‘Mad Men’ S7 Ep 1 recap: ‘This is the beginning of something’

When we left Don, Peggy and co. at the end of season six, there was the slightest hint of optimism in the air. Although Don had been suspended from the agency, and his reputation was in tatters, he finally opened up to his children by taking them to the whorehouse in which he grew up.

The last time we saw Peggy she was sitting in Don’s chair, and it looked like she was finally about to get the recognition she deserves after so many years at SC&P (or whatever they choose to call themselves this season).

However, Time Zones, the first episode of Mad Men’s two-year final season, dashed those hopes almost immediately. Don remains lost in a world that is changing at a faster rate than he can, and it’s safe to say that he’s floundering.

We meet up with Don again at LAX as he arrives for a weekend with Megan, whose acting career appears to be going from strength to strength. At first, things seem surprisingly good between them, although the moment Megan tells Don that she will be taking the driver’s seat shows clearly how the dynamics of their relationship have shifted in the two months that have passed.

Most fans had assumed that the (second) Draper marriage was dead in the water at the end of last season, but it seems like there will be more turbulence to come before ties are severed altogether, which feels kind of inevitable at this point.

Things aren’t looking too bright for Peggy either, as we realise that her position at the agency remains unchanged. She’s still fighting to be heard, but this time it isn’t Don, who has respect for her, whom she has to fight against. Lou, who is basically the boss from hell, has replaced Don and refuses to listen to any ideas that would involve anything other than the bare minimum effort.

Peggy’s final scene in the episode sees her break down alone in her apartment. Her brief meeting with Ted shows that there is still plenty of unresolved feelings there, despite Ted’s decision to move to Los Angeles and remain with his wife. Peggy has nobody to turn to, awful neighbours surround her, and her life at SC&P is the worst it’s been in a long time. Mad Men has always been as much as Peggy’s show as it has been Don’s, so these last 14 episodes will hopefully go some way to finding a resolution for Peggy. Maybe she’ll realise that Stan (and his amazing facial hair) have been there for her all along!

Joan is another focal point of this episode, as she does her best to keep Butler Footwear on the books. The moment Butler’s obnoxious new head of marketing asks Joan what he should do is a satisfying one. Joan and Peggy’s struggles as women in a patriarchal world has always been one of Mad Men’s greatest strengths, and both ladies got their time to shine in Time Zones.

The most fascinating moment of this week’s instalment has to be Don’s flight back to New York, where he meets an attractive brunette, played by Scream’s Neve Campbell. The scene is a strange one, but surely significant. Perhaps it was a dream sequence; it certainly had that feeling about it. Whether the scene was grounded in reality or not, it had a lot of important things to say about Don as we enter the home stretch.

Don has always used sex as a way of ignoring what is really wrong in his life, but the way he rebuffed his new friend suggests that he now realises it isn’t the answer to his problems. But if Don can’t turn to sex, then where can he turn? It opens up all sorts of possibilities for the remaining episodes.

“This is the beginning of something,” Freddy Rumsen tells us in the opening scene. Well, it’s the beginning of the end for Mad Men, and you’d have to be a brave man to bet on a happy ending at this point.

Mad Men airs on Wednesdays at 10pm on Sky Atlantic.

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