Pop!

I thought the episode reflected the confidence that Matthew Weiner earned in the off-season. The cinematography and editing were a lot bolder than last season. A few sequences were like The Sopranos in their boldness but, perhaps, a bit too bold.

Thematically, I thought the episode lost its way by almost hounding on some themes that had been handled much more subtly last season. (You ever hear those Soderbergh director's commentaries where he says he was worried something was "too on-the-nose"? I felt a lot of this episode was "on the nose.")

Weiner said in his big NYT profile that he didn't want his show to be like a TV show, but I thought the season premiere was very much like a TV show in terms of its lack of subtlety and willingness to shoehorn dialog into its thematic ambitions. For instance, Weiner tries to replicate his brilliant "Carousel" monologue with a similar bit about Mohawk Airlines. But the sequence doesn't quite work -- Weiner rushed into it without laying the groundwork. That scene would have fit in much better a few episodes from now. Mad Men works because of the tension under the surface. When the tension is brought too far above the suface, as it was in this episode, it doesn't resonate as deeply. (The ep was also very much like Far from Heaven, that Julianne Moore/Dennis Haysbert period piece that people couldn't shut up about a few years ago, although this episode, at least, was less deft.)

I think when Weiner settles down, the show's "on the nose" aspects will diminish. That said, the themes that he set up last season and is bringing to the fore this season -- primarily, the impending chaos of the middle- and late-1960s -- seem like fertile ground. I liked the scenes that show Draper not just disconcerted by the forces of chaos and hipsterism, but completely impotent against them: the elevator scene where he feebly removes the guy's hat, the scene in the bar where he lacks a retort, and so on. These strip away Draper's heroic affect and show him to be the cog in the machine that he is.

We see Betty going in a different direction. Rather than be repulsed by the chaos bubbling up from underneath, she is drawn to it. The emptiness she feels amidst the status quo is replaced by excitement as she begins to understand, maybe sub-consciously, the possibility of escape from her emotional coma. I thought the show chickened out a little in the scene with the tow truck driver, though. There was not enough threat or heat...The buzzing she would have felt in her head was not transferred to the audience strongly enough.

But, the episode did more firmly establish the unavoidable themes presented in the second half of last season. Let's hope, though, it's not week after week of more of the same. In other words: More plot, please!