As much as we’ve been waiting for Mad Men to return, you kind of get the feeling after last night’s season 3 premiere, “Out Of Town,” that Mad Men‘s been waiting for us too. August Bravo and Marco Sparks are here to bask in the luminous afterglow…

August Bravo: Not too much much to say about this episode. It seemed so much like a filler episode, really. It’s interesting they would shoot an episode like this to start off the season. It’s too smart of a show to just make his the premiere. I feel Matthew Weiner has a hidden agenda with how this episode is supposed to make the viewers feel.

Marco Sparks: Starting with the bare feet. I’d both agree and disagree with you there, agreeing in the sense that I think last night’s episode wasn’t an explosion right out of the gates, and that the new season will probably take a few episodes to really spread it’s wings and get of the ground, but this is also a show that has proved itself able to have a major storyline soar within just a few episodes.

But I’d have to disagree in that I found last night’s episode incredibly satisfying, especially it’s perfect beginning…

Don Draper, resolving to be a better husband, up in the middle of the night making some warm milk for his pregnant wife, and his sleep deprived mind begins to wander to his own origins, hypothesizing not just how he came into the world, but how he got his original name from the eponymous male body part. How fitting.

Especially when you add in the great throwaway line about the eldest Draper daughter almost immediately afterward.

Augusto: One of the things I really liked was the way Draper found out about Salvatore, the art department guy, was gay. What a nice way for that to finally come out of the closet.

Marco: Yeah, how nice, and how tragic. Sal’s a character you just like, who always feels classy even when he’s being petty, and so in a way you were rooting for him in that scene, I think, and yet, not at all surprised at how tragically cut short it was.

Plus, the way Don flirts with the bohemians and the intellectual rich vagabonds in the past seasons, you get the sense that he’s probably much more forward thinking than some of his comrades, more so than even Kinsey, who’s just for show, so while he may hold this over Sal later (though I don’t know why he’d need to), he’s not disgusted by it. Plus, you know that Don can respect a man’s secrets.

August: Also, maybe something picked up by me was Don’s inner struggle with himself. Like he wants to be a better husband and father. Weird to say as you still him participate in his usual hobby of extramarital affairs. But the expression on his face seemed to change, to show more depth, than other episodes.

Marco: Not much of a struggle though. Don definitely wanted to fix his relationship with Betty at the end of last season, but perhaps tha didn’t mean he wanted to cut out the cheating. Maybe just get better at the cheating? Maybe only stop cheating within the state of New York? Or maybe cut out the cheating except for the opportunities hat just so perfect drop right into his lap like candy. Or, like stewardesses.

Billy and Sam, accountants/g-men.

As much as I loved the stuff in California last year, I think that “Billy and Sam” and the stewardesses was one of my favorite sequences ever in this show. Also, whie “It’s my birthday” would be a great (or should be) a great line for sex, I suspect that it actually was Dick Whitman’s birthday, if not “Don Draper’s.” I keep waiting for you to tell me that you love Pete Campbell, August.

The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife, 1820, by Hokusai.

August: Great appearance by the English guy, Pryce, as the new CFO. He was great in Benjamin Button. Probably one of my favorite characters in it, in fact. I liked the way the Brits played Pete and Ken Cosgrove off of each other, making each think that they were going to be the accounts executive.

Marco: Yeah, that guy, Jared Harris, is good, and his voice was the best thing about Fringe last year. If I remember he casting announcement, he’ll probably be around for a while and could very well bloom into Don’s nemesis this season. Plus, I’m digging the inclusion of the Brits in general this season, and laughing at the limey version of Pete Campbell, Mr. Hooker/Moneypenny.

August: What is your impression of that guy, Moneypenny/Hooker, Pryce’s right hand man? Sweet talking all the ladies and stuff. What a weird thing to put in the episode unless it actually means something down the road. I don’t know. I feel like everything in that show happens for a reason.

Marco: I think it was to set up Pryce’s debasement of him, relegating to be one of the secretaries, “one of the girls.” Plus, an office full of cute girls and you’re a tosser like Hooker, yeah, you’re probably going to try to hit on anything that moves in a skirt, you know? Plus, who knows, maybe he’ll end up as Sal’s new love interest. He is British after all.

I get the impression that you’re a big Ken Cosgrove fan.

August: Cosgrove is such an awesome character. Probablythe most interesting to me because he’s neither married nor dating anyone. He just goes out and does what he does.

Marco: In case anyone’s curious, August Bravo is the Ken Cosgrove of Counterforce.

August: Yes.

Marco: So, August, accurate or not, what do you think of the name “London Fog?”

August: I don’t know if I like/dislike it. For the show it’s a little mysterious. But I guess the entire show is built on the mystery of others. It’s the 60s, after all. People’s public lives aren’t out there in the open.

Marco: Not yet, though I think you see a little of the beginning of that last year with Marilyn’s death. And presumably with Kennedy’s death this year. The mystery of a person can be so much more real (and interesting) than the person themselves.

August: What interests me quite a bit is the idea that Don has for the London Fog ad, with it’s subtle extra meaning concerning Sal aside, with the coat being open. Very fitting for the product.

Marco: I’m actively forcing myself not to bitch too much about Pete Campbell here. In fact, I don’t need to. He’s the opposite of Don in so many ways, or at least the opposite side of the same coin as Don. He’s really just there to be the asshole and he’s perfect at it.

August: This episode doesn’t sum up too much for me, nor does it need to be summed up too much. It’s Mad Men. They don’t need to do shit, but be excellent. They just do.

Marco: All in all, and I know that August won’t really agree with me here, but this was an exciting return to form. Or maybe just the fact that the show is back and is still of such high quality is what’s so exciting. Everyone likes Don Draper, but he’s a bastard, obviously. But’s magnificent at it. You’re almost rooting for him, much the same way that if we’re all honest with ourselves, we liked Bill Clinton and that he secretly has carte blanche with us. I just hope the opening moments of the episode do indeed deliver us more about the Don Draper/Dick Whitman enigma.

“Help yourself. Not the stoli.”

And no that the show is beloved by viewers and the media alike, I hope it stays this consistent level of great and deep, and doesn’t drift off into epic levels of mediocre bullshit like Battlestar Galactica did where people were afraid of calling it what it was for fear of not looking smart.

But hey, just like Don Draper himself, this show could keep going places and ending up where it’s already been and I’d be okay with that.