Warning: Spoilers abound in the column below.
After a 525-day wait, “Mad Men” fans across the country had our patience rewarded Sunday with the premiere of the show’s fifth season.
A record 3.5 million viewers tuned in to see the return of everyone’s favorite ad man, Don Draper, along with the rest of the crew.
Plenty has changed for the men and women of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce since we left them at the end of season four.
Joan Harris has had her baby, a child fathered not by her husband, but by Roger Sterling.
Don and his former secretary Megan are now married. Megan also apparently knows Don’s true identity, Dick Whitman. This is information Don failed to tell Betty until their divorce was imminent, so it’ll be interesting to see what unfolds when Megan knows from the start that her husband isn’t who he says he is.
It’s revelatory to consider how far the show has come since its first season. Back then, we saw the typical ’60s stereotypes in play. If a woman didn’t stay at home all day, she couldn’t rise to any position above secretary. The white men were in control, not giving a thought to the rising civil rights movement.
But now we’re in 1966. Women have plenty of power within the office. At the end of the episode, the firm is forced to interview African-American applicants, no longer able to just laugh them out of the building.
I’m excited to see how the firm will change this season. Plenty of societal shake-ups are about to happen. The show is certain to handle them gracefully, but it’ll be fun to watch the characters move through Vietnam-era America.
Another intriguing twist is the way Pete and Don have seemingly swapped lives. Pete now lives in a subdivision far from Manhattan. He has a wife and child, he comes home late from work and we see him interacting on the train with his fellow commuters, actions Don performed in the first three seasons.
Don, however, now lives in a trendy midtown apartment with his beautiful young wife, hardly ever bothered by children. He comes into work late and leaves early, seemingly without a care in the world.
The juxtaposition of these two characters is an interesting decision on the part of creator and writer Matthew Weiner. Pete is becoming far more like the Don we used to know, while Don has become a bit younger by marrying Megan.
Don’s preference in women has changed since the show began. His marriage to Betty was essentially the stereotypical ’60s marriage. Betty stayed home and relied on Don for everything. She was the opposite of independent and was essentially Don’s servant.
But the new Mrs. Draper is a fiery young woman who is more self-reliant than Betty could dream of being. In the premiere’s most buzzworthy scene, Megan twirls in a short skirt as she sings for Don in French, showing a sexy swagger that Betty could never pull off.
It’s interesting to see Don with Betty’s polar opposite, but the real question is how Weiner and his writers will break up the relationship. Realistically, do any of us expect to see them together for long?
We’ve got tons of conflict waiting to unfold, and Sunday night’s premiere was only the beginning. So let’s raise our Old Fashioneds and vodka martinis to a season that promises to be one of the best yet.
Joey Groner is a 20-year-old mass communication sophomore from Baton Rouge.
 
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Contact Joey Groner at [email protected]