This review discusses the plotline of Mad Men, up through the end of Season Six.
Matthew Weiner's Mad Men begins its seventh season Sunday on AMC. Every season, as this outstanding period drama has made its way through the 1960s, Weiner has been increasingly insistent about the things he doesn't want critics to reveal in advance. This year, that confidentiality wish list is almost laughably long, and includes not only the year in which the story resumes, but specifics about certain relationships — both professional and personal.
But there's something to say here, while still honoring the spirit of Weiner's request. This is the final season of Mad Men, and AMC is spreading it out over two seven-episode chunks — one now, the other in 2015. So one way or another, we are looking at the final chapters of Mad Men — and what Sunday's season opener does is set the stage for a lengthy, long-awaited climax.
When we last saw Jon Hamm as Madison Avenue advertising genius Don Draper, Draper had stripped off the faade he had worn as protection throughout the series. He confessed to his true past, as a boy raised in a whorehouse — not only to his children, but to his colleagues at work, during a pitch to an advertising client. Immediately, he lost his chance to move to the West Coast office his firm was opening — and there were bound to be other consequences. This final season, it appears, will be all about those consequences.
Don always has been resourceful, and resilient, and those traits are in full display in the season seven opener. His confession last season has altered him — in his behavior as well as his demeanor, he's a noticeably changed man. You can tell that even from one of the few scenes from Mad Men that reveals no secrets about where the series is going — just that Don is going somewhere, on a plane.
Earlier in the show, we had a tracking shot of him at the airport, standing still but being propelled by a moving sidewalk, just like Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate — a film image so iconic, it must be an intentional echo. On the return trip, Don boards the plane, in what is a now a laughably glamorous depiction of air travel. Overhead luggage racks are all but empty, alcoholic drinks are free and plentiful, the stewardesses are helpful and beautiful — and so is the passenger Don finds seated next to him on the flight. She's played by Neve Campbell from Party of Five, and she's as sexy as everything else on the plane. But this time, even as she nestles closer to him in the darkness of a redeye flight, Don the salesman may, or may not, be buying.
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