After 10 months of nothing, apropos, the sixth season of Mad Men opens with death.
Via a startling POV shot, it turns out that we are that dying man. "Hang in there!" implores our doctor, pounding feverishly on our chest.
Alas, the screen goes black.
When the fade returns, we're on a Hawaiian beach, getting a read from Dante's Inferno. If hell is other people, then don't tell Dick Whitman Don Draper. After all, he's on vacation with his lovely second wife, Megan.
Heck, even Elvis gets invoked:
But as Slate's Seth Stevenson duly noted to Hanna Rosin and Paul Ford:
Death and its portents were everywhere in tonight's episode-from Jonesy the doorman's heart attack; to little Bobby likening a violin case to a coffin; to Roger Sterling's mother and shoeshine guy passing away in the same week; to Don pitching a luxury beachside resort by imagining a man vanishing into the waves. "Heaven's a little morbid," insists Don to the Sheraton guys. "How do you get to heaven? Something terrible has to happen."
Perhaps that's why later on a very much wasted Draper questions Jonesy, "What did you see when you died?"
Or, as Ross Scarano put it for Complex, "Don Draper's Pretty Face Is Going To Hell."
Either way, Pete Campbell has sideburns now...and they look amazing!
Until next Sunday, watch Executive Producer Matthew Weiner and cast discuss how the characters of Mad Men have changed since we last saw them:
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