Mad Men: Least Important, Most Important Thing

Don, that Handsome Cipher, is at the ethically questionable meeting Faye set up for him with the Heinz guy. The guy is lamenting how ketchup is totally stealing the limelight from beans, the flashy red whore. But he knows that food is cyclical. “There’s a time for beans, and there’s a time for ketchup,” Turn, turn turn. Don nods sagely at this like it’s the truest thing he’s heard in weeks. “Humor worked with pickles, but pickles are funny. The way beans are funny? We can’t use that.” Damn, I bet Don had a whole storyboard full of fart jokes ready to go! The Heinz guy is totally glad they’re having this conversation, because the whole reason he wanted to meet with Don is so that 6-8 months from now, they…wait, what? Well, he’s sorry to be so blunt, but he doesn’t know if SCDP will be around in six months. “I do!” Don says, a little too forcefully. “That’s what I’m hoping!” Heinz guy says. It’s pretty clear that this has been a waste of Don’s time and Faye’s professional integrity, and when Don offers a discounted commission in exchange for the uncertainty, Mr. Bean grins smugly and says “I bet I could get a date with your mother right now!” Which is funny cause she was a prostitute and all, but also, fuck you, bean guy. And as a parting shot, he advises Don that while he’s a hell of an idea man, he should let the account boys do this part. Well that was certainly worth all that angst last week, including the “ah, fuck it, the other one hates me, might as well!” couch sex he had with Megan.

“Dude, you just BLEW my MIND.”

Betty’s boiling up some hot dogs for dinner. I guess it’s kind of sad that it makes me want a hot dog. Broiled or grilled, obviously; I’m no barbarian. With chili. Mmm. Anyway, Sally wonders why Henry never eats with them. “First of all, he works till late, and second, you don’t eat the same food.” “I’ll try new food!” Sally says, marking the first time an 11-year-old has ever said that. It’s adorable. She wants to eat at the grownup table, and Betty actually smiles like she has some sort of “affection” or “emotions” for this kid. “Let me think about it,” she says. Yes, this is exactly the sort of parenting decision that requires careful consideration, as opposed to a smack across the face which is a gametime decision.

Atherton – Faye’s boss/colleague/whatever – has everyone crowded around the conference table for a State of the Union address. In short: Aaiiiiigh, hurry, get some clients, any clients! “Listen, doctor,” Roger says, between dramatically ironic cigarette puffs, “We know there’s a black spot on the X-ray, you don’t have to keep tapping your finger on it.” Atherton thinks they should do what they do best: Cigarettes. “You’re a certain kind of girl, and tobacco is your ideal boyfriend,” he concludes. Don: “Can you get us a date?” Well, actually, Phillip Morris is introducing a new brand for young women, and he’s gotten them an exclusive meeting. It’s not a huge account, but see above re: Aiiiiiigh.  After the meeting everyone splits off into pairs to fret. Lane’s already thinking about reducing staff AND subletting square footage. That guy does NOT mess around. “Why don’t we just work out of a cab?” Pete suggests. Lane appears to consider it. “And where does that leave me?” Harry wonders from behind his weird antique store desk in his weird old lady office. Good question, Harry, I’ve been wondering all year. Ken’s freaking out since he just pissed off a bunch of people at his last agency to move to this rinky dink operation. Pete is confident that Don can get this one cigarette account, and after that everything will fall into place.

“Did I ever tell you about the time I watched your mom pee?”

Sally’s hanging out with Glen, who’s in his football uniform. I have it on good authority that his number (92) means he’s a defensive lineman, which I guess is where a small town peewee football coach would realistically stick all the weird creepy doughy kids. They’re having what I imagine is an ongoing “so how’s that divorce going for you?” conversation, in which Glen makes the unsettling comment that he was in therapy after the divorce too, but “psychiatrists are easy to fool.” That’s kind of terrifying. I’m glad Sally has a friend, but I’d feel a lot better if she’d find one that didn’t have “future serial killer” written all over him in black Sharpie. He offers her a cigarette, which she declines without fanfare See? She’s above his bad influence! Let her have a friend! “Do you talk to your mom about me?” Glen asks. “I did, and I don’t anymore.” Yeah, boy howdy, Glen and Betty have some pretty great stories about each other! “She doesn’t like kids,” Glen observes, but Sally is quick to defend Betty, who in fact does not like kids at all, not even her own. Especially not her own.

Don’s in the lobby of the Time Life building when he hears someone calling his name. He looks around and sees…Midge! Yay! She’s got her adorable “I’m an artist!” portfolio under her arm, and she’s so pretty, and yeah, Don needs a fellow artist! Why haven’t they already reconnected by now? “You look good,” Don says, which is what you’re supposed to say. “I’m skinny,” she says. “Starving artist.” Ahem. Yeah.  “I have my own firm now,” Don says. “Draper, Draper & Draper?” Midge guesses. Ha. Don unfortunately can’t use any freelance artists right now. Maybe in six months. Wow, sounds like six months from now is gonna be SO AWESOME! “I thought I would have run into you in the Village by now,” Don says. “I’m always expecting to see you in the park.” Aww. She thinks it’s hilarious that he would find himself in the Village at all when he doesn’t have a cute artist girlfriend’s loft to visit, but he tells her he lives on Waverly now. Well hey, seeing as how he apparently doesn’t have a family to run home to, why doesn’t he come over for a visit? Don politely declines until Midge says “Not even to meet my husband?” Don pauses. “Really?” Oh, it’s not romantic, she says. They just got married for the “bread.” What? There’s money in bohemian arranged marriages? “I lost my purse,” she says finally. “At least give me a ride downtown.” Don smiles. “Okay.” Yay, how awesome, rekindled something or other! Right?

The go-fish face: developmental precursor to the poker face.

Sally and I both love Dr. Edna SO MUCH. And I have to give this actress a metric shit ton of credit for how easily I forget that I’ve seen her boobs on True Blood. Seriously. They’re playing Go Fish as they chat about the silly things Betty does, like make Sally brush her teeth twice. “She doesn’t care what the truth is, as long as I do what she says.” And there you have it. That’s pretty much their relationship narrowed down to a sentence, and Sally shrugs it off like the minor annoyance it’s become. I don’t know if Dr. Edna has helped her reach this conclusion or not, but Sally has figured out that making her mom happy is really just more trouble than it’s worth. Better to just humor her – brush your teeth a few extra times and just ride it out till you’re 18, kiddo. Dr. Edna tells Sally how proud she is that Sally found a way to behave, even though she gets so mad at her mom sometimes. Sally shrugs. “She just doesn’t know that I’m mad.” Dr. Edna reminds Sally, “I told you your mother acts that way because she has stresses. Not because you’re bad or you did anything wrong.” “I know,” Sally says simply. Now that she’s back in school, Dr. Edna thinks she should only come once a week, so she can see her friends and ride her bike and be in the ballet recital. Aww. Yes, please do all those things, Sally!

Midge lets Don into an apartment that is decidedly not the magical bohemian loft studio she had when we knew her. So that’s already sad. “Harry, this is my friend Don,” she introduces her grubby playwright kind-of-husband. I bet they know Abe! Midge runs off to “freshen up” and Harry shows Don one of those “it’s blobs and blocks,  but they MEAN SOMETHING!” paintings that are a dime a dozen at any given college town coffee shop. It’s what Midge sees when she closes her eyes! Oooh! “It’s nice,” Don says dutifully, then all of a sudden it’s “I have a price list somewhere, but hey, whatever you want to pay!” then on to “She digs you. She’d do anything if you bought one.” Yikes. Don narrows his eyes. “Is that right?” Oh yeah, Harry says, they’re not possessive or anything, and “you should have heard how excited she was when she tracked you down.” **record scratchy sound** She did what now? Harry’s like “hey, why don’t I make dinner! Oh rats, my wallet’s empty!” Don gives him a ten just to shut him up. After the door shuts behind him, Midge and Don stand in awkward silence till they both break it at about the same time. Don: “He’s very interesting.” Midge: “He’s an idiot.” Oh, and interesting footnote: “He’s just gonna go out and put that in his arm.” Well that certainly explains a lot.

“Could you go ahead and make that out to Homeless Guy In The Alley Behind The Liquor Store?”

She doesn’t deny tracking him down, just sighs and says she just wanted him to buy a painting. Don sits on the bed next to her. “What’s it like?” He wonders. “Like drinking a hundred bottles of whisky while someone licks your tits.” Hm. “He said it would help me take my mind off my work,” Midge says, looking older and more hollow-eyed by the moment. “Turns out it’s a full-time job.” “Why don’t you just stop?” Don says, I guess because he figures he just arbitrarily decided to stop getting shitfaced all the time, so it can’t be that different. “It’s heroin, Don,” Midge smiles sadly. “I just can’t stop.” She puts her hand on his thigh. “I am glad to see you,” she says, wiping away tears, and I believe her, and it’s all just so pathetic. Don gets out his checkbook. “Here,” he tells her. “That’s $300. For #4 over there.” “Oh Don,” Midge sighs. “What am I going to do with a check?” He tears it up and gives her all the cash in his money clip instead, then takes his new painting and leaves her sitting alone in her little hovel. I am sadder than I would have expected. Kudos to this actress too – we haven’t seen Midge in ages, and she apparently hasn’t been Midge for ages, but there’s just enough of her old cute artsy mannerisms to remind me how far lost she’s gotten.

Now it’s Betty’s turn with Dr. Edna. They’re reaching the end of their session, which by the way has nothing at all to do with Sally. Dr. Edna is pleased to announce that Sally has made wonderful progress and she’ll only need to see her once a week. Betty is like, visibly alarmed. “But! She’s not better! She ran away!” Yes, but Sally knows what she did was wrong, and she’s been very responsible since then. “Her life is chaotic,” Betty stammers. “I’m afraid of losing this influence.” Poor Betty. She really is terrified. Dr. Edna gently suggests that since Betty always has so much on her mind, maybe Betty should have her own time, where she can say whatever she wants, to someone who isn’t a child psychiatrist. Betty, understandably, doesn’t want to take her chances on any non-Dr.-Edna psychiatric help. I mean, apart from the obvious fact that a child psychiatrist is EXACTLY what Betty needs, she already has a bad taste in her mouth from S1, and come on, Dr. Edna is so awesome. “I would hope that as Sally continues to progress, that you and I can continue to discuss it,” Betty says, essentially begging Dr. Edna not to kick her out for being a grownup. Of course she’ll keep Betty on the books.

“No! Please don’t make me stop pretending I’m not a patient!”

Don and Peggy are discussing strategy for their big important meeting with Philip Morris. Peggy says that the main thing is it’s pointless to try to get women to switch from men’s brands. “Nobody switches.” The partners (and Harry) are gathered in the lobby to meet Atherton and the Philip Morris guys. All six handsome faces fall when Atherton gets off the elevator alone. They canceled the meeting. They decided to keep the new brand with Marlboro after all, and see where SCDP is in those magical six months everybody keeps talking about. Pete freaks out and Bert tells everybody to take this into the conference room. On his way out, Roger, for no apparent reason, stops Atherton. “You’re an asshole, you know that?” Heh. Atherton has no rebuttal.

Bert kicks Harry out and the partners start partnering. “They won’t even dignify us with an excuse?” Pete wails. Don, furious: “They don’t need an excuse! It’s because we’re desperate, they can smell it on us!” All over the office, heads are pressed to walls, listening to the future of the firm being decided. Lane says he met with the bank, “just as a precaution,” and they’ll extend their credit another six months, but only if they get some collateral from the partners, in the form of a HUNDRED THOUSAND goddamn dollars, which is roughly eight squillion dollars in 1965 money. Pete and Lane would only have to pony up 50. And they really do have to – when Pete says “absolutely not!” Bert reminds him that it’s an obligation of his contract. Don’s tired of the discussion. “When you figure it out, you know where to find me. For a little while, anyway.” The Creative room watches in horror as Don leaves the conference room, not a tobacco exec in sight. It’s bad.

Don’t panic, Unnamed Uncredited Actresses With No Dialogue We’ve Never Seen Before. I’m sure your jobs are totally secure.

“…and then I was flying over town,” Sally is telling #92 Glen. “Standing straight up. Not like Superman.” God, even her flying dreams are wise beyond her years. But it wasn’t Ossining, it was London. Like Mary Poppins. I’m so glad they let her have that haircut – it’s downright adorable on its own, but it’s un freaking canny how much she’s turning into a tiny little Betty, down to her mannerisms and her haircut. “You want the backwash?” Glen asks Sally chivalrously before he finishes off his Coke. Gross. But mmm, Coke in glass bottles, otherwise known as Coke As God Intended. Sally says her flying dream felt like she was going to Heaven. “Except I don’t believe in it.” Check out our little freethinker here! Glen is scandalized. “What happens when you die? Nothing?” Sally thinks. “It doesn’t really bother me, except it’s forever. When I think about forever I get upset” And okay, I promise to stop, but has there ever been a character like Sally Draper on any television show, ever? Has there ever been an 11-year-old TV actor like Kiernan Shipka? It’s astonishing.  To wit: “Like the Land O Lakes butter has that Indian girl, sitting holding a box? And it has a picture of her on it, holding a box, with a picture of her holding a box.” Oh, Sally, you were so born in the right generation for that kind of thinking. You are gonna LOVE pot. Anyway, she has to go home. And yes, the kid is seriously creepy, but he does help her up from the ground, and she does say “I’ll save my Fritos for you,” which is the kind of thing you only do for a real friend. I will not begrudge you your weird creepy friend, Sally Draper.

It pleases me that Pete is among the chosen few who can barge into Don’s office unannounced and not get yelled at. You’ve come a long way, baby. Speaking of: Apparently Philip Morris set up the meeting, then told Leo Burnett about it to leverage a sweeter deal. Well, shit. Pete’s panicking about the bank deal: “I don’t have that kind of money!” Don says he’s doing everything he can. Peggy interrupts to tell Don that Creative is all waiting to hear from him. “What should we do?” Don pours a drink. “I don’t care.” He tells her that all the shit that’s going on isn’t her problem, but she’s been thinking about it, and why don’t they just change their name? “If this was a dog food we’d change the name,” she says, remembering Roger’s ex and her horse farm dog food from last season. “You always say, if you don’t like what they’re saying about you, change the conversation.” Don says they can’t do that. All they can do is sit and type while the walls fall down around them, “because we’re Creative, the least important, most important thing there is.”

Shhhh! Don’t fight about moving, you’ll upset the giraffes!

Trudy hears Pete getting home and ambushes him adorably at the door. “The bank called! Something about a loan application?” Pete is annoyed that they called at home, but Trudy’s all “oh, silly, it’s cute that you’d try to surprise me but yay we’re buying a house!” Ahem. Pete tells her what’s going on, and that they have $22k in the bank right now, so…Trudy loses it. That’s ALL for Tammy! (HA! Tammy.) For her to have a yard to run around in! “Central Park was good enough for me,” Pete says, a good point but probably not at the best time. “When you bet big and lose, you don’t double down,” Trudy says. “I’ll lose my partnership!” Pete says. “You’ll lose your stateroom on the Titanic? You are forbidden to give anything more to that company!” Pete yells some halfass “you don’t get to forbid me!” type thing after her but he knows it’s pointless. “And don’t even think about asking my father,” Trudy finishes. A low blow! Ouchie!

Don gets home and grabs Midge’s “#4” and looks like he’s heading over to the trash chute, but something makes him reconsider. He sits and stares at it and goes into his Don Draper Trance Of Creative Inspiration, then thumbs through his journal. And they totally made Jon Hamm sit and write out all those voiceovers in his own handwriting just so us dorks with DVRs could pause and see such hits as “She’s a sweet girl, and she wants me to know her. But I already do.” Plus never-before-seen snippets about blue bloods and their yachts. He tears those all out and tosses them, then, cigarette in hand, writes on the new blank page, a title: “WHY I’M QUITTING TOBACCO.” It’s a full-page ad in the New York Times, and it’s a Hail Mary, but hey, somebody had to do something.

Reluctant admiration? Or tentative schadenfreude?

Across the Mad Men universe, while Don has a nice swim, everybody opens their morning papers and reads it. Henry Francis seems sort of bemused. Pete looks terrified. Roger looks old and confused. “Morning,” Don says to Megan as he walks into the office. “Any calls?” Ha. She smiles and hands him the stack of pink While You Were Out slips she’s collected all morning. Among them: Reporters, citizens, Dr. Miller, someone named Emerson Foote (!!!), and people from those agencies he mentioned. The partners are all gathered in the conference room, staring at him through the glass walls, but he just takes his messages and heads into the office, leaving them all to gesture helplessly and follow him. Nobody’s especially fond of the whole thing. Roger: “Somebody used your name to end our business in the newspaper this morning. It wasn’t you, was it?” Don smirks through his cigarette. Awesome. Pete is apoplectic. “Why would you do this?” Don: “Because somebody had to do something.” Lane says the partners should have been consulted. Pete says now all the clients will think the agency could turn on them at any moment. Don isn’t even remotely cowed. “It’s an AD for this agency. If you don’t understand it, then you shouldn’t be in this business.” Pete, amusingly, accuses him of being impatient and childish. “So nobody’s happy about this?” Don says somewhat rhetorically. “I don’t know,” Roger muses. “It’s good not to be the reason this place went down anymore.” Megan interrupts: Someone’s calling from Senator Kennedy’s office! I should have known it was a joke considering how much it sounds like Mayor Quimby, but I was fooled, and so were the rest of them, although Don luckily remained pretty cautious so he didn’t look like as much of an ass as he could have when it turns out to be Ted Chauaughghgh. Shut up, Ted Chaughgugh. Don hangs up but keeps his cool in front of the partners. “Little mixup there: that was Eunice Kennedy.” Ha! Bert is like, mortified. “Tobacco put a roof over your head and fed your children!” Don: “And then it killed my business.” Bert can’t handle it. “I’m no longer a part of this company.” No! The final proof? “You there? Get my shoes.” NO! They all file out, leaving Lane to tell Don that the bank needs their money by “Close of business, as it were.” “You know this could work,” he tells Lane, hoping for a vote of confidence from his special bender pal. But all he gets is a guilt trip. Lane’s just moved his family back here. Oh shit, so the caneslap worked? That’s fucked up. Sorry, Toni the Chocolate Bunny. Megan pops in to tell Don that she loved it. She knows it’s not about principles, it’s about “he didn’t dump me, I dumped him.” (My boomer mom doesn’t think this is period-appropriate. Anybody out there remember “dumping” people in 1965?) So far she’s pretty much the only one who Gets It, I think.

Noooo! Not the shoes!

Harry’s sitting around in the Creative room, reading off all the phone messages they’ve gotten from Smokey the Bear, Smokey Robinson, Chiquita Banana, etc. I hope Emerson Foote was a real call, dammit. Ken’s clients have all called him this morning, mostly out of morbid curiosity, “but one thing’s for sure, they’re not talking about Lucky Strike anymore.” Harry: “They’re gonna fire everybody. Or worse, make me fire everybody.” Breaking my heart, Bert pokes his head in the door, shoes in one hand, hat in the other, and tells the whole room “It’s been a pleasure working with you all. I wish you the best of luck. Everyone makes silent “arooo?” faces. Stan: “I didn’t think they’d start with him.” Before anybody else can think of anything to say, Megan comes in asking for Peggy. “Mr. Draper wants to see you.” She smoothes out her adorable dress, takes a deep breath, and steels herself. Don: “Who can you live without?” Whew. Peggy exhales. “Danny, obviously, although he’s kind of grown on me.” Me too! Too bad Stan is so allegedly good at his job. He’s grown on me a little too, but only because I started out hating him with the heat of a thousand suns. Don reads her a list of Lane’s suggestions, which, ha, Lane sitting around drafting a Who Should Get Sacked List. “That’s a lot of names,” Peggy says. “Are we going under?” “NO.” Don says. He just wanted her to know what’s going on, since they’ll all probably go to her. “So.” Don says awkwardly. “You didn’t say anything about the letter.” Which is so great, because he did not solicit a single word from anyone, at all, he didn’t even bring it up voluntarily to anyone. But Peggy’s opinion? Peggy’s approval? That, he’ll ask for. Fantastic. “I thought you didn’t go in for those kinds of shenanigans,” she says with a straight face, referring of course to his disapproval of her Sugarberry Ham riot, and he smiles, and she smiles, and it’s the sweetest thing since The Suitcase.

“Should I start another fake publicity supermarket riot? People get REALLY excited about laxatives too. For different reasons.”

Sally is having one of her harmless pleasant conversations with her admittedly weird only real friend in the world. Betty spots them from the car and completely freaks out. Glen’s so terrified of her he drops his Cokes and runs off like a spooked kitten. Or linebacker I guess. “You stay away from her, you hear me?” She yells after the weird kid she once dressed in her husband’s clothes and gave a lock of her hair. “We’re not going back for your bike,” She tells Sally spitefully. Sally isn’t interested in drama. “I told you,” she says calmly, “he’s my friend. We don’t do anything.” “That boy is bad!” Betty shrieks. “No, he’s not,” Sally says reasonably. “You don’t know him at all.” Sally looks very much like she sort of pities her crazy mother and her “stresses.”

Dr. Faye is waiting for Don as he walks up with Megan. Awkward! She says it’s nice to see him smiling. “Well, they all want to kill me, but I have a bodyguard,” he says, gesturing toward Megan. Yeah, I’ll just bet you do! Or something. She’s holding one of those “Clean out your desk!” boxes that fired people have on TV shows, and yeah, turns out Atherton wants another cigarette account someday and won’t be doing any work for them anymore. “I’m so sorry,” Don says. “I didn’t even think about that.” “I know,” she smirks. But it’s cool, he is forgiven, and he’s going to make it through this day, and then he’s going to meet her for dinner, in the open, wherever she wants, and they’re going to talk about anything but work. “Because we can do that now,” she says. I’m not sure Don knows how he feels about this. Especially because he’s not really all that fond of talking about stuff that isn’t work. But for now, he smiles and kisses her, and on her way out, she loudly and conspicuously says “Have your GIRL make reservations!” Hmm. Does she know and not care? Does she suspect just on general principle? Either way, meow!

“Silly Don. Did you really think I didn’t notice the stank of French Extraction all over you?”

She stops in to Peggy’s office on her way out. “Just wanted to say goodbye.” Peggy’s like “aw, damn!” She says she loved working with Faye. “You do your job so well, and they respect you, and you don’t have to play any games. I didn’t know that was possible.” Peggy says earnestly. Faye smiles. “Is that what it looks like?” She turns Peggy down for a drink but says she’s sure they’ll work together again, somewhere.

“I’m home early for a family dinner!” Henry announces, presumably having had a conversation with Betty about Sally’s issues with eating arrangements. As Betty scoops out some spaghetti for him she mutters that she had quite a day. “It’s this neighborhood. It’s being taken over by low-caliber people.” People like Glen’s mom? Divorcees? “I think it’s time for us to move,” she says. Henry’s been on record about this for ages, so he’s like “woohoo!” But Sally’s eyes narrow murderously. She gets up silently and stalks out. “She’ll get over it,” Betty shrugs. Sally sobs on her bed, holding Glen’s lanyard, the one he gave her when he trashed their house, which hey, I guess he was right when he said “one day they’ll wake up and they’ll want to move.” And that seemed to be the motivation for the weird breakin in the first place, so hey, way to come through, Glen. Maybe that’s what Sally is thinking too? There’s a weird gorgeous overhead shot of her just like the one we saw of Don, spread out on the sheets “like a skydiver.” Nice weird shot, Director John Slattery.

Well, she did tell Glen she wanted to move last Christmas. Mission accomplished? Slowly?

Partners’ meeting, minus one impish shoeless little partner. Sigh. Joan has obviously been spending too much time talking money with Lane. She says they should start the process of letting people go, and according to Lane, they should try to “limit any sympathetic adjustments to severance.” “Yes,” Joan says sweetly and icily, “and as Lane mentioned we’ll try to hold on to any staplers, scissors, hole punches and tape dispensers.” Heh. “They do disappear,” Lane says somberly, clueless. Roger tells Don the American Cancer Society called twice this morning. !!! They want to talk to them about an anti-smoking campaign. “Took me five minutes to stop laughing.” Sounds like pretty cool news to me, and Don, but Pete’s being sort of assy about it, because for some reason he’s assuming that if they did any work for them it would be pro bono. Why would he assume that? Ken makes the very good point that there are some bigwigs on the board. Hell yes there are! Call those fuckers back! Cause know who’s on the board of the American Cancer Society? Connie. Freaking. Hilton. That’s who. And who eventually heads it? Emerson. Freaking. Foote. Also: know who Connie Freaking Hilton is pally with? Walt Freaking Disney. Who’s just closing up shop at the World’s Freaking Fair, and is currently buying up bits of swampland in South Freaking Florida. And the finale is called Tomorrowland. I’m just saying. My guess is it’s all a beautifully executed red herring, but at least some of that stuff should figure in, right?

Bye, Danny Strong Short Jokes. I think I’ll miss you most of all.

But anyway, now it’s off to do the firing. “Yes,” Pete says. “Don saved the company. Now go get rid of half of it.” Roger: “Well, I gotta go learn a bunch of people’s names before I fire them!” Heh. Pete approaches Lane and oh right, of course he’s pissy – he doesn’t have the money he needs to stay a partner. And he’s not even being a baby about it – he’s genuinely terrified, asking if he can maybe borrow against a bonus or something – but Lane interrupts him. “Don paid your share…Perhaps you weren’t supposed to know that.” And oh god, I want to hug both of them. There is no reasonable explanation for how happy that makes me. Pete looks around for Don and finds him coaxing poor stoic Danny into his office for presumably the last time. (Not a bad run for a guy who only got hired cause Don accidentally drunkenly stole his stupid idea.) They have this very manly understated conversation conveyed solely through nods of the head. Pete: **head tilt, slightly raised glass** (or:“Hey, holy crap, thanks for bailing me out even though you don’t especially like me and I tried to blackmail you and all that.”) Don: **barely noticeable nod** (i.e. “No worries, you’re good at your job, and we need you, and you just gave up a $4million account for me so I wouldn’t go to prison, and maybe we’re even now.”) Peggy and Stan sit and listen to the axes falling all around them. There is crying, but there is also Danny standing, um, tall, and proud, shaking Don’s hand, thanking him for the opportunity. Don stares out at the carnage he’s presiding over. It’s actually Roger who created it, or just the whims of Lee Garner Jr., but it sure feels like it’s his fault, just as much as it will be his fault if he pulls this whole thing off.  The screen goes to black and the soundtrack says “Trust in Me.” I do! I totally do!