Stark, raving mad

In its second season, the smooth-talking cads and resilient ladies of "Mad Men" are emboldened and chastened by the tumultuous '60s.

Editor's note: Spoiler alert: This review reveals some plot details from Season 2.

By Heather Havrilesky

Read more: Advertising, Drama, TV, Arts & Entertainment, '60s, Reviews, Heather Havrilesky

Courtesy AMC

"Mad Men" cast at the Sterling Cooper office.

July 24, 2008 | "Now I am quietly waiting for
the catastrophe of my personality
to seem beautiful again,
and interesting, and modern." -- Frank O'Hara, "Mayakovsky"

When Don Draper reads these words at the start of the second season of AMC's "Mad Men," he uncovers the show's growing concern with the question of identity. Don (Jon Hamm) is no longer struggling to conceal his lineage or real name -- that was his dark secret during the first season. He's successfully pulled off the magic trick of becoming a new person, but now he's left with the sticky task of accepting the person he's chosen to become. How will his identity -- which is, after all, more constructed and invented than most -- withstand direct challenges to its integrity? In the wake of his long lost brother's suicide, is he still willing to compromise his core beliefs and values for the sake of maintaining the life he's chosen?

But Don Draper isn't alone. As we rejoin the characters of "Mad Men" (second season premieres 10 p.m. EDT Sunday on AMC) a few months after we left them at the end of last season, many are wrestling with the personal and professional pressures of the early '60s. Everyone, from secretary-turned-copywriter Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss) to young upstart Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) to Draper's wife, Betty (January Jones), is caught off guard by the challenges of his or her shifting roles. The characters seem to pause every few minutes to ask themselves: Is this me? Does this fit? Is this the life I wanted? We were offered only rough outlines of each of these characters in the first season; in the second, their urges, flaws and unspoken desires are revealed more clearly. Together they form a collage, depicting a midlife crisis in slow motion.

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While "Mad Men" clearly explores the interplay of secrets and lies of the advertising world of the '60s, reflecting the unspoken angst of suburban domesticity and the inseparable blend of business and family in America during that period, what sets this drama apart from others is the complexity and depth of its themes beyond the obvious. "Mad Men" isn't set in the '60s just for the sake of fun, for the cool clothes or nice cars; it feeds our curiosity about the era. In the terse conversations and endless puffing on cigarettes, we see glimpses of the world our grandparents and parents inhabited: a hopeful but still repressed time when most people were experiencing serious cultural vertigo.

Instead of merely setting the mood like the boogie-down radio hits inserted into every other scene of CBS's '70s period drama "Swingtown," the props and hairstyles and even real TV footage used on "Mad Men" serve to intensify and enrich its picture. After what's supposed to be a romantic overnight stay at the Savoy, Don and Betty end up smoking in bed and watching Jacqueline Kennedy give a tour of the White House on TV. "It's so important, the setting in which the presidency is presented to the world," the first lady breathes in that oddly artificial, film-starlet-whispery voice of hers, and the surreal cultural moment shimmers around the room, revealing new shades of pain and resolve in this disconnected, fractured marriage.

Later, Betty's friend Francine tells Betty of the broadcast, "She [Jackie] seemed nervous. Even when she saw Jack at the end, it was like they were playing house." Betty, who often appears to be playing house herself, responds with a lie: "Well, I'm sorry we missed it. No time for television!"

While "Mad Men" may look good enough to write off as style over substance, its style forms an essential part of its substance: When Betty dons the perfect '60s riding gear with flawlessly applied lipstick or Peggy primly strides through the pristine offices of Sterling Cooper, shoulders squared, bullet bra protruding confidently, to inform Draper's secretary that her snide attitude is inappropriate, the perfection and gloss of what we're seeing belie the improbably enormous expectations that society placed on human beings during these times. Even young people were expected to be smooth and flawless and professional under every circumstance. There's something in those pretty trays of food on the table at meetings, something in the gleam and shine of every office surface, that says, "We stand firmly against the messiness of mundane life. The truth is not welcome here."

Of course, the less welcome it is, the more the truth manages to wrangle its way in the door and crash the party. When head secretary Joan Holloway (Christina Hendricks) reminds her former lover and current boss, Roger Sterling (John Slattery), that she's practically engaged, saying "I already know what day he's going to ask me," she's clearly revealing that she's more than a little nervous that the day will never come. Later, when she berates another former lover, Paul Kinsey (Michael Gladis), she pretends it's all in sport, but it casts another shadow of doubt on her supposed happiness.

There's something artful in the ways that these characters balk and back away from each other under duress, and then find roundabout ways to tell each other the truth. At the end of last season, Betty chose not to confront Don about his cheating, instead "confessing" to her psychiatrist that his infidelity made her unhappy, knowing that the information would get passed along to her husband. She'd watched her friend Francine break down in tears, then threaten to poison her cheating husband, Carlton, and even her children -- all of it so shocking and undignified! Betty chose to keep her mouth shut, and the truth of her desperation came out only when she ran into Glenn, the little boy who had a crush on her, waiting for his mom in the parking lot of the library. "Glenn, I can't talk to anyone, it's so sad," she confessed, and then begged, "Please tell me I'll be OK!"

Next page: Luxuriating in the sexism of the times