Hi, this is a summary of the very 1st episode of my all-time favorite series 'Mad Men'.
Don Draper is alone at a table in a restaurant writing on a napkin. He asks the Black waiter for a light and what brand of cigarettes he likes. The White manager reprimands the Black waiter for speaking to the customers. Don sends the manager to fetch him a drink and picks up his discussion with the waiter. The Black man tells Don that he loves smoking Old Gold and Don writes this down.
Don drops by his mistress’ apartment and they make love and afterwards they smoke cigarettes.
Workers stream into the Sterling Cooper office building. Young ad men surround the new girl in the elevator. The ad men make lewd remarks and ogle the new girl as if the Black elevator operator isn’t there.
A young ad man named Pete Campbell is on the phone with his fiancé telling her that he and some co workers are going to see a movie after work but they are actually going to a striptease club.
A tall curvy redhead in a tight dress and high heels walks the new girl, whose name is Peggy Olsen, to her desk beside Don Draper’s office. Joan Holloway is the head secretary. She schools Peggy on what the men in the office expect of her and advises her to wear a dress showing more of her legs.
Don is in his office changing into a fresh shirt and talking with his partner, Roger Sterling. They’re scheduled to meet the Jewish owner of a department store and they need to have someone there who is Jewish. They have no Jewish employees. Don makes a racist joke: “Want me to run down to the deli and get someone?”
When Roger leaves, Don looks at the purple heart the army gave him and puts it away. Salvatore Romano from the Art Department comes in to show Don a drawing he did for the Lucky Strike ad showing a man with his torso exposed smoking a cigarette; a neighbor posed for it. Don tells Sal to put a woman in the picture with the man. Sal goes over to the server tray to pour drinks. Greta Guttman from the Research Department comes in to advise Don that they should police themselves to offset government regulations on their cigarette ads. She cites Freud’s death wish theory and Sal interrupts her: “So we’re supposed to believe that people are living one way and secretly thinking the exact opposite? Ridiculous!”
Don doesn't think the issue is why people smoke but why people smoke Lucky Strike. She gives him a report on the dangers of smoking and he drops it in the trash can. When she leaves his office, he takes a drink and takes a nap on the couch. Peggy wakes him up; Pete Campbell wants to see him. Pete flirts with Peggy and makes a sexist comment about the excessive length of her dress.
Pete and Don head towards the conference room. Pete says that he wants 1st crack at Peggy and Don warns him that he’ll wind up alone because nobody will like him. Don enters the conference room and a man and a woman are there. He gives the man a handshake and ignores the woman. The woman, not the man, is the owner of Menken's Department store. Don apologizes. The man with her is David, an employee of the agency Roger found in the mail room. David is also Jewish.
Peggy is in the doctor’s office at the clinic. She’s on the exam table with her feet in stirrups. The doctor comes into the room smoking and coughing. He is also Joan’s doctor. He asks Peggy if she’s married and orders her to spread her knees. He warns her that he’ll take her off the pills if she abuses them. He also warns her that “easy women” don’t find husbands. She tells him that she’s a responsible person. He writes her a prescription and warns her not to become “the town pump.”
At the meeting with Ms. Menkin, Don and Cooper try to persuade her to offer coupons but she wants the store to have a high-end image. Don warns her that she is way out of line. He thinks that the idea of people going to a store because it’s expensive is a stupid and she reminds him that the customer-meaning herself-is always right. He leaves the meeting with Pete following him agreeing about Menken forgetting her place.
Joan takes Peggy to meet the switchboard operators who are all women. One of them comments on Peggy’s long dress, saying that Draper would like her legs if he could see them.
Don and other ad men from various departments meet with the owners of Lucky Strike over the media’s claim linking cigarettes with cancer. Everyone in the conference room is smoking and coughing. The federal government is suing 1 of Lucky Strike’s competitors for making false health claims. Therefore, Sterling Cooper can no longer claim that Lucky Strike cigarettes are safe. Cooper turns the floor over to Don who is stumped. Pete seizes the opportunity and makes his pitch by comparing smoking to the dangers of driving a car. He cites Greta Guttman’s research; earlier, Greta told Don that no one else had seen her research! Pete tells the old man and his son that the agency can design an ad campaign that can tap into Freud’s death wish theory.
The old man dismisses Pete’s idea and he and his son get up to leave. The son makes a casual remark that their competitors have the same problem and Don stops them and goes over to the chalkboard. Lucky Strike can say anything that they want because none of their competitors could make any health claims either. Don asks the old man how their cigarettes are made and his answer is that they are “toasted,” which becomes the company’s new slogan.
Roger and Don celebrate afterwards with cigarettes and alcohol. Roger brings up the possibility of the agency backing Presidential candidate Richard Nixon. Pete and others come in with more alcohol to celebrate. Everyone leaves except Pete who places a pass to the striptease lounge on Don’s Desk. Don lays into Pete for using Greta’s research at the Lucky Strike meeting. Peggy enters and Pete leaves. She places her hand on top of Don’s hand and thanks him for standing up to Pete on her behalf; Don takes her hand off of his hand and warns her not to let Pete go through his trash again. She is embarrassed. Don sends her home and tells her to come back tomorrow and get a fresh start.
At the striptease club, the ad men are at a table drinking, smoking cigarettes, and flirting with waitresses. Their dates arrive and sit with everyone except Sal. One of the girls looks around and says, “It’s hot, it’s loud, and it’s filled with men!” Sal smiles and agrees with her. A stripper is on the stage starting her routine.Pete gropes the woman next to him. He forces his hand up her dress and she gets up and sits with one of the other ad men. The stripper peels off all of her clothes and the song ends.
Don and Ms. Menken are in a restaurant with low lighting. He apologizes to her for walking out of the meeting and she agrees to another meeting. He asks her why she isn’t married and she tells him that she’s never been in love.
Pete shows up drunk at Peggy’s apartment. When he tells her that he’s getting married Sunday she invites him inside.
After having dinner with Ms. Menken, Don goes home to his wife and their 2 children.
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