The terrific writer and critic Hazel Cills and I are debating Don Draper and Mad Men for Netflix right this very minute. Come by and talk to us about it.

But now that the subtext is the text, now thatMad Men‘s storyline has caught up to the countercultural moment that would eventually lead to works like, well, Mad Men, the show’s original aesthetic appeal has been tossed out the window like so much suicide foreshadowing. If you were the kind of Don-bro able to turn off your brain and just enjoy early Mad Men for its lush portrayal of a jocularly misogynist time when men were men, women were women, and everyone looked amazing (even if they smelled like ashtrays), brother, you’re out of luck now. It’s like if David Chase had gotten so fed up with the “Who’s gonna get whacked?” side ofThe Sopranos‘ audience that he spent the last few seasons chronicling Tony Soprano as an honest-to-God waste management consultant. It’s enormously gutsy. And while Matthew Weiner (who, unlike his mentor Chase, at least allows his non-Dons to evolve) couldn’t have known he’d get this far when he spent years lugging the unsold Mad Menpilot around in his briefcase, it was a certainty if the show ever succeeded. Mad Menwas designed to self-destruct.

I wrote about Mad Men‘s deliberate demolition of its nostalgic appeal for Esquire. I’ll also be covering the show again this year for Wired, and you might see me pop up in another place or two about it as well. I like writing about this show, which is the best on tv.

I wrote up 16 of the New Golden Age of TV’s most surprising and suspenseful scenes and sequences for Rolling Stone (with a little help from my fabulous editor David Fear). Battlestar Galactica, Breaking Bad, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Deadwood, Downton Abbey, Game of Thrones, House of Cards, Lost, Mad Men, Orange Is the New Black, The Shield, The Sopranos, True Detective, Twin Peaks, The Walking Dead, The Wire. Read, then vote in our neat bracket tournament thing!

* In the first shot of the episode, the new SC&P logo obscures Don’s face.

* Very autumnal color scheme. Welcome to the Fall.

* Stan has ambition! “That’s not the way I saw it.” “That’s not the way you saw me.” Poor guy finally takes the risk of peeking out from behind his beard (remember he was the one who advised Peggy not to hire Ginsberg precisely because his obvious ambition was worrisome) and this is how he gets repaid.

* Roger: “You learn more from disappointment than you do from success.” This should really be the motto of this show w/r/t its critics.

* Don: “I love Hershey’s.” Add that to the list, right underneath “puppies.”

* You know, Roger had a nice little hot streak here at the beginning of the episode. “It’s all fun and games till they shoot you in the face”; “Bob Benson’s here to see you.”/”Really?”…Roger truly is one of the funniest characters on television, and it makes him palatable to us just like it makes him palatable to the other characters.

* He does have his flashes of insight, though. Sussing out that Bob’s got ulterior motives is good old-fashioned accounts-man people-reading.

* So Sally got into that school and is already half a semester in. I guess that’s plenty of time to learn how to mercilessly subtweet your dad on the phone.

* I never really picked up on the idea that Don’s drinking this season is unusually heavy. That was evident back in season four, after the divorce and before Megan, but here, I dunno, it went over my head. But of course we’ve seen him drinking alone in a bar probably half a dozen times in 12 hours.

* This final drinking-alone-in-a-bar scene is tied to the original by Vietnam. Don’s content to dress down the preacher until the guy insults RFK and MLK and slain soldiers, one of whom (or so Don’s subconscious believes) he helped get married in Hawaii. Don’s conservatism is clearly the part of his post-Korea constructed persona he’s put the least energy into maintaining, and he’s repulsed by violence wrought against people who weren’t asking for it. So he insults Jesus a couple times, calling him a Nixon voter and/or a guy with a pretty sloppy handle on things, and then whiteknights for the fallen by assaulting a minister and winding up in the drunk tank. The social upheaval of 1968, poured into a tumbler and served straight into Don Draper.

* Those autumn colors really made it look like the walls were closing in around Peggy as Ted and his family parade through.

* Megan in white.

* Don’s lost control again…so he wants to move to California??? Given that I had every believe he’d actually do so, and that the big shock to which this season was building was that the final season of Mad Men would take place in Los Angeles, I was quite stunned by this. But I shouldn’t have been. Don’s always trying to recreate the magic of his West Coast sojourns. And that he’d just done so, so unsuccessfully, three or four episodes ago should have been all the indication I needed that he wasn’t gonna pull it off this time.

* Not only does he steal Stan’s idea, he plagiarizes his description of it. It’s “the cure for the common breakfast” all over again. (Maybe that’s why we got a glimpse of Danny again in the California episode.)

* That final shot of Don and Megan hugging each other, ready to make a fresh start — so soapy! Love it.

* Oh my god Manolo killed Pete’s mom.

* It’s only Tuesday, but already Vincent Kartheiser’s line reading for his response to Bob asking him how he’s doing is the stuff of internet legend. “Not great, Bob!” That’s a top-five elevator ride on this show, for sure.

* Peggy looking rrrrrrrrrrrrright. Wow. Love how she obliterated the brown palette of everyone’s outfits with that black and pink thing, too.

* “GM ’69” lol

* Bob standing there with the keys to the car; Pete realizing he’s been beaten before the game even really started. Poor Pete. He tried, he really did.

* The thing about Bob, though: provided you believe Manolo acted on his own, is Bob even dangerous unless someone comes directly at him? Pete was keeping him around as a secret weapon, but do we have any indication he’s up to no good? Left to his own devices, would he become the Don Draper of accounts, phony but legitimately talented and valuable? Or have his attempts to worm his way into Pete and Joan’s lives shown us that there’s something more profoundly troubling about him? (The thing at GM, whatever, Pete brought that on himself, like Don getting Roger stuffed and drunk and walking him up 23 flights of stairs before the Nixon meeting back in the day. I’m talking the potential that he could really hurt someone.)

* If it weren’t for Don’s Hershey’s meltdown, the entire multi-scene Ted/Peggy sequence would be the centerpiece of the episode, maybe the season. It’s not the heaviest thing that ever happened, but it’s one of the most carefully, unflinchingly observed things the show’s done; its sense of humor, drama, and sexiness is really finely tuned. It’s funny that Ted lurked outside her apartment and told her neighbors he’s a cop like that’ll make his presence easier to excuse. It’s funny that when he opens her dress she’s wearing a lacy black bra and when she takes off his jacket he’s wearing a gooberish blue turtleneck. It’s funny that her hot pink lipstick is all over him. (Kudos to the New Yorker‘s Emily Nussbaum for recognizing this as the “Mark Your Man” callback it is.) It’s sexy that he told her he doesn’t want anyone else to have her, and that she gets turned on when he tells her he loves her, and that she looks so good. It’s dramatic that it has this tone of conspiracy, and that he gets right in the shower after it’s over, and that he goes right from one bed to the next. Fine, fine writing and filmmaking, and a payoff for an entire season, and the storyline’s not even over yet.

* Bob killed Pete’s mom and stole his job, at least as far as Pete could tell.

* Part two of the Ted/Peggy storyline also feeds directly into Don’s climactic collapse, and goddamn is it deft. Imagine being someone who literally has to beg Don to save him — especially after this season, in which Don’s reckless, impulsive narcissism regarding business decisions has been smashed in everyone’s face like James Cagney’s grapefruit. “I know that there’s a good man in there,” Ted tells him, and at the moment he says it you just know that a large segment of the audience (certainly a large segment of the portion of the audience comprised of TV critics) thinks he’s just plain wrong. Don says he couldn’t help Ted even if he wanted to (which he already maybe does), then advises him “It will go away,” which I guess he should know, although he failed to mention that having one of your kids walk in on it will help move things along in that regard. Ted replies with the most telling and gutting half-sentence in the history of the show: “My father was–” half-second pause, doesn’t miss a beat “You can’t stop cold like that.” And suddenly Ted makes sense: the slightly manic optimism of his pitches, his oedipal relationship with Don, his abject horror about himself and Peggy. He’s an adult child of an alcoholic, and he knows what addiction can do to a family.

* Now we’re at the Hershey’s pitch. Don’s in control, but we know something’s wrong, because we know he’s bullshitting, and his best pitches don’t bullshit. The Carousel pitch is the classic example, but think back to all his man-who-wasn’t-there pitches from earlier in the season. He may not have known it, but he was telling the truth in them, about who he is, about what he wanted. Now? “My father tousled my hair. his love and the chocolate were tied together.” Fuck outta here. “Hershey’s is the currency of affection,” says the son of a whore, raised in a whorehouse, deflowered by a whore. “The childhood symbol of love,” says the boy who saw hobos symbolize his father with the mark of a dishonest man, who was beaten and hated. “Sweet tales of childhood” is the angle for the ad, and Don’s got the shakes.

* Then he gets real. Holy shit. What does Hershey’s really taste like? The life of orphans whose caretakers want them around, of families that are real, glimpsed in a magazine left on the toilet by prostitutes. It tastes like “being wanted.” It’s something purchased with money stolen from johns, then eaten “alone, in my room, with great ceremony, feeling like a normal kid.” It tastes like something worth destroying this client relationship for, because he wouldn’t want to sell it anyway, it’s too special, and people already know what it tastes like anyway. Ted certainly knows, and Don won’t take it away from him, at long last.

* So yeah. Wow.

* “To bring your mother’s killer to justice?” “Ballpark.” The brothers Campbell, ladies and gentlemen. “She loved the sea.” You assholes. Wow, this is a magnificent Pete episode, and it’s not even over.

* “The world out there…I have to hang on to them or I’ll get lost in the chaos.” There but for the grace of Don goes Ted Chaough.

* “Aren’t you lucky. To have decisions.” Yet who winds up in Don’s chair, in Don’s office, striking Don’s pose? Hope springs eternal, Peggy Olson.

* “FUCK the agency. I quit my job!” Megan doesn’t have decisions either. Well, she has one, and she makes it. We’ll see if it sticks.

* Pete’s free. “It’s not the way I wanted it.” “Now you know that.” Decisions aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. And yeah, beautiful, beautiful Pete episode.

* Don getting fired (“fired”) is something I saw coming but never said I saw coming so it doesn’t count for you but man I feel smart about it. But yeah, that guy was just fucking up left and right. Missing Sunkist, tanking Hershey’s, screwing up the public offering no matter what else he did right at the time, all those blown pitches, MIA half the time, making life miserable on purpose for at least one partner and the chief of copy…He had to go. It spoke well of Joan and Roger, and even Jim and Bert, that they looked unhappy about it.

* Let’s add Duck Phillips to injury, sure, why not.

* Bob in an apron with a knife hahahahahaha

* I like Roger’s tweedy jackets, like a Rat Pack grandpa.

* “This is where I grew up.” The poverty that haunted the season in flashbacks and in riots is stared in the face. A little boy eats a popsicle, melting, as Mad Men has told us before, with every second. Sally looks at Don, and maybe sees him for what he is. The end.

* That was a quietly incredible episode, one that tied everything together in unexpected ways, making everything feel meticulous but not like the innards of a clock. I love this show.

My weekly column for Wired on Mad Men as viewed through the lens of its ad campaigns is up. This week: the season finale, Hershey’s, and the Carousel pitch played backwards.

* Jump cuts as Megan awakes without Don. You know, it’s just pleasant to see filmmaking, sometimes — the things that remind you of when you first became aware that the stuff on screen was the result of choices people made. And thanks to Scorsese I’ll always be a sucker for jump cuts within a single set of physical actions in a single physical space.

* Don curled up in…Bobby’s bed, or Sally’s? Either way.

* Lots of dark red in this episode so far. Uh-oh. Worse than the telltale orange, the eldritch salmon, of the last season?

* OH MY GOD KEN COSGROVE

* Seriously, I thought that was it. I thought they’d killed him. I’ve seen at least one critic scoff at that reaction, saying that’s not how the show works, but the show’s unpredictability is part of how the show works, of course. And dropping Kenny in the first few minutes is very Sopranos, too.

* Wow, that Nixon ad really directly presaged, or at least paralleled, the release of Night of the Living Dead that same month, didn’t it? Mayhem in black and white. Things fall apart.

* Don and Betty seem to be getting along great since their one-night stand. Maybe that cleaned the wound, I don’t know. Knowing these two I doubt it’ll last.

* Speaking of getting along great, Ted and Peggy are thick as thieves. I guess his blow-off didn’t take. Perhaps he redoubled his efforts after spotting Peggy’s rapport with Pete during their trip to Ocean Spray bog country.

* “You finally found a hooker who takes traveller’s checks?” “…why did I tell you that.” The open mocking of Harry to his face is endlessly entertaining, particularly since he’s actually good at his job — the partners just can’t help themselves anyway, such is their contempt for him.

* Rosemary’s Baby is back! (I really thought it was NotLD at first, but I’m not sure how many swanky midtown theaters that played in.)

* Don’s gonna fuck Ted because Ted’s fucking Peggy. (Or is he? I guess it’s not crystal clear. Actually it’s unlikely. But the principle is the same.)

* For the record, I share Don’s skepticism about using Rosemary’s Baby to sell children’s aspirin.

* Glad to see Ken escape death with just a faceful of buckshot. Glad to see someone, anyone draw a line around unacceptable conduct and refuse to cross it for love or money.

* I’d probably have been a much worse sport about the Sunkist/Ocean Spray switcheroo than Ted was, three times the business be damned. Did he know even then what was up? Is it just me, or is the irony here that Don would never have thought of screwing with Ted on purpose if Ted hadn’t already accused him of doing so when in fact he was only doing it accidentally?

* “I once had a client cup my wife’s breast.” The formalism of Jim Cutler. “Lee Garner Jr. made me hold his balls.” The ribaldry of Roger Sterling.

* So the Ted situation causes the Bob/Pete/Chevy situation, insofar as Sterling and Cooper join forces with Cutler to force a Cutler protégé on the account as a make-good.

* “You should watch what you say to people.” Uh-oh. Dark Bob. Pete, I fear you’re being out-operated.

* “I wanna be a grown-up, but I know how important my education is.” The education of Sally Draper continues.

* Sad lol at Duck Phillips still kinda implying he wants to work at SC&P. Nod of approval at Pete trying to get Bob headhunted out of his hair.

* Dark Bob en español! What exactly was he encouraging Manuel to do?

* I guess for the record I need to note Don’s baby impression and Joan’s yenta impression. They were funny. But mostly I was still wrapping my head around using Rosemary’s Baby to sell children’s aspirin.

* Seriously — surely the fact that that movie is really really scary, and that it invokes Satanism, was enough to make it kind of toxic for this kind of thing? Or do our perceptions of the film now stem from what we know about Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate and Charles Manson in real life?

* “This is as much for you to find out about us as it is for us to find out about you.” Sally’s a quick study, you’ll see, lady.

* “That Spanish fly!”

* I was not happy with the idea of Sally getting hazed. Fortunately it turns out she’s just hangin’.

* And now Don’s murking Ted left and right. Ugly.

* GLEN BISHOP’S BACK! HE’S BALLIN’! HE LOOKS GREAT!

* Loved Duck’s tall glass of milk.

* “I’ve never seen anything like this before.” “…I have.” The show doesn’t traffic in chill-inducers as a rule, but man, what a mighty, mythic exchange that was. Bob Benson, goldbricker.

* Great deep focus shots with Megan and Don. Again, I love filmmaking. Thanks, Orson Welles.

* Aw, Sally gets jilted. And then Rolo gets his.

* “You have to feel the conspiracy,” Peggy tells the client, never suspecting Don’s just sitting there being a conspiracy of one.

* “It’s a little bit personal. In fact it’s very personal.” No shit, Don.

* “This was Frank Gleason’s last idea.” He taints a beloved project even while saving it, dragging Ted’s friend into it, stealing the credit from Peggy. Absolutely brutal. A Draper pitch from hell.

* “C’mon. We’ve all been there. I mean, not with Peggy, but…” So mean! Unnecessarily! Don, Don, Don.

* “You’re not thinking with your head.” Sometimes Don’s lack of self-awareness can be stunning.

* Pete’s confrontation with “Bob Benson” was magnificent. “Well, for one thing, I wanted you to stop smiling.” Pete hasn’t gotten a hero moment like that in…ever? And Bob can’t help but be unctuous even when cornered: “You don’t respond well to gratitude.”

* Here’s the thing about Bob, though: If we believe both his romantic overture to Pete, and his story about how Pete was responsible for “hiring” him, that makes him not just a con man, but…kind of mentally unstable, right? As if the empty office and self-help tapes weren’t indication enough?

* “I’m off limits.” Now Pete has a secret weapon. To wield against whom? Does it matter? He kept the rifle around without ever actually firing it, after all.

* “My father never gave me anything.” Your ability to maneuver came from someplace, Sally.

* “You’re a monster.” I’ve seen a lot of people celebrate this line, this characterization. And obviously it’s true — Don deliberately dismantled people’s happiness in this episode, in a way that reminded me of, say, Tony Soprano deliberately goading his sister Janice into ruining her anger management. But I still feel a great deal of both sympathy and empathy for him, as I do for all the protagonist figures on shows like this, no matter how loathsome they become. They force you to walk a mile in their shoes.

Forgot to post this the other day, but my weekly column on the world of Mad Men as viewed through its ad campaigns is up. This week: Don Draper, Bob Benson, Rosemary’s Baby, and other monsters.

* What an episode. Hilarious and heartbreaking. Best of the season.

* I wonder what it says about this episode that it began with Peggy getting scared by a rat. Like, of all the storylines in this episode, hers was the least immediately consequential, right? So…something about the best-laid plans of mice and men? Preparing for another visit from the rat only made things worse?

* “Not all surprises are bad,” says Roger Sterling as he spontaneously learns to juggle.

* Peggy looked legitimately pleased to meet Pete’s mom. Aw.

* And now it starts getting funny. “Trudy dear, don’t deny him. Don’t reject his caresses. I hope one day you can one day find what Manolo and I have found. I’ve waited long enough to experience the physical satisfaction of love.”

* I wrote down “Bob is a wonderful salesman” and I’m not even sure what I was referencing, but obviously we later reach the limits of this gift.

* “Like everything else in this country, model diplomacy is just an excuse to make out.” Like visiting your son at summer camp, Betty?

* “He can’t spend the rest of his life on the run.” With that take on the plight of Mitchell Rosen, Don admits his own life is untenable.

* How delightful it was to watch Ted, Peggy, and Pete have such a jolly time! Yeah, there’s some jealous moments here and there, but she’s so good in each of their company, and so open even with Pete. “You really know me.” “I do.” A pleasure to watch, particularly compared to the debacle of a California trip that nevertheless netted Roger, Don, and Harry a shot at Sunkist comparable to the one Ted’s group just earned with Ocean Spray.

* And my god, how funny! “Did your father ever give her spa treatments that released a fire in her loins?” “Ohh, ohh, ohhh!” “I don’t even want to think about her brushing her teeth!” “I have never been less afraid of flying in my life.” I was laughing as hard as they were.

* The saddest thing about Don and Arnold’s relationship is what legitimately good friends they could be if things were different. Listen to the ease and articulacy with which Arnold describes to Don the problems in his marriage, the plight of young soldiers, and his love for his own son despite seeing the kid’s imitations. Later in the episode, Ted tells Don that he probably doesn’t have a lot of friends — man, what a waste.

* In a way, Ted’s relationship with his wife parallels Don’s relationship with Arnold. Mrs. Chaough responds to Ted with evident thoughtfulness and concern, accurately seeing how much his work means to him, and which aspects of that work he finds particularly engaging. She just wishes he found her just as engaging.

* Roger on the cost of his trip: “I have a lot of receipts, I haven’t figured it out yet!” Story of his life.

* “Imagine if every time Ginger Rogers jumped in the air, Fred Astaire punched her in the face.” A funny line from Ted, but also a revealing one. That’s how he sees the potential of his and Don’s relationship — Rogers and Astaire, dancing on air. And that’s how he sees Don’s neglect of that relationship — as a deliberate assault.

* “I don’t WANT his juice! I want MY juice!” “It’s all your juice.” hahahahahahahaha

* I feel like I’ve spent a disproportionate amount of the season just writing down great dialogue, but Mad Men is a very funny show!

* To wit: the exchange between Pete and his mother. All these wonderful flavors of humor. Shade-throwing: “I suppose there’s a way I could mistake your tone for concern.” Cringe comedy: “Manny has awakened a part of me that was long dormant. Don’t you think I’m entitled to the pleasures of love?” “Don’t be any more specific.” Mad Men style personality demolitions where you laugh out of shock: “You were a sour little boy, and you’re a sour little man. You’ve always been unlovable.” Chuckling because it’s kind of sad: “I have carfare, and a piece of paper with my address, written in his elegant handwriting.” And Pete hands her her purse. Christ.

* Don, do not fuck up the client dinner with ‘Nam talk, you doofus.

* Somehow I knew the first thing they liked about Mitchell was his ass.

* Of all the things I expected to find in Satan Rizzo’s apartment, a giant poster of Moshe Dayan wasn’t one of them.

* “Maybe I’ll make it worth your while if you come over.” “No you won’t.” Do you think she would have? I kind of wonder!

* Don and Ted’s grand compromise was a marvel to watch. Ted’s obviously making things about him that aren’t about him, which explains Don’s disbelief that scratching his back in this way is all it’ll take to get the favor out of him. Yet Ted also legitimately has Don’s number regarding his self-aggrandizement. “I can’t stop the war, Ted.” “Don’t be an asshole, Don.”

* And how satisfying for Don to affect a rapprochement with Ted, solve the Sunkist/Ocean Spray conflict, rescue Mitchell from his own land-war-in-Asia fate, and do a good deed for his ex-mistress Sylvia without actually even expecting to talk to her about it, all in one fell swoop. But that’s the problem: It was too satisfying. The moment he lit up a cigarette in the middle of his tearful conversation with Sylvia, you knew he was in trouble. He’s back in business.

* Mad Men Presents: Bob Benson Doing Things! “Calm down, sit down.” Bob Benson taking charge! “I did some digging, and — ” Bob Benson doing some digging! “Is it really so impossible to imagine? Couldn’t it be that if someone took care of you, very good care of you, if this person would do anything for you, if your well-being was his only thought, is it impossible that you might begin to feel something for him. When there’s true love, does it matter who it is?” Bob Benson…proclaiming his love for Pete Campbell? Okay, that mystery’s solved. “Tell him I’ll give him a month’s pay. And tell him it’s disgusting.” And he never broke his smile.

* Oh no. Sally. Oh no.

* Sylvia pounding on the mattress.

* Sally witnessing Don doing the thing Don witnessed his stepmother doing.

* Don turning around in the lobby, unsure of what to do. Don wandering out into the street.

* Peggy got a cat! Mrs. Olson, thou art avenged.

* Ted came home. Aw.

* Pete threw a box of Raisin Bran. Man, there’s a lot you can read into that gesture.

* The entire scene at dinner with Arnold and Mitchell was excruciating. Sally gets to see, first hand, that sometimes every other world in an adult conversation is bullshit, and it’s nightmarish. Contrast her reaction here to her world-weary sigh of “dirty” when she caught Roger and Megan’s maman in flagrante. This time it hurt, because the nightmare came from the man who supposedly supported all her dreams. “It’s complicated.” It sure is now. But she kept the secret. She’s her father’s daughter.

My weekly column on the world of Mad Men as viewed through its ad campaigns is up. This week: good surprises and bad surprises.

I had a nice long conversation about two of my favorite shows with one of my favorite critics, Alyssa Rosenberg, on her Bloggingheads.tv show Critic Proof. Topics include the Red Wedding (of course), Catelyn Stark, spectacle and gore, the horrors of war, world-historical events as “monster of the week,” whether character growth is necessary, repetition vs. novelty, and much more. At the link, you can even download an mp3 version if you don’t feel like watching it as a video. Enjoy!

My weekly column on the world of Mad Men as viewed through its ad campaigns is up. This week: Hippies don’t even wear makeup.

* “Not in primetime.” Don sees bad things as important only to the extent that they’re well marketed.

* “I made the biggest mistake of my life.” “I hate actresses.” The truth comes out in jest?

* Is Don still good at his job? This is something Molly Lambert has been calling into question all season long, and I’ve been skeptical of her skepticism, but when the first words out of your mouth when you sit down at a partners’ meeting you forgot was taking place are “Are we done here?”, it makes one wonder.

* What a bunch of babies, arguing about the initials of the agency. I love how long that was drawn out — well past the point of it being a conversation worth having.

* Cutler’s bit about how delay in renaming the agency “will take it out of our hands and leave it up to the world” has the sound of him realizing he needs to take charge of the merger by any means necessary if “his side” is to come out on top, even if he doesn’t realize this is what he’s realizing just yet.

* “Leave the drudgery to Ted Chaough and the rest of the underlings.” Plenty of us-and-them from the other side, too, if Roger’s any indication.

* “Be slick. Be glib. Be you!” Point #1: Roger sure idealizes Don, doesn’t he. Point #2: That’s what the ideal Don looks like to Roger.

* “Our biggest challenge is not to get syphilis.” Boy oh boy, lots of good lines in this episode. It’s a Roger showcase, in part, so that makes sense. Sterling Silver-Tongued rides again.

* Everything about the blow-up between Cutler and Ginsberg was, like, this season in a nutshell — its unique, non-marquee players and conflicts given the spotlight. Stan’s strategic retreat (“This is my stop.”), Ginsberg’s hyperbolic angst, Cutler’s sociopathy, Bob Benson To The Rescue…what a strange little microcosm.

* “WHY ARE YOU ALWAYS DOWN HERE! GO BACK UPSTAIRS!” She doesn’t even go here!

* Yes, you could smell the wood burning as Joan shifted gears from thinking she was on a date to realizing she was on a business dinner, but it was no less satisfying for seeing the gears turn. The woman gave Harry Crane the hard sell, for god’s sake. She’s a professional, and given enough time by herself and by the agency, she’ll be a good professional.

* “You’re not going anywhere.” “I was, but then you appeared.” Cutler had previously attempted to banish BOB, but it is not his custom to go where he is not wanted. “I believe in you, Bob.” Oh, Jim — especially important is the warning to avoid conversations with the demon.

* Does Pete even realize how insufferable he’s become? I get it — he feels he’s Cassandra, and his warnings are going unheeded. But he’s really that oblivious to Joan, with whom he’d appeared to have something of a rapport this season? His tirade at the end of the episode indicates that this has something to do with clinging to the Rules. Perhaps you can see some continuity between this and his reaction to the murder of Martin Luther King earlier in the season: Both events violated the way these things are supposed to work.

* Peggy gives good stank face.

* Wow, Roger and Don and Harry are really staring into the abyss with those wingnut Carnation execs. Who was scarier to you, the cackling “Democrats are over” guy or the fire-and-brimstone “Dutch Reagan is a patriot” guy?

* Adults don’t eat cereal, but hippies don’t wear makeup. The generation gap as demographic research. “What if we were to say we find the conflict unresolvable?”

* “We believe in the wholesomeness of both your intentions and your products,” says Don. The professional is political.

* Joan and Peggy’s relationship may be the trickiest in the whole show, because they were never clear-cut enemies and thus it’s hard to see them as clear-cut friends. Each resents, envies, admires, and enjoys the other in equal measure for different things.

* Bob’s listening to self-help recordings in his decorationless office. WHAT COULD GO WRONG

* Ginsberg, with characteristic calmness: “I’m a thug, I’m a pig, I’m a part of the problem. ‘Now I am become death, destroyer of worlds.'” If this is what he’s like pitching Manischewitz, I’m glad SDCP never picked up Volkswagen.

* Another hasty retreat from Rizzo: “I can’t watch this.”

* And another bizarre, protean performance from Bob Benson. The mystery of Bob is more confounding because it’s not the usual “mystery” where the show headfakes in one direction only to reveal the opposite. It’s not really faking in any one direction at all.

* This is Don’s happening, baby, and it freaks him out!

* My contention is that this Boogie Nights/Austin Powers/Dragnet drug episode/”Mama Told Me Not to Come” Hollywood party was deliberately cartoonish on the part of the show. Danny’s return as a ridiculous homunculus avatar of ’60s LA, the outfits straight out of Hair‘s wardrobe department, the hookah, the pool, the bikini girls, the one-named zoned-out ingenues — if Don nearly collapses in as prefab a version of the counterculture as this, what hope does he have amid the real thing? This despite him being a more efficient mental codeshifter than Roger, who spends the party trying to reenact his bullying of Burt Peterson with a guy who could have hooked him up with Warner Bros.

* Don conjures up a pliant, pregnant, I would assume unemployed/unemployable Megan, and a maimed, dead soldier. These are the kids today, and this is how Don feels when he thinks of them.

* “My wife thinks I’m MIA, but I’m actually dead.” Chills. “Dying doesn’t make you whole. You should see what you look like.” MAJOR chills. That’s a horrifying line. “Man overboard!” Straight-up Rosemary’s Baby dream-sequence “Typhoon! Typhoon!” shit.

* Roger saved Don’s life, so I ship them now.

* “The job of your life is to know yourself. Sooner or later you’ll love who you are.” Through acid, Roger has gotten to know that he is an actual child. He’s perfectly happy about it.

* Good to see Creeper Peggy back in action — now with intercom powers!

* Peggy saves Joan with the power of copywriting.

* SC&P. Pete’s right: Don’s been reeled in without even feeling the hook in the eye.

* I laughed out loud at the final sequence of Pete smoking a joint in slow motion to the accompaniment of Janis Joplin. Pure Scorsese, and in Mean Streets Scorsese was one of the first filmmakers (preceded by Dennis Hopper on Easy Rider, and Kenneth Anger on Scorpio Rising if you wanna go there) to replace a score or original music with found pop songs, just like the exec Don was talking to at the party was talking about. Thank you, Film Studies major, for giving me a good laugh.

My latest column for Wired on the world of Mad Men as viewed through its ad campaigns is up. This week: “It tastes better because it’s more expensive.”

* “It tastes better because it’s more expensive. It’s the premium brand, and it’s priced accordingly.” Those two sentences could be unpacked endlessly. Thanks, Ted.

* “Don–I agree with you!” Pete’s on the pay-no-mind list.

* It’s funny to me with the benefit of the entire episode in hindsight, but I actually wrote “Peggy has to choose between Ted and Don” as a note on this scene, as if this wouldn’t be the explicit subject matter of the hour.

* Mad Men‘s soap within the show is in the grand tradition of such things, most notably Invitation to Love on Twin Peaks, the show of which this show becomes more redolent with each passing season.

* Peggy on her two bosses: “You’re the same person sometimes.” But she’s convinced Ted values things other than himself. Perhaps he just has a more palatable way of presenting his self-interest to those close to him. “He never makes me feel this way.” “He doesn’t know you.”

* Abe gets stabbed, part 1 of 2. Taking his muggers’ side in the argument — that’s marvelous, because he’s both totally right and infuriatingly wrong in terms of understanding the role he plays in the life of the person who cares about him: “Fuck those unfortunate teenagers, I love you and you’re supposed to love me!” How can Peggy trust someone who’s on board with his own potential annihilation?

* “They’re two halves of the same person and they want the same thing but they’re trying to get it in different ways.” Mel-via-Megan delivers us another doozy. In a way, Mad Men Season Six has become sort of like All Star Superman, Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s superhero-comic masterpiece. That comic primarily pitted a dying Superman against thinly veiled analogues of himself: Bizarro’s the one that would be most famous to non-superhero people, but he also faced the mythical strongmen Samson and Atlas; Zibarro, the one smart person on Bizarro World; superpowered Lois Lane; superpowered Lex Luthor; a small group of fellow Kryptonian survivors, and so on. The drama came from seeing Superman juxtaposed against these non-Superman supermen, discovering what they had to offer that he didn’t and vice versa. Superman always came out on top, because that is his essential superpower. That of course has been Don Draper’s superpower up to this point as well, as drawn out by Don Doppelgangers like Henry Francis and Ted Chaough and Pete Campbell, but mostly those men exist to show us how someone else goes about doing the kinds of things Don does without being Don, and where that gets them relative to where it gets him.

* Case in point: Henry getting revved up by other men’s desire for Betty. His demands that she tell him exactly how his creepy colleague hit on her were very Dom Draper, but remember that Don was always mortified when Betty made her attractiveness evident for the enjoyment of others (or herself).

* Roger Sterling’s a grandpa! Ha, you knew that wouldn’t end well, though I figure the kid really does love his Grandpa Roger, nightmares notwithstanding.

* I am inordinately pleased to see Duck Phillips again. Always am. I love seeing characters continue to live on in the tapestry of a show they’ve departed, for one thing, but I also simply enjoy seeing how Duck’s career marches on in the face of his repeated flameouts. And hey, he landed poor Burt Peterson a plum gig! And hey, he’s doling out life advice! Pete’s in a bad enough place that he might well take it.

* Betty’s a knockout again. When I saw where things were headed with her and Don, I simply typed “Uh-oh.”

* “Is this all me? Because that’ll help.” “…I think about it.” That’s an intense little exchange from Ted and Peggy. I’ll admit I was surprised to see him lay it all on the line like that.

* Bobby Draper gets a scene!

* So both the Drapers have a “let the right one in” situation going on. Arlene sweats her way into Megan’s apartment, while Don is the vampire being allowed into Betty’s motel room. “Close the door. You’ll let the bugs in.” Oh, Betty, there are all different kinds of bloodsuckers.

* “What did you think when you saw me?” “That you are as beautiful as the day I met you.” Good answer, apparently!

* “Fine….No, I’m ‘fine’ with being a tease.” Arlene’s advances and Megan’s rebuffs were endearingly clumsy, if only because I still tend to believe Arlene that she and Mel won’t take it out on Megan.

* “Status quo antebellum: Everything as it was.” Cut to Don and Betty, post-coital. Nice.

* “I can only hold your attention for so long.” Jeez, that whole bit about the look in his eyes was so good, especially because Jon Hamm’s eyes are unusually communicative in a sexual context. I’ve written before that he never looks more human or more vulnerable than when he makes a move, his eyes all hazy and cloudy with lust and hope just like anyone.

* I typed this out as fast as I could: “Why is sex the definition of being close to someone?” “I don’t know, but it is for me. It is for most people.” “Just because you climb a mountain doesn’t mean you love it….If we lied here together with you in my arms I’d have felt just as close. But the rest of it, I don’t know, I don’t know, it doesn’t mean that much to me.” That’s a huge piece of the Don Draper puzzle, right there.

* Roger follows Don to the movies, then uses Don as an explicit reason why it was okay to do so. Adorable! I guess that vision in the mirror during his LSD trip wasn’t a one-off.

* The transformation of sleepy morning-after Don into PERFECT DON was just tremendous.

* Joan and Bob! The reveal of his shorts — we see them only after Roger does — was too fucking funny.

* Abe gets stabbed, part 2 of 2. He can forgive random dudes from the neighborhood, but not his girlfriend of several years. And he just annihilates her with resentment. I’m semi-surprised she didn’t grab the knife and finish the job.

* Megan on the balcony in a t-shirt and underwear. Ohhhhh, alright.

* Joan’s got poor Roger’s number like you wouldn’t believe. Worse than Betty had Don’s by telling him loving him is the worst way to get to him, worse than Abe had Peggy’s by telling her she’ll always be the enemy. Roger really can’t be relied upon by anyone except the agency.

* Final note of the night: “Who ARE you, Bob Benson???”

My latest column for Wired on the world of Mad Men as viewed through its ad campaigns is up. This week: The ultimate Draper Pitch.

* Maybe every episode should begin in medias res with Ken Cosgrove being forced at gunpoint to drive a carful of drunken Chevy execs down a dark road at 80mph. I truly thought he might have died.

* Don standing around smoking outside Sylvia’s apartment. Not taking this well, I see.

* Chevy is turning out to be a poisoned chalice. Everyone’s exhausted, and Don’s tearing into Kenny like he’s Pete.

* Even before I knew what he meant, I heard Jim Cutler say “I’m gonna get everybody fixed up” and thought “Cutler, you magnificent bastard.” A lot of the best Mad Men lines are the best because they have a recognizable emotional or narrative tone even though you haven’t been able to locate the context yet. (Cf. last season’s “Far Away Places,” which produced this phenomenon by showing events out of order.)

* I haven’t been crazy about Linda Cardellini as Sylvia, to be honest. I suppose I see what she represents to Don — age, experience, a housewife rather than a budding celebrity; perhaps even her ability to experience guilt and therefore the taboo are appealing — but as a performance…I don’t know, kind of…not a lot of zest to it? That changed last night, during her teary, desperate phone call with Don. Don’s looking for a big romantic moment, but Sylvia’s willing and able to boil their bad romance down to a growled “KNOCK IT OFF!”

* And Don is totally powerless before it. Seeing him in his mighty, Olympian office, hanging on the telephone because he can’t bring himself to hang up, a master of all he surveys except this one thing…it’s rough.

* Coughing fits. “Your face looks like a bag of walnuts.” Yeah, it’s rough on the guy alright.

* Betty’s blonde again. Okay.

* Poor Dawn. Her skill at Don management (Donagement?) is both a blessing and a curse.

* Ted Chaough on Frank Gleason: “He’s a piece that cannot be replaced.” Don, of course, was just replaced.

* A conversation between Roger and Stan! Alright!

* Cutler’s a cold customer, as it turns out. Doesn’t really care about Frank. Didn’t see that coming, frankly. Not that I saw the opposite coming mind you — just that it’s revealing of his character.

* I loved all the build-up to the doctor. They’re talking about him like he’s Col. Kurtz. Turns out he’s Dr. Robert.

* Mad Men excels at build-up, though, so I shouldn’t be surprised. I liked how the nature and effects of the drug were doled out in installments as well: Cutler leaping merrily around, then Cutler and Stan racing, then Don zoning out/zoning in, and so on.

* Don sees Peggy taking care of Ted and then flashes back to a sequence in which his mother failed to take care of him. Hm.

* “Do we know each other?” Hoo boy. “I meant from somewhere other than from this moment.” Zooms. Bells. It’s a drug episode! Hold all my calls!

* “Some kinda love transaction between a parent and a child and the greatest gift of all: a Chevy.” Ginsberg: straightedge by nature, messianic in his approach to crafting ad copy.

* “I hate how dying makes saints out of people.” Solid, true line, but I prefer the way it reveals the complexity of the workplace. Frank’s been painted as the perfect friend/partner by Ted, so to learn he was a dick to his underlings reminds us that everyone’s story has different heroes and villains.

* “I wanna write stuff down so it looks like I’m working.” Ginsberg nails it.

* “I’ll have 15 campaigns for you by then but you have to get me in a room so I can look them in the eye. The timbre of my voice is as important as the content. I don’t know whether I’ll be forceful or submissive, but I must be there in the flesh.” “You understand that I have no power whatsoever….I’m their favorite toy.” My first thought upon hearing this Don-Ken exchange: This drug transforms your subtext into text!

* “I know you’re all feeling the darkness here today, but there’s no reason to give in. No matter what you’ve heard, this process will not take years. In my heart, I know we cannot be defeated, because there is an answer that will open the door. There is a way around this system. This is a test of our patience and commitment. One great idea can win someone over.” I feel like that first sentence should be written on an anonymous notecard and pinned above Don’s hospital bed someday, Tony Soprano-style.

* Soup! Don’s looking for chicken soup for the soul.

* Whoa, it’s the next day, suddenly. That came as a shock.

* “Her name is Wendy.” I thought we were going to push the age limit for Don’s thing for brunettes, but he’s not feeling it, and in retrospect it’s easy to see why: He’s crafting the ultimate Draper Pitch, his product is Don Draper himself, and he’s got a target audience of one in mind.

* “I’ve got six hundred and sixty-six ideas!” HAIL STAN

* Complaints about Mad Men trying too hard or being too obvious or god help us being on the nose miss the point because that is the point. Symbolist TV. It’s all right there, dredged to the surface. If it’s obvious, well, aren’t we all, when that happens? Case in point: Wendy the would-be psychic, wearing a stethoscope while telling Don he wants to know if someone loves him. “I wanna hear your heart. Oh — I think it’s broken.” “You can hear that?!” “I can’t hear anything. I think it’s broken.” I mean, the show’s making a joke of it. This is not Matthew Weiner trying to be subtle but screwing it up.

* “You’re on TV every day. Don’t they know that?” Bobby Draper gives Megan the validation Don Draper can’t deliver.

* The old William Tell trick!

* “You’re pretentious, you know that? I love that.” Again, this is not Matthew Weiner making a mistake.

* “But you hate him!” “…I hate apples more.” Ginsberg’s great in this episode.

* Jesus, Don, not at Sylvia’s again!. Then an endless, immobile closeup of his head against her door. “Out of my head over you.”

* Doors: Don knows the perfect idea can open the door. His ultimate Draper Pitch involves telling Sylvia not to shut the door. He tells Ginsberg he’s got it when Ginsberg says he has to get his foot in the door. He tells Sally it’s all his fault since he left the door open.

* “You’re lucky I don’t like beards.” “Women say that, but they don’t act like it.” YESSSSSSSSS, PEGGY AND STAN / YESSSSSSSSS, BEARDS

* “You’ve got a great ass.” “Thank you.” is this generation’s “I love you.” “I know.”

* Sally’s reading Rosemary’s Baby. Girl, you’ll be a woman soon.

* Whoa, who is this lady? Grandma Ida? It was clear she was robbing the joint, but when she asked “Your daddy Mr. Donald Draper, or not?” I thought she was trying to rip off a very different Don Draper. That was a creepy moment.

* “Because you know what he needs.” And thus begins a game of connect the dots with beauty marks, from Amy the prostitute to the oatmeal mom to Sylvia.

* “Do you wanna know what all the fuss is about?” “No.” Famous last words, Don.

* Don’s first is a blonde. He marries a blonde, but spends his free time chasing brunettes like the mother who badly beat him for having sex while screaming at him that he’s filth. So there you go.

* “Are we negroes?”

* Don’s ultimate Draper Pitch uses history to attract its audience, even while Don’s lack of history is being used to bamboozle Sally and Bobby into giving up the goods to the world’s kindliest catburglar.

* “Have you been working on Chevy at all?” And that was the moment I finally realized what he was preparing to sell.

* Don finally opens the door, and walks into a nightmare tableau of broken domesticity — his ex, the wife he’s cheating on, his replacement, his abandoned kids, a cop. Lights out.

* That elevator ride. I was happy for both of them when it ended.

* Woof, Wendy was Frank’s daughter. Cutler is Roger if Roger were a sociopath rather than merely a nihilist.

* “Every time we get a car, this place turns into a whorehouse.” The door into Don Draper is shut.

My latest column for Wired on the world of Mad Men as viewed through its ad campaigns is up. This week: dominance, submission, and margarine.

* My favorite parts about the blow-up Don overhears between Sylvia and Arnold: the complete absence of Arnold’s voice, it’s just his stuff sitting there in the hallway, like the discarded clothing of the man who wasn’t there in Don’s Royal Hawaiian ad; Don’s frantic button pushing to close the door before he gets caught listening in.

* Margie! Nice to meet you, female copywriter! We hardly knew ye.

* When Peggy introduces Ted to her old colleagues she calls Stan by his first name and Ginsberg “Ginsberg.”

* Blink and you’ll miss it, but Bob briefly tails Peggy and Ted as they walk to their offices.

* No chair for Pete at the meeting. Never let it be said that Mad Men doesn’t place enough banana peels in front of that guy!

* “Now that we’ve dispensed with the gallantry.” Roger, you magnificent bastard.

* Cutler = Roger 2

* “Ted’s a pilot!” I swear you could hear Don’s balls shrivel.

* Pete’s mom was so lucid in her senility that she briefly had me confused. I kept mixing up her allegations regarding Pete’s late father — who died in a plane crash, which is worth noting in this plane-heavy episode — with the truth about Pete’s very much alive father-in law.

* Re: Roger’s firing of Burt Peterson: holy shit, Roger. Like the Comedian from Watchmen, to whom I will never stop comparing him (which fact renews my confidence somewhat in the idea that Watchmen has things to communicate outside its art form and era), this cackling nihilist has a mean streak a mile wide. Every line was a punch in the throat.

* “I need you, and nothing else will do.” Sylvia’s got a future in copywriting ahead of her.

* “A little rap session about margarine in general.”

* My notes for the beginning of Don and Sylvia’s hotel-room tryst: “No dom/sub games for Sylvia, Don, sorry.” [line break] “Whoops, I stand corrected.” Sorry, but that was all some hot shit. Don’s confidence comes from being unpleasant and adored for it.

* Don’s thoroughly out-alpha’ing Ted.

* Pete to his brother: “I don’t have a chair!” Wah wah wah.

* Ted Chaough asserting that every advertising archetype has its Gilligan’s Island analogue anticipates several decades of meta-pop.

* The best thing about Draper Pitches, as we see in his margarine spiel, is that he can take the most absurd and banal subjects imaginable and make it seem like he’s taking you through the stargate in 2001.

* Bob! “Just walk with me, and I’ll bother you all the way out. No one will know.”

* Bob! Furniture polish improv! Okay, maybe this guy’s a good accounts man after all.

* Unexpected and fascinating to get such a direct window into Ted’s thoughts about Don, during that conversation with Gleason. Ted’s amazed that Don seems more interested in him than in their work, because he doesn’t feel interesting. “He doesn’t talk for long stretches and then he’s incredibly eloquent.” Gleason’s got Don’s number, though: “Give him the early rounds. He’ll tire himself out.”

* “Peggy, he’s a grown man.” “So are you! Move forward.” Peggy, audience stand-in.

* I guess it should go without saying that Don’s playing control games because it makes him feel the most like himself and the least like his life is out of control in any other area.

* Don and Ted in a plane! Hahahahaha! Like something out of a single-camera comedy.

* “Sometimes when you’re flying you think you’re rightside up but you’re really upside down. Gotta watch your instruments.” Ted Chaough, accidental philospher.

* “No matter what I say, you’re the guy who flew us up here in his own plane.” Don’s been out-alpha’d.

* “Not every good deed is part of a plan.” Joan’s mom, voice of optimism.

* “My mother can go to hell. Ted Chaough can fly her there.” Pete Campbell, winner, line of the night.

* It’s a dopey tv-critic thing to worry about, I know, but what a sad state of affairs that Jon Hamm may never win an Emmy. What a marvel that guy is in this role! Don gets dumped, and it plays out on his face like someone dynamiting the sculpted surface of George Washington right off Mount Rushmore.

* Joan saves Bob, just like that. A good deed goes unpunished!

* Oof, that fadeout on Megan’s voice, brutal.

* “They’re shooting everybody.” With that, Pete’s mom disappears, walks behind the glass, becomes a silhouette, a ghost. Very creepy.

* That shot of Don arms akimbo, in the foreground of the shot, out of focus, Meagan and the news report behind him. Well done, Slattery.

* People are finally getting together.

* Using the assassination of Robert Kennedy to comment on the state of Mad Men, rather than the other way around, is the most Mad Men thing Mad Men has ever done, an act of creative hubris that would do Don himself proud.

My latest column for Wired on the world of Mad Men as viewed through its ad campaigns is up. This week: a tale of two Chevys.

* Pete and Joan, flirting? Relatively convincingly? Don’t that beat all.

* It’s Mother’s Day, everyone.

* Going public surprised me, for sure. But for all the nattering about how Don doesn’t change, Sterling Cooper (Draper Pryce) sure has, over the years. Independent, then bought out and wholly owned subsidiaried, then rogue and independent, then established and independent but small, then maybe publicly held, then merged and big.

* Roger goes Littlefinger, sexing a stewardess spy. It’s unorthodox, to be sure, but bedding down an airline employee so she can keep track of arrivals and departures from Detroit is some next-level thinking for an accounts man. But it’s not really a surprise that Roger’s good at his job, albeit in the most Roger way imaginable (“Good idea.” “I’m full of ’em!” He’s right!), any more than it’s a surprise that Joan keeps impeccable books. One of the great pleasures of Mad Men is that you get to watch people who, with rare exceptions, are quite good at their jobs.

* “But my mother just died.” You can practically see the insincere frowny-face emoticon after that line.

* Pete is exceptionally oily when he attempts to, I don’t know what you’d call it, “seduce” Trudy on Mother’s Day morning. Amazing how quickly she goes back to her usual cheery, gently nose-tweaking approach to interacting with him (“I’ve taken note of your efforts,” with a big smile), but routine is powerful.

* Maman is a piece of work.

* Great summary of Pete Campbell #1: Asking Don to dinner, getting rejected, Don walks into his office and Roger’s already in there. Pete is the man outside.

* I loved our little glimpse of Cutler Gleeson Chaough. I liked Frank when I thought he was just a high-strung depressive artist type, I liked him even more when we found out he’s dying, and I like that Ted is mean to his enemies but truly kind to his friends.

* “Everybody loves astronauts! I gotta go lie down.”

* Maman remains a piece of work, but she knows Don well enough to give Megan what turns out to be solid advice for their relationship. I mean, sort of — he’s at least as turned on by defenestrating Herb the Jaguar Asshole as he is by Megan’s high hemline.

* Best gasface of the night: Megan and Marie staring at Herb’s dopey wife, or Don staring at Herb after he quotes “The Girl from Ipanema”?

* I was kind of surprised Pete’s joke about serving Bert laudanum went over. But Pete’s not bad at everything all the time. It just doesn’t come as easily to him as it does to the true alpha males. He can work at it, and he can get there, but he just happens to fail.

* Do you think Herb was aware that he was insulting Don by telling him to learn from the kid who does their flyers at the lot? I’m not sure where I come down on that. Oh well, it was his mistake to tangle with a guy who loves nothing more than to use contempt as a blade to slice portions of his life away when they no longer serve him.

* Is it me or has it been a good long while since we had a good old-fashioned Mad Men last-minute save? When Roger called Don from the airport in Detroit, I almost got giddy.

* Oh shit. Trudy’s dad. Poor Pete — not even a rock-solid doctrine like Mutually Assured Destruction works out for him. He’s Dr. Strangelove on that shit.

* Also, uh, maybe not quite as enlightened about race as I gave him credit for last week, at least not when he’s pissed, which is when it counts.

* Pete Campbell summarized, #2: Falling down the stairs. Sometimes I think Matthew Weiner wants to give good .gif as much as Dan Harmon did on Community, at least where Pete’s concerned.

* Joan is devastated by Don’s caprice, how it took away her agency and rendered her choices meaningless. Don shakes it off and within minutes is doing what he does best, Roger smiling by his side. “How ’bout that.” “How ’bout it?”

* Ted has felt, all season long, like someone with a Draper-sized backstory behind him. That image of him sitting on the floor, failing to get his TV to work — that could have been the climax of an entire parallell Mad Men episode in which he’s been the main character all along.

* “Do not say I’m nice. I hate it when people say I’m nice.” “I was going to say strong.” Yeah, I can see the appeal those two people have for each other.

* “I don’t believe in fate. You make your own opportunities.” Says the guy who destroyed a client relationship in a fit of pique, only for dumb luck to pull his bacon out of the fire.

* “I love you like this.” “Desperate and scared?” “Fearless. And I want to do whatever I can to make sure you don’t fail. Then you can jump from the balcony and fly to work like Superman.” Superman, suicide, sex — is it just me, or did that scene with Megan perfectly summarize what we think about when we think about Don Draper?

* Don deliberately fucks with a client and is rewarded. Pete stumbles bass-ackwards into a relationship-destroying accident. Pete Campbell Summarized, #3.

* “Roger will handle it,” says Bert. Sure enough, Roger takes the call, hears the news, sits down, jokes around with his temperamental artiste friend, swallows it, keeps it to himself. Good at his job.

* Trudy’s dad tells Pete he’ll do the right thing. He doesn’t. It doesn’t make any difference.

* Wow, that was some goopy fantasy sequence with Peggy and Ted! Ha, sure, why not, let’s go full soap in Peggy’s head. I’m sure she could use some of that from time to time.

* Ted’s ad: optimistic, all-american, adventurous. Don’s ad: driven by awe, another ad that wasn’t there.

* “‘We.’ That’s interesting.” Called it!!! I am very excited about this merger because nothing in fiction excites me like talented rivals overcoming their differences to respect and cooperate with one another.

* “Hey, Lieutenant — wanna get into some trouble?”

* Peggy enters Ted’s office, and Don’s voice is there to greet her. Don materializes. The past comes back to haunt her. What an amazing scene.

* “Make it sound like the agency you wanna work for.” Good luck with that, Peggy.