Mad, mad, mad, mad men.

Howdy, Season 3!  A few thoughts on your first episode, “Out of Town”:

Joan, while obviously not featured in this episode, is still as smooth and steely as can be.  Her bits with Mr. “This place is a gynocracy” Hooker just filled me with glee.  She epitomizes, more than any other literary/TV/movie character I can think of, the idea of completely screwing someone over by giving them exactly what they asked for.  Exactly.

Don Draper is in great peril of turning into Roger Sterling, angsty early life or not.  The scene with the stewardess in the Baltimore hotel:  bored, boring.  Don looked distinctly uninterested, using the stewardess’ slow striptease as an easy exercise in disdain.  Contrast that with Sal’s shockingly abrupt (and interrupted, as was Don’s) encounter with the bellman, and, well.  Don finds both marriage and philandering dull these days; what will pique his interest again?

I feel genuinely bad for the character of little Sally Draper.  Just saying.

Was there ever a time when flight personnel were that interested in tossing themselves at randomly handsome men in suits?  I admit, I’ve always felt the allure of travel – the romance, the possibility, the ability to call yourself Bill and Sam instead of Don and Sal.  One of the first vaguely dirty things I snuck from my parents’ book collection Way Back When was a novel called “Coffee, Tea, or Me,” all about sexual hijinks in the sky (mostly between pilots and stewardesses, IIRC), and I think that warped my brain early.  Still:  to come onto the boys that hard, that quickly?  Flying has certainly changed.

And, finally, I’m reaaaally looking forward to seeing, in upcoming episodes, just how Pete & Peggy are getting along.  His “Olson?  She’s all over the place.” does not bode well.

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