Sunday night, 10pm, time to get mad. In it’s fourth season and still going strong. Mad Men recently received its third consecutive Emmy award for “Most Outstanding Drama.” If you haven’t started watching by now, you will soon. Don Draper (Jon Hamm) can only be resisted for so long. For those of you who haven’t picked up on the show, or made your own Mad Men cartoon character (guilty), this two minute recap is for you: Set in the mid 1960’s, America is on the brink of a revolution, in more ways than one. In America, women are beginning to move up in the workforce, and civil rights are on everyone’s mind. But in the world of advertising, it’s a men’s club, and the men of Sterling Cooper like to keep it that way. Their city lives of wining and dining clients (and often mistresses) are strategically kept separate from their wives and children at home in Westchester. Typewriters clicking, receptionists gossiping, and the clinking of scotch glasses can be heard throughout the office.
Starting off approximately a year later in the 4th season, the newly formed Sterling Cooper-Draper Price is already on its way up. After ditching new management, SCDP is running things under their own watch. Their modern style office mimics the forward thinking direction of their company. Though heavily relying on their big bucks client – Lucky Strike Cigarettes – accounting for more than half of their income, SCDP seems to survive the fierce competition. I know you male viewers must be ecstatic that secretary extraordinaire Joan (Christina Hendricks), or Joanie as she is more affectionately known, is back.
Yet what’s even more interesting than Draper’s work life is his home life, or often how they intersect. If he breaks someone’s heart one more time, and doesn’t show one ounce of remorse, I think I’ll just die … until I get swept away again by his suaveness once again. Oddly enough, I find myself liking Betty Draper (January Jones) less this season. Don’t get me wrong, I was all for her divorcing Don. I practically yelled: “You get him girl! He can’t cheat on you and treat you like that!” after every episode. But she’s just been acting like such a bitch lately. It saddens me to see how Don and Betty’s broken relationship is affecting their daughter Sally (Kiernan Shipka) so negatively. I just want to give their extremely mature 10-year-old (seriously, she’s only 10 years old) daughter a hug and say, “You deserve better than this!”
The one thing I want more than Don Draper himself is to be able to dress as well as the women that surround him do. If only they were to create a Mad Men clothing line, I’d be the first in line for it’s grand release at 5am. While we’re on the topic of clothing: Pete Campell (Vincent Kartheiser), I won’t take you seriously as long as you wear that hideous blue suit.
Wow, I might have attributed a little too much reality to this show. But hey, you know it’s a sign of good acting when you believe the actors are real people…or that you watch too much TV.
Original Author: Ariella Weintraub