesondere für die damalige Zeit sicherlich doppelt schwer wiegen."The most stylish Show on TV" ist auf der DVD zu lesen. Und es ist wahr. Hier stimmt tatsächlich alles. Die Szenen, die January Jones (Betty) auf dem Gestüt beim Reiten zeigen, erinnerten mich ständig an Hitchcock`s "Marnie", welcher in jener Zeit entstand, in der "Mad Men" angesiedelt ist. Und dennoch ist die Serie keineswegs old-fashioned. Im Gegenteil: So klar und elegant wurden die (fiktiven) 60s noch nie in Szene gesetzt.Die zweite Staffel von "Mad Men" wird sicher niemanden enttäuschen, der auch die erste mochte. 13 Folgen anspruchsvolle Unterhaltung. Fünf Sterne.