Mad Men: Season Two DVD: Review By Brian Gallagher

This set had been haunting me for months, ever since I dug in and reviewed the first season set. It was always there, taunting me to watch with this slick shirt-and-tie packaging since early November. Sadly, work began to pile up all through the holidays and, after being thoroughly addicted to the first season, I knew this wasn't something I could just watch a little bit at a time: I had to hammer through this set. Now that we've all settled in to this new decade of ours, the time was right to dig into the latest season full of Don Draper and the rest of the guys and gals at Sterling Cooper and I was reminded right away of how amazing this series really is.

While the first season took place in the pivotal year of 1960, Season 2 skips us ahead a year as we start the season on Valentines Day of 1962 and, obviously, a lot has changed. Carefully shown throughout the subtext of the latest Madison Avenue ventures of Sterling Cooper are subtle hints on how society was starting to radically change, for better or worse... depending on who you are. One of the main motifs this season is that the women are slowly starting to transform into the women we'd see possibly burning their bras in later years. The women are starting to realize that they aren't happy being doll-like housewives, and this season starts to show the small little baby steps that women are taking that will lead into the "women's lib" or "feminist" movements. We see a lot of this in January Jones' Betty Draper, right off the bat in the first episode, even, where she uses her charm on a tow truck man to scam him into fixing her car on the cheap. Yes, Betty still seems to be having issues with automobiles this season... While the first season obviously had to set up characters and storylines, they still did a wonderful job of painting the picture of the era this was set in and, in Season 2, they focus more on moving these complex characters forward, with an even keener sense of the time period this is taking place in. Along with Betty's issues, we delve deeper into Elizabeth Moss's Peggy and her increasingly complex life - with no one at the firm knowing she had a child (and what happened to that child...) - and see her advance even more at the firm throughout the season. We still see plenty of the wonderful Christine Hendricks and her character Joan Holloway as she starts to settle down with a new man as well and we see how all of these women, individually, react to the subtle changes happening around them. Jones, Moss and Hendricks are all as fantastic as they were in the first season, and prove that they can tackle anything these wonderful writers throw at them and their intriguing characters.

The men on the show go through quite a few changes as well, as we see more than one seemingly idyllic little marriage start to crumble, or at least show some signs of wear and tear that you just wouldn't have seen a few years prior. Vincent Kartheiser's Pete Campbell is having trouble conceiving with his wife, which plays out in many compelling ways, they give us a few more subtle hints at Bryan Batt's "identity crisis" as well throughout the season, including some very subtle interactions with Aaron Stott's Ken Cosgrove, we see Michael Gladis' Paul Kinsey continue in his quest to be artistically and sociologically unique, with the revelation that he has a black girlfriend, Rich Sommer's Harry Crane, the one out of the group who seemed to get the least amount of respect, makes some changes to improve his station in life and the outstanding John Slattery's Roger Sterling just seems to get better and more intriguing with every drink he takes. We also see a much bigger role played by Mark Moses' Duck Phillips this season, which takes some masterful turns, especially towards the end of the season. That, of course, leaves the towering performance, once again, by Jon Hamm as the uber-mysterious Don Draper. While, by season's end, it's quite clear that we still have MUCH more to learn about the most compelling character on television, we get just enough terrific tidbits to keep us going. As hard as last season was to top, I think Hamm surely topped himself with this season and I can't wait to see him do it again in Season 3. It's also worth noting that, while this show doesn't deliver many high-powered guest stars, we do get a familiar face this season with Colin Hanks guest-starring as a young new priest at Peggy's church, who strikes up a unique relationship with Peggy.

Everything I've said above is, quite literally, the tip of the iceberg when it comes to each and every one of these characters, and it truly astounds me at how not only this is the most intriguing and compelling straight-up drama on TV in decades, but how amazingly balanced this show has proven to be. To say I'm impressed by series creator Matthew Weiner and his writing staff is such an absurd understatement, I'm not sure I even have the words to describe it. Its one thing to have a season full of wonderful dramatic material, and it helps that there are fantastic actors fleshing out these characters as well. But to AGAIN demonstrate such balance in the show as a whole, with an ensemble cast that even keeps growing and to still be able to let each character develop further throughout the season, while at the same time delivering well-researched, relevant, specific (and obscure) references to the year this is taking place and delivering rich, amazing fictional storylines while tying everything together in 13 episodes... well, that's the TV equivalent of moving mountains, as far as I'm concerned.

Mad Men Season 2 does what I thought might have been impossible, which was to improve on the amazing first season. After just two seasons, I'm convinced this, at the very least, has the potential to be the greatest TV series of all time... and it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to say it has accomplished that already.

Like the first season, we get a stellar selection of bonus goodies here that gets started with a Mad Men Season 2 Music Sampler. We get 8 samples of tracks here from the Mad Men Season 2 soundtrack including tracks from such artists as Jack Jones, Perry Como and a nifty retro remix of "A Beautiful Mine," the Mad Men theme song, by Jim Jacobson. I honestly don't know why we can't get the full tracks here, but I'm assuming it's a price issue, since music for film and television is certainly not cheap. Oh well.

Next up is the first of a three-part feature, spread out through the first three discs called Birth of an Independent Woman and this is a rather informative feature with several notable historians, professors and many other people talking about the era that lead up to the changes in women that we saw on Mad Men Season 2. It's pretty interesting how this all lead up to this women's lib/feminism movements and even the root of the word "hysteria" which is rather interesting. It talks about Betty Freidan's 1963 book "The Feminine Mystique" and what that did for women all over the country and this 19-minute first part of this three-part featurette is rather interesting indeed.

Time Capsule - Historical Events of the 1960s is next, and this explores events from the 60s that were touched upon this season. The first is Jackie Kennedy's famous 1961 televised tour of the White House and this takes us on a nifty little virtual tour of Jackie O's famous restoration, complete with some elegant classical music for that Presidential touch on this three and a half minute tour. The next one deals with The Defenders, which was considered the most important TV drama of the 60s and the real-life show, in which they showed a doctor being arrested while performing an illegal abortion, mirrors the situation set up in one of the episodes this season, that lead to Harry becoming the head of the television department at Sterling Cooper. This one is a little over four minutes long and provides a very unique TV history lesson that I was previously unaware of.

The second disc starts off with Birth of an Independent Woman - Part 2 and we hear from mostly the same people we heard from before and we see some interesting stuff with how the women's movement ran parallel with the civil rights movement, with the movements going hand-and-hand with each other until a certain point when feminism just branched out on its own. They talk a lot about the changes of the women in the workplace and the sexual revolution as well along with some clips from the show that demonstrate these kinds of changes. This goes into abortions and all sorts of other intriguing elements and this 23-minute second-part is another wonderful featurette on this set.

An Era of Style is next and this is a little tour that we take with Mad Men costume designer through this era. We also hear from other experts about what influenced the fashion of the late 50s and early 60s and we even hear from current style experts about how the 60s style never gets old even today. There is also some really intriguing stuff about what killed the hat, the fedora for men when, at his inauguration, put his hat down to give his speech and sales declined ever since then. We hear a lot of other stuff about the President and First Lady and how they themselves influenced fashion. It moves into the modern movement, wanting to look younger, the advent of the mini-skirt and all sorts of stuff here on the fashion of one of the most unique fashion decades ever. There is some cool stuff, but this gets pretty long here. I'm not sure we needed a 21-minute glimpse at the fashion of the 60s, but there is some solid info here if fashion is your bag, baby.

We get another Time Capsule - Historical Events of the 1960s here, and this time we get four time capsules. The first one is for the Lutece Restaurant and this starts of with Chef Andre Soltner, who owned the Lutece Restaurant from 1961 to 1994 and is now an instructor at The French Culinary Institute in New York. We see a little cooking-show thing where he is preparing his Alsation Apple Tart, and also get some stuff opening the Lutece Restaurant, originally as a chef which lead into him owning the restaurant, and the kind of clientele that the restaurant attracted. Besides that they used the name of this actual restaurant in the show, there really isn't a lot of relevance here and, in case you want to know how to make this Apple Tart thing - which, to be fair, looks pretty damn awesome - I think you could skip this 10-minute time capsule. The next time capsule deals with another restaurant mentioned in the show, Sardi's Resaturant, and this one gives us more of a historical look at the restaurant by the current owner Max Klimavicius. He tells us that the owners opened this place during the Depression and he helped a lot of theater actors out during that time and now this legendary spot features tons of caricatures around the building featuring famous and non-famous people alike and, as Max tells us, you don't have to be famous to get a caricature, you just have to be a "friend of the house." Sadly though, we get back into the cooking crap again, as one of their chefs prepares one of their signature dishes, the Shrimp Sardi. This whole one only runs five minutes long, and isn't all about cooking, so that's good. The next Time Capsule is for Maidenform, which figures prominently into one of the episodes this season. We get another little history lesson here about the company and they also talk about the ad campaign that started in World War II and it talks about how companies like Playtex tried to mimic Maidenform's campaign. It's a decent little four-minute spot, and there's no cooking. The last time capsule deals with the film The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and this features a film historian talking about the themes of the film, which leads into one little throwaway line in one of the episodes where Pete Campbell is talking to Peggy Olson about the film, which came out in 1962, the year this season is set in. She makes a lot of these observations about how the film itself mirrors the themes of the show, and it's pretty interesting stuff, actually, and I'd definitely recommend watching this five-minute capsule over all the rest in this set because it is the one that actually ties in historical stuff to the show, besides the fact that they were simply mentioned on the show.

We don't get any features on the fourth and final disc and on the third disc, the last of these features are yet another series of Time Capsule - Historical Events of the 1960s and these, thankfully, tie into the show more than three out of the last four did. The first one is about the Port Huron Statement, which dealt with the sit-in's and civil rights protests that spread throughout the country, which is dealt with in the show with Paul and his girlfriend going to the south. We actually hear from the author of the Port Huron Statement, Tom Hayden, who talked about how he and others were inspired to head South and be a part of the fight in the Civil Rights Movement. Hayden and others talked about how they crafted this historic doc*ment and they talk about how that movement came full-circle with the election of President Obama. It's a very nicely-put-together six-minute capsule. The next capsule is Rothko Art, which is touched upon in an episode where Cooper has a Rothko piece of art hanging in his office and people aren't sure what to make of it. This piece tells us about how Rothko crafted his art and how influential his paintings were. It was interesting how this art historian tells us about how Rothko even wanted his paintings to be hung lower than most paintings, so the piece of art and viewer could be on the same level and a lot of other interesting things like that. It's a nice six-minute piece that puts this little aspect of an episode into context. The last capsule deals with Marilyn Monroe, whose death played an interesting part towards the end of the season. We hear from a USC historian who teaches a class on Marilyn Monroe and who tells us a bit about her life, but even more about the untimely circ*mstances of her death and her overall importance to pop culture then and now. It's a slick little four-minute capsule that ends these features nicely.

While we got some of this kind of material in the first season of Mad Men, this Second Season set doesn't have any of the "behind-the-scenes" or "making-of" featurettes that we saw on the first season set. Instead of doing garden-variety featurettes, they do a wonderful job of taking us back into the actual era that this show was set in, adding some wonderful context to the show that viewers like myself, who weren't even born in the 60s, can gain some understanding about some of the subtle nuances of the 60s they portray for us in the show. Like all great special features, the features on Mad Men Season 2 truly enhance the entire season with a wealth of knowledge that might not be common knowledge for many viewers. It's really wonderful to see a set like this that doesn't just clutter up the menu with mindless filler, but actually gives you something of significance and adds even more to the fantastic episodes throughout the set.

These 13 episodes are presented in the widescreen format, although it isn't specified what the aspect ratio is.

The sound is handled through the Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound format.

The first year it was the fancy Zippo packaging and this year they have fashioned this packaging with some more, well, fashion. The box is designed to look like a spiffy new shirt and tie combo (if you look closely at the label on the shirt, it reads Menken's...) with the title card on the clear plastic window. If you take off the top there is a fold-out that has all four discs and images from the show along with brief episode descriptions as well. The back has a nice, brief synopsis, a brief critic quote and a special features listing and tech specs. Another great packaging job for another great season.

Mad Men Season 2 is another astounding DVD set from the best and most important TV drama on the air right now. If you've never seen this show before, pick up both this and the first season and you'll find it hard to tear yourself away from the most compelling series I've seen in years.