TVSquad

You've read Allison's review and Joel's take on the Mad Men season finale, and I'd just like to add that I think it was the best episode of any TV series I've seen in years. Brilliant, dramatic, funny, even exhilarating. Here's a behind the scenes look at the episode, including interviews with Matthew Weiner and the cast.

Reading the plot description for this week's Mad Men, "The Gypsy and the Hobo," and it says that a former client returns to Sterling Cooper and Betty takes the kids on a trip. I'm assuming the trip is without Don/Dick. I wonder if she'll return.

Here's a sneak peek of the episode, and I think it shows the client in question. Not sure who the gypsy refers to or the hobo (perhaps the one Dick met as a kid?).

I'm not someone who thinks that a TV episode title (or book title or film title or song title) automatically means that the episode will be great, but isn't "Guy Walks Into An Advertising Agency" a terrific title for a Mad Men episode? In this sneak peek below, Lane Pryce and his irritating assistant John Hooker have a big announcement for the staff of Sterling Cooper.

AMC is starting to post more and more videos at their Mad Men site in anticipation of this Sunday's third season premiere. Below are two videos from the Mad Men premiere party that was held recently.

I like the life lesson that Alison Brie (Trudy Campbell) thinks the Sesame Street Mad Men parody will try to instill in kids.

(S01E13) "Who knows why people do what they do?" - Don

True story: About 20 years ago, I worked with a woman who was overweight. She wasn't feeling well one day - I think she had an upset stomach - so she left work and went to the doctor. She found out that she was 8 months pregnant. Not a month or two months, but about a month before the baby was due.

I thought of that tonight after watching the season finale of Mad Men. So many things answered and so many doors left open for a second season...

(S01E12) "Fire him if you want. But I'd keep an eye on him. You never know how loyalty is born." Cooper, to Don, about Pete.

I don't think I'm giving anything away when I tell you that at the end of this episode, Kennedy wins. But it's not really about that anyway, despite the title. The first half of the ep is all about the election and the different pairings we see at the Sterling Cooper all night party - Harry and Hildy, Ken and a secretary, even Sal and Joan, though not in the way you might think - but the second half finally explains what the deep, dark secret is in the past of Don Draper.

And the secret is...

(S01E11) "I saw this one where the husband gets this girl pregnant, so he kills her ... you don't want to be that woman." - Rachel's sister, about Rachel's affair with Don.

Several episodes ago, after the episode where Don/Dick was reunited with his younger step-brother Adam, we all wondered if Adam would reappear. Had we seen the last of him? Would he cause more trouble for Don? Would he show up in the season-ending cliffhanger? Those questions were answered in the very first minute of tonight's episode, as Adam gives the hotel clerk a package to mail to Don and then promptly goes to his room and hangs himself.

I was not expecting that.

I've been trying to get friends of mine to watch Mad Men, but not a lot of them take me up on it. Their responses run from "Oh, I don't need yet another TV show to watch" to "Huh? Mad Men? What's that?" It probably doesn't help that it's on American Movie Classics, a niche network that a lot of people don't even watch (if they even have it on their cable system), but I want to advise anyone who loves good period drama - and by period I don't mean the 1700s, with elaborate costumes, I'm talking 1960 New York City - or anyone who loves good drama, period, to watch this show. Overall, it's the most consistently well written and well-acted (and well cast) show on television right now, and the production design is intoxicating.

After the jump is a preview of tonight's episode, "Indian Summer." It summarizes many of the plots, including Rachel thinking of having an affair with Don, Pete (Vincent Kartheiser from Angel) being a jerk, Peggy's place in the office, and the Sterling Cooper team brainstorming an idea.

(UPDATE: The video is now the correct episode.)

(S01E07)

"By the way, Matherton? He has the clap." - Pete, to a pretty store clerk.

I have a relative who's an alcoholic, even if he doesn't admit it. But even he doesn't drink as much as Roger Sterling does. My God, did you see how much he sucked down tonight? Straight vodka, whiskey, Martinis with chocolate cake. He even brought in a bottle of vodka as a gift for Don and took a glass - not a cup or bottle, but a glass - of booze and drove home with it. When Don said to him the next day that it looks like he got home OK, I was thinking, you knew he was drinking a lot, so why did you let him drink and drive? Even if it is 1960, the fact that Don wondered if he got home in one piece is proof that drinking and driving was a concern back then too.

I've been going back and forth on whether Roger is a nice, misunderstood guy or a first class jerk. This episode made me tilt a little toward the latter.

(S01E04)

"Direct Marketing. I thought of that. Turns out it already existed, but I arrived at it independently." - Pete Campbell

I think it's quite interesting that the most subversive, edgy show of the year is one set in the Leave It To Beaver days of 1960. Who would have thought that? You can have your Weeds and your Dexter and your Rescue Me. I'll take Mad Men, and I'll take Manhattan.