‘Mad Men’ Season 3 delves into characters

Returning for a third season of “Mad Men,” things are getting jumpy in the brightly colored office.

Sterling Cooper’s merger with Putnam Powell Lowe is causing layoffs and violent outbursts, and the new tax code is outrageous. PPL executives seem to be playing the remaining staff off one another to maintain a level of instability and so far, goal achieved.

Anyway, the more interesting stories are playing out in the personal lives of the ad executives on New York’s Madison Avenue -- where the AMC original   series gets its title. As the merger sends jitters through the company’s client base, ad executives Don Draper and Salvatore Romano are sent to Baltimore to calm the nerves of London Fog.

Don -- born Dick Whittington to a messed-up family, who escaped by assum- ing the identity of a fallen fellow soldier in World War II -- is still stepping out on his wife with any skirt who flirts, most recently an affianced stewardess on his flight to Baltimore. After flirting all evening, through the flight and the drinks at the hotel, she wonders if she should join him -- she’s engaged, after all, so this could be her last chance.

Don answers with the voice of experience. Having been married for years, he can tell her she’s going to have plenty of chances.

Sal has a different coverup to maintain. As a closeted homosexual in a corporate environment that prides itself on conformity, Sal is married and everything and has (on screen)  rejected all clandestine passes from other men. But when he calls for some help with his hotel room air conditioning, he does not resist an advance from the bellhop. Which wouldn’t have been a problem for him except a fire alarm that brings Don (and his stewardess) down the fire escape and past Sal’s window, and he sees them together.

On the way back to the city, Sal is petrified of what Don will say about what he saw. Don, reassuringly, talks about the account. So what happens in Baltimore may stay in Baltimore after all as Don, for now, has tucked that tidbit into the vast storehouse of Things Don Knows.

Tension

Things are a bit tense at home, too. Don’s kids are still afraid of his abandoning them and are acting out in other ways. Betty seems less inclined to send him away while she’s pregnant with their third child, but she’s being characteristically hard to read. When daughter Sally finds the stewardess’ air hostess wings in Don’s luggage, naturally they are a gift for her from a doting father. One imagines Betty, already suspicious of her philandering husband, tucking that tidbit away into the plenty vast storehouse of Things Betty Knows as well.

Meanwhile, Joan is having trouble hiding her contempt for Peggy. In the first season, Joan was terrifically condescending to Peggy, whose frumpy looks left her at the bottom of the office food chain. Peggy, however, got taken seriously enough by the men to advance as a writer and head of her own accounts. When Joan tried the same thing, giving her input on television accounts -- which she loved -- she was slapped down by a hierarchy that put her at the very top of the steno pool, but still beneath the creative staff -- including Peggy.

So when she and Peggy are waiting for an elevator and Peggy feels like sharing some news, Joan is in no  position to tell her to shut up or go away or really even to deflect the sudden conversation, and Peggy seems to actively enjoy giving Joan a bit of comeuppance -- particularly since Joan has saddled her with probably the worst, most easily distracted assistant in the office.

The third season appears to be a season in transition, letting the story explore side characters more within a context of some agitation. From Sunday’s installment, it remains this brilliant work of art and a gorgeous window on the detailed life and times of a world removed, but which still seems quite familiar, somehow. The  second season focused on Don’s personal life falling apart. I imagine this year  we will examine the reconstruction -- cracks and all.

“Mad Men” airs at 10/9c Sundays on AMC, with encore presentations scheduled throughout the week.