Everyone’s favorite retro-chic primetime dramedy is back. After nearly two years of TV silence, Madison Avenue’s rapscallion ad men return to a place and time seething with political tension which threatens to upend the status quo which makes the hard-drinking, womanizing practices of many “Mad Men” possible.
As a prologue, the first scene of the March 25 premiere opens in the office of Young and Rubicam, a rival advertising firm whose copy writers heckle black protesters marching in the street below for equal-opportunity employment. The ad men resort to dropping paper bags full of water on the protesters, causing a debacle between one family and the firm. This incident echoes throughout the episode as an opportunity for Sterling Cooper Draper Price to capitalize off Y&R’s faux pas, ah, but such vengeful tactics often yield a mixed bag of an outcome. The curtain rises on Sally Draper, who greets her father and new stepmother in their bedroom, the latter of whom is still in the buff to the subtle chagrin of Don’s daughter. We learn this is his fortieth birthday, and throughout the episode this theme of aging and possibly retiring his paramour persona looms over the titan of Madison Avenue as he broods.
Meanwhile the staff of Sterling Cooper Draper Price stays just afloat. With old accounts bucking the new ideas of young stars like Peggy Olson, whose suggestion of a marriage between ballet and baked beans gets kiboshed as too artsy, it falls on senior partners to bring new blood into the fold. Joan Harris plans her return from maternity leave, yet finds she may not have a position to which to return.
A parallel between the financial dire straits perceived by the employees and partners of SCDP and the black protesters who become a key back story to the season premiere (and ostensibly for the season to come). While the suburbanite partners live in plush comfort and worry about the money for a new swimming pool, the protesters simply want jobs that pay a decent wage, and as the Jeffersons would say a few short years later, “a piece of the pie.” The all-white office of SCDP is forced to accept the possibility of losing their dream jobs and taking up less pleasurable work, bringing them closer to the racially-divided protesters and jobs seekers.
The highlight of season five’s premiere comes during a party for Don Draper’s birthday, during which his new wife Megan sings Gillian Hills’ “Zou Bisou Bisou,” along with a routine that skirts the line between cabaret and classy lap dance. Since first airing, the song trended on Twitter and distributor Lionsgate has released a single of actress Jessica Paré’s rendition digitally and vinyl. The performance also causes a great deal of commentary from the office, and effectively ends the Drapers’ honeymoon phase as they assess their relationship.
Season five promises a look into the waning ’60s as political complacency became impossible and issues such as racial integration and the Vietnam War effort unavoidable. As with events such as Kennedy’s election and assassination, the historical context of the show is never used as a medium for commentary by the show’s writers, but rather as a capsule which offers a glimpse into various characters’ reactions to these events. SCDP has remained detached from politics except when a lucrative deal comes along, such Nixon’s 1960 campaign in the first season, but the firm and the minds behind it have stepped into new territory where objectivity may not be an option.
