With Stan getting Marissa and me on the Mad Men bandwagon, you can expect a flurry of posts on the first three seasons of the show- season 4 premieres in less than two weeks! Since I need to get caught up, I saw most of the episodes of Mad Men's second season on demand, catching the last few on a borrowed DVD (assist to Stan). I can't say that season two lived up to the greatness that was season one- for the first four episodes, I was downright bored. By the fifth, protagonist Don Draper gets into a drunken car crash which sets up the main conflict for the rest of the season (and will likely continue in season three)- a huge feud with his wife with the possibility of a divorce. This felt like when the season got back on the right track. The repercussions of the events in season one are all dealt with, most notably Pete's cheating on his wife with Peggy. All of the minor characters felt a bit more fleshed out this time around, and they were always there with a snappy one-liner. But in the end, the season just wasn't nearly as interesting as the first. I wanted more of Don coming up with genius ad campaigns. I liked that originally the show focused on the mixed morals of working in advertising, and this season it felt like it could have been replaced with any other business. At least from what I've heard season three is much more fun to watch than two. Expect a write-up for that within the next two weeks- I wouldn't want to be behind by the premier.
Season 2 is certainly the low point for me, and mostly for reasons you've pretty perfectly explained. I still don't know if I liked Season 1 or Season 3 the best, but the finale of Season 3 really makes for a game changer that sets up what should be a very interesting and different fourth season. Season 3 also deals even more with the secondary characters and a number of them head in very different directions, which I liked because for a while it just seemed like Harry, Paul, and Ken were just three heads on the same entity. But by season's end, one of those three aforementioned guys ranks much higher than the other two and another one is with a different company altogether. And one very likable secondary character is fired and another one leaves for personal reasons. There's just a whole lot more going on. It's also 1963 so keep in mind the Kennedy assassination and its aftermath as well as Martin Luther King's famous speech. I've rambled (and presumably spoiled) enough, so just go and watch that third season already. It's better than this one. I promise.
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