At the end of the fifth season finale of Mad Men, ‘The Phantom’, Don Draper and his Dick Whitman were at crossroads. Now, in the new posters for season six airing next month on AMC, DD finds himself at a subtext-rich crossroad on the streets of New York City. So much subtext. Should he STOP what he’s doing and go the ONE WAY he always has (forward), or stick with the course he forged last season, accompanied by a faceless young woman down the footpaths of Madison Avenue?
Other questions. What’s up with Don’s doppelganger? Does he have another secret brother we don’t know about yet? Or, more plausibly, the foreground guy represents ‘home life Don’ and the briefcase guy represents ‘work life Don’. Can they chill the fuck out and co-exist without power banging everyone in sight? Maybe one’s Dick Whitman? Who knows? Then there’s the police – ominously foreshadowing some reputation crushing criminal activity at SCDP this season (shout out to our fallen homie Lane Pryce).
Even more questions. Is that Peggy with Roger in the background? Also, who is that woman actually? We agree that it’s probably Megan. We’re like 70% certain that it’s Megan and like 99% certain that magazine body language experts would say that Don’s just not that into you, faceless woman who he’s turning away from.
Ugh. So many questions.
The ad was created by Brian Sanders, a 75 year old British illustrator who Matt Weiner personally tracked down and commissioned after discovering his work in a production meeting. The New York Times has more on that happy accident describing “how a 75-year-old illustrator living outside of Cambridge,
England — highly regarded in his own country but little known in the
United States — came to create the image that beginning this week will
be emblazoned on buses, billboards, magazine pages, Web sites and TV.”
Mad Men returns to AMC/torrent queues everywhere April 7th.
