“The grass is always greener, right?” train-riding pal Howard tells Pete toward the end of “Dark Shadows.”

Indeed, the green-eyed monster is running rampant this week, with almost everyone experiencing some form of envy and jealousy for all the things they don’t or can’t have.  Some of the jealousy is fully warranted (like Ginsberg’s anger over Don’s rank-pulling on the Sno-Ball account), while some is just idle  wishing to be able to step into someone else’s shoes now and again (like Megan’s actress friend Julia longing for a cushy throne on 73^rd and Park for her own).

Spurred by a look at the agency’s recent output – a vast majority with Michael Ginsberg’s name attached – as well as a late-night glance through the rising star’s portfolio makes Don once again uneasy about his own lack of creative input at the firm these days.

After a Saturday night brainstorming session alone in his office, Don’s Devil pitch for Sno-Ball seems to strike a chord for both Peggy and Ginsberg, but when it becomes a direct competition between Don and Ginsberg’s dueling campaign ideas…well, it’s really no competition at all.  Don’s the boss – and while it’s a surprise when Don leaves the drawings for Ginsberg’s idea in the back seat of the cab, it isn’t shocking that Don backs his own creation over anyone else’s.

LAST EPISODE: Read the Bunker review of last week’s Mad Men episode “Lady Lazarus”
ARCHIVES: Read all of the Bunker’s previous “Mad Men” reviews

Don is jealous of Ginsberg’s youth and drive – a single-minded determination Don hasn’t been able to muster for quite some time, while Ginsberg wishes he had Don’s power to capriciously back or spike ideas on a whim.

“What do I care?  I’ve got a million (ideas)…a million,” an angry, defiant Ginsberg says in that fabulous exchange in the elevator.

“I guess I’m lucky you work for me,” Don curtly replies.

All season, we’ve been watching Peggy feel threatened by Ginsberg’s talent and tenacity – now, it’s clear that Don can also hear the footsteps of younger, hungrier ad stars like Ginsberg not-so-subtly rushing up behind him.

Ginsberg originally wanted a job at Sterling Cooper because of the edgy, boundary-pushing work of Don Draper.  But unlike Peggy, he never got to work with THAT Don Draper – all he’s seen is the lovestruck, checked-out Don who’s too out of touch to know how lame a Beatles knockoff band is and who exercises power selfishly rather than in support of the better – i.e., his – idea.

But rather than try to soothe Ginsberg’s ego, Don’s blistering comment that “I don’t think about you at all” is practically guaranteed to further drive a wedge between the firm and one of its hottest talents.

Meanwhile, Betty is just as oblivious as Don to how deeply the jealousy is running inside her.  She’s already struggling mightily in her Weight Watchers-led pursuit to slim down (a pursuit that at least has January Jones out of the outrageously fat suit from “Tea Leaves” down to a more naturally realistic January-Jones-after-having-a-baby kind of weight).

But a look at Don and Megan’s swanky uptown high-rise apartment, then a young, trim Megan getting dressed, completely throws Betty from slightly neurotic into full-on freak-out mode.

It’s interesting that it’s the simple love note from Don to Megan (written on the back of a Bobby drawing of a harpooned whale, no less) that pushes Betty to drop the Anna bomb on Sally.  Betty can feel superior as she blames Don for marrying the much younger Megan, but reading that simple note (the kind of note I don’t imagine early 60s Don ever wrote to Betty), she’s just hurt and confused about why she never got to enjoy a kind-hearted, loving Don who would write things like that to her.

Heap on top of all that Henry’s sagging professional fortunes (“I bet on the wrong horse, Betty,” Henry laments, “I jumped ship for nothing”), it’s easy to understand why Betty is so bitter.

I realize we’re supposed to feel some sympathy for Betty and her situation.  She’s getting older, she’s been replaced by a younger woman, she’s barely able to keep her eating in check…but to drag Sally into her turmoil with the Anna revelation…man, it’s REALLY hard to feel sorry for, let alone like, this woman on any level.

While spilling the beans about Anna to Sally as a means to spark chaos for Don and Megan is undeniably in character, you have to wonder why Weiner and Co. would saddle Betty with such a despicable act,  especially considering the limited post-pregnancy availability of January Jones.

We’ve had a hard enough time tolerating some of the more childish antics of Betty Draper during the first four years of the show.  Now, in what amounted to only her second significant appearance of the season, she deliberately throws her 12-year-old daughter into emotional turmoil in an attempt to make her ex-husband and his new wife as miserable as she is.

While I appreciate January Jones’ performance, Betty is so unlikable and so decentralized from Don and the show’s work-based story arcs that I’m really done with Betty Draper as any type of central character at this stage.  Frankly, I’m more engaged in the Don-Megan relationship after just 9 episodes than I was in the three seasons of the Don-Betty marriage.

She’s the mother of Don’s children, so I can’t imagine a show with zero Betty presence, but right now, I think I’m endorsing a limited 2 or 3 appearances a season over the show’s final two years.  I just don’t want to spend any more significant chunks of time with this woman, especially when we could be spending that time with any of the show’s other far more intriguing regular characters.

All that being said, it’s not like Betty got away unscathed with using Sally as a weapon.  Once Sally overheard Don and Megan arguing because of Betty’s comments, then Don telling her, “Your mother doesn’t care about hurting you…she wants to hurt us,” the whole thing backfired on Betty pretty spectacularly (although it could be argued that that line from Don was just as manipulative as what Betty said).

It’s a sad, frustrated Betty who knocks things off the table after Sally makes up a story about how Don and Megan “spoke very fondly of (Anna).”

Despite all my misgivings about Betty, however, it’s hard to say that there shouldn’t be a place on TV for a character who can lay out a Thanksgiving blessing like “I’m thankful that I have everything I want and that no one else has anything better.”  If that doesn’t go down as one of the all-time top 5 quintessential Betty Draper quotes, somebody’s not paying attention.

Finally, while Don and Betty fumble around mishandling their jealousies, once again, it’s only the increasingly self-aware Roger who realizes his errors and apologizes to Jane for ruining her attempt at a new life in her new Roger-free apartment.

He’s lonely, he’s desperately in need of a victory at work and he’s got young playboy Bernie Rosenberg rolling up on his soon-to-be ex at dinner, but even though all that, Roger still understands how sleeping with Jane in a jealous attempt to mark his territory hurts her efforts to start over without him.

Is it possible that Roger, the one character who it seemed would have the most trouble adapting to the changes the 60s had in store, may actually be the one who does the best job adjusting to the shifting times?

“It’s every man for himself,” Roger tells Peggy in another charged elevator exchange.

Other thoughts –

• I know I’ve brought this up before so this probably sounds like a broken record, but another stellar performance by Kiernan Shipka.  Her fabulously bratty assault on Megan, her hint of defiance when confronted by Don, the understated glee when she tells Betty that all was well in the Draper house after the Anna revelation – all pitch-perfect.  Have we ever had a kid this age give a performance this good on a TV drama?  Granted, it doesn’t hurt to have writers pounding out Emmy-caliber scripts week in and week out, but that never did much to help Robert Iler or Jamie-Lynn Sigler stand out on “The Sopranos,” to name just one example.

• OK, did Weiner, writer Erin Levy and the rest of the “Mad Men” braintrust know this episode was going to premiere the just two days after the release of the big screen Tim Burton-Johnny Depp “Dark Shadows” remake or was that just amazing coincidence?  Normally, I’d think it’s way too convenient to be just dumb luck, but considering how long ago this episode was probably broken and written, I guess it’s possible.

• Alright, this is a third consecutive week without a Lane appearance…now, I realize that the way contracts are structured, even regulars aren’t going to show up in every episode.   But three straight weeks with no Lane…really?  C’mon, guys…we need Lane back in the mix…this is started to get egregious…

• While Joan is getting a little more screen time than Lane these days, she hasn’t exactly been all that integral to many of the storylines this season, has she?  While her break-up with Greg was stellar and I’ve really enjoyed her transformation into Joan Holloway Harris, SCDP on-site therapist, those all-too-brief scenes of offering counsel to the likes of Lane, Peggy and Don isn’t really the fullest use of Christina Hendricks this season.  Here’s hoping  we get a little more meat on the bone for Joan over these last four episodes.

• Pete’s daydream about of a half-naked Beth (Alexis Bledel) seducing him in the office seems to indicate she may be more than just a brief one-episode dalliance.  You’ve got to think they wouldn’t have signed Bledel to a multiple-episode guest stint just for that momentary little fantasy sequence, right?  And following that theory through, if the uphappy, manipulative Beth is set to make at least one more appearance this season, that can’t bode well for Pete.

On top of the prospect of another (likely frustrating) encounter with Beth, Roger’s talk with Ginsberg seems to at least partially answer the question about what Roger’s motives were when he gave Pete those skis during “Lady Lazarus.”  Roger’s LSD-fueled sense of peace obviously doesn’t extend to burying the hatchet with Pete – anywhere except in the middle of Campbell’s skull, that is.

“When a man hates another man very, very much, sometimes he wants to know that something is his, even if in the end, he has to give it up,” Roger says.

Is scoring the Manischewitz wine account just another piece in Roger’s orchestrated plan for revenge on the snotty Campbell rise to power?  Jury is still somewhat out on this one, but my guess is Roger’s payback is coming and it’s going to be devastating for Pete.

•  I’ve purposely steered clear of this topic up until now, but with only four episodes left in the season, it seems like it’s time to join the growing online conversation about whether one of our “Mad Men” regulars may be about to off him or herself by season’s end.   Death and talk about death and suicide have been a preoccupation all season long, from the Richard Speck murders to Don’s fever-dream killing.

And nowhere has that speculation swirled more vigorously than around Pete.  From the multiple references to Pete’s infamous rifle; to talk – and evidence – of his bad driving; to the super-overt life insurance policy questions from Howard last week, would it just be too obvious at this point if an unhappy, unsatisfied Pete committed suicide by the season finale?  Normally, I’d say yes, but over the course of producing the full season, it can be tough for even as accomplished a team as Weiner and crew to tell exactly how clear those possible hints might play over the complete 13 episode run.

What can begin as gentle hinting to start can very easily turn into a flashing neon sign, especially if some astute fans have caught on and started discussing the possibility.  Just ask the producers of “Dexter” – most of that audience was way ahead of the show and grew more and impatient each week before the long-delayed revelation of last season’s twist involving Colin Hanks and Edward James Olmos’ characters.

Now, “Mad Men” is a far more intricate – and far better constructed – show than “Dexter,” but it’s possibly they may have tipped their hand too far with the suicide foreshadowing.   I’m not quite ready to put money of Pete offing himself just yet, but I think Weiner and Co. definitely want us to think it’s a possibility.

• The New York Times had a great piece on the use of the Beatles’ “Tomorrow Never Knows” in last week’s “Lady Lazarus” – and the astronomical price tag attached.  While I knew Beatle songs didn’t show up on TV series often, Weiner said it’s the first TV use of a Beatles song ever, not counting live video of the band in concert.  At first, I thought that had to be wrong, but after wracking my brain on it for a while, I admit I can’t remember another Beatles song ever used on a television series soundtrack…anybody wanna challenge that?

• Lines of the week –

“Sterling Campbell Draper Pryce – may I help you?”

“When a man hates another man very, very much, sometimes he wants to know that something is his, even if in the end, he has to give it up.”

“I’ve got to start carrying less cash.”

“Read the rest of the poem, you boob.”

“This is the most expensive dinner in history.”

“You get everything you want and you still had to do this.”

“I feel bad for you.”  “I don’t think about you at all.”

And line of the week – from the unlikeliest of suspects, Betty Draper…

“I’m thankful that I have everything I want and no one else has anything better.”

“Why do THEY get to decide what’s going to happen?” a smitten and frustrated Pete asks Harry as he wallows in his powerlessness.

“They just do,” Harry replies.

They – the women – seem to hold all the cards in “Lady Lazarus,” the first solo-penned script of the season by creator Matt Weiner.

Megan, of course, doesn’t hesitate to start edging back into the acting pool in the wake of her parents’ visit last week in “At the Codfish Ball.”  While her father’s disapproval of her life choices was something of a factor, it does seem clear that Megan has carried some misgivings about her advertising career for quite a while now.

And to her credit, she’s not wasting any time.  While she does concoct some subterfuge to hide her auditioning for the off-off-Broadway play from both Peggy and Don, she pretty much fesses up as soon as Peggy catches her, then with everything in the open, decides leaving SCDP is her best option.

As she’s shown all season, Megan seems to be the most centered and self-aware person in the SCDP orbit.  Most of her indecision about leaving advertising is about hurting Don and Peggy’s feelings than worry that she might be making the wrong choice.

Of course, Megan’s new career path is only another sign of danger ahead for Don.

“I understand.  I don’t want to keep you from your dream,” Don tells Megan after she tells him about her acting aspirations.

LAST EPISODE: Read the Bunker review of last week’s Mad Men episode “At the Codfish Ball”
ARCHIVES: Read all of the Bunker’s previous “Mad Men” reviews

But much like we’ve seen previously this season with the new and improved Don 2.0, while the new Don Draper at least understands and has learned a better way to deal with conflict from his past mistakes with Betty, it doesn’t mean he has to like some of the moves he’s forced to make.

Bit by bit, Megan continues to gain more and more control of their relationship as Don finds himself hanging on white-knuckled out of fear that she’ll one day be gone.

Don lights up when he sees Megan from the conference room during the Chevalier Blanc pitch – she’s  really become the only stimulus that sparks him at work these days.  The fact that she’s actually pretty good at the ad game he’s spent his life mastering has only made him love her more.

Megan’s also increasingly become Don’s only conduit to the youth culture that is not only overtaking SCDP, but the world at large.

“I have no idea what’s going on out there,” Don says to Megan as he asks her about the music and when it became “so important.”

But as Don tells Roger later, “I was born in the 30s.”  As much as he’d like to embrace the youth revolution going on around him, both from a professional and relationship standpoint, he doesn’t connect with it.

Even coming recommended by Megan, Don can only get a few minutes into The Beatles’ “Tomorrow Never Knows” before turning it off – he’s just not into it.

Don knows the more she delves into her true passion of acting, the more apart they’ll be – and the more likely he is to lose her.  And that feels like a deep bottomless chasm…sorta like an elevator shaft, right?  Yep, sometimes “Mad Men” plays it subtle and sometimes the imagery is about as on the nose as Don falling down that empty elevator shaft.

I say it again – this is not going to end well for Don.

Meanwhile, Peggy’s not so happy with Megan, either – again, much more for what Megan’s defection represents to Peggy than to anything Megan actually did.

Peggy’s season-long bout with career and personal indecision just takes another jolt when Megan forcibly takes her life into her own hands and makes the decision to follow her acting dream.  Peggy hasn’t made many bold, decisive plays in her own life lately.  While I think she genuinely does respect Megan’s decision – “That took a lot of guts,” Peggy tells Stan and Ginsberg – there’s more than a little envy happening there as well.

Peggy initially resented having to train Don’s trophy wife as a copywriter, only to have Megan prove she had real actual talent for ad work.  The fact that it’s a respectable talent in Don and Peggy’s world that Megan doesn’t even particularly want just makes it even harder to accept for Peggy, who still stays late almost every night and slaves away in service to a career that only occasionally rewards her devotion.

“I think she’s good at everything.  I think she’s just one of those girls,” Peggy tells Joan.

“Then you had every right to be hard on her,” a cynical Joan responds.

Joan thinks Megan is just another Betty, but she doesn’t recognize the change in Don – or see the layers of Megan – that Peggy has seen.

All of which leads to displaced anger overload as Don and Peggy both vent their Megan frustrations on each other after their comically terrible Cool Whip skit in the kitchen.

“You didn’t want her there,” Don says.  “You were threatened by everything about her.”

“I spent more time training her than you did – and eight months defending her,” Peggy fires back.

“Defending her?  She was great at it!” Don shouts.

“She thinks advertising is stupid!”

“No, she thinks the people she worked with are cynical and petty!”

All of which leads to one of the best “Shut up!” orders ever.  It’s so much fun when Don and Peggy get angry these days.

However, I think this does continue to push Peggy further toward the Sterling Cooper door.  We’ve already seen a Peggy on the verge of jumping ship with Duck back in Season 3, so I don’t think the show plays that card again unless they’re ready to actually have Peggy leave the agency.

Finally, just as Don continues his evolution into becoming as disaffected and listless as Roger once was, so is Pete continuing his morph into all the worst aspects of early 60’s Don.

He’s just as desperate for any kind of true connection and contact as his new crush Beth, nevermind the fact that Trudy, unlike Howard, seems just as committed to Pete now as she ever did.  Almost all of Pete’s neuroses and questionable behavior seem to be entirely self-inflicted.

Despite Beth’s consistent pleas for Pete to stay away after their initial tryst, Pete won’t give up the pursuit, entirely focused on having at least one thing in his life go the way he wants it.  God knows, that’s not happening at work and the bloom is definitely off the rose of suburban life.

The worst thing Beth could do would be to dangle any kind of red meat in front of a voracious animal like Pete, which she of course does with that hastily drawn then erased little steam heart on the car window.  Now, she’s all but assured herself of having stalker Pete keep up the chase, probably at a greater price than she’s expecting to pay.

Unlike Don, who always seemed to be able to rally himself out of hardship and push past his life low points, Pete doesn’t seem to have that same kind of internal fortitude.   I think we may be watching Pete inch further and further down the road toward complete career and personal implosion.

Other thoughts…

• Interesting choice in casting “Gilmore Girls” vet Alexis Bledel as Pete’s crush Beth.  As much as I enjoyed that show, I was never a huge fan of Bledel.  She just also seemed very one-note in her delivery as Rory Gilmore (although it clearly didn’t help her cause that she just got blown off the screen every week by the ridiculously talented Lauren Graham).  I didn’t particularly dislike her here, but then, I also didn’t particularly see why Pete would have been so knotted up by this woman, either.

• Say what you will about Matt Weiner and his very public contract negotiations with AMC last year, but if he doesn’t fight that hard to keep his show’s budget intact, do you think they can still afford to spring for licensing songs like the Beatles’ “Tomorrow Never Knows?”  It’s no coincidence Don and company talk about how difficult and expensive it is to license a Beatles song for a commercial.  It’s no easier – in fact, it’s even more difficult and expensive – to do that now than it was in 1966.  Kudos for throwing out some coin to get the real thing.

And again, probably no coincidence that Chavalier Blanc go with The Wedgewoods’ version of “September in the Rain”…the same 30s-standard song the Beatles actually did for their historic demo audition for Decca Records.  Nice how Ginsberg was the only one to recognize and be disgusted by the idea of a cheap knockoff Beatles song, while Don is out of touch enough to think it’s the actual Beatles.  Seems like Ginsberg’s gonna be running this place one of these days, doesn’t it?

• Alright, Roger, what are you up to?  Even Pete was waiting for the other shoe to drop when Roger first offers him the free skis from the guy at Head, then the adulation of knowing Pete was requested to handle the account.  Roger plays it all off by explaining how fine he is with sitting back and letting Pete do all the heavy lifting – and I guess after his LSD epiphanies lately, it is possible that Roger is just smelling the flowers and not letting stuff like his rivalry with Pete drag him down anymore.  But this is a veteran ad man who just a few weeks ago let fear chase him out the door before sunrise to follow up on Pete’s bogus red herring meeting.  I’m thinking there’s a Roger Sterling-sized plan in action here, and it’s probably gonna land on Pete like a ton of bricks when it finally connects…

•  Lines of the week –

“I was raised in the 30s.  My dream was indoor plumbing.”

“I don’t want her to end up like Betty.  Or her mother.”

“Reality got her.  You work your ass off for months; bite your nails, for what?  Heinz.  Baked.  Beans.”

“I’ll tell you what takes guts, never having money for lunch.  She owes me like $15 at this point.  What am I gonna do, ask Don?  Call her?  I think it’s clear why she left.”

“I think she’s good at everything.  I think she’s just one of those girls.”

And finally – line of the week from Pete and Harry – just for its inescapable truth…

“Why do they get to decide what’s going to happen?”  “They just do.”

In case you missed it, the theme of “At the Codfish Ball” was disappointment.   And if that wonderful lingering shot around the awards dinner table of sad-faced Don, Megan, Sally and Megan’s parents stewing in their own separate traumas didn’t hammer that one home for ya with thundering force, you may want roll back and watch the episode again.

While “Codfish” itself had some typically well-executed character moments (particularly for the supremely disappointed trio of Peggy, Megan and Sally), the episode was definitely a step off the pace of last week’s gloriously experimental “Far Away Places” and probably one of the weaker offerings in Season 5’s uniformly strong first half.

“Codfish” was the only episode so far this season that wasn’t fully or partially written by Matt Weiner.  With a Weiner script coming for next week’s “Lady Lazarus” (and considering a Weiner solo effort is usually a pretty sure sign of some significant plot developments), I wonder if this episode wasn’t just some relative quiet before some heavy-duty storm clouds next week.

That isn’t to say “Codfish” is a total write-off, however, by any means.

LAST EPISODE: Read the Bunker review of last week’s Mad Men episode “Far Away Places”
ARCHIVES: Read all of the Bunker’s previous “Mad Men” reviews

Turns out Megan didn’t just get that job as a copywriter because she’s married to the boss.  As quickly as she parachuted in and elbowed her way to the front as a central player in the “Mad Men” world last season, the audience was practically predisposed to hate her.

But over the first six episodes of this season, Megan’s shown a refreshing ability to stand toe-to-toe with Don and speak some hard truths about her new husband and their relationship.  Now, after single-handedly developing the Heinz pitch, then not only finding out about their imminent firing, but setting up Don to deliver the impromptu dinner presentation that saved the account, we find out she really does seem to have a talent for advertising after all.

Unfortunately, while the Heinz pitch is the professional success that seems to finally give her some validation with her co-workers, it doesn’t seem to give Megan the personal gratification she’d hoped.  Everyone else at Sterling Cooper is happier with Megan’s heroics than she is.

“I look at you and I feel like I’m getting to experience my first time again,” Peggy tells her.  “This is as good as this job gets.  Savor it.”

But there might be a little more of her socialist, high society-hating, Don-disapproving father in Megan than she realizes.

“Is this your passion?…I always thought you were very single-minded about your dreams and that that would help you through life.  But now I see that you skipped the struggle and went right to the end,” Emile tells his daughter.  “Don’t let your love for this man stop you from doing what you wanted to do.”

I guess we can assume Emile is referring to Megan’s acting career and considering her lack of enthusiasm for her Heinz success, maybe she’s having some second thoughts about her career path at the moment as well.

Of course, it also doesn’t help that Megan’s bickering parents offer yet another alarming sign of what the future could hold for Megan and Don’s own marriage.  After the party debacle, then the rumbling chase-fight through the apartment last week, it’s just another blazing signal that the relationship seems inescapably doomed.

Meanwhile, all Sally wants to do is grow up and join the adult world.  She asks “papa” to go to his swanky American Cancer Society awards dinner and wear her at-least-three-years-too-old-for-her dress, even though Don 86’s the makeup and thigh-high go-go boots before she gets out the front door.

Sally even picks at the fish entrée she doesn’t like in an effort to experience growth and show just how worldly and ready to join the grown-ups she is.  That is, until her eyeful of Roger and Marie (Julia Ormond) just reinforces the ugly truth that all kids contend with eventually – adulthood isn’t an aspirational goal, it’s an inescapable destination.

Adults lie and hurt each other all the time as the kids quietly take it all in.  All the cute moments of Roger and Sally’s “date” night are sullied in that ugly moment of cheating and infidelity.   Just like Megan learned how to fight from her parents’ example, Sally’s getting a crash-course in all the ways not to behave when she’s a full-fledged grown-up in just a few short years.

“How’s the city?” Glen asks during their post-dinner phone call.  “Dirty,” Sally replies.

Boy, that’s an understatement, kid.

Finally, even though Peggy seems to get that long-awaited commitment from Abe as the two decide to move in together, it definitely doesn’t seem to be the type of commitment Peggy wanted.

Of course, considering that for the past few weeks, she didn’t really even seem all that sure about keeping Abe in the picture anyway, it’s hard to tell exactly where all of Peggy’s angst and turmoil is genuinely coming from these days.

She goes from worried Abe’s ready to break up to deciding how to respond to a marriage proposal after a quick few words of advice from Joan.  Peggy’s always been pretty bad at the whole relationship thing (Duck, anyone?), but she currently seems to have an even more out-of-whack barometer than usual for where her personal life should be going.

Of course, leave it to her mother Katherine (Myra Turley) to lay it out there for Peggy in no uncertain terms.

“You are selling yourself short,” Katherine tells her.  “This boy, he will use you for practice until he decides to get married and have a family.  And he will.  Believe me.”

Katherine’s a rigid, closed-minded battle-axe of a woman to be sure, but she’s not wrong.  Just like Emile, she’s laying down some hard truths to her adrift daughter – although it seems pretty certain Peggy won’t be acting on that advice any time soon.

I have to admit, at this point, I’m growing increasingly baffled at where Peggy is headed myself.

For weeks, we’ve watched as she’s grown more and more unsure, both professionally and personally.  I’m more than willing to extend Weiner and company the benefit of the doubt about Peggy’s character arc this season, but I have zero clue where we’re going.  Is she going to settle with Abe?  Is the Ginsberg thing going to happen, like I’ve been predicting for weeks?  Is she going to jump ship, perhaps with Kenny, for another agency?

Hopefully, now that we’re past the halfway point in the season, we’ll start seeing Peggy gravitating toward some resolution because the indecision is growing increasingly frustrating.

Other thoughts

• Nice to see both Glen and Mona making long-awaited returns…considering Glen is played by Matt Weiner’s son Marten and Mona by John Slattery’s real-life wife Talia Balsam, I guess it’s no great surprise that either shows up again. But it’s that kind of continuity and ability to have long unseen characters pop back with no warning that enriches the experience for those of us following since the beginning…

• Am I the only one cringing nearly every week as the scope of Don’s anticipated upcoming apocalyptic breakdown balloons?  Don gets his own shot of disappointment when Ken’s father-in-law Ed Baxter (the always awesome Ray Wise) essentially says the true titans of business will never work with him after the Lucky Strike letter.  It’s a pretty sobering thought that Don’s entire career has been effectively capped by that incident and won’t ever rise as high as it could have.

And Don’s euphoria over Megan’s success is just waiting to have the rug pulled out for under it if she continues moving toward a life pursuing something other than advertising.  Not to mention the growing sense of pending disaster as the potential for their marriage to blow up at any moment ratchets up week by week.

I mean, Don’s teaching himself French in the office, for God’s sake.  He’s completely at Megan’s mercy right now.  He’s so devoted and smitten that an end to their relationship is gonna be incredibly ugly for Don.  I’m fascinated at the prospect of the carnage while bracing for a spinout that could make last season seem minor in comparison.

• Three best expressions of the episode – Peggy’s fake smile when Abe proposes moving in together rather than a real proposal, Sally’s horror at the Roger-Marie encounter and Don’s withering “shut up” glare at Ken when he tries to slow down the dinner table Heinz pitch.  Between delivering his first stellar pitch scene in quite a while and his riotous guest appearance on the live episode of “30 Rock” last week, it’s been a pretty kick-ass few days for Jon Hamm.

• Yes, it’s obviously socially irresponsible as hell, but I get a huge smile on my face every time we see the new happy Roger and realize he has LSD to thank for it.  He’s pumping Mona for business leads, he’s working the room at the Cancer Society dinner, he’s the perfect date for Sally AND he finds time to scurry off for a quick interlude with Marie.  And the quip machine just pumps out one-liner after one-liner in every scene.  I could literally watch a whole show of Roger and Sally out on the town at different events…I really could…

• For the second week in a row, it’s a very light week for Pete Campbell.  However, he does get to deliver a pitch-perfect example of exactly what he does as an account manager to Emile.  Between pearls like this and Roger’s guide to closing the deal a few weeks ago, I definitely think it’s time for a paperback edition of the “Mad Men Guide to Business.”  Tell me you wouldn’t buy it…or at the very least, thumb through a copy…

• Lines of the week –

“Who knows why people in history did good things?  For all we know, Jesus was trying to get the loaves and fishes account.”

“They’ll be clapping and cheering.  They don’t know you’re a hypocrite.”

“Men don’t take the time to end things. They ignore you, unless you insist on a declaration of hate.”

“Bobby’s helping me fill my fountain pen.”  “Thanks, Emile.”

“Don, there is nothing you can do…no matter what, one day, your little girl will spread her legs and fly away.”

“If you’re lonely, get a cat.  They live 13 years, then you get another one.  Then another one after that.  Then, you’re done.”

“You’re a mean drunk, you know that?”

And line of the week – actually, the word of the week – the episode closer from Sally…

“Dirty.”

After last week’s high drama with Pete and Lane and all the other office chicanery running at full speed, “Far Away Places” practically slams on the brakes as we stop the show for a set of three short films.  In each, Peggy, Roger and Don all choose different methods of running away from their everyday lives, but none quite achieve their escape – although the results are decidedly mixed for each.

While we don’t get a lot of forward progress storywise from “Far Away Places” (except for Roger’s new marital status, of course), we do get three finely crafted little vignettes into where each of these characters is in late summer 1966 – as well as a possible glimpse of where each is headed.

Much like we saw with Pete last week, the shadow of Don Draper and all he represents falls particularly hard over the junior members of the Sterling Cooper crew, especially chief protégé Peggy.  After a pointed fight with Abe (Charlie Hofheimer) over Peggy’s devotion to her work, her anxiety level ratchets up to 11 when she’s forced to deliver her first ad campaign pitch without her mentor after Don sweeps up Megan and heads upstate.

And as Peggy sums up later on the phone, “It didn’t go well.”

It’s easy to chalk up Peggy’s blow-up with Raymond Geiger (John Sloman) from Heinz as frustration over seeing another fully-formed pitch get a thumbs down from finicky Heinz.  But as we saw last season with both swimsuit maker Jantzen in “Public Relations” and again with Honda in “The Chrysanthemum and the Sword,” Don isn’t above scolding or all-but firing a client to bring them around to his way of thinking.

Unfortunately, Peggy’s confrontational screed with Geiger doesn’t work like it does for Don and instead gets her booted off the account.

LAST EPISODE: Read the Bunker review of last week’s Mad Men episode “Signal 30″
ARCHIVES: Read all of the Bunker’s previous “Mad Men” reviews

So an unhappy Peggy decides to beat down the disappointment in true old-school Don Draper style – plenty of booze and inappropriate anonymous sex.

We get one jaw-dropping “no way” moment in each of these three stories, the first coming as every viewer in the audience shouts, “No way!  Peggy is NOT about to go all Alanis Morissette with that guy during ‘Born Free!’”

Umm, well…uh…she does.

Again, despite the initial shock, this isn’t exactly without precedent – Peggy’s baby-inducing hook-up with Pete back in Season 1 was practically a one-night stand (although it later meant more to Pete than to Peggy) and sex doesn’t get much more anonymous than her night with that engineering student back in Season 3’s “Love Among the Ruins.”

As we’ve also seen with Pete lately, Peggy is progressing professionally, but not so sure success is making her all that happy.  For all intents and purposes, she’s been doing Don’s job during the boss’ “love leave,” as Bert calls it.  A few weeks ago, Peggy confessed to Dawn her discomfort at being forced to act too much like a man in order to succeed in advertising.

Now, her dedication to the job is causing her to choose between career and her relationship with Abe.  Even though she and Abe don’t exactly seem built to last, she does go running back to him in the end, mostly because she doesn’t have a lot of options right now.

Although, there is still Michael Ginsberg, isn’t there?

First, the odd new addition tries to pass himself off as a full-blooded Martian…

“Don’t worry, there’s no plot to take over Earth,” Ginsberg reassures Peggy.  “We’re just displaced.”

Then, Ginsberg launches into his strange, is-he-serious-or-is-he-still-kidding origin story about his birth in a Nazi concentration camp.  It’s haunting enough to stick with Peggy – and I’m officially raising the odds from 8-to-1 to 5-to-2 that a Peggy-Ginsberg pairing is in the cards.

In story 2, Roger Sterling’s big trip is…well, literally, a pretty massive trip.  It’s been pretty clear we were heading toward the end of the Roger-Jane (Payton List) marriage since the season premiere, if not from all the way back to their impulsive nuptials between seasons 2 and 3 – but I guarantee no one expected it to come during the episode’s second stunner moment as Roger Sterling drops LSD for the first time.

By the way, I could have written “Mad Men” reviews for another 20 years and never would have expected to write the sentence “when Roger Sterling drops LSD for the first time.”

But considering the obvious comedy potential of Roger trippin’, not to mention the opportunity for big-time directorial pyrotechnics in shooting a psychedelia-dripping acid freak-out sequence, credit to writers Matt Weiner and Semi Chellas as well as director Scott Hornbacher for keeping the entire affair incredibly low-key.

I mean, sure, we get some fantastic little moments – Russian military music when Roger opens the vodka bottle, the instantly incinerated cigarette, Bert Cooper staring back from Roger’s money – but for the most part, the whole sequence is very unflashy, very calm and as Roger points out, “beautiful.”

While LSD trips in TV and movies usually come accompanied with screaming and monster visions and spiders and other assorted horrors, I was so pleasantly surprised that, at least for Roger and Jane, the drug here did exactly what its proponents advertise – it opened its users up to the truth.

“We’re leaving each other,” Roger says the morning after the two lay on their bedroom floor and bare their souls about the end of their relationship.

Roger is ready to let his unhappy marriage end, even though, as Jane points out, “It’s going to be expensive.”

And now, we’ve got an untethered Roger Sterling back on the prowl.  That right there is enough to make any “Mad Men” fan smile.

Finally, story 3 follows Don and Megan on their ill-fated trip upstate – a trip that, in addition to making Howard Johnson seem just as unappealing back in 1966 as it is today, further paves the way for another epic Don Draper crash.

While the new happy Don Draper is something we’re unaccustomed to seeing, it’s also a pretty unfamiliar state for Don as well.  When he’s confronted with situations that raise his anger or confusion, he’s not sure how to respond – but what’s clear is that the bullying and domineering behavior that might have worked six years ago on sheltered woman-child Betty are NOT going to fly with the more worldly Megan.  And the divide between them is already forming – and growing.

The Plattsburgh excursion gets off on the wrong foot as Don plucks Megan out of the Heinz pitch, blissfully unaware of the embarrassment Megan feels or her guilt at not being there with the rest of the team.

“You like to work, but I can’t like to work,” Megan says after Don starts jotting down Howard Johnson pitch notes.

“I ruined the whole thing by pulling you off that crack team,” Don derisively shoots back.

Orange sherbet kick-starts another argument and when Megan hits Don with an admittedly low brow crack about calling his mother, Don slips back into Dick Whitman mode, ditching Megan at the HoJo in the episode’s third “oh no, he didn’t!” moment.

By the time he regains his senses and comes back the motel, Megan is gone.  Don’s mind immediately turns to the horrors we’ve seen featured the last few weeks – Richard Speck, Charles Whitman – and after several hours of scouring Plattsburgh, Don heads home.

Of course, the resourceful Megan wasn’t waiting around for Don to come back and instead, found her on way home.  Granted, six-and-a-half hours on a bus is no picnic, but she made her point to Don that she can fend for herself, if necessary.

“You’re a pig!”  Megan yells.  “You left me there!”

The anger boils over into a frantic, harrowing chase around the Draper apartment.  It’s the old Don – the Don we saw kill a woman during his fever dream two weeks ago – thrashing his way after Megan like a true horror movie villain.

Just like Roger and Jane, Don and Megan end up on the floor at the end, angry, hurt and upset that the hopes for a happy future together are dying, tiny piece by tiny piece.

One thing we know – Don loves Megan, possibly even more than he ever loved Betty.  He appreciates Megan’s candor and insight and really seems to be making every effort to please her.  But there’s only so much Don Draper can change about himself – and all of his outdated chauvinism and old coping methods for dealing with conflict aren’t working – and his miscues are mounting.

“Every time we fight, it just diminishes this a little bit,” Megan tearfully says in a beautiful line-reading by Jessica Pare.

The fight over Don’s birthday party.  The other women.  The fight at Howard Johnson.  Don’s mistakes are piling up – and those perfect golden moments like the flashback we see to the Disneyland trip in the car with Sally are starting to fade already.

Don and Megan smile as they go into the office the next day – but Don’s “love leave” may end up being even shorter than Roger’s similar mid-life crisis marriage.  The cracks are already formed and pronounced.  It probably won’t be long or take that much more before Megan starts reaching that last straw with the outwardly-perfect Don Draper.

“Far Away Places” didn’t have the visceral pleasures of a Pete-Lane fight or some of the series’ more overt crowd-pleaser moments, but the more the story fragments, surreal tone and understated messages of “Far Away Places” tumble through my head, the more I appreciated, enjoyed and respected the off-kilter ride.

Other thoughts…

• Great to see Bess Armstrong in the relatively small role as Jane’s therapist.  For the most part, I like that “Mad Men” doesn’t cast loads of known actors, even long-time character players like Armstrong, but seeing vets like her, Ray Wise, Madchen Amick and others show up now and again is always fun – even though I’ll never see Armstrong as anyone other than Angela Chase’s mom from “My So-Called Life”…  I can’t see her on screen without lines like “I’ll bet the karma at Amber’s house is just through the damn roof!” running through my head.

• I’m generally a big fan of the “Mad Men” musical choices, but using the Beach Boys’ “I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times” as Roger Sterling drops acid may have been just a touch too on the nose.   Considering the album “Pet Sounds” debuted just a couple months before this episode’s setting, it’s obviously fair game, but maybe just a little TOO easy, ya know?

• How fantastic is it that Bert Cooper is the one to call out Don on his “love leave?”  Bert’s been a fairly superfluous character since the formation of the new Sterling Cooper, used almost exclusively for comedic asides and one-liners.

Hell, he quit in a huff at the end of last season and was back this year with no explanation given.  He’s just such a cartoon of a man these days that we all just assume he walked into the office the day after quitting, reassumed his chair in the lobby and just continued on like nothing had happened.

But while Bert may not be the Zen ad man he once was, he’s still got enough on the ball to call out Don on the Heinz’ failure and give him a much-needed wake-up call on the near dereliction of his duties to the firm.  If Bert fades out after this season (and my guess is, he will), the refocusing of Don will have made his time spent at the new SCDP worthwhile.

• Lines of the week

“I told you we were going to take LSD with them.  You were supposed to clear your schedule.”

“Well, Dr. Leary, I find your product boring.”

“You don’t like me.”  “I did.  I really did.”

“It’s going to be very expensive.”  “I know.”

“Why don’t you call YOUR mother?”

“Get in the car.  Eat ice cream.  Leave work.  Take off your dress.  Yes, master!”

“You’ve been on love leave.  It’s amazing things are going as well as they are with as little as you are doing.”

And again, the line of the week, an ominous portent of the doom for the future…

“Every time we fight, it just diminishes this a little bit.”

Here’s the full transcript of Roger Sterling’s coaching session with Lane Pryce on the art of securing a client’s business over dinner from the Mad Men episode “Signal 30″:

==========

Roger:  “Would you take a little bit of unsolicited advice?”

Lane: “It’s not pride that’s keeping me from asking.  I certainly am aware that you’re skilled in this arena.”

Roger:  “I was.  Now, I guess I’m professor emeritus of accounts.  Look, most people will tell you it’s hard to make a mistake.  I mean, you just lie.  But that won’t get you anywhere.  The beauty of this dinner is that if you do it right, you can actually have him tell you all the answers.  In fact, I once got a guy from Dr. Scholl’s to fill it out for me.”

Lane:  “There’ll be plenty of drinks.”

Roger:  “Not for you.  You order a scotch, rocks and water.  You drink half of it, ‘til it turns see-through.  Then you get another.”

THIS EPISODE: Read the Bunker review of this Mad Men episode “Signal 30″

ARCHIVES: Read all of the Bunker’s previous “Mad Men” reviews

Lane:  “Very good.”

Roger:  “And then, well…then it’s kind of like being on a date.”

Lane:  “Flattery, I suppose.”

Roger:  “Within reason, but I find it’s best to smile and sit there like you’ve got no place to go and just let ‘em talk.  Somewhere in the middle of the entrée, they’ll throw out something revealing.  And you want to wait ‘til dessert to pounce on it.  You know, let ‘em know you’ve got the same problem he has, whatever it is.  And then, you’re in a conspiracy, the basis of a – quote – friendship.  Then you whip out the form.”

Lane:  “What if I don’t have the same problem?”

Roger:  “It’ll probably just be something like he drinks too much, he gambles.  I once went on a five minute tear about how my mother loved my father more than me.  And I can assure you, that isn’t possible.”

Lane:  “Very good then.  And if, for some reason, he’s more reserved?”

Roger:  “Just reverse it.  Feed him your own personal morsel.”

Lane:  “I see.”

Roger:  “That’s it.  Get your answers.   Be nice to the waiter.  And don’t let him near the check.”

Lane:  “Thank you very much.”

Roger:  “Oh, and find out everything you can about him before you get there.”

Lane:  “That I’ve done.”

Roger:  “And you still like him?”

Lane:  “I do.”

Roger:  “Let it show.”

We waited for it.  We wished for it.  We prayed that someday it would come.  And in “Signal 30,” the blessed day finally arrived.

Pete Campbell got his ass kicked.

As Joan she succinctly put it, “Everyone in this office has wanted to do that to Pete Campbell.”

One minor correction, Joan – it’s more than just everyone in that office.

And to have reserved, oh-so-British Lane “Marquess of Queensberry” Pryce by the deliverer of the most satisfying beat-down in “Mad Men” history just made the sweetness that oh-so-ever much sweeter.  While Lane mistakenly pointed the finger at Pete for the disastrous aftermath of the Jaguar dinner (it was of course Roger, at Edwin Baker’s insistence, who once again rides in as instigator of debauchery), Pete’s insanely belittling rip on Lane’s role in the agency all but forced Lane to try and pop the squirt’s Chiclets down his throat.

As a whole, “Signal 30” seemed to play as almost a companion piece to last season’s standout “The Beautiful Girls,” which examined the trouble Joan, Peggy and the other women of Sterling Cooper had handling dissatisfaction in both their jobs and their personal lives.

LAST EPISODE: Read the Bunker review of last week’s Mad Men episode “Mystery Date”
ARCHIVES: Read all of the Bunker’s previous “Mad Men” reviews
TRANSCRIPT: Read the full transcript of Roger’s coaching session with Lane on the art of the business dinner from “Signal 30″

This time, it’s the guys’ turn to feel stifled and dissatisfied.   And just like the bridge in Ken’s between-fantasy-and-sci-fi-robots-and-planets-and-things story, all it takes is for someone else to pull one pivotal bolt out of place to see a desperate reach between two worlds collapse into ruin.

Ironically enough, the one man at Sterling Cooper NOT currently wrestling with frustration and ennui is this new Season 5 Stepford version of Don Draper.

It’s pretty stunning when you stop and think about it, especially after what’s happened during the first four seasons of this show, but has a top-notch drama series ever had a lead character some uncomplicated, untroubled and generally at peace with himself and the universe as the redesigned 1966 Don Draper?

He dutifully does as Megan tells him.  He has fun at a party in the suburbs – with Pete Campbell and Ken Cosgrove, no less.  He sits at the bar pleasantly sipping his drink while the rest of his compatriots gorge at the uptown whorehouse.  He fixes sinks.  He counsels madams.  Hell, Don Draper is inspired by cute little Tammy Campbell to actually say the words, “Let’s make a baby.”

Granted, he was more than a little drunk at the time, but wow…just…wow.

Cynthia nails it as Don rips off his dress shirt to fix the geyser spouting from the Campbell kitchen sink – “Look, it’s Superman.”

Yeah, fever dreams about strangling former conquests aside, right about now, Don Draper really IS Superman.  He’s not exactly as laser-focused on the job as he once was, but hey – it’s a small price to pay for happiness, right?

Perhaps the most jarring example of the new Don is how casually he drops personal anecdotes about his childhood into conversation TWICE in this episode – first, at the dinner party, then with the madam at the brothel.  For the man whose drive to expunge any trace or memory of his childhood and former life once drove his brother to suicide, I don’t think I’ll ever get used to Don Draper regaling folks with tales of rural poverty and growing up with the pimps and hos.

It’s hard to imagine a smiling, well-adjusted Don Draper doesn’t have a rapidly-shrinking shelf life, but the current status quo does keep things interesting in that distorted funhouse mirror-sorta way.

Thankfully, with no recognizable Don in attendance these days, we’ve still got Pete Campbell around.

Pete’s series-long transformation into the Season 1 version of Don Draper is pretty much complete at this point.  Of course, Pete’s version of Don is a lot less charming and a whole lot more sniveling, but his evolution into cheating, aloof, hyper-ambitious status climber just about comes full circle with that whorehouse visit.  The shot of Pete returning home late that night and moving to the bathroom past a sleeping Trudy harkens back to the last scene of the pilot after Don’s tryst with Midge and flirtation with Rachel Menken all lead to the introduction of Betty.

Pete nixes the prostitute’s roleplaying as a housewife and virgin, but seems to find his lane when she casts him as her king.  Power and status are all that seem to score many points with Pete these days.

Of course, that’s mostly due to the fact that pampered, neglected rich kid Pete Campbell, unlike Don, has no real understanding of people and only the most rudimentary ability to duplicate rather than actually feel most of the emotions he thinks he’s supposed to be feeling.

“This is an office.  We’re supposed to be friends,” the teary-eyed Pete says to Don in the elevator after the fight.  It’s not an act – Pete really doesn’t understand why things don’t work for him.

He doesn’t understand why.  After six years of idolizing and striving to become the 1960 version of Don Draper, after getting a partnership, marrying, starting a family and moving to the Connecticut suburbs, why is he moving up the ladder of status and privilege while feeling frustrated and joyless in all his success?

He doesn’t understand why people aren’t his friend, even after time and time again treating everyone around him horribly.   He doesn’t understand how he can hold somebody like Roger Sterling under his thumb at work, yet lose driver school classmate Jenny to the more age-appropriate “Handsome” Hanson.

Meanwhile, the new age, positively life-affirming Don Draper is only fueling Pete’s anger.  Heck, Don’s not just more charismatic and good-looking than Pete, he even unwittingly shows Pete up on the little stuff, like almost instantly fixing the Campbell sink.

Pete has spent years nakedly pursuing Don’s praise and approval.  Pete’s so excited for Don’s visit to his home you’d think Don was riding in a reindeer-driven sleigh from the North Pole.  But now that Don’s a man who “just pulled up his pants on the world,” Pete can’t even impress Don by doing all the same things Don used to do – like that would have ever won Don over in the first place.

“You don’t get another chance at what you have,” Don warns Pete.

And Pete puts all that he has on the line to chase the one thing he wants the most and can’t seem to earn – respect.   Don, Roger and Bert don’t stop the Pete-Lane punchout because they want to see Pete get his snotty little clock cleaned as badly as Lane does.  At the end of it all, Pete’s humiliated – and it’s not entirely clear what lesson he’ll really take away from his boardroom beatdown.

Not the same story for the winner and new world champion of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce – Lane “The British Bomber” Pryce.  It’s not a stretch to think Lane may have had a vision or two of landing one of those right crosses on his dear old dad Robert while he waxed young Pete into submission, right?

While it would be easy for Lane to often slip into stiff-upper-lip British caricature, Matt Weiner and Jarrod Harris never let us forget there is a fairly passionate guy not far under that reserved exterior.

Lane wants to embrace America, even while wife Rebecca would just as soon they both be back home.  Lane craves the respect of feeling like an equal among his other partners in the firm – note Joan doesn’t even ask Lane if he has any new business before he interrupts the end of the partners meeting to announce his potential Jaguar deal.

He wants to feel like he can land the Jaguar account on his own – while it’s clear he doesn’t have the barometer to accurately gauge what Edwin is REALLY looking for out of his new agency.

Finally, when words won’t do anymore and Little Prince Pete’s unvarnished assault on Lane’s usefulness can’t be ignored, the fists come out and thankfully, no one steps in to keep Lane from his victory moment.

Of course, Lane nearly snatches defeat from the jaws of victory when he clumsily kisses a sympathetic Joan as she nurses his bloodied knuckles.  I’ve enjoyed the fondness and mutual respect that’s built up over the course of the Lane-Joan relationship and I guess in that moment, it’s easy to see how a literally punch-drunk Lane may have misread Joan’s compassion for romantic interest.  To her credit, she salvages Lane’s dignity for him and skillfully turns the awkward moment right back into a victory lap for the bringer of a Pete Campbell fat lip.  Very nice moment that you have to hope won’t ruin the friendship that’s built up between the two.

While I’m still not sure what direction this season will take the rest of the way, I’ll never be dissatisfied with agency-centric episodes like “Signal 30.”

Other thoughts…

• Ken is probably the most underserved regular character over the show’s four-plus years, most likely because he seems to be the most well-adjusted worker in the office.  But it was nice to see the recurrence of Ken’s writing ambitions from all the way back in Season 1.  Even after Roger drives a stake through the heart of Ben Hargrove, sci-fi writer, Ken’s passion for the pen won’t be denied, spurring the creation of new alias Ken Algonguin.

• BTW, love that Ken and Peggy have their own tandem exit strategy pact from SCDP and seem to have had it for some time.  While they’re part of our central cast and feel indispensible to the show, they obviously don’t have the same allegiance to the firm as partners like Don, Pete or Lane would.  They’ve made a good pairing in their past team-ups, and a loose partnership to seek greater fortunes behind the Sterling Cooper walls only makes sense for both.

• Roger may be “miserable” as Don puts it, not to mention suffering through his own bout with irrelevancy at his own agency, but damn if he can’t still step up to the plate and teach Lane the art of schmoozing.  His tutorial on how to seal the contract deal over dinner was priceless…there’s a full transcript of Roger’s step-by-step do’s and don’ts of a business dinner here.  Bonus points to John Slattery for his third trip behind the camera to direct the episode.

• Speaking of how long Don’s sunny disposition will last, did anyone think we may have seen a seed of happy Don’s demise in Megan’s response to his baby request:  “No…that’s impossible.”  Megan seems to be in no place for that kind of family life…maybe that could end up being a dealbreaker down the road…

• Harry gets aced out of this one – which seems a little bit odd, considering the episode’s theme.  By all recent accounts, I’d peg Harry as probably one of the most miserable men at SCDP.

• During her talk with Pete in the hallway, teenager Jenny delivers another quick restatement of the season’s central theme of growing uneasiness with the changing times.  “I don’t know.  Things seem so random all of a sudden,” she says. “And time feels like it’s speeding up, doesn’t it?”

• Lines of the week –

“Saturday night in the suburbs is when you really want to blow your brains out.”

“I want to hit the doorbell with my chin.”

“You’re my king.”  “Okay.”

“I have it all.”

“I know cooler heads should prevail, but am I the only one who wants to see this?”

“I have nothing.”

And the winner – in a runaway – comes from the inimitable Mr. Pryce…

“He was caught with chewing gum on his pubis!”

Fun fact:  1966 was the first year in America’s history to record over 10,000 homicides.  Due to increasing population and murder rates that continued climbing all the way through the 1980s, we’ve never seen less than 10,000 killings a year since – and likely, never will.

“Mystery Date” was not the type of “Mad Men” episode we’ve grown used to…

We’ve seen dramatic “Mad Men,” whimsical “Mad Men,” introspective “Mad Men,” even Felliniesque “Mad Men” and “Mad Men” as Ocean’s 11-style caper (man, I really loved “Shut the Door. Have a Seat”).

Quick word association…what jumps to mind when I say, “the Sixties?”

Counterculture.  Free love.  Drugs.  Desegregation.  Woodstock.

Hippies and social upheaval may mark the decade for most, but the 60s had a frightening underbelly as well.  After the placid, sanitized 50s, Americans who had been blissfully naïve of most true horror were forced to confront the world’s growing darkness.   The Kitty Genovese killing in 1962.  The publication of “In Cold Blood” in 1966.  The 1969 Manson family murders.   Not to mention the incremental daily horror of Vietnam’s escalating atrocities and body count covered on the nightly news.

And in July 1966, 24-year-old sailor Richard Speck crept inside a Chicago townhouse where he held, terrorized, raped and murdered eight nursing students in one of the most shocking mass killings in American history.

“Mystery Date” brings us another hint of why Roger’s wish last week for things to get back to normal would never happen.  By 1966, violence in the U.S. was on the rise – and no one from a feverish Don to a confused and frightened Sally can hide from the realization that America was changing.  Hence, our first creepy “Mad Men”…

While it’s easy to see scenes of Don violently strangling fever-dream Andrea (Madchen Amick) and stuffing her body under the bed as dark (…umm…well, I guess it’s hard to see a scene like that as anything BUT dark), there is a happy silver lining to all this – Don really does seem committed to keeping his new life as a happy, monogamous husband alive.

LAST EPISODE: Read the Bunker review of last week’s Mad Men episode “Tea Leaves”
ARCHIVES: Read all of the Bunker’s previous “Mad Men” reviews

Don’s content for the first time in a long time with Megan (Jessica Pare) and you have to give her credit – her willingness to step up and speak her mind is probably a big part of why.  She immediately calls Don out for his past man-whore ways after the chance meeting with real Andrea in the elevator.  Then she jumps back in with both feet later when the conversation turns back to his Betty-era “careless appetite” in the kitchenette.

So Don is well aware of the score when phantom Andrea shows up at the apartment.  First, he tries to talk her into leaving, then he shuttles her out the service elevator, then he even gives imaginary Andrea the sex she wants so she’ll leave.

“You’re not going to ruin this,” Don tells her.

It’s only when fever dream Andrea makes it clear that she isn’t going away and WILL be back that Don…well…takes the more direct, more violent, more hands-on (as in , around the throat) route to an Andrea solution.

Since Matt Weiner doesn’t have the luxury of whacking characters with reckless abandon like they did back in “The Sopranos” days, I guess fever dreams of strangling pushy former conquests so they won’t tell your wife is the best we can do on “Mad Men” (seriously, didn’t Don’s near-murder have anybody else flashing back to Tony nearly strangling crazy Gloria Trillo back in “The Sopranos” third season?).

Of course, it’s a good thing that it was all just a figment of Don’s imagination…I don’t think I was looking forward to the series spending its golden years with Don serving time in “Oz.”

(Although I can just hear Augustus Hill now… ”Prisoner No. 84R292.  Don Draper.  Convicted September 8^th, 1966 – one count second-degree murder.  Sentence:  Life imprisonment, eligible for parole in 20.”)

Meanwhile, young Sally Draper comes face-to-face with the true scope of the evils out there in the big, bad world – and she has the misfortune of having Grandma Pauline there to try and get her through.  The last thing a smart, inquisitive girl like Sally needs is someone as unenlightened and ridiculous as Henry’s mom assuaging – or in this case – stoking her fears.

While Pauline’s life lessons start with the funny story about getting kicked by her father – “that’s for nothing so look out” – they get progressively worse.  I mean, who doesn’t try to soothe a young girl’s fear of mass murder with a luridly painted picture of the Chicago death scene before throwing half a Seconal down her throat?

“Now I’m really scared,” Sally says.

Sally ends up under the couch for the night – just like phantom Andrea and the lone survivor of the nursing house killings.

Once again, “Mad Men” parenting at its best.  If we weren’t relatively sure that Sally was bright enough and Don’s guidance wise enough to get Sally mostly well-adjusted into her adulthood, this show would be the funniest, most harrowing coming-of-age story ever on TV.

As for Peggy, she doesn’t share Sally’s fears of becoming a victim of male violence (even though she gets a nice little horror movie moment as she anxiously investigates that late-night noise in the Sterling Cooper offices).  No, Peggy is too busy worrying that she’s becoming male herself.  After four-plus seasons of essentially being the lone girl in the all-boys world of advertising, Peggy seems to be wondering if the lessons she’s learned in the dog-eat-dog world of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce aren’t ingraining all the wrong kinds of messages.

“Do you think I act like a man?” a drunk Peggy asks Dawn after brutally hardballing Roger over the Mohawk presentation.

“I guess you have to, a little,” Dawn replies.

“I tried, but I don’t know if I have it in me.  I don’t know if I want to,” Peggy says.

We’re starting to develop a pattern of a loose-lipped, insecure Peggy when the alcohol flows, so I’ll chalk this one up to a bottle of Budweiser talking.  However, we’re see a Peggy who seems to be in the same boat as Pete – apparently succeeding in her job and in her relationship (even though boyfriend Abe is away at the riots this week), but entirely unsatisfied with it all.

Finally, Joan – the former victim of one of the show’s ugliest displays of male violence way back in Season 2 – gets the only truly victorious moment of the week, finally sending husband-rapist Greg packing, back to Vietnam and out of her life, hopefully, for good.

Granted, it’s Greg’s own selfishness need to sign on for another tour with no discussion that seals the end of their marriage, but it definitely felt like a moment Joan’s been working up to for a long time – maybe all the way back to that moment on Don’s office floor all those years ago.

“I’m glad the Army makes you feel like a man because I’m sick of trying to do it,” Joan snarls.

“The Army makes me feel like a good man,” Greg says.

“You’re not a good man.  You never were, even before we were married…and you know what I’m talking about,” Joan shoots back.

Oh, heck yeah, we know what you’re talking about.

Despite the triumph of slicing the Roger cancer out of her life, Joan’s left with an infant son and an uncertain future.

The final scene is Joan lying on the bed with little Kevin – and the siren wails outside, a sign of more darkness and violence somewhere nearby blaring through her apartment window.

Just 18 days after Richard Speck’s bloody rampage, Charles Whitman would climb the tower on the University of Texas at Austin campus, unfurl an arsenal of weapons and open fire, killing 16 and wounding 32 others.

I’m not sure how much impact many of these story points will carry as we move over the course of the season-long story arc, but for a one-hour glimpse at how suddenly unsafe Americans were starting to feel in the summer of 1966, “Mystery Date” was a nicely-crafted capsule of the moment.

Other thoughts…

• Loved the juxtaposition of the Mystery Date commercial (“Open the door for your mystery date”) with Grandma Pauline’s reality of what ACTUALLY happens when a good looking man with bad intents knocks on the door of young women.

• And the closing song – “He Hit Me (It Felt Like a Kiss)” by the Crystals…nice choice and gotta be one of the weirdest pop songs ever.  Did they really outright endorse domestic abuse like that back in 1962? And the song was even written by songwriting Hall of Famers Gerry Goffin and Carole King, no less.  Seriously, how did this song even get recorded?  Oh, the 60s…

• Nice to see Madchen Amick getting work on a good show – don’t think I’ve seen her in much since her run on “Damages” a couple years ago.  Maybe not our finest working actress, but I’ll always endorse a former “Twin Peaks”-er getting a gig.  Can it be long before there’s a Dana Ashbrook or James Marshall sighting?  Actually, yes…yes, I believe it probably can…

• And good to have Joyce (Zosia Mamet) back, too… I wasn’t sure we were going to see her again, but she’s a fun character to mix in now and again…

• More subtle (or not-so-subtle) parallels being drawn between Peggy and new SCDP golden boy Michael Ginsberg… first, the Butler exec tells Ginsberg how impressive it is that he “really knows women,” followed by Ginsberg’s Cinderella pitch told very much from a female perspective.  Later, Peggy asks Dawn about acting too much like a man.  He’s sort of feminine…she’s pretty masculine…  I realize we’re being led down a path here to think that the two will be rivals – and that may well happen – but I’m thinking we’re going to get the more old-fashioned love connection treatment between these two by the time it’s all said and done.

I’ll even go one better – considering where we are in the life of the show – as in, closer to the end than the beginning – I think Peggy and Michael may well be the real deal and we could see these two together when the series ends.  Of course, I’m the same guy who predicted Hershel was zombie food and Shane could be around for a while days before he died on “The Walking Dead,” so take my prognostications with a grain of salt…

• The returning theme of race this season continues with the brilliant back-and-forth glances after Peggy realizes she left her purse (with her $400 fleeced from Roger) right on the coffee table in front of Dawn.  Dawn, of course, spots the glance and immediately knows which wheels are spinning in Peggy’s head.  Flashbacks to Lane and the wallet back in the season premiere.  Great moment…

• Lines of the week…

“You’re sickos!”

“I don’t want you to get rickets in that haunted mansion.”

“How old are you?”

“In my heart, I’m on the verge of throwing you in front of a cab.”

“Just know that everything I’m saying has or else after it.  Don’t do that again.  Think of those ideas in front of me.  Don’t do that again.”

“You know you almost got fired just know?”  “I don’t think so.”  “I’m positive.”

“The work is $10…the lie is extra.”

“How much you got?”  “$400.”  “Gimme all of it.” “Jesus!  Better be good.”  “Do you want me to take your watch?”

“That’s for nothing…so look out.”

“Now I’m really scared.”

And line of the week honors go to the dynamic duo of Sally and Grandma Pauline…

“That wasn’t very nice.”  “No…but it was valuable advice.”

All right, let’s get this out of the way first – if you weren’t at least smiling, if not outright rolling on the floor with laughter at the first glimpse of Fat Betty in “Tea Leaves,” then we probably don’t have a whole lot more to discuss, do we?

Well, it seems our petulant child ice queen Betty Hofstadt Draper Francis is now…a fatty.  Yes, I realize they had to come up with some plot device to address January Jones’ real-life pregnancy, but…wow.  Bravo, Matt Weiner.  Did not see that coming and yet now that it’s playing out in front of us, it does almost seem particularly natural, doesn’t it?

If there was nothing else to recommend in “Tea Leaves,” the first shot of the kids struggling in vain to zip Betty into her dress was definitely worth it.

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Unfortunately, unlike last week’s nuanced season opener, “Tea Leaves” has the air of one of these early-season set-up episodes where the narrative plates have just barely started spinning.

Betty has a health scare.  Pete sticks it to Roger again.  Peggy hires her new love interest, er…I mean, a new copywriter for the Mohawk account.  Plot train leaving on track 9…all aboard…

Not to say there weren’t some fun scenes and insightful moments in “Tea Leaves,” but I’ll wager already that this won’t be one of the time capsule classic Season 5 episodes by the time the season’s done.

But if nothing else, it will always be remembered fondly as “the episode where Betty got fat.”  Weiner and Co. have given all of us die-hard fans the chance to get a good chuckle at karma catching up with a stuck-up, bitchy former model and plunging its fangs into her now exceedingly ample butt.

While four-plus years of Don’s caddish ways and cruel slights get forgiven by fans because, well…we like Don underneath it all, that same sympathy has never extended to Betty.

Even though Don cheated on her and lied to her and generally took advantage of his sheltered naïve wife during the first three seasons, Betty’s elitist sense of privilege – not to mention her occasionally monstrous child-rearing techniques – essentially made it OK to root for Don to keep up the lying and carousing.

Ironically, obesity has been a particular pet peeve of the snooty Mrs. Draper for a very long time.  Go back to the early first season episode “5G,” where Betty gripes to Francine that she wants to retake their family photos because “Sally looks fat.”  “The worst part is,” Betty adds, “Don will think they’re fine.”

But years later, Fat Betty knows it’s not fine – even though Henry faintly echoes Don’s indifference by telling Betty that he doesn’t care that she’s put on a few pounds.

While Betty goes through a certain level of angst over her possible cancer diagnosis (her immediate assumption that she’s going to die soon another product of her insolated life spent in the bubble of suburbia and popularity), isn’t it telling that her first reaction to the news her growth is benign is disappointment that now she’s “just fat?”

Cancer, at least, would have been an excuse.  Instead, it really IS those double helpings of hot fudge and vanilla ice cream slapping those saddle bags on to her thighs.

Betty pouts about being cancer-free.  And confronting her weight gain with a doctor, her husband and her mother-in-law obviously isn’t enough to keep her from digging her spoon into the remains of Sally’s leftover sundae.   Yes, even the threat of cancer isn’t enough to make Betty likeable – she finds ways to try our patience even in the face of a sympathetic medical emergency.

Of course, when current surrogate father Henry isn’t there to soothe her cancer fears, Betty runs to former surrogate father Don for comfort.

“Say what you always say,” she asks Don. “Everything’s gonna be okay,” Don replies.

While Betty seems to have retained at least a flicker of longing for Don (as well as a very understandable contempt for Don’s new “20-year-old” “girlfriend” Megan), Don’s sense of alarm over Betty’s situation really does seem more focused on how his kids will take any bad news.

Part of why we love Don is how much he loves his children.  Thinking his kids could grow up motherless (or with only the meager mother substitute of Megan) – just like young Dick Whitman grew up – definitely makes him uneasy.

And nice to see there’s been some thaw in Don and Henry’s chummy little relationship, huh?  That phone call would seem to indicate there haven’t been many dinner invitations or golf outings among the new extended Draper-Francis family…

Considering Jones’ new motherhood, I’d expect we’ll see another season of reduced Betty action, much like Season 4. If all we have to look forward to, however, is Betty battling with her bathroom scale each morning, then we might have done well to just put Betty on ice this season and bring her back strong in Season 6.

Other thoughts…

• As many TV stars do in the advancing years of their signature series, Jon Hamm makes his directorial debut here, mostly to respectable effect.  I’m not sure anything was particularly striking about Hamm’s first time behind the camera, but considering the quality of work the series usually commands from directors like Weiner, Phil Abraham, Lesli Linka Glatter and last week’s director Jennifer Getzinger, I’d say it’s accomplishment enough for a rookie to step in and maintain the high bar that’s been set.

• Considering how obvious they’re being about a possible Peggy-Michael Ginsberg pairing, I almost hope Weiner and crew decide to go a different way with this one.  Maybe just sticking with the head-to-head rivalry of two top-notch copywriters, like both Stan and Roger alluded to.  And what about poor Abe?  By the way, am I the only one who thinks Michael Ginsberg might be a little of Matt Weiner inserting a representation of himself into his own narrative?  As his name indicates, Ginsberg is just another sign of the times a-changin’, but I wonder how autobiographical Ginsberg may become.  Just a thought…

• Following up on this week’s theme of replacements (Henry, Megan, Michael Ginsberg), Roger continues to battle irrelevancy, this time in the face of Pete’s amazing douchy self-promotion at the Mohawk Air signing announcement.  “I’m exhausting from hanging on to the ledge and having some kid’s feet on my fingertips,” Roger tells Don.

While I’ll co-sign any story that gives us more Roger Sterling, we didn’t really get any advancement in this duel going on between Pete and Roger – just sort of another installment in the same faceoff.

Although the conversation in Don’s office did give Roger a chance to voice what I think will be proven as the defining question of this entire season by the time we reach the finale: “When is everything going to get back to normal?”

Oh Roger, don’t hold your breath…

• Speaking of the seismic 60s shift going on, Don at the Stones concert was my pick for standout segment of the episode.  While the pairing of Don and Harry pretty much guarantees amusement (particularly in light of Megan’s confirmation last week that Don can’t stand Harry), I thoroughly enjoyed Don’s psychological probing of the “14-year-old” Brian Jones lover.

Whereas season 1 Don may have had somewhat impure thoughts in mind during that conversation, the older, wiser, happier Don genuinely seems interested in understanding the Stones phenomenon in general, and specifically, the mindset of a young teenage girl.

“What do you feel when you hear them?,” Don asks.

I also love the fact that unlike the too-smart-for-their –age speech that a typical TV teen character would have delivered as answer to that question, Bonnie pretty much pushes the query aside, mock scolding Don for acting like a psychiatrist.

Despite his dalliances with bohemia and the counterculture with Midge in season 1 and during his California sojourn back in season 2, Don Draper is still very much on the Roger-Bert side of the generation divide.  While he’d like to understand the budding youth culture springing up (partly for business reasons, but out of a sense of personal curiosity as well), Don sees boils it all down pretty succinctly to the aspiring groupie teen: “We’re worried about you.”

In a couple years, this girl could be Sally – and that’s something Don Draper is NOT yet prepared to deal with.

And to wrap that around some great Don-Harry exchanges (“Who were you talking to?”)… Fabulous scene all around…

• Sally didn’t have a lot to do again in this episode, but again – more nice work from Kiernan Shipka during the closing ice cream scene with Betty.  There’s no outward sign of Sally’s disgust with her mother, but it’s impossible not to feel her scorn as she pushes away her barely touched sundae.  Sally’s always been a kid insightful beyond her years, so it’s no wonder she both has some hard feelings for her mother and also isn’t afraid to twist the knife a little now that mom’s got such an obvious outward imperfection.  Love that Sally…

• So, Sterling Cooper DID go ahead with jumping into the equal opportunity employment pool…Dawn is Don’s new secretary.  Get it?  Dawn…and Don… Alright, moving on…

•  And finally, lines of the week:

“At least we hired this one on purpose.”

“You need to relax.”

“Everybody’s on drugs.” “YOU’RE on drugs.”

“Good work.” “Thanks.”

“Romney’s a clown.”  (BTW, nice Weiner appearance on last week’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” on HBO.)

“That’s the last guy I hired.”

And my personal favorite once again comes from the eminently quotable Roger Sterling:

“Turns out we both have a dream of throwing something through this window.”

Love him or hate him, Al Gore was right.  Decades of unchecked environmental abuse have landed the planet on the wrong side of that ominous “tipping point.”  And at 4:44 a.m. – give or take a minute of two – the world will end.

No chance of rescue.  No hope of escape.  Nothing left but to wait out the final few hours of your life along with the lives of every other form of life on Earth.

Happy date night, young romantics – scoop up those tickets for director Abel Ferrara’s “4:44 Last Day on Earth” while you can.  Do we go see “21 Jump Street” or that end of the world movie with Willem Dafoe either groping some girl or crying on the poster?

“4:44” has so many strikes against it right out the gate that it practically invites people to hate it.  Politics of climate change aside, it also has the misfortune of being the third leg in an odd little Quiet Apocalypse trilogy, trailing months behind the fellow indie end-of-the-world musings of Lars von Triers’ “Melancholia” and low-budget sci-fi head-scratcher “Another Earth.”

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Add to that a decidedly dour tone (even by movie apocalypse standards) as well as the borderline pretentiousness of characters sitting around, bringing closure to their relationships as the clock ticks down to Armageddon and, well…let’s just say this little film has an uphill climb and leave it at that.

Lovers Cisco (Dafoe) and Skye (Ferrara’s real-life girlfriend Shanyn Leigh) are waiting out the last hours of doomsday in their Lower East Side loft apartment, Cisco writing in his journal and Skye finishing the last painting she’ll ever create.

Cisco Skypes some friends and his daughter (Triana Jackson).  Skye keeps changing her clothes, as if not sure which dress is the right look for eternal oblivion.

Unlike “Melancholia” or “Another Earth,” there’s an appealing world-weariness in “4:44.” Cisco and Skye are part of a New York – part of a planet Earth, really – that has already been through most of the hand-wringing and teeth-gnashing over their oncoming end.  Normal traffic continues to flow by in the Manhattan streets below, the Vietnamese place down the street still delivers and the newscast ends with a closing note that…well, this is the LAST newscast.

Cisco and Skye are, for the most part, content to hole up inside, have sex, enjoy some take-out and wait for the end.  Neither is particularly happy about it all, of course – Cisco almost hurls himself off their balcony and Skye has an emotional breakdown when she misconstrues Cisco’s conversation with his ex-wife (Dierdra McDowell).

But at the end of the day (literally), what is there really to argue about or figuratively immolate yourself over when all of creation will be gone by sunrise?

Ferrara, best known for the raucous lifestyle and visceral films of his youth like “Bad Lieutenant,” delivers a very elegant, almost delicate film here, an impressively understated little tone poem to serve as humanity’s epilogue.   Ferrara’s apocalypse features quiet, often beautifully intricate small moments as friends and family say final goodbyes.

The kid who delivers Cisco and Skye’s food (Trung Nguyen) sheepishly asks to use their computer to call his parents in Vietnam.  They speak in Vietnamese and there are no subtitles – not even any tears – but it’s moving, nonetheless.  Again via Skype, Skye’s mom rails against the world forces that brought about the end, but most importantly, she just wants to see her distraught daughter with a smile on her face as the final image she takes to the next life.

Noah, one of ex-junkie Cisco’s old AA buddies, suggests Cisco not use the end of the world as an excuse to fall off the wagon.

Those small personal moments are painted against healthy dollops of news footage – interviews examining spirituality with the Dalai Lama and other truthseekers, candle-lighting gatherings and solemn prayer services held around the world.

While it reinforces the world unity and spiritual oneness of this Earth’s last gasps, it teeters precariously close to laughable, particularly, I’d guess, for those furthest removed from Cisco and Skye’s big city bohemian world view.  I don’t exactly see folks in Nebraska identifying with this artsy pair as they close their eyes and meditate their way into whatever world comes next.

But while there’s a wistful downbeat sadness in this bittersweet goodbye to everything, “4:44” does elicit an almost morbid hope that if our end had to come, it would hopefully be at least something like this.

That’s partly a credit to Dafoe.  Yes, he’s the man who tried to kill Spider-Man.  But Green Goblin aside, Dafoe’s appeal often stems from an inherent aura of goodness about him, going all the way back to career-defining roles like Sgt. Elias in “Platoon” and Jesus himself in “The Last Temptation of Christ.”

Whether it’s his craggy features or the soft calmness of his voice, Dafoe always seems to work best as a soothing presence on screen.  If you were facing the end of all that is, would you rather have Dafoe easing you gently into the great beyond or Sam f-ing Jackson kickin’ your sorry ass to meet your maker?  No offense to Sam – I’ll take Jesus.

In the end, no Michael Bay-Roland Emmerich-style explosions or toppling buildings greet this Earth’s last residents.  Northern Lights dance almost magically over Manhattan as Cisco and Skye hold each other tight and await what comes next.

You’d like to hope that if the world really was going to end, humanity would have the dignity of the folks who inhabit Ferrara’s Earth.  I’m not sure that’s likely – in fact, I’d bet on the exact opposite – but it’s certainly a pleasant thought, at the very least.

Oh Don, it’s great to have you back.

Really, shouldn’t there be a law against a “Mad Men” between-seasons time jump actually being shorter than the real-life hiatus AMC imposes?

Well, it was a long 17 months, but “A Little Kiss” shows Matt Weiner and crew are back in top gear and playing at the top of their game as usual.  Despite the emergence of brilliant shows like “Louie,” “Game of Thrones” and “Homeland,” nobody can touch the character work or masterful subtlety of “Mad Men.”  AMC sibling “Breaking Bad” is the only other show on the air that plays on the same level of greatness, but considering  those shows are about as different as Walter White and Don Draper, that still leaves the men and women of Sterling, Cooper, Draper, Pryce in a TV drama space all their own.

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In the show universe, it’s been about 9 months or so since last season’s finale “Tomorrowland.”

Don and Megan have tied the knot and settled into their new life in their new apartment.  Joan has given birth to love child Kevin.  Pete has further solidified himself as the financial engine of SCDP.  And Roger…well, not EVERYTHING has to change in just 9 months.

Where last season started – and for the most part, stayed – with a conflicted, directionless, tormented Don trying to rebuild his life and reshape his identity, Season 5 finds a Don Draper that’s…well, at least fairly content.  Or, if we want to get critical, more than a little complacent.  And wouldja believe – maybe even a little bit lazy.

“He’s kind and he’s patient,” says a puzzled Peggy.  “It concerns me.”

Yeah, the Don of May 1966 is not the Don Draper we’re accustomed to seeing.  Even when he started to check out at work during the twilight days of the original Sterling Cooper back in season 3, it was fueled by anger and unhappiness.  This Don Draper is, birthday party embarrassment aside, pretty darn happy with life – and we seem to have the new Mrs. Draper to thank.

Points to episode writer Weiner for zigging with Megan when I think many of us expected a zag.  The whirlwind nature of the Don-Megan courtship – if you can even call THAT a courtship – laid the groundwork for one of those “Oh my God, what have I done” revelations when the initial glow of their romance wore off.

But while their marriage started impulsively, even recklessly, maybe a free-spirited woman half his age is just what a 40-year-old Don needs right now.  One thing’s for sure, the slinky sex kitten who purred out a full-on “Zou Bisou Bisou” in front of a shocked Don – not to mention the rest of their co-workers – is about as 180 degrees removed from the Betty Draper years as Don could ever have found.

Not that their relationship is perfect, of course.  Peggy’s shocked, amused, borderline mortified reaction to Megan’s surprise party invitation shows exactly how little the new Mrs. Draper knows the man she married.

Seriously, in what universe is Don Draper gonna ENJOY being the guest of honor at a surprise party?  Seriously?

At least Megan realizes SHE is the one who’s out of place at SCDP and not her husband.  “What is wrong with you people?  You’re all so cynical,” a hurt, angry Megan cries to Peggy. “You don’t smile…you smirk.”

Don and Megan are definitely from two different worlds – as Megan’s hip Sixties friends more than point out for Don and the other oldsters at his party.  To his credit, Don does immediately head home after finding out how upset Megan is.  When he tells her, she’s what’s important and not the agency, I think he’s 100 percent sincere.

But one of these days, probably sooner rather than later, goading Don’s attention with a bra and panty set into some angry sex on stained apartment carpet isn’t gonna cut it.  It’s a good tactic for now, and I like that we’re seeing some of the good results of the Don-Megan pairing, but I’ll still be fairly shocked if Jessica Pare remains a regular by the time we roll around to the season 6 premiere.

(By the way, during Don’s manhandling of a half-naked Megan during their fight, anybody else have flashback to that encounter with Bobbie Barrett outside that restaurant bathroom all the way back in season 2?  Or was that just me?)

Or maybe by then, they’ll have settled in to the apparent Roger and Jane phase of their relationship – both miserable and sniping at each other like they’re about to pull switchblades.  Wasn’t it just a couple seasons ago that Roger was the one pursuing a much younger secretary and allowing the haze of love to cloud his judgment?  As Joan would ask, how’d that work out for you?

Meanwhile, Pete Campbell, after four seasons of gestating as the Man Who Would Be Draper, is settling in to the life Don had back when the series started:  wife and kids in the suburbs, killing it at work…and yet still not satisfied.

And it’s not just because Roger is standing in his way.  If he could dial back his own ego, he would realize, as Ken rightly points out, that Roger still has very legitimate uses to the agency.  I mean, is a guy like Pete gonna lead the two execs from Mohawk Air on a drunken bender to secure that deal?  Probably not.

No, Pete not happy because Pete is looking for acknowledgement and recognition from men who will always see him as “the kid.”  Guys like Don and Lane and Bert may recognize Pete’s skill generating business – he may even make senior partner one day – but I don’t think Pete will be satisfied until he’s the undisputed no. 1 guy holding the reins of his own agency.

Either way, it’s fun watching the maturing, increasingly aggressive Pete essentially lead SCDP from behind the scenes.  While Don revels in his new relationship, Lane contemplates his unhappy marriage and Bert wanders from conference room to cubicle in search of a purpose (and hey, didn’t he quit in a snit at the end of last season?), it’s been Pete who’s pushing to bring Mohawk back on board and gather up all those low-to-mid-end clients – Playtex, Life Cereal, Samsonite, to name a few – that seem to be keeping the SCDP doors open.

This isn’t the same kid who clumsily blackmailed Don with all that Dick Whitman business way back in season 1.  And as Jane keenly notes in Pete’s thinning hair at the party, Pete’s not getting any younger either.

But he’s definitely got Roger’s attention now, doesn’t he?  While Pete’s high-maintenance anxiety often has him spinning conspiracy theories of all different varieties, this time, Roger really IS working to pick the kid’s pockets.  Without the cash cow that is Lucky Strike to make him untouchable, Roger’s career is fading.  So if that means heading out to a Staten Island diner for a mythical 6 a.m. meeting with the guys from Coca Cola, well, that’s whatcha gotta do…

Ever the wily vet, however, it’s still fun watching Roger smother Pete’s full-bodied attack to wrest Roger’s office from him.  His effort to cajole, threaten, then ultimately bribe Harry into giving up his office instead was the single funniest, most entertaining scene of the premiere.  “Mad Men” could probably survive without any character not named Don Draper, but can anyone imagine this show without Roger Sterling week in and week out?  Unthinkable.

“Mad Men” season premieres are always tricky beasts.  They’re usually chocked full of narrative table-setting as the show re-establishes the characters in their new situations, usually following one of those time jumps.   They’re usually always excellent, but they almost never carry the impact of long-simmering cathartic episodes like “The Suitcase” or everything-coming-together season-enders like “Shut the Door. Have a Seat.”

“A Little Kiss” does, however, excel at not only establishing the new status quo, but showing we’ve entered into a new world.  The early 60s of the first few seasons of “Mad Men” were essentially just extensions of the 50s.  And those days are over.

Don’s party seems to be a real thunderclap announcement that the 60s we all know – the protests, the racial unrest, the free sex and drug youth-focused 60s – are here.  Characters like Peggy, Megan, Harry, Pete, even the fairly clueless Heinz executive pitching commercials about bean protests get it.  Others, like Roger, Bert and, it seems, even Don, don’t.

If “A Little Kiss” is any indication, season 5’s gonna be real interesting.

Other thoughts…

• Poor Lane…poor, poor Lane.  Whereas Don gets a groovy mid-life crisis complete with a young, hot trophy wife, the repressed Brit suffers in relative silence with stick-in-the-mud ball-and-chain Rebecca.  No black Playboy bunny waitresses for Lane anymore.  Instead, he has to chase cheap thrills, dreaming of what could happen if he could just go deliver that wallet back to the owner’s girl personally.   Love how in an episode bookended by spotlights on the racism of 1966, Lane’s story essentially starts because he doesn’t feel comfortable leaving a loaded wallet in the hands of a black cabbie.  God, I love Lane…

Lane also gets props for his half of the second-best scene of the episode as he genuinely and very tenderly help alleviate Joan’s fears about being replaced.

• Speaking of Joan, kinda starts to make sense how she became the woman she is after meeting her mother, right?  Those two weren’t really pulling many punches, were they?  Between Joan throwing her mother’s failed marriage in her face and Gail’s raw assessment of Joan’s future at SCDP, it’s not hard to see how a still hormonally-imbalanced, sleep-deprived new mom like Joan would be a basket case on the verge of tears.

“Sometimes life makes decisions for you.”  Ouch.

Joan just can’t get back in that office fast enough now…

• Harry’s lost some weight, hasn’t he?  Thankfully, he’s lost none of the common sense-challenged, borderline douchebag personality.  From his walking stick gift (“Don Ameche has one”) to the entire office fiasco, I think he got more laughs than anybody except Roger this week.  And frankly, Harry, you’re just never gonna beat Roger on that score…

• Did we miss Betty?  I know there were whole episodes last season that were Betty-free, but I am surprised she was completely absent from a 2-hour season opener.  She’s never been my favorite character, but I will be interested to see her new status quo when she shows up (presumably next week, if the trailers are to be believed).

• Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe we had four lines of dialogue with the word “shit” this week (I know Peggy, Joan and Harry each said it in separate scene and I could have sworn there was one more).  Was this the first time that particular curse word was used this liberally on AMC?  I mean, it’s not like I’m sitting here with a finger on the censor button by any means, but it did stand out to me a little…

• Line of the week contenders…

”I thought there were going to be girls here.”

”Don’t waste money of things like that.”

”I want you to be happy – somebody should be.”

“I saw his soul leave his body.”

“Is it just me or is the lobby full of Negroes?”

But none of those could top the comedy team of Roger and Jane…

“Why don’t YOU sing like that?”  “Why don’t you LOOK like that?”