Review: 'Mad Men' Season 6 premiere

Death is knocking on Don Draper’s door.

Or, at least he thinks it is.

The sixth season premiere of AMC’s critical darling “Mad Men” finds our favorite philandering, antiheroic advertisement executive reading “Dante’s Inferno” on the beach in Hawaii — or maybe we’re supposed to recognize it as paradise. Series creator and writer Matthew Weiner lays the symbolism on thick as death and mortality haunts the entire episode. From his doorman’s heart attack to the passing of his co-worker’s mother, death abounds.

While Jon Hamm, always the faultless leading man, handles the material in strides, it becomes a touch repetitive. Don has struggled with this identity for five seasons now, so it would be pure romanticism to think he’d change a bit for season six. But what has changed is the medium through which Don deals with his crisis. Last season, he hesitated to celebrate a 40th birthday. Now, he imagines drifting off into the Hawaiian horizon and never coming back.

Someone please remind Don he has a ridiculously swanky Manhattan apartment, a job where he can drink and smoke to excess, plus a stunning French-Canadian actress wife.

But if the arc of this season is to be death, then let us not forget what has been the arc of the entire show. From Don’s long suffering ex-wife Betty Francis to Don’s young protégée turned ad executive Peggy Olson, “Mad Men” has truly revolved around the rise of feminism and the expansion of women’s roles, be them at home or in the workplace.

While Peggy is off on her own now, becoming more and more like the shark Don trained her to be, Betty continues to suffer in the home. It’s a dynamic parallel, especially given that neither woman is written or acted to be particularly likable. It’s their stories that have always been our eyes into this superfluous world of 1960s Manhattan.

And while I’m the first person to champion non-normative body types on television, can we please do away with Fat Betty Draper? It’s one thing to celebrate bigger bodied women on television — it’s another to make January Jones suffer through the fakey fat suit.

But narrative repetitions aside, you would be a fool to miss the cinematic experience that is watching “Mad Men.” It’s the rare show that transcends the television format and comes close to the level of artistic value usually left reserved for film.

While the individual episodes themselves have steady arcs, it’s a full season of “Mad Men” that must be experienced before an opinion can be formed. While other shows rely on episode-to-episode spark, “Mad Men” instead takes its time, easing into plots and allowing slow yet meticulous character development.

After all, it’s going to take time to see if Don Draper is on his way to meeting his maker.

By Dane McDonald