Season 6 of "Mad Men" found Don Draper (Jon Hamm) in a terrible state: His affair with his downstairs neighbor, Sylvia Rosen (Linda Cardellini), ended badly, he literally talked himself out of a job at Sterling, Cooper & Partners, and his fed-up wife, Megan (Jessica Pare), walked out on him.
Season 7, premiering Sunday night at 9 p.m. on AMC, finds Don in limbo. He keeps up the pretense of having a job, and keeps his hand in the game through a surprising method — but he's a man running out of options. He tries to repair the damage to his marriage, but he remains a relentless flirt, confessing at a key point in the episode, "I'm a terrible husband."
Megan, meanwhile, is not waiting for Don to get his act together. More independent than she is generally given credit for, she is living in LA when the premiere opens, seeing her acting career blossom after quitting her job on a TV soap. In the episode's best scene, she picks Don up at the airport in a green Austin-Healey convertible, dressed in a smashing, diaphanous, Pucci-era minidress, while the Spencer Davis Group's classic "I'm a Man" pulses on the soundtrack. To underscore that Don doesn't know where he's going in Megan's world, he gets into the passenger seat.
Jon Hamm stars as Don Draper.Photo: Frank Ockenfels/AMC
It's no accident that this scene makes the episode feel like it's taking off. The rise of California in the late 1960s — and the decline of New York City — is something creator Matthew Weiner has stressed in interviews about the new season. The contrast between the laid-back romanticism of the West Coast and the formality of New York is palpable in scene after scene — none more so than when a hilarious Vincent Kartheiser shows up with a makeover of his Pete Campbell character: plaid pants, polo shirt and a sweater tied around his neck. After he outlandishly greets Don with a hug, the startled Don tells the formerly buttoned-up nebbish, "You not only look like a hippie, you talk like one."
The rest of the episode illustrates the changes that have come to the agency since Don's departure. We actually saw the new boss at the very end of last season: Lou Avery (Allan Davey) was stepping off the elevator to meet with the partners as Don was making his exit. How well the present staff, particularly Peggy (Elisabeth Moss), impresses him will shape the remaining six episodes of this season.
For those living under a rock, "Mad Men" will only have seven episodes this year. In a bid to make this final season "event television," the executives at AMC have divided the story in half, as they did with the final season of "Breaking Bad," with the final seven "Mad Men" episodes airing next year. For loyal fans, this feels like a cheat. It's up to Weiner and his star — the always-compelling Hamm — to make sure we remember to come back next year.
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