* If last week was Mad Men at its most David Lynch, this week was Mad Men at its most David Chase. (Which makes me hope that over the course of the next two eps the show will homage David Simon and David Milch, thus running the table on Great TV Davids. Tell me you couldn’t get a great systemic-failure-of-politics episode out of Henry Francis, or that Duck Phillips couldn’t return to the office and tell Don “God is not mocked, you son of a bitch” before stabbing him in the gut.)

* From the opening sequence of scenes — a dialogue-free scene juxtaposing a character watching portentous film with a fixation on a figure of untouchable feminine beauty and youth, segueing into that character being bedeviled by a literal leak of unpleasantness into his life via the house that symbolizes and embodies his supposed success — forward, goddamn was this a Sopranos-y episode, and that’s always a good look for Mad Men. Specifically it reminded me of the Season Six Part II premiere, “Soprano Home Movies,” which like last night’s MM ep was co-written by Matthew Weiner — and it did so during that sweaty, awkward dinner party in a relatively rural setting, quite before we got around to the equally awkward fistfight between two people who had no business fistfighting. Other Sopranos ingredients: the group trip to a house of ill repute, the Tony-esque lament about an ineffable decline from an idealized past (“Things seem so random all of a sudden. Time feels like it’s speeding up,” says Pete’s driver’s-ed Lolita prior to reminsicing about those happy golden bygone days of, like, two years ago), the liminal presence of real-world atrocities from the news, car rides, a high-school setting that recalled “The Test Dream” (I actually thought the initial high-school scene was a dream until we returned to the setting later in the episode). Shit, man, if you worked on the greatest television show of all time, wouldn’t you tip your hat to yourself now and then?

* I suppose the big difference between Mad Men and Davids Lynch and Chase is that the threat of violence here remains an un-serious one, to be sublimated into dreams in the former case and slapstick in the second. (See also Betty shooting the neighbor’s birds, Duck and Don’s drunken swing-and-a-miss-fest, the lawnmower man.)

* Not to be outdone, Stanley Kubrick continues to exert an influence on this season on an atomic level: the black/white/orange color scheme just gets more and more prominent, and it’s joined this time around by lovely lovely Ludwig Van.

* My first thought upon the quick cut to Lane’s ridiculously British pub celebration: “I can’t wait to hear what the Mindless Ones think of this.”

* Kenny on the move? His previously unmentioned pact with Peggy to take her with him if and when he leaves is our most dramatic sign yet that things aren’t going well at SDCP — more even than the no-new-business meeting, I think.

* I am deeply, deeply delighted by the return to the fore of Ken Cosgrove’s writing career, and was so excited by the fact that he’s writing SFF I literally cheered. For one thing, in terms of doing thoughtful work in a frowned-upon field, he’s Game of Thrones. For another, I always find myself…moved, I guess is the best way to put it, by mid-century science fiction — men and women toiling in unappreciated obscurity (or anonymity!) but absolutely drunk on the potential of raw imagination and cutting metaphor.

* Don’s Don, Roger’s Roger, Pete’s Pete, but to Joan, Bert’s still “Mr. Cooper.”

* I’m a huge huge sucker for moments of genuine cooperation and compassion between adults in fiction, so the presentation of Pete and Trudy’s baby to the group had me near tears, for real. Look at Don’s beaming, beaming face when he sees li’l Campbell: He is genuinely delighted by the kid and thrilled for Pete (for Pete!) and Trudy. Then look at Pete’s face, his emasculation by the exploding faucet (“it just blew in my face!” LOL Trudy) and Don’s effortless handling thereof completely evaporated by the pride he takes in his family, the love he feels for them, the gratitude he feels for the obvious affection and admiration shown to him by his coworkers and friends. You put enough scenes like that into a show, you can get as nasty and cynical as you want, and we’ll never feel like you’re saying none of it matters, because you’ve shown us that it does.

* Of course this scene was also essential to setting up Don’s obvious disgust — disappointment, even — over Pete’s behavior at the brothel. There were elements of sanctimony and hypocrisy here, sure, and Pete’s quick to point that out, but ultimately that line of attack rings hollow. Whether or not Don should have appreciated Betty and what he had with her and the kids more back then is irrelevant to the question of whether Pete should appreciate what he has right now. Moreover, we viewers know as well as anyone — better than anyone, most likely — that Don really was unhappy by the time he reached the end of the road his infidelity set him on. Why wouldn’t he try to impart that hard-earned wisdom to this man with whom he’s developed such an unlikely affection?

* Finally — I mean, tangentially but also finally — Don’s apparent fondness for Trudy Campbell and his comparison of Trudy not to Betty but to Megan was a quietly funny reminder that Don Draper has fine taste in brunettes.

* Great episode for ugly jackets, no? This is sort of what I was getting at in my post on the season premiere: As the fashion gets uglier, it’ll be harder for people to cling to the fashion in lieu of confronting the ugliness.

* I’m not going to do a good job commenting on this without sitting the episode and simply transcribing every word out of Roger’s mouth, but that was wonderfully well-written material he was given. After several episodes watching him alternately coast and flail, we not only get a hefty dose of his wit and charm in his instructional interplay with Lane, we also see just how good he was at his job, how important that wit and charm were to what he did and how talented and invaluable he was at doing it. We also get one of our first-act-of-Casino-style glimpses into the process that makes the ad agency work, and the efficiency and flexibility with which Roger can size up a potential client, in effect getting them to tell him exactly what they want from him without ever tipping his hand, is glamorous and enticing just as all of the show’s displays of professional hypercompetence are. Then we get to see that he’s well aware he’s past his prime: “professor emeritus of accounts”; “When this job is good it satisfies every need — believe me, I remember.” Doctor Phil tells me that you can’t change what you don’t acknowledge; I’m not sure Roger will be able to change, but at least he acknowledges that he probably ought to.

* Not that that stops him from bon-motting it up during the Pete/Lane rumble. I wouldn’t have it any other way, of course!

* It feels a bit declasse to comment too much on a dude fingering a girl in a high-school driver’s-ed class, but I’m sorry, that was a magnificent little bit, and proof once again that Mad Men does sexy sex better than any show that could throw bare asses at you all the live-long day. He lowers his hand; she parts her legs and leans into him. It’s all about sending the signal that you want someone, and then that person giving themselves to you. No wonder Pete’s crushed by it: He can never have what he wants, since the only thing he ever wants is whatever he can’t have. “Nope. Nope. Okay.”

* What a great episode!

* Yeah, Episode Four: The premiere counted as two, apparently.

* Twin Peaks debuted 20 years ago today. Mad Men just started celebrating one day early is all.

* Seriously, what a treat to see Madchen Amick, who like all Lynch veterans takes his numinous energy with her wherever she goes. (See also Jimmy Barrett.) Even though it was reasonably clear that her continued presence in the episode and in Don’s apartment was a facet of a fever dream (otherwise why have the fever stuff going on in the first place, right?), her ability to disrupt Don’s life with her ever-increasing bluntness and directness had an uncanny air to it that went beyond “oh, it’s just a dream.” She literally only entered the story due to a physical separation between Don and Megan; she disappeared from Don’s apartment through a crack in the wall — that Gothic staple, a secret passage, one which may or may not exist in real life; she gave Matthew Weiner the opening for his most direct riff on David Lynch yet. (I ended up a little disappointed that the show hadn’t cast Sheryl Lee herself, and I half expected Don to start shouting about Missoula, MON-TANA!!!!!! Also did I detect some Angelo Badalamenti homages in the music round about the time Megan showed up in a halo of light?)

* Also, y’know, any excuse to look at Madchen Amick.

* The actual murder scene made my jaw drop and kept it that way for quite some time, even though I knew on some level — even just a narrative-television level — it couldn’t possibly be real: This wasn’t the sort of thing they’d do about three-fifths of the way into a fourth episode, involving a character we barely knew, in which the whole scene elapsed in what couldn’t have been more than two minutes. But it worked as well as it did nevertheless, in large part because we’ve always suspected Don has this in him. Remember the bit of business in the first season when he goes to his brother’s hotel room and you think he has a gun?

* I do feel like bluntness is Season Five’s stock in trade so far, for whatever that’s worth. Personally I’m not sure it’s worth much. Okay, it’s blunt. Okay, we get that Don telling hallucination-Madchen that she won’t ruin this for him, then strangling her, is his subconscious saying this same thing to the part of himself that cheats. (Although it’s important to note that he cheats first and kills later.) Okay, we get the connection between Madchen under the bed, Sally under the couch, and the survivor of Richard Speck’s Chicago nurse massacre under the bed. Okay, we get the connection between Time magazine being all “Enough with the riots already, this nurse massacre has some juice” and Peggy being freaked out about the massacre but oblivious to the potential and much more real violence Dawn could be facing. Okay, Peggy’s self-congratulation for helping Dawn out and for having been in a similar (but not really comparable) position of frowned-upon uniqueness at the office in the past is belied by both that obliviousness and her instinctive temptation not to leave the cash-filled purse around Dawn. I didn’t feel like I was being made to work too hard to put any of that together, but nor am I terribly tempted to complain about that. Is there such a thing as blunt elegance? Because I think that’s what this show has. There’s something to be said for making a clear point, but making it well.

* I do wish the connection between The World’s Most Intrusive Accordion Player and Joan’s own prowess with the squeezebox (pun intended lol) had gone unspoken, however. And “He Hit Me (It Felt Like a Kiss)” was the most on-the-nose music cue in all of recorded human history.

* I find myself fascinated by Joan’s mother precisely because she’s not “fascinating.” (I realize this runs counter to my point about bluntness being okay, but whatever.) Compared to the nightmarish mother figures we’ve seen on this show, from Betty Draper to Don’s dead prostitute birth mother and cruel stepmother to Henry Francis’s steamroller of a mom to Peggy’s standard-issue loving-but-cruel outer-borough Catholic widow, Joan’s mom is…reasonable, basically. Which is weird on a show like this! They butt heads some, yes, but no more than you expect two adult members of a family to butt heads; there’s obviously some unresolved issues regarding Joan’s service-member dad, yes, but not to a degree that cancels out her advice regarding Joan and Greg, I don’t think. When she tells Joan that Joan’s plan to greet Greg with their (“their”) baby was the right one after all, I internally cheered. A lot of moms on this show could not be persuaded like that.

* Loved the actual filmmaking in this episode. Quick cuts (my favorite was right up front, when without having first gotten an establishing shot, we’re suddenly just looking at Rizzo with pantyhose over his head) and more of the Kubrick influence from last week (Sally Draper as spooky little girl who should not be there is as direct a reference to another film/show as I’ve seen on Mad Men so far).

* And all that salmon and orange! This is quickly becoming this season’s hallmark, and one of my favorite things about it to boot. High point in this episode: Cutting from Joan in her apartment to Peggy in hers, Joanie’s orange walls collapsing from the periphery into the center of the frame in the form of Peggy’s pajamas.

* I laughed when Joan and her cleavage came out of the bedroom and asked her husband, mother, and son “What are the three of you up to?” Joan must get that question a lot.

* With all the horror stuff going on in this episode (btw, good to see Don and Henry’s mom both acknowledge the haunted-mansion vibe of the Francis’s house), I couldn’t help but see Joan’s exquisite moment of catharsis against Greg — dumping him, throwing him out, mocking him with how much effort it’s taken her to make him feel like a man, directly denying his inherent goodness, citing his rape of her as Exhibit A, god it was glorious — as Joanie’s revenge, the last-reel triumph of a horror-movie heroine against her antagonist. Joan was the episode’s Final Girl.

* Quick question about Greg: Greg says the Army makes him feel like a good man, contra Joan’s initial assessment. Does this mean he’d previously suspected he wasn’t good? Or has his life remained unexamined and this is just him patting himself on the back? I’m honestly not sure.

* Great zinger by Dawn (who through her disappearing act the morning after is the episode’s real Final Girl, I suppose), leaving her impeccably polite note right on top of Peggy’s purse. (By the way, I think Peggy’d drunkenness played a big part in her racist fear that Dawn would steal her money. This is someone she works with, who moreover she has all the contact information for, not some catburglar or mugger. What was Dawn gonna do, take the money and run?)

* Once again we see that Megan’s got moxie that few of the other women in Don’s life possess. She will run head-on into the infidelity issue, for example, but not with moralizing — with an “okay, I get that that’s a part of you, but it’s not a part that’s going to work for us, Don, do you get it?” attitude that’s refreshing both in its candor about the problem and its vulnerability in acknowledging her concerns about it.

* Crackpot theory of the day: Megan and Michael Ginsberg? Something about the way Ginzo’s been framed so far makes me wonder. His introduction was given a prominence that’s hard to explain. He’s the only non-Don person the show’s described as a genius. Megan said in the premiere that she’s concerned by her co-worker’s cynicism; Mike literally flees the room rather than share cheap thrills over the crime-scene photos. (Critic Deborah Lipp suggests some hypocrisy in the juxtaposition of that reaction with Mike’s darkly sexual Cinderella pitch to the shoe company, but lots of people can draw that kind of line between real and imaginary behavior.) Then there’s stuff that suggests the pairing on an almost subliminal level: Mike’s key line, “She wants to be caught”; the shoe exec’s suggestion that the woman in the ad be French; the direct address of infidelity in the Don/Megan marriage in the same episode where Mike gives his Draperesque spiel. Am I crazy? (I also think Roger’s going to die this season, but enough about me.)

* Where do you come down on Fat Betty Francis versus Fat Peggy Olsen and Fat Lee Adama in the Fat Versions of Characters from the Great Post-Millennial Dramas? I actually think she ranks at the top, but we’ll see where things go from here.

* Heh, nice to see that the show’s not above a little DIRECT CONTRAST BETWEEN THE MRS. DRAPERS GETTING DRESSED. Megan could have turned to the camera and winked and it wouldn’t have been any less subtle. In fact, that was just the first of several moments that felt a bit too on-the-nose: Roger actually saying the words “When’s everything gonna get back to normal?”, about four quarts of sad string music poured all over all of Betty’s scenes, particularly the (otherwise beautiful) scene with the boys running around with sparklers on (I presume) the Fourth of July, and a death-dream that would otherwise have been creepy as hell. It’s okay, Mad Men, you can trust us!

* And then there’s Michael Ginsberg — excuse me, MICHAEL GINSBERG!!! I will say the following things about him here and then move on:

1) I find that schticky mid-century New York Jewish wiseacre accent fun to listen to.
2) The character is talented, and this show does good things with the idea of talent.
3) We went from his elderly European Jewish father blessing him in Hebrew to a showtune sung by a Nazi in under two minutes.
4) The jury is very much still out on this guy — however strong he came on in this episode, this is a show that hasn’t bellyflopped yet, not to a significant “new character developed over multiple episodes” degree anyway, and I’m willing to see where they take it. I mean, why would you watch a show if you weren’t?

* Is it just me, or are the scenes in Pete and Roger’s offices being shot in such a way as to complement their Kubrickian decor and color scheme of orange on black and white? Keeping everyone low in the frame so that the big fields of white can show?

* Dawn and Don, haha! I noticed that before it became a topic of discussion for the characters themselves, perhaps because I’m married to someone who isn’t from New York and for whom, therefore, the pronunciation actually would be confusing. (Where I’m from, Mary, marry, and merry are pronounced three different ways, which has blown many a non-tri-state-area mind.)

* In the Rolling Stones episode, Betty asks the doctor for a mother’s little helper. LOL

* If Director Jon Hamm’s primary visual contribution to Mad Men is the unusual use of fades between scenes, then put him in the director’s chair more often. I’m not sure what meaning we’re supposed to draw from, say, the fade between Betty in the bathroom and Betty in the clinic, and I’m glad of that. It feels gooey, somehow, like the link between the scenes isn’t neat and precise at all.

* Have we seen many, or really any, scenes with just Roger and Peggy before? They seem to have developed a rapport almost like Roger and Don.

* Something about Don in a public, dressed-down setting makes him seem menacing. Visually, he’s so different from the Rolling Stones fans at the concert it’s like he’s dangerous.