Television Review: For Those Who Think Young (Mad Men, S2x01, 2008)

For Those Who Think Young (S2x01)

Airdate: 27 July 2008

Written by: Matthew Weiner
Directed by: Tim Hunter

Running Time: 48 minutes

As Mad Men embarks upon its second season, it remains steadfast in a narrative pace that many contemporary viewers—accustomed to the relentless momentum of modern television—would describe as glacial. Yet this deliberate tempo is not a flaw but a deliberate aesthetic, one that the series compensates for with a bold structural gambit: leaping forward fifteen months. Where Season 1 meticulously dissected the world of 1960, Season 2 opens in February 1962, a decision that immediately heightens the sense of a society on the cusp. This temporal jump is not merely a convenient reset; it is the episode’s first and most profound statement about change, a theme that permeates every scene of For Those Who Think Young.

Matthew Weiner’s script precisely anchors the episode in history by establishing the date as 14 February 1962. The Valentine’s Day setting is more than a backdrop for failed romantic gestures; it is woven into the fabric of the episode through the ubiquitous cultural event of Jacqueline Kennedy’s televised tour of the White House. As the characters gather to watch, the First Lady’s curated vision of youthful, modern elegance becomes a national mirror, reflecting the very aspirations and anxieties the episode explores. The tour serves as a shared experience, a real-time historical anchor that contrasts sharply with the private disillusionments unfolding in the characters’ lives. This juxtaposition is classic Mad Men: public optimism versus private despair, with the medium of television itself acting as a reluctant herald of a new era.

The central motif, as the title declares, is youth—or more accurately, its perceived loss and the desperate desire to reclaim it. For Don Draper, this is triggered not by a spiritual epiphany but by a brutally mundane insurance-mandated physical. The doctor’s verdict that he must start taking care of himself because, at 36, “this is it” lands with the force of a death sentence. Don’s subsequent attempt at a grand Valentine’s getaway with Betty at the Hotel Savoy ends not in rekindled passion but in impotence and retreat, the couple silently watching Jackie Kennedy’s tour instead of making their own history. This sequence masterfully ties the personal to the cultural: Don’s confrontation with his own mortality and fading virility is set against a national celebration of renewal and style. His youth is something he suddenly realises he no longer possesses, and the episode posits that this realisation is the true beginning of his mid-life crisis.

This preoccupation with youth is not confined to the personal sphere; it is the paramount business challenge at Sterling Cooper. The firm’s struggle to connect with a younger market is articulated with palpable frustration by Duck Phillips, who sees the agency’s inability to sell coffee—a client’s product—as symptomatic of a generational disconnect. His solution is to hire younger creative talent, a move that leads to the brilliantly awkward interview scene where two confident, casually dressed young men unsettle the established order. Simultaneously, Peggy and Salvatore’s campaign for Mohawk Airlines, initially conceived around a titillating, sex-based idea, is shot down by Don in favour of something more family-friendly. This conflict encapsulates the agency’s dilemma: how to harness the energy and sexuality of the emerging youth culture without alienating the traditional, conservative consumer base. The episode suggests there is no easy answer, only the uneasy tension of a world in transition.

The physical manifestation of this brave new world arrives not in the form of hulking Xerox machine. Its placement becomes a minor crisis for Joan, who must find a permanent home for this disruptive marvel. The scene is a superb piece of visual metaphor: the machine represents efficiency, replication, and the future, yet it is an unwieldy, space-invading problem in the meticulously ordered old world of the office. It is change itself, literally dropped onto the floor and demanding accommodation.

Economically, the episode sketches the alterations in the characters’ lives over the missing fifteen months. Peggy has lost weight and carries herself with new authority, though the office rumour mill cruelly speculates that her “three-month sabbatical” was for bearing Don’s child—a vicious lie that highlights the persistent sexism she must navigate. Harry Crane is reconciled with his wife and is having children, embracing a conventional domesticity that others find elusive. Pete and Trudy’s anguish over their childlessness contrasts sharply with this, their frustration bubbling into marital tension. Salvatore Romano, in perhaps the most poignant update, has entered a marriage of convenience with Kitty, actively constructing a heterosexual façade to survive. Joan, meanwhile, has moved on from Roger, announcing she is dating a doctor—a declaration of independence that masks a continued search for security. These updates are delivered not through exposition but through behaviour and allusion, a testament to the show’s nuanced storytelling.

Betty Draper’s arc in this episode is a quiet study in awakening agency and sexuality. Her riding lessons introduce her to Arthur Case (Gabriel Mann), whose younger, admiring gaze offers a thrilling alternative to Don’s neglect. The chance encounter with her old roommate Juanita (Jennifer Siebel), whom she deduces is a call girl, exposes her to a world of transactional female power. Later, when her car breaks down, she instinctively deploys a flirtatious performance for the mechanic to lower the repair bill. Betty is learning, however tentatively, to use her beauty as a currency and to see beyond the gilded cage of suburban motherhood. Her story runs parallel to Don’s, both exploring avenues of escape from the roles they are trapped in.

Artistically, the episode is notable for its evocative use of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Song of the Indian Guest.” Its exotic, melancholic strains accompany Don’s scenes of alienation, particularly the failed hotel tryst, lending a sense of doomed romanticism and distant yearning that dialogue alone could not convey. More significantly, the episode introduces Frank O’Hara’s 1957 poetry collection Meditations in an Emergency. Don discovers it in the hands of a beatnik in a diner—a figure representing the very anti-establishment youth culture that baffles Sterling Cooper. Told he “wouldn’t like it,” Don’s instinct is to acquire and read it. This moment is critical: it shows Don, however awkwardly, reaching outside his own world to understand the new cultural currents. The book is not just a prop; it becomes a recurring symbol of existential angst and the search for meaning that will haunt Don throughout the season.

For Those Who Think Young is a masterful season premiere that uses its deliberate pace to layer theme upon theme. By jumping to 1962, it instantly immerses us in a period where the future is visibly pressing against the present. The episode functions as a series of case studies in adaptation—and maladaptation—to a world that increasingly worships youth. Don Draper’s personal crisis of ageing mirrors his agency’s professional crisis of relevance, while the supporting characters each grapple with their own forms of societal change. It is a piece of television less concerned with plot propulsion than with psychological and social portraiture, establishing the season’s central concern: what happens when the world starts moving faster than the people in it? The answer, as this episode suggests, is a profound and deeply unsettling dissonance.

RATING: 6/10 (++)

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