EJ - Well, Season Three bursts out of the gate with the Secret Origin of Dick Whitman.  Now, we know that Dick/Don’s real mother was a prostitute who died in childbirth, but this sequence raises some questions.  First, is his father really his father?  It seems like there’d be a lot of candidates for that position, with no real way to verify.  So Don Draper’s real life many not actually be his real life.  Second, how does Don know any of this?  The staging makes it clear that this is Don’s vision.  That means Don knows his backstory.  He knows about the miscarriages and everything. (We find out later in the episode that today is Dick Whitman’s birthday – I like that Don and Dick have different birthdays.)

Back in a Season One flashback, young Dick acknowledged to the hobo that he was “a whore’s son”, so this was not any kind of secret in the Whitman household.  So, who gave the kid all the gory details?  Mr. Whitman was a mean SOB, but I don’t know that he’d keep bringing up his own misdeeds just to traumatize a kid.  I wonder if, once Mrs. Whitman actually had a child of her own later on, she was a lot less excited about Dick. Was she a good mother, happy to finally have a child, only to turn on him when she finally gave birth to a healthy baby of her own? And if that’s the case, look at Don’s interactions with his adult brother during the first season with that as the subtext. As much progress as we’ve made, we’re still a long way from answering the question that began the series – “Who is Don Draper?" By the way, after much speculation about the timeframe, this season picks up shortly after the end of last season.  I believe the jump between Seasons One and Two was 14 months, and this jump appears to be only a month or two.  Could this season be built around a pregnancy, as Season One was?  If so, that would bring the finale just shy of the date of the Kennedy Assassination.  And, if you’re obsessed with comparing Mad Men to The Sopranos, as I am, it could be Mad Men’s equivalent of 9/11 – a major historical event that happens offscreen and changes the tone of the series from then out.  (Of course, this event is planned in the case of Mad Men, and not a case of something happening in the real world while David Chase was taking his own sweet time putting together some episodes.)

Interesting that both Roger and Joan talk about their respective fiancées this week, but we don’t see them.  We don’t really know the status of either relationship, other than what they chose to share with the people around them. I tend to think neither is doing all that well, with Joan’s fiancée being the worst person on Earth and Roger still in love with both Joan and his ex-wife.  Let’s face it, if Joan dumped that guy, she wouldn’t actually tell anybody.  Heck, she’d fake a wedding if she had to. Actually, it’s hard to gauge where Don and Betty’s relationship stands, based on this episode.  Are they maintaining cordiality?  Was there an honest reconciliation?

Sal’s secret is out, at least as far as Don is concerned.  Personally, I don’t think Don would ever play that card – he’s good at keeping secrets, and he really does seem to like Sal.  However, Sal doesn’t know that – he doesn’t know that Don’s living a lie, and I think he’s going to obsess over when the other shoe will drop.  I’m very worried about him right now.

And as long as we’re on the subject of hotel hijinks, not only did we have Don lie about his name (and occupation) to the flight attendant, he lied to Sal about why he’s using somebody else’s suitcase.  After all, if he tells Sal that his daughter ruined the lock on his suitcase, Sal might wonder why his daughter would do that, and possibly extrapolate out some information about Don’s home life.  It’s a remote chance, but for Don, that’s enough.

Also, this week Don hooks up with a blonde who talks about modeling – who does that remind you of?  He’s actually cheating on Betty with somebody who resembles her, at least a little bit.  I don’t know whether that’s progress or not.  And passing off her pin as a gift for Sally is pure, uncomfortable genius.

I absolutely love Pete and Ken’s opposite reactions to their new positions.  Ken’s excited, Pete lives in dread.  Granted, we don’t really get inside Ken’s head this week, but I think that’s legitimately how he feels.  Ken’s a guy who likes a challenge, and is only vaguely aware of his actual limits and capabilities.  But the thing is, Pete goes through his life feeling like he isn’t good enough.  You can see where it comes from, now that we’ve seen his family.  Still, his inferiority complex doesn’t result in a desire to excel and prove himself.  No, he has to find somebody lower to dominate (like Peggy, early in the series), or he has to pass himself off as better than he is.  While Dick Whitman took great pains to become Don Draper, Pete Campbell only tries to convince people that he’s a slightly better version of Pete Campbell. And given that Pete’s already jealous that Ken’s a published author and his own manuscript, well, sucked, I see a serious meltdown in Pete’s future.  (Didn’t you just want to slap him while he was being all sulky about it?

As for the new regime, Harry Crane seems to have moved up the ladder pretty handily.  We didn’t see much of him that week, but his position appears to be much more important than before.  Good for you, Harry!  Then there’s John Hooker, who is clearly a low man on the totem pole over at the British arm, desperate for credibility in America.  He hates that he’s, technically, a “secretary”.  He hates being called by his first name, unlike every other man at Sterling-Cooper, and he hates the nickname “Moneypenny”.  (A reference to M’s secretary in James Bond continuity.  The first film, Dr. No, would have just come out a couple of months ago at this point.)  And after voicing his displeasure to Joan, she promptly sets him up with an office, which Lane Pryce immediately shoots down.  It’s like she planned it!

Pryce, by the way, is played by Jared Harris, who was David Robert Jones on Fringe. He’s really creepy, and if anybody loans them their watch, he will use it to kill them.  I’m not sure what to make of the character just yet, but Pete’s awkwardness with him was one of the best laughs of the episode. We didn’t get much of Joan and Peggy this week and Paul may have been entirely absent, so we’ve still got some catching up to do.  It’s too early to tell what this season’s theme is, but Don’s London Fog line seems important:  “There will be fat years and lean years, but it’s going to rain.”

So, we’re all really excited about next week, right?

Don

As Don Draper pointed out, "it's going to rain." And I won't go into all the metaphorical possibilities "rain" provides and how they brilliantly used rain coats and London Fog to establish the theme of the season, but suffice it to say, for the clever viewer, this season is going to be dark, depressing, and unclear - "fog", get it? And "London?" I have no idea what that means - what nationality are their new bosses, anyway? I kid, I kid.  They're German, I know that.

There are season premiers, and then there's the Mad Men Season 3 premier that jumped into our living room, grabbed us by the lapels of our classic grey suit, and yelled at us, "oh, I deserve every single one of those Emmy nominations, bub. Now sit down and watch." It's not often a show will open with a man heating up warm milk for his pregnant wife, living out what would be ranked among most men's happiest life moments, and then see that same man daydreaming about his mother and a dead fetus, reminding him he was a bastard and will always be a bastard.

"Oh, I don't know. I keep going to a lot of places, and ending up somewhere I've already been."

Don Draper is living out a great lie. Salvatore is living a lie. Pete Campbell is living a lie. Joan is living a lie. Peggy is living a lie. And isn't advertising, to hear Don Draper explain it, just one big lie?

The story lines are many, and on the surface this season is going to be about how an American advertising firm deals with globalization and the dawn of television. It will be about clashes of culture, a pregnant wife, and two Heads of Accounts. Kenny Cosgrove and Pete Campbell will struggle in a professional environment to advance their own careers while obviously being the lab mice in a maze, performing for management's amusement. But underneat the story lines a typical TV drama would write, Mad Men is actually going to be about feminism in the white collar world of Manhattan on the eve of America's sexual revolution. The season will be a further exploration of Pete Campbell's self loathing and his road to ruin (I'm convinced he'll kill himself or someone else). And as EJ said, we're going close in on exactly "who is Don Draper?"

You can watch Mad Men for your reasons, and wonder how they'll handle the Kennedy assassination, how Don's marriage is going to play out, and what everyone will say, but I'll watch it for the psychology and guessing at the inner thoughts of each character. And what's great about Mad Men is that it can be taken in either way.

And finally, we come to the most magnificent scene in the entire episode (possibly the entire series, thus far). A scene brilliantly delivered and written, and ripe with all the Don Draper genius and loathing we love. On the plane back from Baltimore, you can tell that Salvatore is sweating the fact that Don saw him in a room with a half-dressed man. Salvatore is struggling, big time, wondering if Don is judging him, if Don will tell everyone, hold it against Salvatore, and then wondering what this means for him, his future with his wife, with the firm, with his friends and co-workers, and society in general. Don knows he's sweating. Don knows Salvatore wants something - approval, disapproval ...something. And then Don delivers a monologue to rival the Kodak carousel moment from the finale of Season 1. So amazing was this monologue, I didn't even catch it until reader L.H. pointed it out to me a few days later. Like many, I chalked it up to the fact Don has indiscretions of his own, what Salvatore does in the bedroom is of no consequence to Don or anyone, and that Don is wise beyond his years. Enlightened. Good night. See you next week. But, no ...it was much more.

Remember last season when Peggy had her baby, and Don Draper came to see her in the hospital? What advice did he give her? Make it go away, and move on. We spunkybeaners marveled at Don's D.N.A. and how that seemed to be his life - do it, make it go away, and move on.  Bobbie and Jimmy Barret - he did it, he made it go away, he moved on. His childhood. His time in the war. The problem is, as simple as his life philosophy seems to be, its not as easy in practice, and we all know, in his head, Don has not moved on.

So on the plane ride back from Baltimore, Don knows he needs to address what he saw with Salvatore. Together they lied to the flight attendants and each flirted with one-night stands before the fire alarm squashed their advances. So Don leans over, and Salvatore thinks he knows what's coming, and Don pitches this campaign:

"I'm going to ask you something, and I want you to be completely honest with me. London Fog. It's a subway car. And there's a commuter, looking up. And there's a girl, with her back to us. She's wearing one of those short, tan ones. But it's open. Her legs are bare. We know what he's seeing. 'Limit your exposure.'"

Don has Peggy forever indebted to him, and now he has Salvatore. Don continues to control practically everything, yet lives completely out of control with no direction. Joan and Roger are moving on. Peggy is moving on. Don is moving on. And Pete Campbell's problem is that he can't move on or make anything go away.

I feel bad for people who've missed the first two seasons and aren't watching this show along with us all. I hope someday they find it and love it like we do. Until next week ...limit your exposure. Thanks for reading.

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