'You're an A**hole, You Know That?': Mad Men Recapped

The answers for each are in these objects -- if you really want to call them answers. I'd argue they're more akin to crutches, the objects we cling to when stepping blind into the future seems too great a risk. Bert Cooper totally understands this; he saw it in Don last year when the idea of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce came up. "Young men do not understand the consequences associated with risk," Bert told him at the time, roaring a similar conclusion after Don's stunt last night (and before exiting the office for what is presumed to be the final time). But Bert misapprehends Don's motivations; he's as conservative as the old man, maybe even more so, and Don's instinct is to defy a culture where women have their own cigarettes (or any addictions for that matter) and psychiatrists make all the decisions about whose targeted where and when and how.

Faye's ouster epitomizes this rebellion. Don would rather front Pete's share (itself a self-preservation strategy) of the agency's loan collateral, watch Faye's boss pull her out of SCDP ("Jeff Atherton wants another cigarette account someday," she says) and fire the majority of his staff than honestly address the social turbulence ahead. Maybe he thinks he's doing that, but throwing down the gauntlet at Ted Chaough (who gleefully responds to Don's challenge via a prank call as Sen. Robert Kennedy) and big tobacco actually subverts that famous Draperian principle of which Peggy reminds us: "If you don't like what's being said, change the conversation."

Instead, he pins himself to a philosophical point of view that nobody believes. Not because he's so far ahead of his time, either, but because there's no way he'd reject modernity, however frightening it looks. There's too much at stake for him -- not least of all the secrecy of his identity. Just from earlier this season, we know Don is too smart, too canny, too forward-thinking, too game to look tomorrow in the eye and blink. The con is on.

Which is exactly why Peggy knew to approach Faye on her way out of the office, hoping to grab drinks with the good doctor. Sure, there was the light naivete ("You do your job so well," Peggy says. "You don't have to play any games." Prompting Faye's response: "Is that what it looks like?"), but at least Peggy's on the same wavelength with Pete, a brat who nevertheless knows the American Cancer Society's business is not the kind of cornerstone a boutique agency builds around in any climate -- let alone the increasingly fast, loose and licentious climate around the corner. This is the one Don used to embrace; remember London Fog? Remember Jantzen? Don Draper repudiating cigarettes is like Hoover telling you not to vacuum.

Anyway, Don did "something" as promised. Slow clap for Don Draper. At least Roger Sterling got to uphold some caustic consistency, telling bad-news bearer Atherton, "You really are an a**hole, you know that?" Oh, and Lane brought his family back to New York. Minor detail! Finale's next week, and that's fine with me.

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