Like 30 Rock and Downton Abbey, Mad Men is one of “those shows”: if you don’t watch it, all your friends do, so you might as well keep up so you can understand the references. The hit AMC drama about 1960s advertising executives returned last night after a painfully long hiatus, and in case a two-hour premiere was a little much in between club meetings and problem sets, here’s a summary of where our favorite characters stand at the start of Season 5.
General: The show’s timeline has jumped ahead about seven months; it’s just after Labor Day in 1966, and the episode opens with a few childish ad execs at a rival firm dropping water bombs on civil rights protesters, an incident that prompts Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce to take out an ad in the Times proclaiming themselves “An Equal Opportunity Employer.” The episode ends with the hiring of an African-American secretary, suggesting that this season Mad Men will tackle race issues head-on for the first time.
Read on after the jump for more details on your favorite characters.
