56 Thoughts I Had While Rewatching the ‘Mad Men’ Pilot

The blessed event is finally here: Mad Men is officially streaming on HBO Max in 4K as of December 1, and I, for one, am extremely ready to revisit the slicked-haired, cig-ripping, Scotch-swilling ways of Don Draper and company. (Not for nothing did I once throw a Mad Men-themed holiday party in my college suite, for which I made ’60s-style Grasshoppers that almost gave everyone alcohol poisoning.)

Below, find literally every thought I had about Season 1, Episode 1 of Mad Men, “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes”:

1. It’s the floaty little falling-businessman song!
2. God, we used to be a proper country.
3. (While this show was on the air, I mean, not during the time period it depicts.)
4. I know ’60s bars wouldn’t necessarily have been fun for me as a fat, gay woman, but I can’t help admiring their hustle and bustle anyway.
5. I forgot that the full sentence “I love smoking” is spoken aloud within the first two minutes of this pilot.
6. Also: “Ladies love their magazines.”
7. I feel a little personally attacked by that one, as someone with a 2000s-era YM and a 1979 People magazine with Miss Piggy on the cover currently on the way to my apartment via eBay.
8. Midge! My wife! My mean-brunette prototype!
9. Taking notes on Midge’s apartment decor for furnishing my own studio.
10. This drafting table, for example, rocks.
11. The line “I love you, Grandma” has never been so hot.
12. “I don’t make plans, and I don’t make breakfast.” Iconic.
13. How did women not snap and mass-murder men more regularly in the ’60s?
14. Aw, it’s Hildy!
15. “I have an important appointment right now, so why don’t you go shopping or something?” I do not want a man to talk to me like this, but a woman could and should.
16. Okay, the woman in the framed picture in Pete’s office is not the Trudy Campbell we know and love, so clearly they hadn’t cast Alison Brie yet.
17. We love a minor inconsistency, don’t we, folks?
18. Joan Holloway, ladies and gentlemen! We are so back.
19. “Also, men love scarves.” LOL.
20. Is that…true?
21. Ah, casual anti-semitism, the bread and butter (or…Wonder Bread and Jell-O?) of the ’60s.
22. The amount of gay that Salvatore is serving from the pilot of this show is truly remarkable.
23. Like…if I were a closeted ad man in the ’60s, I might not turn in sketch drafts of my shirtless male neighbor, but listen, I don’t know his life!
24. This German woman is terrifying.
25. Actually, is she…Viennese?
26. Am I as dumb as these ’60s ad execs?
27. Thanatopsis time!
28. In many ways, Peggy Olson invented Bushwick bangs.
29. Or are we calling them Rama bangs now?
30. God, Pete is such a creep.
31. I could watch an eight-hour supercut of Don shutting Pete’s barf-inducing “fraternity house” misogyny down.
32. My God, this show is really a compendium of enchanting brunettes, isn’t it?
33. And on that note…we meet Rachel Menken!
34. I need a copy of this ’60s doctor-provided book titled It’s Your Wedding Night to display in my apartment.
35. Aw, I love that Joan sent Peggy to her gyno! Girls are gonna girl.
36. That said, the mere thought of being in 1960s-era stirrups makes me want to die a little bit.
37. I badly want to shop at Rachel Menken’s department store, and no, this isn’t a euphemism (entirely).
38. Yay, more of Don humiliating Pete.
39. I really feel like I could have won over the Sterling Cooper phone operator girlies, especially the one played by Kristen Schaal.
40. I want to work at Lucky Strike’s self-funded Tobacco Research Center.
41. Actually, that was probably the one workplace in 1960s America more sexist than Sterling Cooper, so nevermind.
42. “No, everybody else’s tobacco is poisonous. Lucky Strike’s is toasted.” And that’s why they pay him the big bucks, baby.
43. “It’s not like there’s some magic machine that makes identical copies of things.” Dramatic irony boots!
44. Oh God, Peggy, don’t put the moves on Don. That’s your work wife-to-be!
45. God, transport me to a ’60s strip club, stat.
46. Or at least the store where the strippers buy their lingerie.
47. I mean, those nip tassels!
48. God, I hate Pete so much.
49. Deep respect for Rachel Menken’s drink order: a fruit-and-mini-umbrella-laden Mai Tai.
50. This hairstyle rocks so hard, too.
51. Don really getting his Jewish mother on as he hectors Rachel about why she isn’t married, isn’t he?
52. Ugh, Pete seducing Peggy is maybe the worst thing he does in this pilot that’s chock-full of egregious Pete behavior.
53. Again…rise up and kill men, ’60s women!
54. I’m so team Marjorie, Peggy’s judgmental roommate.
55. Aaaaaaaand…wife reveal!
56. Welcome to the party, Betty! Your husband sucks, but he sure is handsome!