Of all the fascinating things about Mad Men, perhaps the most fascinating is how massively buzzy it's managed to get while remaining a complete black box to the uninitiated. By the third season of a show, people who haven't watched it have absorbed enough through osmosis to know whether or not it's something they would be into. Not so with Mad Men.
When I talk to people who have never watched it, they know that its about the '60s or something, and they're like, in advertising or whatever, and it's supposed to be really good, according to reviews they saw somewhere or a cousin who's into artsy-type stuff. There are two reasons for the colossal gap between what people know of Mad Men and what they know about it. The first is that the show is mysterious, and intentionally so, creator Matthew Weiner delights in ambiguities. The other is that, as even the most evangelical fan will admit, nothing much happens on the show.
It's easy to forget that fact between seasons, when we can marinate on the sum of the parts and make the tiny connections that come from discussion and repeated viewings. Then when the season premiere comes, we forget that narratively nimble Mad Men is not. That was certainly the case last season, when audiences clamored for information on what had become of the child of Peggy (Elisabeth Moss) and Pete (Vincent Kartheiser). Instead, what we got was an hour of table setting. The revelations were still episodes off.
That's why I was so surprised to hear, in the runup to last night's premiere, talk of cliffhangers and their resolutions. What of Joan (Christina Hendricks) and her impending wedding to a doctor who forced himself on her? What of the power struggle between Duck (Mark Moses) and Don (Jon Hamm)? What about Pete, who fondled a shotgun after Peggy told him about their child? Quick and tidy answers is not what Mad Men does, but at what point does that stop becoming endearing and start becoming annoying? It was only one season before Lost─which ended its season 1 finale with that descent down into the mysterious hatch─was accused of being a tease. Mad Men has made it far longer, floating on the cachet of its stylish visuals, superlative acting, and skillful, if precious writing. But will the story ever really kick into gear?
Judging from the season premiere, the answer is a firm maybe. The British invasion of Sterling Cooper is already yielding some delightful conflict with the promise of more to come. But in terms of forward momentum, this was only a slight improvement from last season's opener. Some viewers are bound to become exasperated and move on. I, however, won't be among them. I'll be the first to admit that the glacial pace wears on me at times, but there's also something charming in the way Mad Men demands that you let its story unfurl at its own pace. It's television as an old-fashioned courtship: true love waits.
