For those who haven’t gotten around to viewing the season opener of Mad Men, here’s your spoiler alert. As for the rest of us, could it get any darker—or sleazier? Don’s commitment to Megan has come to an end. No matter that he is married to a sex-bomb of a wife. As a colleague once put it, “Show me the most beautiful woman in the world and I’ll show you a guy tired of f—g the most beautiful woman in the world.” Megan, a rising star in her own right, no longer interests Don. And he seems to be using his multilayered identity as an excuse for his infidelity. Or something like that. Now it’s 1968, and it’s only going to get worse.
On a lighter note, Smirnoff seems to be the new vodka of choice at SCDP—a step up from last season’s Kamchatka. A box of it can be seen in a closet, and when Roger learns his mother has died, he pours himself and his secretary a couple glasses of Smirnoff on the rocks. (Roger has tended to prefer the white spirits. He’s often seen drinking a Gibson. During his acid trip he helps himself to a bottle of Stolichnaya, which was distributed by Pepsi in a swap.) By 1967, vodka had already overtaken gin as the clear spirit of choice. In another 10 years, it’ll be more popular than bourbon, Scotch, or whiskey.
There were two liquor ads of note during this episode: One for SKYY (notice the emphasis on just plain, pure SKYY vodka and not some fruit flavor varietal) and the other for Johnnie Walker starring the, um, mesmerizing Christina Hendricks.
Photo by Michael Yarish/AMC