‘Mad
Men” returns Sunday, and I’m still mad about the man. Don Draper, I mean.
OK, admittedly there is more grease than machinery to him — and the rest of the show, too.
And yes, while many of the characters have very complicated back-stories, they aren’t very complicated themselves. Shallow and superficial beautiful people who live traditional lives while secretly doing odd things in dark places. (Think Betty-in-the-bathroom-bar affair, the gun, the little neighbor boy.)
This makes the people on “Mad Men” seem like there’s more than great bone structure under all the fantastic clothes — but there really isn’t. Like advertising, it’s all style over substance. And I can’t get enough of it.
On the drunk-and-orderly season premiere, we find that Don is angrier than ever — if that’s possible. He’s furious for paying big bucks to Betty (January Jones) while she lives with her new (yes!) husband Henry (Christopher Stanley) in their old house.
He rages at the loyalists who followed him to the new agency because they aren’t as clever as he is — although, as far as I can tell, he’s really not all that brilliantly clever himself.
Despite all the big moves, the biggest change for me is that the gorgeous Don no longer has women flying at him like panties at a 1960s Tom Jones concert! In fact, on Sunday night, big-deal Don even accepts a blind date and hires a bondage hooker. Yet, he’s still creepily appealing — boring misogynist that he is.
So, what’s his appeal? Simple. Don Draper represents, in his repressed way, everything we’re either not supposed to do or are even allowed to do anymore.
He smokes fantastic amounts at work, in restaurants, at home and in the car with his kids.
He drinks at lunch, at work, at home and before getting into his car. He’d rather have sex than babysit.
His favorite food group is steer.
He has random, unprotected sex. He tells his clients what he really thinks of them.
He doesn’t work out — he just works. And he makes no apologies for any of it.
In other words, Don Draper does things that nowadays would land us in jail, at child protective services, on the unemployment line or worse, at “Biggest Loser” fat camp. And it looks like such uncivilized fun.
Yes, he’s a mad man, and we, his fans, are obsessed.
To paraphrase one of the great ads from the glory days: Between love and “Mad Men” lies obsession.