'A Go-Around Like You've Never Had': Mad Men Recapped

But business is business! Sort of. Actually, not at all, because having felt Don's wrath when inquiring about the Hilton contract ("You're good. Get better. Stop asking for things."), Peggy returns the scarf to Duck in person. At a hotel suite. She once again declines his job offer, but she can't quite resist his offer to "take your clothes off with my teeth [and] give you a go-around like you've never had." Duck! You rascal! We all knew he was good at abandoning dogs and engineering international mergers, but a silver-tongued swordsman? Amazing.

Anyway, he's got a far better pick-up line than Miss Farrell, the teacher-in-heat who gathers her children in a park for a bit of camera-obscura construction, eclipse viewing and father-seducing. "You're all the same -- the drinking, the philandering..." she mews to Don. He's clearly miffed that he can't even take his kid to a goddamn solar eclipse without some sexy young thing purring around his leg. Betty, meanwhile, has her own eyes shielded by Henry Francis, the Rockefeller aide who had her so hot and bothered after their meeting five episodes ago. They reconvene at Swanson's Diner, where Betty's political appeal on behalf of the Junior League of Tarrytown falls short. They still have time for coffee and a big, thick slice of sexual tension, however, followed by Henry's expert recommendation for the new Draper living room: An antique fainting couch.

Indeed, it'll look great in the hearth -- "the soul of your home," the Drapers' designer calls it. And that's right where Betty puts it, thus filling in the first leg of the opening-montage mystery. Peggy resolves the second, accepting Duck's offer to linger with him the morning after. (Duck Phillips! I still can't believe it.) But what of Don's busted nose? You might say he had it coming: Frustrated with Roger Sterling's contract meddling and Betty's nagging ("What's the matter? You don't know where you'll be in three years?"), he takes his drink for a drive, picking up a young couple of hitchhikers en route to Niagara Falls to get married/cheat the encroaching military draft. A few phenobarbitals later, Don's dancing, hallucinating and... getting pummeled in a motel room. Dumb luck there.

"We left you your car," the couple writes. It also left him wounded enough to put his name on the dotted line, humbly if dejectedly gripping the last strand of security he has left. But! At least he'll never have to pay to stay at a Hilton again. "Having me in your life is going to change things," the hotelier tells him early on. At this rate, for Don's sake, let's hope so.

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