Summary and spoilers
Hotshot 1960's Madison Avenue ad executive Don Draper (Jon Hamm) has a problem. While fighting off the inevitable threats of young up-and-coming ad exec Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser), Don's got to convince the world to smoke Lucky Strike cigarettes, but the world has just discovered proof that cigarettes cause lung cancer. Although he tells a client that he doesn't believe in the future, as the first episode closes, he returns home to his big suburban house, hugs his wife, and tousles the hair of his two small sleeping children.
Of equal interest is Peggy Olsen (Elisabeth Moss), the new girl in the office. She appears to be conservative, but her first move is to ensure that she has adequate birth control. Close to quitting time, she thanks Draper for making her first day great, placing her hand on his while they are alone in his office. Draper removes her hand and reminds her that he is her boss, not her boyfriend. Later that evening, Pete shows up at Peggy's door, drunk and amorous. Peggy has the choice to send him away, but instead she takes him into her room. Is this something that she does because she feels she must do or she will ruin her career, or does she have a choice here, and does she make this choice to advance her career?
Comments
Focusing on this period allow misogyny and racism to be shown in abundance. I first noticed this with the Ron Burgundy movie - by placing the timeframe in the 70s, it allowed Will Farrell a lot more freedom to make sexist comments that nowadays would just look foolish. And, of course, everyone is smoking.
Mad Men Quotes
Don: I'm having a situation with my cigarette account.
Midge: Wow, you really are here to talk.
Don: The trade commission is cracking down on all of our health claims.
Midge: Um, I get Reader's Digest. Yeah, this is the same scare you had five years ago. You dealt with it. I know I slept a lot better knowing doctors smoke.
Don: We should get married.
Midge: You think I'd make a good ex-wife?
"Advertising is based on one thing, happiness. And you know what happiness is? Happiness is the smell of a new car. It's freedom from fear. It's a billboard on the side of the road that screams reassurance that whatever you are doing is okay. You are okay."
- Don
Now try not to be overwhelmed by all this technology."
- Joan (to Peggy), unveiling an electric typewriter
"Shall we drink before the meeting, or after…or both?"
- Salvatore to Don
Roger: Have we ever hired any Jews?
Don: Not on my watch.
Roger: That’s very funny; that’s not what I meant.
Don: We’ve got an Italian – Salvatore – the art director.
Roger: That won’t work.
Don: Sorry. Most of the Jewish guys work for the Jewish firms.
Roger: Yeah, I know.
Greta: Before the war, when I studied with Ededaide in Vienna, we postulated that what Freud called ‘The Death Wish’ is as powerful a drive as those for sexual reproduction and physical sustenance.
Don: Freud, you say…what agency is he with?
Salvatore: So, we’re supposed to believe that people are living one way and secretly thinking the exact opposite? That’s ridiculous.
"Advertising is a very small world, and when you do something like malign the reputation of a girl from the steno pool on her first day, you make it even smaller. Keep it up, and even if you do get my job, you’ll never run this place. You’ll die in that corner office, a mid-level executive with a little bit of hair that women go home with out of pity. [pause] Wanna know why? ‘Cause no one will like you."
- Don (to Pete)
Roger: You had me worried. I don’t know if you were drunk, or not drunk. But that was inspired.
Don: For the record, pulled it out of thin air. [looks up] Thank you up there.
Roger: You’re looking in the wrong direction.
Automat girl: I love this place! It’s hot, loud – and filled with men!
Salvatore: I know what you mean.
Rachel: I’ve never been in love.
Don: She won’t get married ‘cause she’s never been in love. I think I wrote that, just to sell nylons.
Rachel: For a lot of people, love isn’t just a slogan.
Don: What do you mean, love, you mean big lightning bolt to the heart where you can’t eat and you can’t work and you can’t – just run off and get married and make babies. The reason you haven’t felt it is because it doesn’t exist. What you call ‘love’ was invented by guys like me…to sell nylons.
Rachel: Is that right?
Don: Pretty sure about it. You’re born alone and you die alone, and this world just drops a bunch of rules on top of you to make you forget those facts, but I never forget. I’m living like there’s no tomorrow…because there isn’t one.
Rachel: I don’t think I realized until this moment, but it must be hard being a man, too.
Don: [smiling] Excuse me?
Rachel: Mr. Draper -
Don: Don.
Rachel: Mr. Draper…I don’t know what it is you really believe in, but I do know what it feels like to be out of place, to be disconnected, to see the whole world laid out in front of you the way other people live it. There’s something about you that tells me you know it too.
Don: [taken by surprise] I don’t know if that’s…true. You want another drink?
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