The characters
Who is Don Draper? This is the story of Mad Men in many ways, but from there we expand to major players such as Betty Draper, Pete Campbell, Roger Sterling, Joan Holloway, and Peggy Olson. But of course we can't neglect those who made Season One a blast, such as Helen and Glen Bishop, Dr. Arnold Wayne, and Lois "ciao ciao" Sadler.

The relationships
So much of the power and resonance of Mad Men comes from how real the relationships feel. Roger and Joan, Don and Rachel Menken and Midge Daniels (and don't forget Betty!), Peggy and Pete. Head back with us and enjoy it all again with sparkling perspective and refreshing insights.

The art of advertising
Rewind and unwind with the Power Moves and Master of the Universe moments that Don unleashes upon Sterling Cooper's clients, and get up close and personal with the creative process, the art of the pitch, and the backstabbing and hobnobbing that's simply a day in the life for the mad men of Madison Avenue. (And don't forget to take off your shoes before entering Bert Cooper's office!)

American life, '60s-style
What was it like to live in New York in 1960? Pretty swell… if you're white and male and a partner at a thriving ad agency. We dial into the demanded conformity and isolation of family life in the suburbs, the smoky and whiskey-soaked office life in Manhattan, and ask fun questions like: how often do Don and Betty brush their teeth?

The history and politics
This is the '60s before they were "The '60s," when the choice was Kennedy Kennedy Kennedy! versus a pre-tricky Dick Nixon for the White House.

The technology
Head back with us to the days when "call waiting" was simply an awkward way of saying you're waiting for a phone call.

The entertainment and arts
What books and movies and TV shows and music were influential to Mad Men's characters?

Moments of hilarity
For a drama, Mad Men certainly delivers its share of comedy. Harry Crane hanging out with Don in his tighty whities? Yes, we have that covered.

Iconic sights and production notes
For the Mad Men obsessives (come on, join the club with us!): filming locations, vintage props, and insight from Mad Men's cast and crew.

Questions and tidbits
From the big picture to the nitty gritty. How does Pete know where to find brand new Sterling Cooper employee Peggy's apartment on the night of his bachelor party? How does Don stay in shape? Where does Joan rank in the Sterling Cooper hierarchy? How have Peggy and Kenny Cosgrove's relationship evolved from the time of Belle Jolie to Topaz in Season Four? We need to know the answers to these things, and we're guessing you do as well!

And much much Much more. (Did we mention much much?)

So this is to say:

We assume you are a fan of Mad Men and that if you aspire to ascend to become a TV Geek Army Master of Mad Men, you’re in exactly the right place!
We assume that you’ve already watched Season One and that you’ve watched or are familiar with the subsequent seasons as well. This is a retrospective take on Season One that ties in all of the fantastic events that come later.
If you haven’t already guessed: there are majorly huge and hugely major (and delicious) spoilers of all kinds lying ahead, so fair warning here up front!

What A Mad Men Mixer Is Not
We don’t provide a straight recap of every episode, and it’s not a “book report.” We assume that you’ve imbibed the season and that you’re a fan of the show (though if you’re a Strange Human who hates Mad Men we welcome you inside our pages anyway… and we hope to sway your opinion!).

A Mad Men Mixer is an enhancement to what you already know. For example, we see a number of flashbacks of Don’s/Dick’s past throughout the season. Just telling you about them would be information that you could get from simply popping in the DVD or ordering up an episode through the iTunes store and so on.

Instead, we look at why those flashbacks were used and what they came to tell us about what we see in brave new “present” of 1960. Why did a lonely outcast run off to the brutality of the Korean War, only to jettison his identity and assume that of another man (transforming into what we term a Master of the Universe in the process)? And most importantly, how does this affect him and the way he treats the people around him? That’s what turns us on, and we hope that you’ll enjoy the deep dive (off the building from the show’s credits, perhaps?) as well – from Don’s masterful Power Move against Roger in “Red in the Face” to a fateful Pete/Don showdown in “Nixon vs. Kennedy,” and that’s just for starters.

Now, isn’t it about time we got in our collective wheel… er, time machine, and day tripped together back to 1960?

Step on in, grab a cocktail (tailored just for you by young Sally Draper), and relax.

The sales pitch of a life, a lie, and a lifetime is about to begin.

“Smoke Gets in Your Eyes”
Season One, Episode One

“Smoke Gets in Your Eyes,” Mad Men’s pilot episode, is an exquisitely executed introduction that sets up everything to come. Even as an enormous amount of information and detail are thrown at us, it all goes down smooth as silk (or as a properly prepared Old Fashioned, perhaps?) as we delve into the marvelously original and painstakingly detailed world of Don Draper, the Sterling Cooper advertising agency, and New York City in March 1960.

Don is a Master of the Universe, the creative genius that can and will save the day using his moxie and towering ego and craftiness. Yet by the time we arrive home with him at the end of the hour (and find him to have a beautiful wife and two kids only then!) there’s sufficient mystery, vulnerability, and questions about this mad man that we can’t wait to find out what happens next.

“I don’t want to go to school tomorrow.” – Don to Midge

In Which We Meet…

Don Draper (Jon Hamm) – The entire story rests on this dapper gentleman's shoulders, and it can’t be stated enough how (seemingly) effortlessly and well Hamm pulls off Mad Men’s lead role.
Midge Daniels (Rosemarie DeWitt) – Don’s Village-dwelling, freewheeling girlfriend, er, mistress.
Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss) – Fresh out of Miss Deaver’s secretarial school, she becomes Don’s newest “new girl.” Drinking game you can play during this episode: take a goodly chug every time someone tells Peggy that she could stand to show a little more leg at the office.
Joan Holloway (Christina Hendricks) – Sterling Cooper’s office manager, she rates as the highest ranking woman at the firm.
Paul Kinsey (Michael Gladis) – (Smug) copywriter and part of the junior execs gang at Sterling Cooper.
Ken Cosgrove (Aaron Staton) – Fresh-faced accounts man who loves to turn on the charm (or “charm,” depending) with the ladies. Also one of the junior execs gang.
Harry Crane (Rich Sommer) – Media buyer and one of the junior execs crew as well (so don’t let his bow tie and glasses fool you).
Salvatore Romano (Bryan Batt) – Sterling Cooper’s art director, he spends a lot of time talking about how much he’s into the ladies. It’s possible in fact that he doth protest a bit too much.
Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) – Another accounts man on the rise and one of the junior execs gang, he’s fiercely ambitious and, let’s face it, a little slimy around the edges.
Roger Sterling (John Slattery) – A silver fox and silver-tongued partner of the firm (his name is on the building, as he likes to tell people), Roger always seems to get the funniest lines each episode (and Slattery delivers the hell out of them every time).
Rachel Menken (Maggie Siff) – Runs Menken’s department store and seems to have alternatively wary and admiring eyes for our man Don.
Hildy (Julie McNiven) – Pete Campbell’s long suffering secretary.
Lee Garner, Sr. (John Cullum) – An older Southern gentleman who runs Lucky Strike, a massively important “anchor client” for Sterling Cooper.
Lee Garner, Jr. (Darren Pettie) – Poppa Lee’s son and heir, he differs from his father in fundamental ways that become important over time.
Betty Draper (January Jones) – Don’s wife and mother to Bobby and Sally, she’s lonely and bored and isolated in the seemingly idyllic suburban town of Ossining, New York.

“You gotta let ‘em know what kind of guy you are, then they’ll know what kind of girl to be.” – Ken Cosgrove

Don Draper

Don and Midge
Don shows up at Midge’s apartment late at night, and from what we can tell they are romantically involved, though it's something of an open relationship. Don is worried about his pitch for a cigarette campaign and looks to Midge for help. While he eventually leaves her apartment uninspired, it's obvious that he admires her intelligence as much as her other attributes.

In retrospect, it's striking to not only learn that the first woman that we meet who is romantically tangled with Don is a mistress of sorts (and not wife Betty, who we only meet later), but that he sought her out as opposed to looking to his wife for consoling and advice. This is a pattern that we’ll see repeated throughout Season One. Don seeks out Midge again after he gets a surprise bonus from Bert Cooper in "The Hobo Code," and later rushes over to Rachel Menken's apartment in “Long Weekend” when he thinks his true identity is on the verge of being blown by Pete Campbell. And as we’ll also see, Don is attracted to strong and independent women outside of his marriage.

Don and Rachel
Don reveals much about himself, perhaps unintentionally, when he meets with Rachel Menken in a swanky Manhattan lounge. It’s easy to overlook this scene as it comes just moments after the epic and iconic board room scene with Lucky Strike, but it tells us a tremendous amount about Don’s philosophy and how he wants to be seen by others.

Don and Rachel did not get along very well during their initial introduction at Sterling Cooper. All bluster and ego at first blush, Don did not take well to being told that his ideas weren’t well received, and especially by a woman (and a Jewish one at that). After the triumph with the Garners and Lucky Strike, Roger Sterling smartly dispatches Don to have a kiss-and-make-up get together offsite while his Creative Director is on a hot streak.

Therefore, when they meet again we see a Don who is suave and charming as ever, yet does not feel the need to sweet talk his potential client. And he’s certainly not trying to seduce Rachel – at least at this moment in time. Instead we get a Don who transitions from glib to surprisingly revealing, though it takes a fellow outsider as sharp and perceptive as Rachel to pick up on it.

After Don probes her as to the reason why she would choose to forego marriage in order to work in a world of men, Rachel admits that she has never been in love. And it’s here where we get a taste of the unvarnished Don Draper… as constructed and deployed by his true identity, Dick Whitman. Don dismisses the very idea of love – likening it to a sales pitch to sell nylons – and ends his little monologue on a note of nihilism that is core to his character: “I’m living like there’s no tomorrow because there isn’t one.”

This might be Don Draper’s motto in the early going of Mad Men, or at least the one that Dick Whitman invented for Don Draper painstakingly constructed his new persona. The Don Draper who believes statements like this is invincible because he is constantly running away from what is real, in particular his feelings. Don is invincible and sedated and in almost all ways alone. The Don Draper who we see on the dark side of the moon of 1965 – during a Season Four that sees him battling alcoholism and despair as a divorced dad – is the guy who keeps waking up tomorrow after living like there wasn’t one for too many years.

Peggy Olson

Peggy and Joan
When Joan shows Peggy around the office on her first day of work, we learn a lot about both characters. Peggy is as bright eyed and bushy tailed as they come, a fresh graduate of Miss Deaver's Secretarial School. She therefore soaks up all of Joan's worldly wisdom, which comes in the form of things that would rarely if ever be discussed in a modern office.

For example, Peggy is advised to "evaluate" all of her physical assets with an eye toward how best to show them off at the office. Joan very clearly clues Peggy into her view of a “career path” for women at Sterling Cooper: bide your time and snag the right man with the prospect of one day ending up out in the suburbs, married, and without the need to commute to work each day.

In a DVD commentary track that accompanies the episode, Mad Men creator and executive producer Matthew Weiner describes Joan as a “courtesan” introducing Peggy to the harem-like world of Sterling Cooper. But as we'll see, Peggy discovers an alternative path for herself, one in which she begins to work and compete with the men of the office on an equal footing.

Peggy and Don
Don is the opposite of the boss that offers his new secretary a warm introduction followed by a lengthy and detailed orientation. In fact, when the two meet for the first time he barely acknowledges her, and he only really picks up on the fact that she works for him after she wakes him up from a nap on his office couch.

Peggy is a sponge, and attempts to do everything that she is told (or believes she is told), which includes offering herself to Don romantically at the end of her first day (ironically, she could have been his office “dessert,” the very term that she uses miserably as all of the men in the office leer at her during her early weeks at the firm).

Don takes a hard line, reprimanding her for allowing Pete to steal a market research report out of his trash and advising her that their relationship is to be strictly professional. Don can be quite demanding and stern at the office, but he also lives by a set of rules – in his view at the least – of what is right and wrong.

Pete Campbell

Pete and Don
It’s clear from the jump that Don is not a fan of Pete Campbell. There are a number of reasons as we’ll come to find out, but overall Don resents his belief in the fact that Pete has been handed everything without working for it while Don himself is a self-made man. Of course, Don offers many other clues, such as disdaining the fact that Pete treats Peggy crassly from the moment he meets her.

In fact, in what qualifies as an Official Don Draper Power Move, he rips Pete apart, prognosticating that his current path will lead him into a dead end middle management job and attract only the kinds of women who end up taking pity on him. As we’ll see, Don’s ego and bravado in playing the role of Don Draper allow him to often steamroll others around him to his will.

Pete and Peggy
It’s pretty extraordinary that Pete's and Peggy’s relationship changes greatly over the course of this episode, and that’s just the beginning of a journey that we’ve now witnessed over the course of four seasons.

When they first meet in Don’s office, he takes more than a moment to creepily assess her feminine charms, prompting new boss Don to apologize on Pete's behalf for his frat house charms. That very night, after Pete’s clumsy and overly aggressive moves are rejected by at least one Automat girl at his bachelor party, he mysteriously (see more on this ahead) shows up at Peggy’s apartment because he had to see her. A strange and engaging and romantic moment lingers, and then she invites him in.

“I’m living like there’s no tomorrow because there isn’t one.” – Don

Psychology

Research
Don’s mistrust of research and psychology is central to the episode. He chooses to ignore the findings of Sterling Cooper's research consultant with regard to society's unconscious motivations for smoking: in short, a “death wish.” It’s a concept that Don knows will be D.O.A. if presented to Lucky Strike and additionally he does not believe it.

Over time we learn the reason comes from a distrust of trained professionals probing his core motivations and beliefs. The truth, as we'll come to find out in forthcoming episodes, is that Don’s deepest fear is of having his true identity, Dick Whitman, revealed. This dynamic will be at play in many things that happen throughout the series – from Betty heading to therapy in Season One to Faye Miller’s findings as a research consultant in Season Four.

The Art of Advertising

Lucky Strike
The first half of the episode builds up to a critical meeting with Lucky Strike. Heading into the meeting, we know that Don has been scrambling mightily to come up with something to help calm the Lucky Strike executives’ nerves about combating creeping “health claims” related to smoking, but as yet he’s come up with zilch.

At the meeting, Roger queues up Don… and he has nothing. Pete jumps into the vacuum and fumbles badly (proving for Don and for us that when in doubt, sometimes doing nothing is best – which would match Francine’s advise to a newly pregnant and frazzled Betty in Season Two), offering up the “death wish” claim that came out of research.

It’s very rare that we see Don ruffled and without a clear idea of what to do when it comes to matters professional in Season One, so it’s a treat to see him so at a lack for words here, only to be seized by supreme inspiration after Pete unintentionally takes a bullet for him as his death wish pitch figuratively dies.

The figure who can be thought of as Don Draper, Master of the Universe, swoops in and saves the day with a truly wizard-like pitch in which he convinces both the Garners and the audience that he has the one and only idea that will win the hearts and minds of the Lucky Strike consumer (this of course is intentionally ironic in that while we cheer Don’s victory wholeheartedly, it’s a victory that supports the tobacco industry and smoking, not the most popular of ideas generally speaking these days!).

Don is able to redefine the entire conversation, along with Lucky Strike’s advertising strategy, by pivoting the sales pitch from one in which Lucky Strike convinces you that smoking is healthy (or at least not deadly) to why its product is better than the other cigarettes available. It’s a classic conversation-shift that allows Lucky Strike to persuade on its own terms. In short: it's toasted.

As Don reels in the Garners, he moves on to reveal his philosophy about advertising (it’s based on one thing: happiness). This is how Don Draper, the construct as conjured into being by Dick Whitman, chooses to see the world. And it also sheds light on the coming decade, one in which the United States looks relentlessly forward as societal and technological and political forces accelerate.

In the meantime though, Don gets his big win, which is more than enough reason for drinks and celebrating to ensue in Don’s office.

History

Cigarettes
This is a time when cigarette smoking is the norm and things like warning labels, No Smoking signs, and fines for smoking in public parks are unheard of. However, it’s clear that change is on the horizon, and Don and Sterling Cooper have been tasked with holding off those changes – on behalf of Lucky Strike and American Tobacco – as long as possible.

Social Issues

The role of gender
Men and women in 1960 – even in a progressive city like New York – have very different roles than they do today. When Peggy arrives at Sterling Cooper for her first day, the men generally treat her like a piece of fresh meat (save Don himself, importantly) while the women, and chiefly Joan, fully expect her to use her working hours and career with as a means to find an upwardly mobile man.

All the positions of power are filled by men while the women serve as secretaries and switchboard operators. Joan as office manager is the highest ranking woman, but even she is treated as mainly an underling in the Sterling Cooper operation.

Race and class
From the first scene, when Don has a conversation with an African American busboy named Sam about cigarettes, we’re clued into the very different place that people of color have at this time, particularly relative to the white men who hold positions of power. On a DVD commentary track, Mathew Weiner notes that these “parallel universes” are one of Mad Men’s main themes.

Technology

Typewriters
It’s hilarious from the standpoint of our modern day perspective to hear Joan caution Peggy about not being intimidated by all of the high technology in the office as she waves to an ancient-looking IBM typewriter and a delightfully quaint rotary telephone.

Religion

Not on my watch
It’s easy to see that the positions of power at Sterling Cooper are occupied by white men. But very quickly we learn that they are all Christian as well. Don is defensive when Roger asks if any Jewish people are employed by the firm. That is one of a number of casually racist or anti-Semitic moments that we’ll see throughout the episode. Of course, Sterling Cooper is happy to cash checks that come from Menken's, a "Jewish department store," and later the firm goes after the Israeli Tourism Bureau in “Babylon.”

Politics

Consider the product
1960 is many years off yet from being what we popularly think of as “the ‘60s” today. In fact, Dwight D. Eisenhower is still president as the series opens as John Kennedy and, after the Republican primary season concludes, Richard Nixon compete to succeed him. As it so often does, Mad Men flips our expectations when we hear Roger tell Don about a youthful and good looking Navy hero. We’re supposed to think about John Kennedy here all the way, but Roger is talking about Nixon instead.

Politics plays a role throughout the series, though Matthew Weiner and company are very careful to make this a story about three-dimensional characters who are affected by politics and culture, as opposed to the other way around.

Moments of Hilarity

Not so fast
David Cohen, a last minute addition to the Menken’s meeting due solely to the fact that he’s Jewish, lunges for the Bloody Mary pitcher just after things go up in flames and Don storms out of the room. He then sees Roger looking at him unhappily, and puts it back down. Go ahead David, we want to say. Pour yourself a drink. What’s Roger going to do, fire you?

The meeting that coughs together…
When Lee Garner, Jr. coughs during the Lucky Strike meeting, everyone else coughs as well in the completely transparent gesture to not make it seem like smoking – which everyone around the table is doing – actually makes you cough.

Iconic Sights

The series opens on a shot in which we see Don Draper’s back. Matthew Weiner notes in a DVD commentary that director Alan Taylor is “obsessed with the back of peoples’ heads.” Who is this guy, we wonder? And really much of the series is concerned with answering the question: who is Don Draper?
From the top of the Sterling Cooper building (a fictional location in the Madison Avenue of 1960) we look down and see the army of worker ants and classic automobiles and taxis down below as a jazz riff swings away.
We get our first sight of the picturesque Draper home in Ossining (replete with red door!) only at the very end of the episode. It’s not a surprise that Don has nice digs, but obviously it’s a bit of a shock to see that Don is in fact married and has a pair of children at home to boot. We know now that this is a guy with a lot going on, and that we’ve only yet begun to scratch the surface.
Director Alan Taylor notes in a DVD commentary that Mad Men's opening credits sequence attempts to capture a mood of existential unease.

Production Notes

“Smoke Gets in Your Eyes,” is unique in that it was filmed in New York City, whereas every other episode has been shot in Los Angeles.
While the Sterling Cooper office design is period specific – as is just about every set and prop used on the show – it is designed to be accessible enough for a modern audience that it looks and feels like an office that could still be in use today.
Elisabeth Moss, brilliant throughout as Peggy Olson, was the first actor cast for the show.
Many of the gorgeous and striking exterior shots that we see were done in such a way so as to avoid things that would look anachronistic for the 1960 setting of the episode.
The “It’s Your Wedding Night” pamphlet that Peggy reads when Dr. Emerson enters the examination room is a reproduction of real health care literature of the period.
Every actor on Mad Men, no matter how famous coming in, had to audition for his or her role.
Both the opening scene of the episode, in which Don inquires about the smoking habits of Sam the bus boy, and the scene in which Don meets Rachel to ostensibly kiss up and make nice, are filmed at the Lennox Lounge in New York City’s Harlem.
Speaking of locations, Midge’s apartment and Peggy’s apartment were shot down the hall from each other in a midtown Manhattan apartment building (and Peggy’s apartment – in which we only get a peek in from the door – is actually a broom closet!).
“It’s toasted” is a real cigarette advertising slogan that predates the era that Mad Men takes place in.
The train that we see Don taking home at the end of the episode is not a train at all – it’s a simply a piece of Plexiglas that we see Don sitting behind.

“Advertising is based on one thing: happiness.” – Don

Questions and Tidbits

There’s a lot of debate about the significance of Don looking up at the ceiling in his office and seeing a fly trapped within the fluorescent lights. It can represent the fact that Don Draper inhabits a deeply detailed and rich world that looks and feel as real as any show has on television (and at a remarkably modest production budget to boot). Or it might be symbolic of Don being “trapped” within his position in society, a “man in a gray flannel suit” amongst countless others, or more specifically that he is trapped in the artificial persona of Don Draper, waiting to be caught and found out for who he really is.
Remarkably, the entire pilot episode takes place over the course of about 24 hours. If nothing else, we can see that Don packs a lot into a day, including romantic relations with his mistress, storming out of a meeting with a potential client, working in a “new girl” on his desk, sparring with a junior executive on the accounts team, saving the entire firm with a brilliant and bold advertising strategy with a key client, fending off the flirtations of the new girl, flirting over drinks with a new love interest, and finally arriving back at his enormous suburban home to kiss his wife and two children good night. All in a Don Draper day!
The picture of the woman Pete Campbell glances at lovingly is not of Allison Brie, who plays Trudy Campbell. The role had not yet been cast at the time of the filming of the pilot episode.
If only to prove out how ubiquitous smoking is in the world of this show, Dr. Emerson’s cigarette blazes away throughout Peggy’s examination.
We learn that Don’s secretary who predated Peggy is named Eleanor and that she was fired, though we never learn exactly why.
Even though we only meet Betty Draper for a brief moment in the pilot and spend most of our time with Don in Manhattan and at Sterling Cooper, Joan’s initial advice/career guidance to Peggy is ironic as we’ll soon see how unhappy and even imprisoned Betty and the other housewives in Ossining feel.
With each passing season, all the major characters evolve in different ways. It’s one of the things that makes Mad Men consistently feel fresh and surprising and organic. No one seems more different between the standpoint of Seasons One and Four (or 1960 to 1965 in story terms) though than Peggy. She’s a greenhorn in this episode, fresh out of secretarial school and eager to make it in the Big City.
It’s incredible to see Midge in "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" and to see her role in Don’s life circa 1960 from the perspective of knowing what happens to her seasons and years later (in story terms) at the tail end of Season Four. In the ironically titled “Blowing Smoke.” Midge’s free spiritedness and live-in-the-moment lifestyle tragically descends into a prison of heroin addiction. But back in Season One and 1960, we can enjoy her for who she is at that time.
One of the enduring mysteries of Mad Men is how Pete Campbell knew how to find Peggy Olson’s apartment. It’s after his bachelor party, and it’s the night of Peggy’s first day working at Sterling Cooper. He tells her that he had to see her, and she lets him in. One theory proposes that Peggy and Pete had actually known each other well before the beginning of the series and simply pretended not to recognize one another at the office. However, it doesn’t seem likely that we’re going to get more insight on this, and we’ll simply have to assume that Pete used his knowledge that Peggy lives in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn to circumnavigate his way to her house. Or, perhaps he simply used Kurt’s Season Two method of finding her apartment: neighbors.

“Ladies’ Room”
Season One, Episode Two

While “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes” focuses tightly on Don Draper and introduces us to the world of Mad Men through his eyes, we spend a relatively large chunk of time away from him during “Ladies’ Room” as the story lens widens to focus on Betty Draper and her domestic life in Ossining, and Peggy Olson as she attempts to adjust to office life at Sterling Cooper. These story decisions pay off grandly over the course of the season as we get to further invest ourselves in many characters from the large cast.

While Don and his creative team at Sterling Cooper try to figure out “what women want” in order to better sell products to them, we see Betty and Peggy struggle to figure out how they are supposed to act and what they are supposed to say while consistently being forced away from articulating what they actually want at home, at work, and in relationships.

“There’s that ego people pay to see.” – Midge to Don

In Which We Meet…

Mona Sterling (Talia Balsam) – Roger Sterling’s (age appropriate) wife.
Bert Cooper (Robert Morse) – An eccentric and wizened Sterling Cooper partner, one would be foolish to be lulled by the illusion that he’s the doddering elder statesman of the office.
Francine Hanson (Anne Dudek) – Betty’s neighbor and strongly opinionated friend.
Sally Draper (Kiernan Shipka) – The eldest of the Draper’s children, she takes on an increasingly important role over the course of the series.
Bobby Draper (Jared Gilmore) – Sally’s younger brother, he mostly gets to act cute and do things like ask Don if his daddy ate ham in Season One.
Dr. Arnold Wayne (Andy Umberger) – Betty’s distinctly untalkative psychiatrist.

“Ah… that’s where you’ve been.” – Roger to his glass of rye

Peggy Olson

Money riding on the outcome
By our modern standards, the way in which Kenny, Harry, and Dale brazenly hit on and demean Peggy during her lunch outing at the diner would be cause for the easiest case of sexual harassment ever. However, the gender roles of the time are such that Peggy and Joan are barely even able to acknowledge how badly these boys behave themselves.

To wit, Harry mentions that Peggy has prompted an office bet, with money on the line. Peggy innocently asks if she is eligible to win, and Dale snidely and suggestively remarks that he hadn’t considered paying her. And to make things even more outrageous by modern norms, Ken pulls Peggy aside a moment later and tries to persuade her to take the afternoon off to spend some (cozy) time with him.

Of course, the girls volunteered to tag along on this little social outing and received a free lunch out of it. And we see that it is treated merely as “just another day at the office” circa Sterling Cooper 1960. But we also see that it begins to take its toll on Peggy, who is as yet naïve to the ways of office life in the big city.

Peggy and Paul
Later in the episode, after a few charming if unsuccessful advances, Paul Kinsey full on throws himself at Peggy in his office. He even suggests that they can pull his office couch behind the door (ironically, Pete will pull the same move on Peggy, more successfully in his case, when he returns from his honeymoon). His advance fails, and it’s telling that Paul understands his rejection in terms of Peggy “belonging” to someone else.

Peggy becomes ruffled at being eyed at as “dessert” by all the men of the office and soon after becomes snippy with Joan about it. But it’s interesting – and Mad Men is expert at working on these kinds of multiple levels – that she has already hit on her own boss if but shyly and slept with Pete on the night of his bachelor party.

By the end of the episode, we get the sense that Peggy is ready to grow a thicker skin (by necessity) – it’s a subtle but telling moment when she enters the ladies’ room and pulls herself together as opposed to another woman, who is crying.

Betty Draper

Isolation
We get the first hint that not all is peaches and cream in the Draper household when Betty tells Mona Sterling that she’s having a hard time managing things at home and that her mother had passed away recently. In a modern context, we would expect some tinge of sympathy or concern from Mona, the wife of Betty’s husband’s boss. Instead, she stares at her sort of blankly, almost as though Betty had just said “I yearn to climb trees” in Swahili. It’s an indication that there are many things in this era that simply “aren’t discussed,” and helps to reinforce the notion that if Don is alone in many ways, Betty is really alone.

Additionally, it seems likely that Betty’s mother’s passing has left her unmoored and exacerbates the feelings of isolation and dislocation that she is experiencing.

Shaky hands
Betty’s hands have been shaking, and it causes her to get into a minor accident with the kids in the car. Don’s fear of his true identity being found out causes him to have a completely negative opinion of psychology (or: that is what Dick Whitman has programmed Don Draper to think), even in the face of having a wife who clearly needs medical attention that traditional medicine can’t diagnose. And in fact he becomes angry with her over it.

Later, Don relents. Betty gets what she wants (at first) but she’s forced into a game of not truly saying what she needs to get it. And we sense that this is the case for her in many things.

Don Draper

Identity issues
It’s ironic that Don is an ad man who can sell any product but gets very uncomfortable talking about himself. At dinner, he brushes off Roger’s playful prodding about his past. Later in the car with Betty, he declares that talking about oneself too much is a sin of pride. It’s likely that Don has convinced himself of such values, but in truth he has constructed this worldview to avoid sticky issues that could divulge his true identity. The next morning, Betty leans over a sleeping Don and we sense that she doesn’t know her husband very well at all.

One of Mad Men’s big picture questions is: who is Don Draper? He’s largely incapable of answering it, even if he wanted to. And this gets him into trouble at times, such as early in Season Four when he performs terribly in an interview with Advertising Age that is supposed to help promote the newly formed Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce.

Existential dilemma
Midge represents a potential escape hatch for Don and a temporary one at that when he’s with her. He’s being truthful with her in implying that while he has everything – the powerful job, the kids, the trophy wife, the huge suburban home – it may well be better to live without that burden or responsibility. And of course he’s being unknowingly condescending about it all at once as he considers aloud whether she has everything or nothing.

But even so Don has set up his life in a way that should his true identity be exposed, he could well pull a disappearing act in an emergency. Thus the locked desk drawer in his home office, the deliberate absence of a contract with Sterling Cooper, and even having women such as Midge and (eventually) Rachel “stashed” in Manhattan.

“You can always tell when a woman’s writing copy, but sometimes she just might be the right man for the job, you know?” – Paul

American Life, ‘60s-style

Safety issues
In quick succession, we see the following things: Betty’s friend Francine smoking while (very) pregnant, and little Sally Draper running into the kitchen with a plastic bag from a dry cleaner draped over most of her body. We expect Betty to get upset or scold her daughter for doing something obscenely dangerous by today’s standards. Instead she simply warns her daughter about leaving mommy’s dresses on the floor of her closet.

This is one of those “nods and winks” that Matthew Weiner and crew throw to the audience in the early going of the first season in particular. The idea being sent is that while much of what we see and hear feels fairly close to what we see and hear in modern day life, there are important differences that really set this world apart from our own. And of course many of them are quite funny!

Conformity
Gossipy Francine is appalled that a divorcée (Helen Bishop, who we get a quick glimpse of as Betty is driving) and her son Glen are moving into the neighborhood. The idea of a divorced mother living nearby clearly makes both Francine and Betty nervous as it reminds them that the concept of the perfect family unit with perfect husband, well adjusted kids, and a white picket fence is an illusion.

Technology

Right Guard
It’s always fun to see technology that is completely taken for granted today – such as an aerosol can that sprays stuff when you press the dispenser – cause amazement and delight when it is revealed to Mad Men characters. Perfect case in point is when Don’s team checks out Right Guard by Gillette, a Sterling Cooper client, for the first time. In fact, it’s cause for frat-house style antics, with Ken Cosgrove getting pinned down by his peers so that the product can be “tested.”

Politics

Politics and advertising
The Nixon campaign for the 1960 presidential campaign comes up once again in this episode. Sterling Cooper is interested in attracting the lucrative advertising dollars that presidential campaigns need to spend, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that there are any partisan attachments involved. In fact, Bert Cooper tests Don by asking who he backs and Don replies that he doesn’t vote. Bert happily concurs –for Cooper the pure advertising animal is one that doesn’t take the side except for the one where the dollar signs lie.

Psychology

To quack or not to quack
We get our first taste of Dr. Arnold Wayne, Betty’s psychiatrist. He’s prone to saying… well, nothing save the occasional prompt to talk more about a topic. Don’s accusations of quackery for the profession don’t seem to be too far off in this case.

We get a very surprising reveal at the end of “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes,” when we see Don come home and we learn that he has a wife and kids. In this episode, Don comes home with Betty, heads off to his study, and calls Dr. Wayne to have a chat about his wife’s therapy session. So Don is ironically complicit in his accusations of quackery!

The Art of Advertising

The creative process
Don shuts down Paul’s pitch for Right Guard, which features an astronaut. It’s here where Don channels that part of himself that produces a combination of awe and terror from his employees. He goes into a sort of reverie in which he muses about what women want, and lands on the cowboy archetype. In short: try again boys.

This is a distillation of the mystery of both the creative and sales process. You have to sell your team with the hope that you can then sell your client. And the final expected outcome is to sell the customer on the pitch. It’s also a moment where we get insight into Don’s mysterious creative process.

Shake down
Paul takes Peggy on a quick tour of the office, giving her the run down on how ad agencies work. It’s all about selling media, he explains, at a 15% markup. Copywriter Paul must also take the time to point out that while account executives are always good at something, it’s not advertising.

The female demographic
“Who cares,” Roger says derisively when Don asks what women want. Don is looking for the key to sell women – he knows they are the ones making many of the purchasing decisions for households – but Roger is in a mood to be philosophical and a little bit bitter. He goes on to expound on the fact that in fact women want “everything,” and are never satisfied with the presumptive luxury that the men in their lives provide. The irony of course is that we see men discussing what women want throughout the episode with nary a woman (save for Midge, who sneers at the idea of the question) in sight to help them out!

Arts and Entertainment

The Twilight Zone
As Paul takes Peggy for a grand tour around Sterling Cooper, he vamps into an impression of The Twilight Zone’s host Rod Serling as he talks about Pete Campbell. The Twilight Zone is one of the most famous television shows of all time, and ran on CBS for five seasons from 1959 to 1964. An anthology series that produced masterful one-act science fiction plays (linked by Serling as the ever mysterious host) that often showcased sharp social and political commentary within its outlandish concepts, it also featured many of the biggest television and movie stars of the era.

Jack Kerouac
There’s a nice name drop when Midge mentions offhand that she has to attend a reading wherein she expects Jack Kerouac not to show up. By 1960 Kerouac was famous (his hit novel, On the Road, was published in 1957) and well down the road of alcoholism and self-destruction that will eventually kill him.

People Are Funny
Before Midge unceremoniously tosses her portable television set out her window, she asks Don if he has seen the show, People Are Funny (and later we see Sally and Bobby watching the very same show at home). It was a radio and television show that ran throughout the 1940s up until 1960. Something of an early game show-meets-reality show, it featured bits such as picking a random name out of a phone book and seeing how long a contestant could keep them on the line. Richard and Sal from The Howard Stern Show would be proud!

Moments of Hilarity

Fireball
After Don, Roger, and Bert discuss the sensitivities of going after the Nixon campaign, we see a plume of fire behind the office wall in the far ground, followed by a muffled scream. Cooper then turns to leave and we notice that he is wearing socks for the first time (but not nearly the last). Finally, we see Peggy, still very much Don’s “new girl,” looking on. It’s a funny moment that shows off a bit of wacky and eccentric elements at play at Sterling Cooper.

Over the edge
When Don inquires about how Midge came to own a television set – an object quite out of place in her beatnik apartment – she stands up, picks it up, and promptly tosses it out her apartment window. It’s a funny and surprising moment, but also reveals Midge as spontaneous and more than a little bit impulsive. And on a deeper level, she is anxious to maintain the status quo – the implication is that a “friend” has given her a gift – in her relationship with Don.

Iconic Sights

This episode debuts the “new” Sterling Cooper set (the one used in the pilot was shot in New York City), which serves as the location for so much action and drama over Mad Men’s first three seasons.
We also see the Draper’s kitchen with its amazing plaid wallpaper, another central location of drama and intrigue and gossip for action taking place in Ossining.
There are more great shots of the backs of actors heads in this episode – Don smoking and drinking in his office (much like the image in the opening credits), as well as Peggy at her desk.

Production Notes

Alan Taylor directed the first two episodes of Mad Men and does much to help establish the visual style of the series.
“Ladies’ Room” was shot in April 2007, an entire year after “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes,” the series pilot, was filmed. During that time the production was moved from New York City to Los Angeles, where it has remained since. Ironically, Los Angeles provides many exterior locations that have a look and feel that is evocative of the 1960s.
Talia Balsam, who plays Mona Sterling, is married in “real life” to her on screen husband (circa early Mad Men seasons) John Slattery.
The men’s’ ties are of course skinny, early ‘60s style, with the end stopping short two inches above the belt.
As for the ladies, many of the dresses come replete with girdle and “pointy bra.”
All of the innumerable cigarettes smoked on the show are of the herbal variety (read = no actual tobacco inhaled during the filming of Mad Men).
Michael Gladis, who plays Paul Kinsey, actually played a different role as written for “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.” On a DVD commentary track that accompanies the episode, Gladis notes that in the year between the first and second episode’s production, the character of Paul was created and Gladis picked up from where his slightly more generic predecessor left off.

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Introduction (or: what A Mad Men Mixer is and what it is not)

“Smoke Gets in Your Eyes”Season One, Episode One

“Ladies’ Room”Season One, Episode Two

“Smoke Gets in Your Eyes”
Season One, Episode One

“Ladies’ Room”
Season One, Episode Two