Mad Men is all grown up.
Like creator Matthew Weiner's previous project, The Sopranos, the AMC series matured significantly in its second season. But unlike the long-gone psychological study of mafiosos and their families, the characters of Mad Men grew up right along with the series.
Don Draper began looking at life outside of Sterling Cooper -- in Frank O'Hara's Meditations in an Emergency, in a group of vacationing nomads in California, even in the potential work as an auto mechanic -- and eventually came clean with Betty about his indiscretions.
As Weiner himself has noted since the Oct. 26 season finale, "Betty Draper was a child in the first season, and became an adolescent this year." She stood up to Don about his affair with the wife of comedian Jimmy Barrett (played to perfection by character actor Patrick Fischler), kicked him out and ultimately went through with a meaningless affair of her own, only days after finding out that she is pregnant.
Several of the season's more foreboding moments came in "Six Month Leave," in which images of a Don-less, drunken and depressed Betty are laced with conversations concerning Marilyn Monroe's unexpected death. While Betty seems to have gotten out of her psychological slump, the parallels were perfectly executed.
Besides the main story about the Drapers' marital issues, some of the most interesting character development came from within the walls of Sterling Cooper.
Peggy Olson continued her slow rise through the ranks of the company, eventually obtaining her own office and respect from her male contemporaries, all while keeping her baby a secret from the world.
At the same time, Pete Campbell inexplicably became more likeable as he whined and wallowed in his own baby issues, fretting over the morality of adoption while completely unaware of his own child that already exists. His reaction to Peggy's confession concerning the baby in the finale seemed to illustrate his amazement in Peggy's determination and secrecy more so than the fact he actually has a child.
The roaming contrast between characters' liability and their unethical behavior is something David Chase and Weiner mastered in The Sopranos and was made even more clear this season in characters like Pete and Duck Phillips.
The latter, who by the end of the season fell off the wagon and orchestrated a takeover of Sterling Cooper, suddenly became three-dimensional rather than just a thorn in Don's side. The heartbreaking scene in "Maidenform" in which he considers drinking liquor straight from the bottle while his family's dog looks on immediately shed new light on the new president of Sterling Cooper.
Duck's scheme was just one of the few pivotal plotlines that were masterfully intertwined in the season's final few episodes, in which Don disappeared to California to horse around with a 21-year-old seductress and then moonlight as Dick Whitman with his "ex-wife." It was still unclear at the start of the season finale whether he would even return to New York at all, which is a testament to the show's consistent unpredictability.
The dream-like direction in the scenes with Don/Dick in California were rich with camera tricks, religious metaphors (Peggy's "take it, break it, share it, love it" Popsicle campaign coupled with Don's immersion into the ocean in "The Mountain King") and even a clever nod to the show's opening graphic at the end of "Jet Set," was particularly outstanding.
But where the ultimate point of The Sopranos seemed to be that nothing and no one really changes, the message that's slowly been rearing its head out of Mad Men is that everything is changing, and fast. This theme is surely accentuated by Weiner's choice in setting the majority of the series in the 1960s, one of the country's most transformational decades.
This season, set in 1962, did an even better job than the first at encompassing all of the era's major issues. Monroe's death, the crash of American Airlines Flight 1, civil rights protests and the Cuban Missile Crisis were all expertly woven into the characters' struggles and growth.
Since there were about two years in between the first and second season, one may wonder if the third season will deal with the 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy, which would be a little more than a year after this season's finale.
But speculation leading up to the third season premiere surely won't end there -- will Don and Betty decide to have their baby? Will Pete bite the bullet and go through with adoption? Will Don even be working at Sterling Cooper after telling Duck he didn't want to be a part of his proposed blueprint of a company?
Unfortunately, fans of the show looking for answers may have to wait a little while; while the show is sure to have a third season, Weiner is still negotiating a deal with the network, and it has been reported by Variety the season likely won't start filming until summer 2009 at the earliest.
There has even been speculation Weiner himself may not be involved anymore, which, if it were to happen, would likely cause the show to crash and burn on a level comparable to the (mostly) rotten second season of Twin Peaks after David Lynch jumped ship.
Let's hope, and assume, Weiner keeps that fresh Emmy in mind and decides to stick around to carry out his stories of copywriters, trophy wives, entertainers and executives. His second season raised the bar for every drama on television today, and for what is still to come from this maddeningly intriguing drama.
Grade: A-
