Mad Men Season 7, Episode 9: "New Business" - Recap

That was a frustrating episode.  Maybe someday I'll have perspective on it and see the good.  But right now I'm feeling unfulfilled.  Don is just sleepwalking through life, dulling his pain with sexual distractions and ignoring his responsibilities.  He looks back and sees one failure after another. One lost opportunity after another. 

He hooks up with a stranger - that's nothing new.  He's hopped from one sexual encounter to another since we first met him. But this stranger is not young and pretty, she's a tired Plain Jane waitress.  What's the attraction?  She reminds him of someone. He's obsessed with her and since he's rich and handsome she's not at all put off by this attention.  They have sex and he becomes more and more interested in her. The feeling seems mutual.  She has a twinge in her chest.  A pain, he asks.   And were transported back to the Season One finale when Don spoke of nostalgia as a pain, a twinge. But that's not it. It's just a nod to the audience, like the fact that some Greek was the one to tell Don where to find Diana.  A Greek like the one he mentioned in the carousel speech.  See, the writers tell us, this is all connected.  Don is on his own carousel of destruction and loneliness going round and round from one decade to the next. 

Don tells her - and us, the viewing audience - that this must bother us but not to fear.  It's almost over. He's talking about his marriage, it sounds to me like he's talking about the series. 

Later he find out more about the object of his affection.  She lost a daughter two years ago and after twelve years of marriage and despite having another child she abandoned her life and moved away to escape.  Don is helping in her escape as time with him helps her not think or feel about what she's left behind.  Don realizes that this is wrong and that this is what he's been doing all his life.  Escaping from pain, running away, trying anything and everything to keep distance between him and what he doesn't want to feel.  

The endless womanizing, the nonstop drinking.  Maybe that will keep him from thinking about how some other man is raising his children. How he had a beautiful, smart and yes loving wife and lied to her and cheated on her and lost her.  How no matter what he has it's never been enough. 

We're hit over the head repeatedly by the parallels between Diana and Don.  Diana is trying to escape her painful and shameful past (losing one child, abandoning another), she punishes herself and doesn't believe she deserves love or happiness, she's content to wallow in her misery.  She feels hopeless and adrift, occasionally clings to things to dull the pain, then decides she doesn't even deserve the respite these distractions provide.  She ran away from something, but not toward anything.

In the midst of this we see a rare moment of amusing self-awareness as Don explains that he's dressed to the nines in the middle of the night because he's vain. Looking good is part of the image, the package that he presents to the world to hide what's going on underneath it all.  But he's running out of time.  As Pete says to him, what if there no more no more time. That's what's worrying the aging, sloppy,  worn out Don Draper. Is he running out of time?

Elsewhere, Harry Crane has been everyone's punching bag for years and I've never understood the size and fervor of the anti-Harry bandwagon but after watching him try and trade his connections for sexual favors from Megan and him telling her she should put out if she wants to succeed in Hollywood, I'm not only on the bandwagon, I'm leading it.  "She quit her soap and left New York, what a dumb idea."  Yeah, way to blame the victim.  That was all Don's idea, not Megan's. But easier to label her crazy - especially before she levels harassment charges against you. 

Stan was looking for validation of his artistic abilities and settled for validation of his manhood. Peggy is still pointing out that she's in charge. The storyline with guest appearance of the former Mrs. Tom Cruise seems like a Make a Wish for aging actresses and not a real progression of our story.  Stan cheated on his girlfriend (and who wears their complete uniform to bed anyway) and did not even get the validation from that act.  He found out that Pima the avant garde photographer didn't find him special at all and was more than willing to have a dalliance with Peggy as well.  And she insulted the girlfriend he cheated on while not praising his artistic vision. It was a bad couple of days for Stan and, in my opinion, a needless piece of stunt casting.

The members of the parade of past guest stars were slightly more successful.  Megan's temptress mother Marie came back to rob Don of his furniture and  to steal Roger's ...well, not his heart but some part of his anatomy.  She's been unhappily married from before we met her and her leaving her husband was one of the few things that made sense in this episode. She's staying in New York, perhaps to be with Roger. Sylvia and her doctor husband share a quick, icy elevator ride with Don and Di. So that answers the question none of us were asking about whether they're still in the building and still married.  

Pete had little to do this episode other than remind us that he will always be the second fiddle to Don's Itzhak Perlman.  Pete is prepared for the golf outing with the clients donned in his silliest links outfit, Don had completely forgotten as he was tied up having a late night romp with the dour waitress.  But Dapper Don suggests he can rent the clubs and throw his tie over his shoulder and the clients will love it.  And Pete laments that it's true, Don can get away with that mesmerize the clients.  No doubt, Pete acted as caddy once they got there.  Pete did however have the one insightful comment of the episode, wondering whether life is one endless cycle of failed fresh starts.  Years from now he'll see "Groundhog Day" and think someone stole his idea. 

Roger tried to caution Don about the divorce from Megan that it would be bitter and costly.  He projected from his own divorce from Jane just how Don's conversation with Megan would go. "So she never said you squandered her youth and beauty? Used up her childbearing years? Thwarted her career?"  Don dismissed Roger's warnings, saying Megan wasn't Jane.  But isn't she?  Wasn't the gist of her complaint to Don that he ruined her life?  And didn't it cost Don big time?

We all hate Megan, that's one thing that unites this country, right?  We thought, we actually rejoiced thinking, that the book was closed on her at the end of the last half season when they agreed to divorce.  But no, she had to come back once more to really really really end their marriage.  And she brought her seductress mother, Marie, and wet-blanket sister along for the trip.  While Megan is in town meeting with Harry, her family oversees the movers who were supposed to take some boxes, "Granny's cabinet, that chair, and the mirror."  Marie is furious with Don for ruining her daughter's life (more to the point, she's furious with her own husband for ruining her life and is using Don as a stand in) and decides to clean him out. 

Marie tells the movers to take it all.  She'd probably have them pull up the carpet if it weren't stained.  The movers complain that they weren't paid for such a large load, so she has to get more money.  She tries Don first, which is funny to imagine asking him to pay for the robbers to take his things away.  But he's away so she eventually calls up Roger who brightens at hearing Marie's name.  And considering the last interaction we saw them have, why wouldn't he.  Roger comes over, money in hand, and quickly they rekindle their mutual passion.

Megan comes back to find Roger getting dressed, her mother getting put back together, and the apartment completely gutted against her wishes.  She's had a bad day, this isn't helping.  It gets worse as her mother announces she's leaving her father and staying in New York.  Roger will be happy now he has the two secretaries, he'll have more to juggle now.

Megan and Don meet (there was supposed to be a lawyer there but he mysteriously disappeared) and bicker for a bit before Don decides to give up, stop the fighting, sign whatever she wants and end the marriage.  He scribbles out a check for one million dollars and gives it to Megan so she can have the life she deserves. This is supposed to be growth on his part but it seems like more of the same - him throwing money at problems, thinking that will solve everything.  But maybe it's a sign that he's going to try and move forward.  

At the beginning of the episode, we glimpsed the second ex-Mrs. Don Draper (if we count Anna as #1) dressed up after a night on the town.  Don had the boys that night and had come back to the Francis home to fix them dessert.  He was in the kitchen, making milkshakes, when Betty walks in and for a split second, it was the life Don had.  He and Betty and the kids in the kitchen, like we'd seen them so many times before.  

But then Henry Francis walks in and takes his position as the patriarch of the home while Don steps back.  He doesn't belong there after all.   It was a very sad tableau that Don looked back on as he left - seeing some other man in his shoes (ironic, isn't it Dick?) living the life he had, with Betty and the children.  Don takes in the happy nuclear family gathered in their kitchen as he leaves to go back to his sad apartment.  By the end of the episode we're again given a very heavy-handed parallel as the emptiness Don feels inside is physically manifest in the barren apartment he returns home to after the Calvets clean him out.  Don has nothing in his life.

Observations:

Don refers to 15-year-old Sally as his "little girl" which seems an odd choice for him as he treats her more like a young adult, but the phrase triggered the confession by Diana about her own little girl.

Music during the episode: The song over the end credits was "C'est Si Bon" performed by actor and singer Yves Montand.  That song, sung in French, means "It's so good" and this version is all about love.  We hear about a loving couple walking arm in arm, and includes the line: They're so good, these little thrills, that are worth more than a million. (Or, in Megan's case, exactly one million.)  American actress and singer Eartha Kitt has a hit record with a slightly different version of this song, which added lyrics that are a bit more pointed: "I'm looking for a millionaire, with big Cadillac cars, mink coats, jewels as big as your fist."  So there you have it, you can have love worth more than money or you can have the loot.

The other two songs are pretty obscure tracks taken from a 2013 compilation album of 1960's cult classics (I grew up in the sixties, addicted to music, and never heard either of these artists or songs).  The first was "Golddigger" by Jay Ramsay which played at the beginning of the scene where Pima comes to talk to Stan (and not, where it would have fit better, at the end of the preceding scene where Roger is talking to Don about their respective ex-wives).  The second, "The Train" by Ann Reed and the Souls, was heard when Pete and Don are driving to play golf. This song has the line: only time will tell if I will be happier than he.  

Megan's mother speaks for all of us when she tells her daughter that after being married to Don Draper "It's a wonder you don't have syphilis."  

Betty's going back to school for her Masters!  In psychology no less.  I'm sure if she ever does get her license, she'll be good about protecting patient privacy!

Megan complains that Don ruined her life.  Puh-leez.  She's still in her twenties, has her health and a million dollar check.  She'll survive.  She just needs to stop wallowing and move forward.  Meanwhile her 50-something mother realizes there's still time for her to eliminate what isn't working from her life and to pursue happiness.  Speaking of Marie, it seemed as if she and Roger must have had some interactions since the Codfish Ball episode as she says to him, "every time you get what you want, you run away." Also, the way Roger figures out who "Marie" is on the phone and immediately slips into his sexy voice upon hearing her name.  

I thought we were getting Stan's farewell story, but instead we have him still grappling with conflicting feelings of overconfidence and inferiority.  He is the art director at a major agency, yet he needs confirmation that his work is good and that he is more artist than ad man.  I was disappointed in Stan for cheating on his girlfriend, but I recognize that it came out of a sense of insecurity and need for validation.  But then, doesn't most cheating?

The scene where Roger is now so busy he needs two secretaries was poorly executed.  There has been nothing to convince me that Caroline can't do the job of ten secretaries, even if they were trying to convey that for once Roger is actually doing something.  But I did like the NAC - no afternoon calls.  

Nice callback to Bert Petersen, the bane of Roger's existence and the recipient of not one but two firings at the hands of the silver fox.  Yes, Bert is there at McCann and there's nothing Roger can do about it this time.  Also, a reference to Torkelson, who we recently learned is the baby daddy of  (Pete's former secretary) Clara's new child.  His rules are pretty clear cut and very pre-women's lib: You got your models, you got your bottles.  If you make it to lunch without bothering anybody, we'll let you have whichever you want.

Another callback is in the profession of Diana.  Back in the pilot, when Joan was taking Peggy around, she told her that most of the men think they want a secretary, but that what "they're really looking for is something between a mother and a waitress."

The episode is called "New Business" and of course that's supposed to be ironic and mostly the characters were dealing with the same things they have since the show started.  Don and his attraction to mysterious dark haired women, people running away from their past, Peggy trying be taken seriously as a woman in a man's world, Stan's insecurity, Pete's frustration that things always work out for Don and concern that they won't for him.  

We learned how Don Draper ended up in New York.  He tells Diana that he had always been enamored of the city, from when he was young and had read about it in books and magazines.  It explains why Don was reluctant to leave despite his inclination to run away. 

With just five episodes left, will we see Don finally break out of his old routine?  He's ten months post-Bert hallucination and does not seem to be making any steps to focus on "the best things in life."  Carousing with models, picking up strange women, can't be the answer.  But until Don decides that love is real (not something created to sell nylons) and that he deserves it, I don't see him improving.  I thought when Sally told him last year "I love you" that he would have that epiphany, but he didn't. What will it take?

Quotes:

Diana:   I took a cab to some stranger's apartment with $6 in my pocket. I was hoping it was like this.

Diana: I don't know how I feel about getting to know you better.
Don:  It's 3:00 in the morning.  You know why you're here

Diana: I lied to you.
Don: Already?

Stan: I try to treat it like art even though it's just selling something.
Pima: All art is selling something.

Roger (using Megan as a stand in for Jane): So she never said you squandered her youth and beauty? Used up her childbearing years? Thwarted her career? What career? She's a consumer.

Don: I think, if I were you, this would bother me, and it shouldn’t, because it’s almost over. 

Pete:  You're going to rent pants? 
Don:  I'll throw my tie over my shoulder and roll up my sleeves.  They'll love it.
Pete: Probably will.

Megan (to her sister:) I'm not like you.  I don't spend my whole life feeling ashamed.

Pete: You think you’re gonna begin your life over and do it right, but what if you never get past the beginning again?

Marie: Every time you get what you want, you run away.

Marie-France: Mother we’re here to support Megan, not make her feel ashamed of this failure.

Harry: I can’t believe Don threw you away.

Peggy: Well, mine's the only opinion that matters here.  It's my account.
Pima: Of course, you're in charge.

Megan: I wasn't going to give you the satisfaction of knowing that you ruined my life.

Megan: Why did I believe you? Why did I believe the things you said to me? Why am I being punished for being young? I gave up everything for you because I believed you.  And you're nothing but a liar. An aging, sloppy, selfish liar.  
Don: You're right.

Megan: You know it's a sin to be a ghoul and feed on everyone's pain.  She's been very unhappy for a very long time. At least she did something about it. 

Whore count:  Haven't done one of these in a while, but we had many exchanges of money for sex, or at least hinting at it, in addition to one actual "whore" shout out care of Megan's tactful sister.

Mad Men Season 3, Episode 12: The Grown Ups.

What is going on? - Betty Draper

Betty asks that question more than once today as the escalation of violence and its resulting upsetting of the status quo makes her feel as if her life is under attack.  She's one of the grown ups, who can't be sheltered from the news and has to be strong.  But she doesn't feel strong, she feels as if the world is falling apart around her.  But it's not the news of the day that's causing her to feel this way; it's just a manifestation of the emotional turmoil brought on by her discovery of the truth about her husband and the truth about her feelings for him.

In Episode 3.02 we knew what it meant when Margaret announced that her wedding was set for November 23, 1963 and in Episode 3.12 we have the painful payoff as we relive the unfolding in real time of the John F. Kennedy assassination.  One of the first major news events to happen in the TV age, we see how the nation crowded around small black and white sets desperate for news, desperate for answers.  The characters in Mad Men are similarly shocked and confused about what is happening to their world and this historic moment propels many to question their lives.

But before those three shots are heard in Dallas, Texas, Pete Campbell is already reeling from the news he just received.  He's being passed over for the top spot in the Accounts department and Ken Cosgrove will be top dog.  Pete handles the news well enough.  Rather than exploding at the office, he packs up his things and heads home, shell shocked and deeply hurt.   As he tells Trudy, Ken will be "senior something of something accounts and I'm not."

Roger's daughter Margaret is pouting about the very expensive pre-wedding present she gets from Jane and shows more than mere pre-wedding jitters.  She doesn't want to get married and believes that all signs point to what a mistake she's about to make.  She blames Jane for ruining her life and her mother Mona chimes in that her father is not blameless.

Peggy is off for a nooner with Duck when the first hint that something terrible has happened is on the news. He turns off the TV so as not to disrupt the mood while Harry and Pete are discussing business with the news playing in the background. Within minutes everything will change and be put in perspective. 

But not for Margaret Sterling.  Her wedding will go on, the trauma spreading across the nation, watching not just their president but the father of two young children shot down in his prime, will not interfere with her big day.  Not surprising the turnout is pretty anemic with most people not in the mood for a celebration (or reasonably expecting the event would be rescheduled). 

But two people did show up.  Betty Draper reluctantly joined her husband at the wedding and was rewarded when she saw Henry Francis glide in on the arms of his young daughter (a friend of the bride).  She was surprised to see him there, he had been hoping to see her.  The timing could not have been better for Betty.  Fresh on the heels of the discovery that her philandering husband was also a criminal and a liar, Betty was ready to reconnect with Henry who has almost a mythical position in her mind as the one person in the world who will make her happy. 

After the disaster of a wedding, where Roger actually stepped up and gave a great speech and otherwise made the best of a bad situation, he went home, put his drunk wife to bed and then called up Joan.  That's who he turned to when he couldn't deal with what was going on around him. And Joan nailed it, the spoiled-rotten rich kid who cracks jokes like other people breathe couldn't handle something real and sad and decidedly unfunny.  So he turned to her for comfort - not a roll in the hay, but just to hear her voice and have her say something understanding.

It is meaningful who people choose to turn for in times like this.  Roger chose Joan, Betty chose Henry.  She woke up Don just to tell him she was going out to "clear her head" and rebuffed his suggestion that he and the kids join her.  For good reason; she planned to meet up with Henry.  Something about him has hung with her since Derby Day and now is the culmination of all that.  With the proof that Don has been lying to her, Betty is free to pursue this dream of Henry, on his white horse, who will whisk her away to a land of enchantment and happiness.  Henry wants to marry her - despite the fact that she's already married, despite the fact that she has three children, despite the fact that it may complicate his boss's run for Governor.  Henry is in love.

Betty is in love too, and it's not with Don.  She tries to tell him, but with everything going around in the country, Don thinks this is some reaction to that.  He doesn't yet see that she hasn't been in love with him for a long time and has been looking for something to fill that void. Of course, he has no way to know that she has found that thing in the arms of another man.  Don thinks if he ignores what she's saying, it'll go away.  He doesn't know that she's made up her mind.  The next morning, Betty barely looks at him and the frosty relationship between them is noticeable to the kids.  When Bobby suggests it's cold outside, we can't help but think it's probably warmer there than next to Betty.

Don goes into the office on what for most is a national day of mourning, spent at home or in church.  He would have spent the day in a bar, but they were closed out of respect.   So the office was his next choice.  Not surprising, he finds Peggy there, working.   She has the art work for the Aqua Net campaign on her desk and only then do we see the eerie similarity between the couples driving with their top down and the president's doomed motorcade.  Peggy wanted to be alone to grieve, not with her roommate and an apartment full of people, not with her very religious mother who was sucking all of the emotion out of the room.  So she came to where she feels comfortable, the office.

She goes to watch the funeral in Bert Cooper's office and Don passes.  He goes into his office, alone, as "The End of the World" starts playing in the background.  JFK is not the only thing that will be buried today.

Observations:

The first reports in from Dallas, Texas mentions three shots.  Later an eye witness who took a Polaroid of the motorcade as it passed in front of her claims to have heard two shots.  And fifty plus years later we can still debate the events of that day.

While we see Walter Cronkite's famous, eyeglass removing, clock checking announcement of the president's death, we also see what Huntley and Brinkley, the duo with the most popular news show at the time, had to say of the events.

Duck turns off the TV in the hotel room so the news won't interrupt their tryst then after they've finished he turns it back on.  Peggy has to be disturbed that he thought he could hide such huge news from her lest his afternoon be ruined.

We see how different people process the news differently.  Margaret Sterling complains about how the assassination has ruined her wedding.  She and her family all agree that the wedding will still go on.  Harry Crane is calculating how many commercials won't be airing because of the news coverage. Pete stops thinking about Ken's promotion and how mad he is at his bosses, right now he couldn't care less about Roger's daughter's wedding. Instead he just wants to stay home with Trudy.  They aren't the only ones and it's an awkward setting - the empty chairs and the people gathered watching the news in the kitchen.  Roger's child bride Jane complains that she'll never get to vote for the handsome Kennedy.

Don talks Betty into going and that turns out to be a mistake because Henry Francis shows up.  She's happy at first, her eyes twinkling when she sees him. But when he goes over to a pretty young lady and greets her, Betty is hurt.  That is, until she hears the girl call him "Daddy."  The rest of the time it's a slow built of sexual tension between the two, who barely make any eye contact.  At the end of the evening, the way the camera is positioned we see Betty taking in the room and seeing her husband on one side and the man she loves on the other.  Don looks at Betty, but she's not meeting his eyes. He's worried about her and kisses her, thinking she's still upset about the horrible news.  He has no idea why she's sad and distracted.

Back in episode 2.12 Don told Anna Draper all about the girl he wanted to marry, Betty Hofstadt. "I just like the way she laughs, and the way she looks at me.”  She looks at Don now with a mixture of boredom and disdain.  But Henry Francis is the beneficiary of that loving look from her now.   Even 

Henry's daughter notices Henry noticing Betty.  

All is not well in Roger's new marriage.  He wants her basically to stay at home and be young and beautiful and not have any ideas of her own.  He's furious that she upset spoiled little Margaret by having the nerve to give her an expensive wedding present.  When she says, sadly, "I'm the good person here," Roger shoots back, "You're not good because you didn't listen to me and you really upset her."  He's choosing his temperamental, irrational daughter over his new wife - not a recipe for marital success.

Henry Francis is shameless.  He doesn't know about Don's lies, all he knows is that he is obsessed with Betty and he wants her.  It's a strange infatuation for such a mature man. He seems attracted to Betty's sadness as much as her beauty and all he wants is to be the knight in shining armor that rescues her.  But what he doesn't want to be is Romeo to her Juliet, players in some tragic love story.  He wants this - them - to be real.  He doesn't realize that once upon a time Don felt the same way and wanted nothing more than to make Betty happy.  It's not that easy.

In case you were wondering, we know now that "Singing in the Rain" is Betty's favorite movie. 

What was the meaning behind the temperature extremes in the office, from arctic cold to Death Valley hot. It reminded me of an old Twilight Zone episode "The Midnight Sun" where we see a woman dealing with oppressive heat as the world is sweltering on its way to a cataclysmic apocalypse only for her to wake up and find out, to her relief, that it was a dream. The world is not boiling after all.  Alas, what she doesn't remember is that the world in fact is engulfed in crushing frigidness and the planet was moving away from the sun and heading into oblivion.  Another dichotomy in this episode was the light and dark contrast in the clothing of Lee Harvey Oswald and the policeman escorting him as he was shot.

The song at the end, "End of the World" by Skeeter Davis (which came out in 1962), also references a bit from "The Midnight Sun," as the singer asks why the sun keeps on shining.   But the lyrics of the song could not be any clearer as they encapsulate where Don is in his relationship with Betty:

Why do the birds go on singing
Why do the stars glow above
Don't they know it's the end of the world
It ended when I lost your love

Quotes:

Lane:  It's become apparent that you are excellent at making the clients feel their needs are being met, but Mr. Cosgrove has the rare gift of making them feel as if they haven't any needs.

Jane:  I am the good person here.

Pete: Trudy, stop it with the Ellery Queen.

Harry: I'm going to die at this desk unnoticed. 

Paul: Somebody shot the president. 

Margaret: It's all ruined.  It's gonna be ruined. 

Pete: It felt for a second like everything was going to change. 

Roger: Mona, you're a lioness. And thank you for resisting the urge to eat your cub.

Roger:  So what's new?

Roger: Nobody else is saying the right thing about this. 

Betty:  What is going on?

Henry:  Have you thought that there are other ways to live?

Betty: I want to scream at you for ruining all of this. But then you try to fix it and there's no point. 

Betty:  I don't love you

Betty: You can't even hear me right now.

Don: You're right.  

Peggy: What are you doing here? 
Don: The bars are closed. 

Peggy:  My mother was crying and praying so hard there wasn't room for anyone else to feel anything.

************************************************************************
Spoilery Observations (Don't read if you're not caught up)

This is the second time that Pete has been upset at how highly the firm (especially Lane) thinks of Ken and how little they think of him.  First when they were each made co-head of accounts and now this.  Pete finally "wins" when Ken is fired in episode 7.08, but only briefly - until Ken announces he'll be Pete's client.  And we know Ken is used to having an accounts man who makes him feel like he has no cares.

Roger turns to Joan other times in the future and they have well set up that she holds a special place in his heart and is the one person he can be real with.  After Ida Blankenship dies in the office in Ep. 4.09 Roger again turns to Joan.  He's depressed and this death has caused him to think of his own mortality and says to her "I don't want to die in this office" echoing what Harry says in this episode about dying at his desk unnoticed.

Mad Men Season 7, Episode 8: Severance

Willy Wonka: But, Charlie, don't forget what happened to the man who suddenly got everything he ever wanted. 
Charlie: What's that? 
Willy Wonka: He lived happily ever after.

—Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

What happens after you get everything you ever wanted?  That's the question facing many of the people at Sterling Cooper.  They have money and security - now what?  What will be their happily ever after?  Is it attainable?  Is there even such a thing?  Don and Roger look for answers in the arms of one interchangeable beauty after another.  Joan looks for things that she can buy.  Pete looks for tax shelters. Peggy considers looking for old fashioned romance.  Ken looks for revenge.  If they find those things will that be enough?  Is that all there is?

The episode begins on an unfamiliar, but strikingly beautiful, face.  A young woman enrobed in chinchilla.  Don Draper is looking at her, smoke rising between them both literally and figuratively.  He has a sly smile across his face as he instructs her on what to do - where to go, how to position herself, what to feel as she slides the fur off to show some skin.  Music rises and it's Peggy Lee talking and then singing her signature boozy old broad song of fatigue and hopelessness "Is That All There Is?"  And then as we're sure we're watching a sleazy seduction, with the debauched divorced Don playing one of his domineering sex games with a girl even younger than his recent ex-wife, we pan back and Don's in the office with a number of male co-workers who are there watching.  It's the casting process for Wilkinson razors.

Next Don is wearing black tie and sitting in a diner surrounded by a bevvy of lovelies and he's entertaining them with stories from his - nay Dick Whitman's - past, albeit with some minor adjustments. The formerly taciturn Don is now regaling people with stories from his childhood, his prickly stepmother and her well-meaning but clueless second husband and their amused boarders.  Roger and his exemplary new moustache join the group and we learn that Don is now fond of telling his Horatio Alger story of rising up by his bootstraps, especially when he can contrast it to silver spooned Roger Sterling.  In the background, Peggy Lee is still going through her sad litany of life.

Roger feels guilty about giving the waitress (who he calls "Mildred Pierce" after a waitress in a '40s film noir) a hard time and way over tips.  Don is distracted by the waitress, convinced he's seen her somewhere before.  Considering he's plowed through every woman in New York aside from Peggy, Joan and the late Ida Blankenship it's possible he has met her before.  But, no, she says she doesn't know him and we eagle-eyed viewers are pretty sure we've never seen her, but various incarnations of her.  Still, she has grabbed Don's attention and we know he doesn't just let things go.

Topaz pantyhose,  Peggy's client, is concerned that they are being outsold by the new L'eggs pantyhose and their cute little egg and low price.  Joan and Peggy meet with the client to discuss new strategy.  They don't have any great ideas, so Joan goes to Don.  Don suggests the Don Draper strategy - change your name and reinvent yourself.  He tells Joan to work with their overlord, McCann Erickson, to get an introduction to high end retailers like Macy's.

Ken Cosgrove has a visit from his father-in-law who is retiring from Dow Chemicals (a client of Sterling Cooper).  His father-in-law talks about the what next of retiring, finding new interests and chasing new dreams.  The next morning he and Cynthia talk about how short life is and why wait to do what you really love and how Ken should just quit his job and go back to writing full time and pursuing that dream.  Money is not an issue, so Ken is free to do what he really wants for once.

Speaking of dreams, Don has an odd one.  Ken opens a door and in walks Rachel Menken Katz, Don's love interest from Season 1, and it looks like she's part of the commercial casting process as she's bedecked in mink.  Dream Rachel tells Don he missed his flight and he responds with the commercial tag line for the razor.  Ken is now Pete Campbell who shuts the door after telling Don to get back to work.

Peggy and Joan meet with some co-workers from the McCann side of the company, hoping for that intro to Macy's.  They get it, but not until they sit through a barrage of puerile and sexist comments that are degrading and insulting - and par for the 1970 course.  Peggy soldiers through, ignoring their double entendres and frat boy boorishness, Joan is less even-keeled.  Later, in the elevator, we see the divide.  Peggy is all about the results - they got what they needed, so what if they had to put up with some harassment to get it.  But Joan has had it up to her eyeballs in men looking at her as a sex object and thinking that they can do and say whatever they want about her and she has to just smile and take it.

The great divide we learn in the elevator, however, is not between the sexist pigs and the ladies, it's between the women themselves.  Peggy suggests that Joan is asking to be treated like a sex object by looking and dressing as she does and Joan is enraged to see that she has to deal with this treatment from a peer as well as these juvenile boys club.  "You can't have it both ways," Peggy tells her.  There's envy on both sides, Peggy may envy Joan's money and her sex appeal, Joan may envy Peggy's ability to be thought of as a human not just a walking Barbie doll.  But rather than seeing how both are being diminished by this rampant sexism, they fight among themselves.

Meredith, the most wonderful secretary Don has ever had, a true angel and the greatest character to set foot on the Mad Men sound stage, brings Don upsetting news.  She certainly wouldn't have had she understood what it meant, she is after all Don's strength.  He had asked her to set up a meeting with Rachel Katz ostensibly to discuss bringing Topaz pantyhose to Menken's (but more likely because she was on Don't mind and now that he's newly single he wanted to reconnect with her).  But Meredith tells him that Rachel passed away a week ago.  Don is stunned (as are we Rachel-Don shippers who saw that boat sink like the Titanic).

Elsewhere, John Mathis is attempting to set up Peggy with his brother-in-law.  The workaholic at first demurs but, after her elevator encounter with Joan, she decides to be a little friendlier and more outgoing, less Peggy-like.  They have a funny awkward first date that starts in a nose dive before a well-timed compliment rights the plane back on track. A few (too many) drinks later and the woman who hasn't taken a vacation since...ever...is thinking of spontaneously flying off to Paris with her new friend Stevie.  But for the lack of a passport, Peggy might be in France right now.

Don is still trying to figure out where he knows the waitress from and why she looks so familiar.  She is a Midge-Rachel-Suzanne-Silvia doppelganger, in other words, she looks like pretty much everyone he's cheated on a wife with.  He goes back to the diner to talk with her and she's pretty sure she knows why he came back. She meets him in the alley behind the diner and has sex with him.  That should take care of the $100 Roger left the night before on their $11 bill.  But she doesn't get that's not why Don is there.  He's looking for something and she's a piece of the puzzle, a clue to what that something is.

Pete is going to be glad that his last conversation with Ken as a co-worker went so well.  On the heels of his talk with Cynthia about quitting, Ken gets canned from Sterling Cooper.  Apparently, he had made some enemies when he was with McCann (back when McCann bought PPL, when the Sterling Cooper group started their own agency back at the end of Season 3) and they took his father-in-law's retirement as their chance to now get rid of Ken.  He hands his files over to Pete who, though he's always been in competition with Ken, is fairly gracious in victory.  But Ken is stunned.  He now has the opportunity he's wanted forever - he can go home and write the great American novel.  Think how great he'll look on the dust cover!  Finally, at least one character on the show will get to live out their dreams before it is too late.

Joan tries retail therapy to deal with her anger following both the awful meeting with her male coworkers and her unpleasant conversation with Peggy afterwards.  If she has a body that people enjoy looking at, she's not going to hide it.  She spends plenty on beautiful tight fitting outfits and quickly corrects the sales girl when she suggests that Joan ever worked in that store (which she of course did briefly in Season 3).  She's not that person, she's Joan "filthy rich" Harris, partner at Sterling Cooper, and she can do whatever she wants.

Don shows up at the shiva for Rachel and meets up with her sister, Barbara.  She was the one Rachel had confided in about her affair with Don and about whether this non-Jewish guy could be "the one."   She's polite, realizing he's here with the best intentions.  He wants to know something about Rachel's life and her sister tells him she lived the life she wanted. He sees the group of mourners, her two children, a home full of love and sadness.

Guess who's back at Sterling Cooper?  It's Ken.  But he's not here to beg for his job back or to talk about his next novel, an expose on the advertising game.  Nope.  He's there to introduce the team to their new client.  Yep, Ken has been hired by Dow Chemicals and Roger et al. will be answering to him.  So maybe this was his dream after all, not being a writer.  Maybe he wanted to be the boss and have Roger, Don and Pete all have to bow and scrape before him.

The day after her date Peggy finds her passport, at work, of course.  Mathis and Stan ask her about the date and her plans to runaway with someone she just met.  She keeps us, and them, in the dark, but something hints at she might be ready to commit to something besides her job.

Don can't let go of that waitress and whatever she means to him - a reminder of someone maybe something now gone from his life.  He goes back to the diner and tells the waitress about the dream he had of Rachel.  He thinks it means something.  He wants to believe this all means something.  The waitress is a bit of a philosopher and tells him that he can't make sense about her death or anyone else's.  Things get jumbled, things don't always make sense.  Maybe this has nothing to do with Rachel.  As much as we know that a part of Don did care for Rachel, it may not be her life that he's needing to reconcile but his own.

Observations:

Don still looks like the Don of old while everyone around him has changed their look along with the times.  Possibly because Don is himself a construct, he is not as malleable and reactive to the changes around him.  He only knows how to be Don Draper and that person looks and dresses a certain way.  Play with it to much and the fictional character will lose his identity.  That or Jon Hamm has a "no silly facial hair" section in his contract.

Of course Don knows his furs, he was once a fur salesman.  It was through that job that he met Betty, his first wife, and Roger, his accidental boss and now partner.  Betty in fact was a fur model, so Don knows his way around the casting process as well.  Furs were also a form of currency between Roger and Joan, when in lieu of a commitment or a public relationship, Roger tried to buy Joan's continued affection with a fur.

How great is Meredith?   She does research now!  Don tells her that David Bailey wants to shoot her.  This is a reference to the famed British photographer famous for his work in Vogue as well as with major rock stars of the era. 

Harry - "Mr. Potato Head."  Why did no one notice this before?

If that stewardess looks familiar, she was on Don's flight to LA last season.  She said at the time that Mrs. Draper was a lucky woman.  She probably doesn't feel that way now.

Peggy takes another step towards becoming Don  when she drunkenly tells Stevie they should run away to Paris.  Don suggested as music to Midge the bohemian back in Season 1.  Notably, neither followed through.  

The wine spill on the carpet in Don's apartment brought to mind his fever-induced nightmare in Season 6 of being stalked by an old paramour that he then kills and stuffs under the bed.  Here's where we discover that Don and Megan have made it official as Don says the earring Tricia found under the bed belongs to a woman he's not sleeping with - his ex wife.

The strategy Don suggests for Topaz, change the company name and rebrand itself as a high end product, was the same strategy that the dog food company Caldecott Farms shot down in Season 3.

The episode was dedicated to legendary director Mike Nichols who directed, among many other things (and an episode of Mad Men), The Graduate.  Nice shout out to that movie with the mention of plastics.  If they had silhouetted Don in the frame when the model raised her leg and put it on the chair, that would have been a great nod to that movie as well.

Great throwback to the pilot episode where Joan gives Peggy guidance on how to dress in the office if she wants to get a husband.  Now Peggy is giving Joan pointers on how to dress if she doesn't want to "invite" lewd sexual comments.  Maybe also a nod to how things are starting to change for women.  In 1960 the goal was to get out of the office, find a husband and live in the country.  In 1970 the goal is to be taken seriously at the office.

Another callback to the pilot comes from Don thinking of Rachel when he's looking to sell Topaz pantyhose.  Back then, he told Rachel that love was created by guys like him to sell nylons.  And now years later he tried to reconnect with Rachel (who some think could have been the love of his life) to sell nylons. 

In Season 1 ("The Long Weekend") Don had a conversation with Rachel after Roger's heart attack.  He was feeling particularly shellshocked after Roger's close encounter with death and (she felt) using this as an excuse to leave his wife and runaway with Rachel.  Don was questioning everything in life including life itself. "This is all there is, and I feel like it's slipping through my fingers like a handful of sand.  This is it.  This is all there is."  Almost ten years later he's still asking that same question. 

 

In Season 4, Peggy and her then boyfriend are making out and he want to "go all the way" but she refuses.  He calls her old-fashioned and Peggy asks what's wrong with that.  She tells him then that she wants to wait.  Here once again she deals with the old-fashioned mantel and she's now embraced it.  Again, she says she wants to wait.  There are the guys you have sex with and the guys you want to have a relationship with.

Peggy tells Stevie that she was once quit a job because she wanted to go to Paris.  This references her break with Sterling Cooper in Ep. 5.11 "The Other Girl" when Don has a hissy fit about Peggy wanting to stay on the Jaguar account (and shoot in Paris) which leads Don to rudely throw money at her.  That was her final straw after years of harassment and abuse and she left to join Ted Chaough's agency. 

So many allusions to fire and things burning down or being blown up, from the song, to Don's reminiscence of the poorly wired toaster, to Joan wanting to "burn this place down."

Characters dreaming of dead people is nothing new - Betty and her parents and Medgar Evers, Don and Anna, his parents and step-mother, the soldier.  But the coincidence of thinking about Rachel, dreaming of her, and then discovering she was dead was certainly something that understandably would rattle someone.  The waitresses explanation - that death can jumble facts and time - was interesting.

Peggy Lee in "Is That All There Is"  explains why she won't kill herself if she's so depressed by the meaninglessness of life - that she knows when her life is about to end, she'll ask again, "is that all there is?"  Life may be futile, its meaning illusive, but she doesn't want to get to the end any time soon.  Don has told us since the pilot episode that life is nothing - you live and you die and nothing really matters.  He's still grappling with whether that's true or whether he can find meaning.

In the song, the singer says if that is all there is "then let's keep dancing."  That is what Bert Cooper did at the end of the last half season.  After he shook of his mortal coil, and there was nothing left of his life to live, he (in Don's imagination anyway) did indeed keep dancing.

Don tells the story about Abigail and Uncle Mack, but leaves out that there weren't "boarders" but "hookers" in the old house.  He's honest - but only to a point - about his past.

One of the big questions at the beginning of every new season is when does this episode take place?  Thanks to the news report of Nixon's speech we know the date was April 30, 1970.  This is roughly nine months after Bert Cooper's death and the sale to McCann. The book and later the movie "Love Story" both came out in 1970 and were very popular.  They dealt with the death of a young woman from leukemia, so the culturally aware Don would have been very familiar with he disease that took Rachel.

Ken has probably been waiting for this opportunity since at least Ep. 4.6 "Waldorf Stories" when he was brought back to Sterling Cooper by Lane Pryce but still forced to jump through hoops by a prickly Pete Campbell before the move was officially approved.  

I was never a big Ken Cosgrove fan, primarily because I binge watched the show and so saw his boorish/sexist behavior from the first three episodes before he was transformed into Pete's foil.  I really don't care about what his character does from here and would rather have a cameo from Sal these last few episodes.

One reference to the civil unrest in the country (anti-war protests) was Joan's throwaway line about department stores being blown up.  Nixon's speech about the Cambodian invasion on April 30th sparked campus protests that culminated in the shooting at Kent State University by National Guardsmen on May 4th which took the lives of four students.

The song, "Is That All There Is" is played three times in the episode.  Although it sounds like it was from the 40s it was a current song for 1970 (it was released in '69).  The song was written by Barry Leiber and Mike Stoller, the duo behind hits like "Hound Dog" and "Jailhouse Rock."  Fun trivia, they were the producers of the Steeler's Wheel song "Stuck in the Middle With You" which was immortalized in Quentin Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs."

The book the waitress was reading was "The USA Trilogy" by John Dos Passos.  I haven't read it and am not familiar with it and my cursory review shows it was another "great American novel" about how great the hardworking blue collar people are and how evil the upwardly mobile are.  Seems like pretty heady reading for a waitress who turns tricks in an alley, but who knows?   Here's a summary from bookrags.com: John Dos Passos's "USA" trilogy is a monumental work, and is considered an example of a Great American Novel. The "USA" trilogy follows the lives, fortunes, ascensions, and downfalls of various characters as their lives intersect and diverge in the United States in the early part of the Twentieth Century.  

The Hospital where donations were to be made in lieu of flowers is, according to Wilipedia, a "academic medical research facility located in Denver, Colorado specializing in respiratory, cardiac, immune and allergic disorders. It was founded in 1899 to treat tuberculosis, and is today considered one of the world's best medical research and treatment centers."

Pete kids about Ken handing him files of clients they don't even represent anymore like Fillmore Autoparts - a client we saw only once, during Ep. 4.09 "The Beautiful Girls."

Quotes:

Roger:  Don't go back there.  A lot of roaches.
Girl:  Are you surprised? 
Roger: Only by the size.  There was one making a phone call.

Mathis (to Peggy): You know you're a catch.

Rachel: I'm supposed to tell you you missed your flight.

Ken (of Dow Chemicals, where he later goes to work): Your father was a cog in a giant machine that makes weapons and poison.

Ken: That's not a coincidence.  That's a sign.
Don: Of what? 
Ken:  The life not lived.

Pete: Do you know how great you're going to look on a book jacket?
Ken: I have thought about it.

Pete:  I thought I was really changing my life when I went out to California. Of course, now it sort of feels like a dream.  But at the time if felt so real.

Stevie:  What am I supposed to do? Send it back like a prima donna? So you're just gonna eat someone else's dinner? So I can either be a jerk and send it back, or eat it and look weak.

Barbara:  She lived the life she wanted to live.  She had everything.

Peggy: That's so old-fashioned.
Stevie:  I've tried new-fashioned.

Waitress: When someone dies, you just want to make sense out of it.  But you can't.

Mad Men Season 3, Episode 11: The Gypsy and the Hobo

"I can explain." - Don Draper.

Don has the special ability to make so many women in his life unhappy at the same time.  His wife discovers she's been living with a stranger while his girlfriend discovers she's fallen for someone incapable of having a meaningful relationship with anyone.  He's not real, he's just a construct - a person he created and has been playing for so many years.  What happens when the facade is torn down and the real person has to answer for himself is what we see this episode.  And it's not a pretty picture. At least Sally still loves him.

Roger has a tense reunion with an old flame and Joan discovers that she cannot depend on her husband.  But the meat of the episode is in that drawer that has been seen off and on throughout the series.  Don's private space, where he keeps his secrets, set in his office in the middle of the home he shares with his family.  Was he being reckless, was there any subconscious desire to be found out?  Betty for the most part ignored his office, his desk, his drawer and respected his privacy for all the years they've lived in that house.  As she said, she could have had a locksmith in there any time she wanted.  But she never cared enough to probe.  Why now?  Was it because of her thoughts turning to Henry Francis?  Was she hoping to find something on Don in that desk (remember how she unsuccessfully dug for evidence of his cheating back in season one)?  She hit the pay dirt when she opened that drawer and, as she tells her lawyer, she's been in a dream state since the discovery, not knowing what to do now that she knows.

"I can explain," says Don.  Over and over, faced with his greatest fear.  He goes off to get himself a drink and Betty assumes the clever adman is trying to think of a pitch.  He can sell anything, he's a "very, very gifted storyteller."  But this is not the suave adman, she's getting a rare glimpse at the scared man who's been living a lie and fearing being discovered for years.   Only when she sees him sweating and fumbling with his cigarettes does she start to see that he's dissembling in front of her.  This is not the cocky Don Draper, all swagger and confidence.  This is something new.  He offers a rare glimpse behind the curtain and for one night only he'll answer any of her questions.  "I'm not going anywhere."

Or course, even in Don's confession, he can't tell the whole truth.  He tells Betty the circumstances of how he became Donald Draper leaving out that it was he who switched the dog tags to create the confusion. The explosion may have been an accident, but the identity theft was not.  And he still manages to stir some sympathy from here, even when confessing to a criminal act and other betrayals, including ignoring his own half-brother and driving him to suicide.  But this is the most open we've seen him with Betty and also a reminder that she married and had three kids with someone who she barely knew.

As Don goes through the shoe box that contains all that he has of his past, he tells Betty some of his past.  As angry as she is by his betrayals and lies, she also feels compassion.  Despite herself, she feels for him.  This must have been a great weight to bear, and in some ways Betty may be relieved to finally have her questions about her mysterious husband answered.   And, with his discussion about turning away his half-brother, she sees the lengths Don went to to keep his family intact.

Despite her sympathy for Don's sad tale, there is no way to ignore that he never opened up to her, hid some major truths from her, and was living a lie every day they were together.  Whether he felt he had no other choice or whether there was never a good time, the fact remains that he kept a significant part of his life secret from her. There is no question that if she was looking for a loophole to give herself permission to fall for Henry Francis, she now has one.  The next morning, the shaky, scared Dick Whitman has put on his Donald Draper suit and is back to the stylish, poised cipher he was before the big reveal.  He goes to work and them comes home to escort his children as they go trick or treating.

In other parts of the Sterling Cooper orbit, Joan reaches out to Roger to help find her a job after Greg tanks his interview to switch from surgery to psychiatry.  Roger's ego has been stroked but good this episode with Annabelle coming back to admit she was wrong to choose someone else and Joan turning to him when she needs help.  Joan, on the other hand, is more and more frustrated that her husband is not living up to her expectations.  He never confides in her or asks for her help, he just goes off and makes unilateral decision after unilateral decision.  This time, it's to join the army so he can still be a surgeon (where he can perform the meatball surgery they used to talk about on MASH, no doubt).  Joan is supposed to just be thrilled with this, but it's just another sign of Greg's indifference to her needs.   

Roger is happily newly married to Jane and so the visit from his old flame merely stirs up old hurts and gives him a chance this time to come out on top.  We do learn a little more about Roger thanks to her - that he was something of a spoiled, directionless playboy and she left him for someone solid who could take over her father's business.  But Roger feels as if he manned up after that, marrying and going off to fight WWII.  Still, there are signs of the dilettante in Roger that even his service may have not overcome.

Suzanne Farrell is a tragic character, but the tragedy is of her own doing.  While chafing at the fathers of her students often propositioning her, she nevertheless sent out vibes to Don which he picked up.  She was willing to be his "other woman" and to go so far as to plan a weekend getaway with the married father of her former student.  That she was left alone in the car when he was surprised at home, forced to do a special walk of shame, and given no explanation was sad.  So too was her concern for Don's well being.  But when she asked if her job was in jeopardy, there was realization that she broke the rules as well and was far from blameless.

At the end of the episode, when Don and Betty take the kids trick or treating after Don's revelation, Francine's husband Carlton does not realize what a loaded question he asks when he looks at Don and asks, "And who are you supposed to be?"  Who indeed.

Observations:

Annabelle Mathis of Caldecott Farms  has some history with Roger.  She knew him some twenty years ago and they had a relationship, but she left Roger for a man who would go run her father's company.  They have dinner and rehash the past.   She sees their story like "Casablanca," where Ingrid Bergman leaves the rogue (Humphrey Bogart) she really loves to go off with the hero.  Roger sees it differently, that she left him for the rich guy while he stayed behind, married Mona and went off to fight the Japanese.  He's bitter and she's surprised that they don't see the past the same.  She thinks she can come back, more than 20 years later, say she made a mistake and everything will be fine.  All will be forgiven and Roger will leave his new barely out of her teens bride for him.  But Roger tells her, it's too late.  

When Annabelle mentions her husband passed away at 51 from lung cancer, we cut to Don lighting up and looking just a tad guilty.  

Don gives another hint to his true roots, admitting to Annabelle that he'd eaten horse meat (something that drew a surprised look from cultured city boy Roger).

The Caldecott client is a call back to the first time we meet with Lucky Strike. Both companies are troubled by the public perception of their product (even though their products are no different than their competitors), both need to find ways to separate themselves and get the public's acceptance.  Don was successful re-imagining Lucky Strikes with "It's Toasted," but lost his magic this time around.  His only answer for her company was his only answer for himself - change the name.  The old name will never work, you can start fresh with a new one.  That is not what Annabelle wanted to hear and she leaves unsatisfied with everything Sterling Cooper has to offer. 

They reference the 1961 movie "The Misfits" which raised concerns about horses being used in dog food.  The movie is most notable as the first and only pairing of screen legends Clark Gable (who died before the movie came out) and Marilyn Monroe (who died not long after).   Their costar, Montgomery Clift, died in 1966.  His last known conversation was with his assistant who told him The Misfits was on TV and asked if Monty wanted to watch it. He answered, "absolutely not."  He was found dead in his bed the next day.

Woolworths was one of the country's biggest and first "five-and-dime stores" and launched the retail store trend that gave us WalMart and Target and the like today.  They are no longer in business under that name, but the company continues today as Foot Locker.

Don is once again talking about running away (which we learned about in the Hobo Code which this episode's title references in part) with a free-spirited, curly brown haired woman (like Midge, and somewhat like the more rigid Rachel Menken).  He has a type.

Back in the '60s it was not automatic for divorced women to get custody, nor to get an even share of the marital assets.  Also, you could not get a "no fault" divorce and needed grounds like abuse or adultery.

Greg reveals some secrets from his past - that his father had a nervous breakdown.  Behind every abusive a-hole is there something like this that they're hiding about themselves.

Everyone in the episode wants to run away from the past and not be reminded of their failures.  It reminds me of Jackson Browne's song "These Days" - Please don't confront me with my failures

I had not forgotten them.

More back-story for the Mad Men timeline.  "You divorced her on Valentine's Day 1953, we were married three months later."  

Quotes:

Suzanne:  I look at your life.  And even if I remove myself from the picture, I see a man who is not happy.
Don:  I'm happy now.

Suzanne:  I just wanted more than I thought I would want.  But it'll pass.  Actually, I know for a fact it will.
Don:  I don't want it to pass.

Betty:  I feel like I've been in some dream since I found out.

Roger:  We were not in Casablanca.  The only similarity is that you left me for another man.

Annabelle:  You were adrift. You didn't do anything but spend money.You walked around like you were hoping to be a character in somebody else's novel.

Roger:  I finally found a beautiful carefree girl. Unconcerned about the future.

Greg: Hey, you don't know! You don't know what it's like to want something your whole life, to plan for it, to count on it and not get it!

Peggy:  Dogs don't like uniforms.

Roger:  Do you want to know if you broke my heart? Obviously.

Annabelle: You were the one.

Roger:  You weren't.

Don.  I can explain.

Betty: I know you can.  You're a very, very gifted storyteller.

Don: Where do you want me to start?
Betty: What's your name?
Don:  Donald Draper.  But it was Dick Whitman.

Betty:  Why didn't you tell me? Why couldn't you tell me any of this?
Don:  When? The day we met? On our first date? On our wedding night?
Don: Why did you need to know?
Betty:  You don't get to ask any questions. You have a family.
Don:  No, I don't.

Betty:  I knew you were poor.  I knew you were ashamed of it.  I see how you are with money.
You don't understand it.
Don:  I was very poor.

Betty: What would you do if you were me?  Would you love you?

Don: I was surprised that you ever loved me.

Betty:  You lied to me every day.  I can't trust you.  I don't know who you are.
Don:  Yes, you do.

Don:  He came to me because he wanted help and I turned him away.  He didn't even want help.
He just-- He just wanted to be part of my life And i couldn't risk all of this.

Greg:  I've been an ass, Feeling sorry for myself because I couldn't solve this problem. And it was so easy, Joanie.  The answer was right in front of me.  I joined the army, Joanie. ...
Please tell me this will make you happy, because it will make me happy to give you everything you want.

Suicide mention:
"People were jumping out of windows."

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Spoilery Observations (Don't read until you're caught up):

It doesn't take long for Betty to see this ultimate betrayal as a good opportunity for her to finally do what she's wanted since she was first swept off her feet by Henry Francis.  The lawyer she speaks with in this episode eventually helps her make the necessary arrangements.

We don't know if Roger was more loyal to Jane or more resentful of Annabelle, but he did stay on the faithful path for a while.  But Joan clearly still had a place in his heart and they would hook up again as both their marriages fell apart.