DVD Flashback Friday is back after a brief hiatus (even TV bloggers need vacations sometimes) and I’m very excited to be talking about the second season of Mad Men! I reviewed season one back in July, and was completely taken by the show. The second season pulled me in even further. I’ve now become so invested in the characters – ones I like and ones I don’t – that I’m obsessed with where they will go from here. The characters on Mad Men are all so fascinating and layered. No one is perfect. Sure, I like Peggy – but can I forgive her for what she did to her baby? I love Joan too, but my boyfriend is right – she can be kind of a bitch. And Don. Oh, Don Draper. I never know what I think of him.

This season we witnessed the falling apart of Don and Betty’s marriage. Don began an affair with a woman named Bobbie, the wife of Jimmy, a famous comedian who was doing a commercial for one of Sterling Cooper’s clients. Jimmy Barrett sees what’s going on and alerts Betty to the affair, causing her to kick Don out of the house. Don went on a business trip to California with Pete and abandoned him to follow an exotic, flirtatious woman. The trip to California was one episode I didn’t really care for – it felt too disconnected from the rest of the show. The flashbacks to all the time Don had spent with the really Don Draper’s wife were very interesting, though. Just as Don finally returned to New York, Betty found out that she was pregnant. In the final episode Betty had an affair with a man in a bar (Captain Awesome from Chuck!), but toward the end of the episode she received a letter from Don making a plea to reconcile and she let him return home.

Peggy took a leave of absence after unexpectedly giving birth at the end of season one, and when she came back much thinner the guys correctly speculated that she’d had a baby. They incorrectly speculated that it was Don’s, using that to explain her professional rise. What I wondered was how Pete Campbell didn’t manage to put one and one together. He slept with Peggy…nine months later she mysteriously disappears and comes back much thinner. He didn’t even wonder?

Peggy had a fascinating storyline this season. Her professional rise in the office was really interesting, but so were the glimpses into her home life. Her relationship with her family and their devotion to the Catholic church was a great foil to Peggy’s professional ambitions. Peggy really came into her own this season, especially after getting advice from Joan and Bobbie on how to stand out and get ahead in a man’s world. Peggy got promoted after Freddy was fired for getting too drunk before a big presentation and wetting himself. Things continually improved for Peggy toward the end of the season. She got a makeover from Kurt, a gay, European artist who works with the firm. She then landed the Popsicle account almost single-handedly and used the opportunity to assert herself and ask Roger for the office that had been left empty by Freddy (she had been in the room with the photocopier). That move seemed to really declare that Peggy was to be taken seriously. In the finale, Peggy told Pete that he’d gotten her pregnant and she’d given up the baby.

In the early part of the season, Pete found out that his father had been killed in an American Airlines crash. And in typical Pete Campbell fashion, he ended up using the experience to try and convince American Airlines to give their account to Sterling Cooper to revamp their image. Later in the season we find out that Pete and his wife Trudy are having trouble conceiving. Pete proved himself to be an even bigger jerk than I’d thought when he totally shot down Trudy’s idea to adopt a child.

Joan cooled her romance with top dog Roger and began dating in search of a husband. It didn’t take her long – by mid-season Joan was engaged to a young and handsome doctor. Joan also worked briefly with the TV department and had a knack for the job, but they eventually gave the permanent position to a man. Joan’s fiancee turned out to be a troubled and violent man, and in the final episode he raped her inside Don’s office.

One of my favorite supporting characters is Harry, and the development of his character in the second season was great. After accidentally seeing Ken Cosgrove’s paycheck and discovering it was much larger than his own, Harry takes some advice from Sal and tries to make himself irreplaceable by heading up a new TV department. I’m interested to see what will happen with Sal’s character in the third season. After a young European man who worked in the office told everyone he was gay (he hadn’t thought it was a secret) the homophobia in the office was rampant, meaning it will be interesting if/when Sal is outed.

The final episode of season two focused on two major events: the Cuban Missile Crisis and the sale of Sterling Cooper to a British agency called Putnam, Powell and Lowe. The merger was orchestrated by Duck, who was declared president of the new company – and it all went down while Don was MIA after the California trip. Roger made a bundle of money (he needed it after dumping his wife and proposing to a young, beautiful secretary), as did Cooper – and Don didn’t do so badly either. But Duck’s vision for the company doesn’t match Don’s, and Don told everyone he didn’t want to be a part of it. When Duck exploded in anger and said Don would have to walk out on his contract, Don’s reply of “I don’t have a contract” was priceless.

The relationship between Peggy and Don is fascinating. When Don drunkenly got into a car accident with Bobbie, he called Peggy to bail him out. We also found out through flashbacks that Don had gone to see Peggy in the hospital after she had the baby and offered her some advice on moving forward. I can’t wait to see where this will go. I’m really excited to find out what will happen in season three – Will Sal get outed? What will happen now that Pete knows about the baby? Will Joan still marry the doctor? And what will go on at Sterling Cooper post-merger? I know a little, but I can’t wait to watch it all go down.