4 Answers (and 4 More Questions) We Got From the 'Mad Men' Premiere

Warning: This recap contains storyline and character spoilers from Sunday’s Mad Men premiere.

We’ve been waiting nearly a year for this — the whiskey did help — but we finally got the first of Mad Men’s final seven episodes Sunday night, along with answers to some of our burning questions. But this is Mad Men, after all, so we came away from it with a few questions, too. Here’s what we learned, and what we’re still puzzling about, from the Season 7B premiere, “Severance.”

First, the answers:

1. Don’s single (again), and on the prowl (again).

No sign of Megan here: Don is once again an eligible bachelor, taking advantage of TV ad campaigns to audition young models and hooking up with a blonde stewardess in his Manhattan pad. But of course, he’s still searching for something: He thinks he recognizes a waitress at a diner (Elizabeth Reaser), and they have anonymous sex in the alley behind the restaurant, but ultimately, she turns him away. Don may be adding more names to his list of conquests, but he’s sure not any happier for it.

2. Ken gets the boot… and then gets his revenge.

Poor Ken Cosgrove: First, he gets his eye shot off by some Chevy executives and is forced to wear an eye patch. And now, when he’s expecting a raise, he’s told he’s getting fired instead, with all his accounts going to Pete. At first, Ken takes this as a sign to finally write that book he’s always been thinking about — maybe even a tell-all about the ad industry. (“Damn if I don’t have something to write about now.”) But instead, he signs on with Dow as their head of advertising, which makes him the firm’s client; as he warns Roger and Pete, “I am very hard to please.” Give ‘em hell, Ken.

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3. Rachel Menken is back! (Well, not really.)

One of Don’s earliest flings was with department store head Rachel Menken, played by Sons of Anarchy’s Maggie Siff. We hadn’t heard from Rachel since Season 2, but Sunday, she popped up in Don’s dream as one of his fur-draped models. Later, we learn that Rachel had just died of leukemia, and a stricken Don goes to her family’s home to pay his respects. But Rachel’s sister knows who he is and greets him coldly, informing him that “she lived the life she wanted to live.” A life without Don, that is.

4. We’re not in the 1960s anymore, Toto.

Mad Men left off in July 1969 with the moon landing, and we get a few hints Sunday night as to how far forward we’ve jumped in time. The Topaz executives fret about competition from Hanes L'eggs pantyhose, which were introduced in 1969, and Peggy Lee’s “Is That All There Is?” (heard at the beginning and end of the episode) hit the charts in October of that year. But the most concrete clue comes when Don watches President Nixon’s speech about Vietnam troop withdrawal, which he made on April 30, 1970. Welcome to the Me Decade, Don Draper.

And since we’re officially in the ‘70s now, the facial hair continues to grow… for everyone but Don, of course. Roger’s sporting a new mustache, along with some serious mutton chops:

Ted Chaough debuts a new mustache when he invites Don to a Vogue party filled with young models:

And Stan still has his signature beard, but his hair is even longer, making him look more Grizzly Adams than ever:

Plus, he doesn’t have a mustache, but we loved seeing Harry Crane get compared to a popular kids’ toy of the era:

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And now, the four lingering questions:

1. Has Peggy finally found Mr. Right?

Peggy’s love life has been cursed from the start, but she reluctantly agrees to go on a blind date with Mathis’s brother-in-law Stevie, played by My So-Called Life’s Devon Gummersall. (Boy, Matt Weiner really loves '90s TV.) And they actually hit it off! They even drunkenly plan to fly to Paris together on a whim, until Peggy realizes she’s misplaced her passport. Peggy wants to take it slow with him: “I thought you were a fling, but now I think maybe you’re more.” When Stevie kids her, “You’re so old-fashioned,” she replies, “I’ve tried new-fashioned.” We don’t think Peggy needs a man to be happy, but we’re not ashamed to admit we’re rooting for this one to work out. She deserves it!

2. Where’s Megan? And Betty? And Sally?

Don’s two ex-wives and his daughter were nowhere to be found in the premiere — but their names are still in the opening credits, so we’re confident we’ll see them soon. Don tells the stewardess an earring in his bedroom belongs to his “ex-wife,” and he mentions to Rachel’s sister that he’s in the process of getting divorced, so things with Megan seem to be done for good. Will we see her reappear with a Hollywood hunk on her arm by season’s end? Will Don finally make peace with Betty? Will he and Sally come to a father-daughter understanding? Only six episodes left to find out…

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3. Will Joan and Peggy ever see eye-to-eye?

We’re always happy to see these two share a scene together, but just when we think they’ve become friends, they start sniping at each other again. After an uncomfortable meeting with the sexist pigs at McCann Erickson (“You should be in the bra business”), Joan and Peggy turn on each other in the elevator: Peggy starts to say, “You can’t dress the way you do…” and Joan makes a bitchy comment about Peggy’s looks before storming off. But Peggy does allude to Joan being “filthy rich” from the McCann sale; is this all just a prelude to Joan starting her own firm, with Peggy as head of creative?

4. Will Don ever be happy?

That’s really the million-dollar question, isn’t it? We thought Don might have found happiness with Megan at the end of Season 4, or when he revealed his true identity at the end of Season 6… but his epiphanies never seem to stick around for very long. Now he has it all — money, women, freedom — but he’s still not happy. He’s still searching for something, as his strange dalliance with that diner waitress shows. And learning that Rachel has died really cuts him to the core, and reminds him of how much he’s still lacking.

We’ve been fooled before, but we’re really hoping that somehow over the next six weeks, Don finds some semblance of inner peace… and isn’t just left singing, “Is That All There Is?”

Mad Men airs Sundays at 10 p.m. on AMC.