Mad Men smokes. That’s an understatement. “Two packs a day, but you’re cutting down,” a doctor mocks leading man of mystery Don Draper (the quietly brilliant Jon Hamm) in one of the opening scenes of the long-awaited Season 2.

Mad Men also sizzles, simmering with erotic tension and crackling with cynical wit as it explores with high style and tantalizing substance the mores and often naughty manners of ad men—and the women who suffer them—in the early 1960s. When Don’s boss, Roger (the dryly funny John Slattery), enters Don’s office and heads straight to the bar, he quips, “They say once you start drinking alone, you’re an alcoholic. Really trying to avoid that.”

Crisp as a martini yet spicy as a Bloody Mary, the intoxicating Mad Men goes down smooth and gives great afterglow but also can leave you with a hangover of unease. Matthew Weiner’s moody masterpiece is the rare period piece that feels totally contemporary. You think we’re the first generation obsessed by youth? Think again.

The new season begins well into the Kennedy presidency, with its celebration of vigor and glamour, a “for those who think young” Pepsi-generation culture shock that infects the Sterling Cooper agency. Don’s reaction: “Young people don’t know anything, especially that they’re young.”

All a bit older, and sadder if not wiser, than in the first season, the principal characters in this remarkable ensemble embody the dark side of the American dream, living proof that looking gorgeous and living well don’t always ensure happiness.

If the season premiere is heavier on atmosphere than plot, by the second week, stories begin to kick into full gear, and you’re caught up again in the turbulent marriages, personal secrets and caustic office politics that make Mad Men so madly, marvelously mesmerizing.

Mad Men series premiere: Sunday, 7/27, 10/9c, AMC (also online via video.tvguide.com)

QUICKTAKES

PHOTO: Benjamin Bratt from A&E’s Intervention

• MR. CLEAN:

The network that gave us Intervention steps—or is that “12-steps”?—up with the gritty drama The Cleaner (Tuesdays, 10/9c, A&E). It’s about an “avenging angel” of an ex-con and ex-addict (Benjamin Bratt, working his charisma overtime) who talks incessantly to God while devoting his life, often at the expense of his own family, to helping lost souls kick their addictions. His eccentric team, including Battlestar Galactica’s foxy Grace Park, helps lighten up the downbeat stories, which so far tend to end with too-tidy resolutions. Still, it’s not to be confused with summer TV’s usual fluff.

• LOCKED & LOADED:

Like S.W.A.T. with a soul, the Canadian coproduction Flashpoint (Fridays, 10/9c, CBS; also online via video.tvguide.com) takes us on a violent ride alongside a police emergency response unit, also showing us the psychic toll of their bloody job. It’s generic but effective, with solid work from Enrico Colantoni, Hugh Dillon as a family-man sniper and Amy Jo Johnson as the token tomboy.