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Last night, I hit the TheEnvelope.com's Olay-sponsored Emmy Screening Series in Hollywood to stalk see Mad Men stars Jon Hamm, January Jones, Elisabeth Moss, Christina Hendricks, Robert Morse and Vincent Kartheiser, along with the brain behind the show, creator Matt Weiner.

So what did the cast spill, and what's gonna go down in the new season starting July 27 on AMC? Click in to find out!

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Betty on Top? January Jones says there may be a glimmer of hope for her frustrated housewife alter ego: "I think that you see her slowly become a little stronger...and coming to [terms with] the fact within herself that she has no one. I think that's why the scene with the little boy Glen at the end [of season one] was so sad...She has a best friend, a husband, children and a therapist, [all of] whom she's supposed to be able to trust, but she can't."  Aww, poor Betty. Let momma give you a hug!

Peggy and the Pregnancy...and the Pounds: According to Elisabeth Moss, when Matt Weiner told her about Peggy Olson's season-one storyline, he started off with an involved psychological explanation, about "how she tries to emasculate herself and fit in somehow, the only way she knows how." So it was not until the very end of the pitch that he revealed the bit about the character's secret pregnancy and accompanying weight gain. In response to that little revelation, Moss said her jaw just dropped. Weiner, however, remembers it differently: "You're a great actress, but you were like, 'Come on, how fat are we talking!?' "

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Rust Lust: Flame-haired beauty Christina Hendricks said she herself has wondered how her character Joan can be such a be-yotch. "Sometimes when I get the scripts I immediately call Matt and go, 'Why am I so horrible? Why am I such a monster?' And then we talk it through, [and] she thinks she is doing good. She wants to help the system run smoothly."

From Suffrage Straight to Suffering: Even though Sterling Cooper voted for Richard Nixon in the 1960 presidential election, don't assume that means anything about Weiner's personal politics. He told the crowd, "I come from a hard-core Nixon-hating family...When Nixon died, my mom said, 'It's just too little too late!' "

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Funny Footnote to Fake History: For when you launch that Mad Men Wiki, please note that according to Weiner, the characters' ages circa season one are as follows: Don is "mid-30s," Betty is 28, Peggy is 20, Joan is "older than Peggy" and Vincent Kartheiser's diabolical yet darling Pete is 26. (P.S. This footnote really was just an excuse to plop in a photo of Vincent, formerly Angel's spawn on Angel, whom one of my colleagues has a mad crush on. Shhhh...)

What's To Come: So...about that second season starting up next month? When I grabbed a little face time with Matt Weiner and asked just that, he said, "All I can tell you is it's going to be later in their lives, and it's the next stage in where they are, but people don't change...And I will not ignore the consequences from last year—they are part of it. I did not pretend like they didn't happen."

What questions do you want to see answered when the show returns? Post in the comments!

—Additional reporting by Jennifer Godwin and Natalie Abrams