Pour Yourself a Stiff Drink: Mad Men Returns in April

We are mere weeks away from the Sunday, April 7 premiere of Mad Men, according to Martin Miller, writing for the LA Times. When we last saw our friends from Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, it was 1967. But creator/executive producer Matt Weiner is being vague about what’s next, as is his wont. He told Miller:

“I am going to skip ahead in time,” he said. “I won’t say how long, but the first two episodes are a movie unto themselves. And they do foreshadow what’s going to happen in the season. They do tell a story of the period and root you where you are in these people’s lives. But a lot has changed when the season opens up. A lot has changed.”

Are you ready to see Don Draper in the fashions of, say, 1971? Bell-bottoms and wide collars and double-knit polyester? Will Megan be listening to disco?

“We ended up with a story this season that seems very related to what our anxieties are right now,” he said. “The show seems to tap into an internal state that is based on anxiety, a loss of national self-esteem, an alienation that has been created from technology and a turning inward from the things you can’t control to the things you can.”

Wiener didn’t give any specifics about the two-hour premiere, but did confirm that this new season — season 6 — is the next to last; after this, there will be 13 final episodes. And this new season will see the return of Elizabeth Moss as Peggy. And Pete Campbell will not be committing suicide. As for what’s up with Don and Megan, we don’t know. But Wiener offers this:

“[Don] had a pretty dark season… He was trying to be happy… I wanted to see him in that domestic world and to take that marriage seriously and that was something we were interested in. What was the second marriage like? Was he going to do it right this time? That said, you have to assume that he’s right where he was at that moment, which is deliberately ambiguous and a bit of a cliffhanger: a man who had really tried on this coat, and really tried to live the fantasy of that relationship being the right relationship. Megan is filled with joy, she’s future-[facing], and she accepts him as he is. She definitely loves him, but she had her own will and that seemed to be hard on him. That told me a lot about Don.”

“So where is he going from there? I don’t know. Is he going to try and repair that relationship? Is going to move on from it? I can’t tell you. I would love for people to just watch the last 10 minutes of Season 5 right before Season 6 starts. I think you’ll have a really incredible experience as we get there.”

‘Mad Men’ sets April premiere date [Show Tracker/LA Times]
‘Mad Men’: Creator Matthew Weiner Shares 10 Facts About Season 6 [Daily Beast]