Winner of the Week: Jon Hamm

Yes, I suppose it’s a bit preemptive to declare sexy beast Jon Hamm Winner of the Week until after he hosts Saturday Night Live — and after Sunday night’s season 2 finale of Mad Men. But it’s not like Don Draper would hesitate to do something totally irrational and yet bizarrely appropriate — the guy’s still out in California (pictured, lovin’ it) avoiding the “Mad” part of his life and pretending he’s Edna Pontellier in The Awakening by symbolically enveloping himself in the open sea. Heeeeey, look who graduated high school English! This girl.

Despite Mad Men‘s Emmy win for Best Drama and Jon Hamm’s Best Actor Golden Globe, it’s still a show watched by only about 1.5 million people each week (not counting DVR viewership and iTunes downloads). But its ever-increasing visibility seems promising. Hamm’s SNL gig should attract a larger audience for season 3, and exposure on other shows like Jeopardy! (this past week) and The Simpsons‘ annual “Treehouse of Horror” trilogy (airing Nov. 2) can’t hurt. I’m sure people who have no clue why Homer will be shown free-falling past images of Springfield (to mimic Mad Men‘s gorgeous opening credits) will immediately “Google that up” (as my Mad Men-loving mom would say), then immediately watch both entire seasons on DVD. Yeah!

Cheers [clink] to that big, juicy, mouth-watering slab of Hamm.

More on Mad Men:

Mad Men stars sing and dance. Broadway next?

On the Scene: A night on the town with Mad Men

TV Watch: EW.com’s weekly Mad Men recap