[Editor’s note: It’s the last Friday of the summer, so your Flavorwire editors and writers are taking a much-needed break. We’ll return to our normal publishing schedule on Tuesday, but in the meantime, we’ll be revisiting some of our favorite content from the past few months. This post was originally published July 23, 2010.] We’re at T minus two days until Mad Men season four takeoff, and we know that after several months of down time, many of you may need a crash course on (or, for the newcomers, an introduction to) the show’s complicated plot. But instead of boring you with a point-by-point summary of three years’ worth of material, we’ve reduced it to its component particles to make this here Periodic Table of Mad Men. Click here to see the full-size graphic. For added fun, chase it with a midday martini.
Graphic by Emily Miethner