Well, that was…disappointing.

While “Rubicon” made great strides as the season progressed, particularly in creating some interesting characters inside the shadowy, moody world of API, my greatest concern was that all of these pieces we were fed from episode 1 wouldn’t quite…jell.  I was afraid the tapestry of the broader conspiracy story, an infrastructure that had to be hastily reshuffled after series creator Jason Horwitch was booted after the pilot, wouldn’t support the weeks of careful revelation we invested to get us here.

And unfortunately, I think that’s what happened.

“You Can Never Win” doesn’t pull all the elements of season 1 together.  Even working under the assumption that more will be revealed in season 2 (a promise that AMC may not let the ratings-challenged show keep), this was a decidedly lackluster, even ambiguous way to wrap up the maiden season.  While it was appropriately shadowy and somber, the season 1 finale left way too much unresolved.  I’ll come back for season 2 because I enjoy the characters and the life inside API – but the conspiracy itself?  You lost me, guys.

LAST WEEK: Read the Bunker review of last week’s Rubicon episode “Wayward Sons”
ARCHIVES: Read all of this season’s “Rubicon” reviews

Spangler tells Will that the API-Atlas McDowell conspiracy goes far deeper than him – and while I’m sure that’s true, that’s really just tapdancing at this point.  Sure, we found out that Spangler’s plan is supposed to ultimately lead to a coffer-fattening conflict with Iran, but if he’s not pulling the strings here, then who is?

The four-leaf clover seems to indicate that Spangler has been overruled by his own Legion of Doom and won’t be long for the world.  As the apparent leader of his cabal, I would expect Spangler to push back against that ruling, possibly setting up an API vs. the shadow government faceoff next season.

But for all the death and distrust – hell, Spangler tried to have Will killed, for God’s sakes – what’s the big end result so far?  Will’s gonna write a report and then, man, won’t Spangler be in trouble then?  We just spent 13 hours watching Will stumble through the Atlas McDowell labyrinth so he could write a report?  Really?  REALLY?

Yes, Kale councils for a sound tactical retreat, ensuring Will lives to fight Spangler and his dirty deeds another day (and as one of the most compelling characters on the show along with Spangler, Kale was way too removed from the action during this finale).  But with everything Spangler and Will know about each other, I completely don’t buy that either would go for maintaining the status quo.

Oh, I forgot, Will got demoted.  Yeah, those are adequate stakes to suffer when you uncover a U.S. shadow government manipulating world events.  It’s a good thing Will didn’t find out about the men manipulating Spangler. Otherwise, I’m sure there would be a strongly-worded letter of reprimand put in his file by API Human Resources.

Part of the problem here is one of the innate flaws of “Rubicon” so far – if Will Travers is so smart, why does he constantly keep making dumb mistakes?  He knows Spangler is monitoring his every move, so why is he putting Katherine Rhumor’s life in danger with his careless meetings and communications? Will’s working with a life-long spook in Kale…couldn’t he have deferred to his expertise at least once in a while to help keep Katherine from receiving a Roy injection?

And at the end of the day, we sure wasted a lot of time this season on Katherine, a character who ultimately plays little part in unraveling the whole conspiracy.  Yes, she did provide Will with some valuable clues to help unlock the puzzle, but did it justify how much time we spent following her all season?  Did it even justify the strength of casting an actress like Miranda Richardson?  I’d say not even close.

Speaking of women, the revelation that Andy was part of the conspiracy was another disappointment.  Sure, they’ve been telegraphing that she played a larger role in this whole story as far back as the crossword puzzle on her coffee table in “No Honesty in Men.” But she was far more interesting a character as a clueless civilian drawn into Will’s web by chance than as just another “honey trap.”

Now that we know she was planted there, no explanation really works.  Was she put across the street to hopefully entice Will someday, even though she made no overt attempt to contact him before he approached her.  If she’s supposed to be protecting Will, the same logic applies.  Yes, the Andy situation can probably all be worked out in a hypothetical season 2, but I had a lot more interest in Andy outside the spy game than the accomplished field agent she appears to be.

“You Never Can Win” proves once again that in the espionage-conspiracy genre, it’s not about the set-up – it’s all about where it leads.  And “Rubicon” dropped the ball at the goal line.

I like API.  I like Will (the workplace Will, not the one who does idiotic stuff outside the office).  I like Grant and Miles and Tanya.  I like the unusual position Maggie holds (and we never did quite get to the bottom of her relationship with Kale, did we?).  I like the sense of pressure that’s constantly pushing all the analysts at API.  I not only like, I love Kale Ingram and Truxton Spangler (even though I guess he really is the uber-bad guy he seemed to be from the beginning).

Despite my severe disappointment with the finale, I’d be sad to see “Rubicon” finish here.  I this is a show that awkwardly found its footing after Horwitch’s departure and gradually rounded itself into an intriguing program.  It’s almost too bad they had to deal with all that world-shaking conspiracy stuff all season long.  The personal workplace dramas of “Rubicon” were far more satisfying than its core mystery.

NOTE: Thanks for all the visits and kind words about the site this season, folks.  As a programming note, while we won’t have “Mad Men” or “Rubicon” to dissect anymore, I’m planning to start doing weekly “Walking Dead” deconstructions following the Oct. 31 premiere on AMC.  Who knows if it’ll be on par with “Mad Men” or “Breaking Bad,” but considering the attention-grabbing pedigree (Robert Kirkman’s amazing comic series and director Frank Durabont), I’m definitely jazzed for it.  Hopefully, I’ll see you back here after episode 1.

Last week, I surmised that Faye’s prediction back in “Christmas Comes But Once a Year” that Don would “be married again in a year” may have been a hint about what was to come.

But clearly I’ve got nothin’ on Nostradamus because I really didn’t expect it to happen RIGHT NOW.

So, in the season finale “Tomorrowland,” it’s the dark horse Megan who charges hard at the tape to win the Don Draper Derby over angry Faye, missing-in-action Bethany, disqualified Pheobe and all the other spirited competitors who vied this season to succeed Betty as the new Mrs. D.D.

And while I expect the suddenness of the Don-Megan whirlwind courtship and proposal will have the inhabitants of more than a few Mad Men discussion forums screaming bloody murder for months to come, I’m not 100 percent sure that Don didn’t make the right choice.  And he may even have done it for at least some of the right reasons.

LAST WEEK: Read the Bunker review of last week’s Mad Men episode “Blowing Smoke”
ARCHIVES: Read all of this season’s “Mad Men” reviews

Don’t get me wrong…does the impending Draper-Calvet nuptials (and yes, I was just as clueless as Roger about exactly who the hell Ms. Calvet was at first…don’t think we’ve ever heard Megan’s last name before) pose the potential for disaster?

Holy God, that’s a big fat YES — in giant Las Vegas-style neon letters, in fact.  Don Draper, even the new-fangled Don Draper 2.0 we’ve seen the past few weeks, is the kind of guy who routinely follows up two steps forward with at least one healthy step back.

From the drunken, sloppy, directionless Don of the first half of the season, there’s no question that the man stripped of his identity as a husband, father, suburbanite and big firm ad man came out the other side with new purpose and a new definition for himself as a divorced, apartment-dwelling senior partner at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce.

The new Don Draper tried to cut back on the booze and tried to stay faithful to his women.  He tried to be a better father to his kids and a better boss to his employees while struggling to hold on to both professional and personal integrity.

But, despite all his growth, Don’s not immune to falling back into old patterns.  He’s also the man who got seduced by his secretary (and make no mistake – it was Megan who chased down Don, not the other way around), then pulled a full-on Roger Sterling, falling in love with her and popping the question – all over the course of a long weekend, no less.

Oh yeah, there’s some hearty grounds for another personal Chernobyl written all over this relationship, for sure.

As Don astutely points out to Megan as the two lie in bed in California, “You don’t know me.”  As in, all that fake identity-growing up in poverty-on the run from the government-chronic liar and cheater kind of stuff.  Megan disagrees, saying she knows Don has “a good heart” and is always “trying to be better,” but Don again throws up the caution flags, warning her that he’s “done a lot of things.”

“I know who you are now,” a doe-eyed Megan answers.

No, Megan, you may think you do (and a lovestruck Don would gleefully accept you saying it), but you really don’t.

While Megan’s been a trooper so far, it’s a lot to expect a 25-year-old girl from Montreal to now take on all the Don Draper baggage and carry the weight without some significant strain once the truth comes out.

For all his talk over the past few weeks about wanted to live an honest life, Don’s right back where he started, maintaining the Don Draper fiction rather than confronting the demons of his past.

While Megan may not see the big picture just yet, Faye sure does.

“Maybe that sick feeling might go away if you take your head out of the sand about the past,” Faye advises before Don jets off to California and out of her life.

From Day 1, Faye Miller has been at least one step ahead of Don the whole way and seemed to know exactly what he really needed even when he didn’t know himself.  She held off his advances when Don was in the heart of his flameout.  When Don showed signs of progress, she relented, then served as his own spiritual Sherpa through his brush with the Feds, his anxiety attacks, the firm’s skid and his troubles with Sally.

Even through the obvious hurt as Don breaks the news about his engagement to another woman, Faye is as incisive as ever. “I hope she knows you only like the beginnings of things,” Faye snipes.

So instead of choosing the woman who knows him so well, Don throws away the genuine love he has for Faye (at least, I believe he did love her) to be with a young girl who shares more in common with the former Mrs. Draper than with Dr. Miller. So the question is – why?

Yes, Megan is gorgeous.  And it probably doesn’t hurt that she’s made no secret of how much she admires and respects Don.  But while Megan has Betty’s beauty and naiveté, she’s got one thing Betty desperately lacks, one thing Don’s been looking for his entire life.

Megan’s a mother.

She scooped Sally off the Sterling Cooper tile a few weeks ago, marking the first time Don really recognized Megan as a person rather than a faceless, nameless message-taker.

After hiring Megan as almost an afterthought to fill in for Carla on the California trip, she handles the child care duties with ease.  She swims with them.  She teaches Sally and Bobby a French lullaby to sing baby Gene to sleep.

The kids and Don nearly all fall out of their seats in shock when Megan doesn’t blow up over a spilled milkshake.  Can you imagine the four-alarm freakout that Betty would have had in the same situation?

Don’s deep love for his kids has been one of his most redeeming qualities over the past four seasons, even when he acted like a complete ass in nearly every other personal and professional arena.  Don feels guilty about the lack of time he spends with Sally, Bobby and Gene, in part because he knows all too well what living with a mother as cold and unforgiving as Betty means for their childhood.

Don’s real mother died in childbirth.  His surrogate mother Abigail made little effort to conceal her lack of affection for Don as a boy.  Anna Draper was the closest thing Dick Whitman ever had to a mother.

So if Don can find a woman who can be a caring, compassionate mother to his own children – not to mention, fulfill some of his own Mommy issues, it gets a little easier to see why he could become so smitten so quickly and completely by Megan.

Considering Faye was never going to be that person (by her own admission), Don chose the woman who could help make his children better over the one who could help make him better.

Megan’s probably not the best choice for Don over the long haul (I wouldn’t even be shocked if Megan is long gone by the series finale), but she seems to be what Don’s kids need right now.  So maybe Don’s actually doing the right thing here – even though he’ll probably suffer for it later.

Speaking of suffering, that fresh start still isn’t working out for Betty.  In fact, building strain with Henry and moving out of Ossining only proves to Betty that most of her problems were not as Don-related as she may have originally thought.

Fans have pounded Betty this season as the character got tougher and tougher to tolerate, let alone like.  I’m sure that camp is only sharpening their knives with even more venom after one of Betty’s most despicable acts yet in firing Carla.  While letting Glen in the house ticked Betty off, she doesn’t pull the trigger on Carla’s termination until the irritated housekeeper essentially calls Betty a crappy mother.

Much like Don this season, Betty’s been confronted with several less-than-flattering realities about herself.  But unlike Don, Betty hasn’t grown from those realizations.  In fact, she’s even more petulant, petty and childish than ever.

Adding to viewer frustration with Betty is her indecision.  Do we even know what Betty wants anymore?

It’s somewhat telling that Betty is checking her make-up and primping when she “accidently” runs into Don before the realtor meeting at the Ossining house.  Obviously, just about any agenda Betty had gets derailed by Don’s engagement news, but was she angling to possibly get Don back?  Or does she still hate him?  What are her true feeling about the Glen situation?  Is she interpreting Henry’s growing frustration as a sign that she needs to get a replacement option ready?  Or is she just hoping that running away to Rye will solve all of her problems?

While I’d never presume to tell Matt Weiner and Co. how to run their show, I do hope they’ve got a definite roadmap for where Betty’s headed.  Otherwise, they run the definite risk of demonizing Betty to a point where she’s unworkable as a character.  Who knows – maybe that point has already been reached.

As for the season as a whole, I’d rank season 4 among the series’ finest.  Considering the magnitude of change in the season opener, through the upheavals in the status quo we’ve seen this year (Don’s descent, Lucky Strike, Peggy and Pete’s emergences), just to keep this story on the tracks was a pretty monumental achievement.  Toss into the mix “The Good News,” “The Suitcase” and “The Summer Man” – three of the series’ best episodes  – and it’s not hard to make a case for a fourth straight Best Drama Emmy.

Gentlemen, shall we begin 1966?  How about now?

Other thoughts…

• Once again, Peggy seems to be on a roll, employing all the tricks Don taught her to help Ken bag the firm’s first new client in weeks.  While her short scene with Don is another well-earned Don-Peggy moment (she doesn’t even have to say anything for Don to know she’s concerned about his snap engagement), it’s topped by the greatness of Peggy and Joan bashing the announcement, not to mention their own lack of recognition, minutes later.  Coming as they do from completely opposite ends of the work spectrum, Peggy and Joan have been at professional odds since the beginning.  While it’d probably be a stretch for them to ever be BFFs, it’s nice to see the two of them get to vent a little and share a laugh now and again.

• As for Joan, looks like there was a reason we never saw her walk into that doctor’s office for the abortion – she didn’t go through with it.  Guess it’d be a waste of dramatic opportunity now for Greg to die in Vietnam (as many have predicted) when he could instead come back to find out his new kid’s father is actually Roger Sterling.  That should be fun…

• After all the maneuvering and hand-wringing and general angst over the possible demise of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, I was surprised that storyline was pushed so far to the backburner for the finale.   I’m gonna guess that their financial situation won’t improve overnight, however, so this will probably continue to be a running theme next season as well.

• Well, Harry never got a storyline of his own this season (in fact, I’m not even sure I’ve given him a bullet point this season, much less serious discussion in the main body of a review), but whenever you get to watch Harry hit on lesbians, that’s good TV right there.  Wonder if Joyce and her new “friend” Carolyn will be back next season?

• Not much Roger or Lane this week, which is disappointing since we won’t see them again until next summer.  They each did get nice little moments, however.  Roger’s expression is priceless at the irony of Don’s marriage after Roger himself caught so much flak over marrying Jane.  And Lane got a chance to bestow Joan with her new title as Director of Agency Operations as well as all the perks – or non-perks – that entails…we’ll miss you guys this winter.

• The final best quotes of the episode section for season 4…sigh…

“We all try. We don’t always make it.”

“Well, it’s almost an honor.”

“Did you get Cancer?”

“There is no fresh start. Lives carry on.”

“I hope you have all the happiness that Peggy and I had signing this account.”

And finally, my favorite comes from the dynamic duo of Joan and Peggy…

“I learned a long time ago not to get all my satisfaction from this job.” “That’s bullshit.”

NOTE: Thanks for all the visits and kind words about the site this season, folks.

As a programming note, while we won’t have “Mad Men” or “Rubicon” to dissect anymore, I’m planning to start doing weekly “Walking Dead” deconstructions following the Oct. 31 premiere on AMC.  Who knows if it’ll be on par with “Mad Men” or “Breaking Bad,” but considering the attention-grabbing pedigree (Robert Kirkman’s amazing comic series and director Frank Durabont), I’m definitely jazzed for it.

Hopefully, I’ll see you back here after episode 1.

I will admit to many embarrassing things: visiting a nude park in Germany when I was 13, wearing braces for nigh on 10 years and sinking way too many hours of time into “Angry Birds.”

So imagine, if you will, my intense desire to find a way to break my habit of staying up until 3 a.m. to unlock even more golden eggs.

I may have found it this week … though it led to yet another embarassing habit. (Hey, I’ll worry about kicking this one later.)

It’s called “Cut the Rope.”

The plot … if you will … is this: you get a little monster in the mail and you have to feed it candy.  Simple, no?  Well, instead of putting the candy in a bowl and setting it down in front of the little beast, you decided, in your infinite wisdom, to devise ever more intricate ways to drop the candy into your new monster’s mouth.

ARCHIVES: Check out all the Bunker’s previous video game and iPhone app reviews

Apparently, you are quite the masochistic pet owner.

Anyway, the candy is suspended from various ropes that you have to cut to drop the candy down to your new monster.

Along the way, you face all manner of impediment to your pet’s nourishment in the form of spikes and the like. You give yourself some bubbles and automatic rope shooters to help get around the obstacles.

In the end, this is a good old puzzle game with new trappings. Admittedly, those trappings are quite engaging and you will again find yourself spending hours of otherwise useful time trying to feed a monster candy. (There is a childrens’ book in there somewhere, I’m almost sure of it.)

It is entirely do-able to score the most amount of stars in the first chapter. Easily, in fact. I did it my first playthrough. It then gets progressively more difficult. By the last levels, you are lucky to get 2 out of 3 each level. In fact, I had to settle for none on two levels. (But I’m headed back to clean that up.)

Is this the “Angry Birds” killer? Probably so. Either way, Chillingo have definitely built a better mousetrap to snare our attention … and our 99 cents.

Before there was Jerry Maguire, there was Don Draper.

Don’s manifesto “Why I’m Quitting Tobacco” – published as an ad in the New York Times and fairly reminiscent of the self-immolating rant in that great Cameron Crowe movie – is the centerpiece of “Blowing Smoke,” throwing open a whole slew of new possible future directions as the show chugs toward next week’s season finale.

With the defection of Lucky Strike, everyone in the ad world is watching the vultures circling the rapidly expiring corpse of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce.  And since this is business, other companies are racing away from the smell of death as fast as they can, lest the stench latch on to them as well.

Pete and Kenny can’t even get meetings anymore to pitch for the new accounts that could get the agency back on its feet.   Roger has pie-in-the-sky visions of landing a whale like United Airlines or General Motors, a notion Pete shoots down immediately with his zinger “I’m out there beating the bushes every day…you should try it.”

But following a disappointing sitdown with a “wait and see” exec from Heinz and the embarrassment of an aborted meeting with Phillip Morris (really just a wickedly cold negotiating tactic by the tobacco giant at SCDP’s expense), Don realizes there’s absolutely no conventional way his firm can crawl back into the game by the old-fashioned means.

“We’re going to sit at our desks and keep typing while the walls fall down around us,” an angry and resigned Don says.  But thanks to the odd combination of faithful sidekick Peggy and former-mistress-turned-heroin-addict Midge, a seed gets planted for Don’s Hail Mary attempt to save the agency.

“If you don’t like what they’re saying about you, change the conversation,” Peggy tells Don.

Of course, they’re Don’s own words being thrown back at him, but obviously, Peggy is paying attention under Don’s tutelage.  “Blowing Smoke” continues the post-“Suitcase” progression of the Don-Peggy relationship as Peggy first calms Don’s nerves before the Morris meeting, then seems to be the only one with some fight left in her after it appears the agency’s fortunes won’t rebound.

LAST WEEK: Read the Bunker review of last week’s Mad Men episode “Chinese Wall”
ARCHIVES: Read all of this season’s “Mad Men” reviews
TRANSCRIPT: Read the full “Why I’m Quitting Tobacco” letter from Don printed in the New York Times

Before their blowup, Peggy obsessed about all the credit she wasn’t getting from Don.  But now, while he doesn’t thank Peggy for the push she gives to help launch Don’s manifesto, his gratitude is clear when he asks Peggy what she thought of the ad.

“I thought you didn’t go in for those kinds of shenanigans,” Peggy replies, harkening back to the tongue-lashing Don gave her after the Sugarberry Ham fiasco back in the season premiere.

Meanwhile, arty, free-spirit Midge returns, running into Don seemingly by coincidence in the Time-Life building lobby – and the last few years have not been kind to Midge.

While she and Don were an item back in season 1, Don was always most drawn to her bohemian freedom and refusal to be caged.  At the time, Don thought she was the kind of creatively fulfilled, unchained and uncompromised person that he wanted to be himself.

But heroin doesn’t play favorites – and now, Midge is just another junkie, holed up in a rundown apartment with maybe husband Perry, hoping to score some money from Don to feed her habit.

“(Perry) said (heroin) would help me take my mind off my work,” Midge says. “Turns out, it’s a full time job.”

“Think my work’s any good?” Midge asks. “Does it matter?” Don replies.

Midge can’t shake the heroin — and that addiction sparks Don’s imagination.  So was the manifesto completely motivated by SCDP’s dire situation?  Maybe I’m being naive, but I tend to think at least part of Don really does believe that tobacco advertising was a morally gray area.  Yes, the ad was a definite move to “change the conversation”…and I think a guy like Don would argue to his last breath that it was all about business.

But people do matter to Don Draper.  Midge mattered to him once.  Right and wrong and the Golden Rule do have some value in Don’s world.  I don’t think it’s beyond possibility that a big piece of Don’s manifesto came out of good, old-fashioned righteous anger.  Of course, if you can do it with fully acceptable business reasons as cover, so much the better.

Turning from Don’s past sex buddies to his current bedmate, Faye scores again this week, once again saying and doing all the right things to keep her relationship with Don on track. She not only understands Don’s reluctance to cater to tobacco companies, she’s even reassuring and supportive after Don’s ad gets her pulled out of the SCDP office by boss Geoffrey Atherton.

Now, Faye says, she and Don can date openly. “It’s a fair trade,” Faye says.  You have to wonder if she’d feel the same way if she knew what happened in that office just a few weeks ago with Megan, but for now, she’s all about keeping things going with Don.

And boy, now don’t all you Megan-haters out there feel bad?  Don’s ridiculously hot secretary is the only one who outright praises Don for the conviction of his anti-cigarette stand.  She even nails part of his motive, noting the ad put a “he didn’t dump me, I dumped him” spin on the SCDP-Lucky Strike breakup to help shake the firm’s “dead man walking” public image.

“I just love that you did it,” she tells Don. “It feels different around here.”

While it would be easy to assume she’s just currying favor with the boss, it was a good week for Megan in the “bag Don Draper” sweepstakes.

Meanwhile in Ossining, it just gets more and more depressing for poor Sally.  Stuck in a home she hates, Sally has fully embraced the advice of budding boyfriend and resident neighborhood weird kid Glen Bishop, bending over backwards to please her mother in an effort to keep Betty off her back.

Sally’s “kill ‘em with kindness” approach works like gangbusters, even eliciting praise from Dr. Edna.  Yes, young Sally is quite gifted at putting on a public face and playing the dutiful, obedient daughter role while inside obsessing about and seething over her situation.  A youngster able to read her surroundings and play the part of somebody else to stay out of trouble?  Gee, I wonder where she got THAT from?

As for Betty…well, she’s becoming even more infuriating than ever these days, isn’t she?  First, she rips into Sally for her friendship with Glen.  Of course, her orders to stay away from Glen probably don’t have as much to do with protecting her daughter as avoiding any ramifications from her, um…odd dealings with this kid back a couple seasons ago.

Then, Betty uses the excuse of Ossining’s “lower caliber” people as justification to give Henry what he wants, promising to finally move out.  Once again, rather than confront a problem like an adult, Betty is ready to run away.  It’s not hard to see why her own daughter might hate her.

In fact, it makes me wonder what Weiner and crew’s see as the long-term arc for Betty as a character.  If most “Mad Men” fans don’t hate Betty already (and I think that safely covers the majority right about now), it’s not going to be long before the character has alienated everyone and is all but unredeemable.

It’s no coincidence that Betty won’t see the colleague Dr. Edna recommends, but does want to continue her sessions with the child psychologist.  Betty is a child…and the carnage of her broken marriage and unhappy children doesn’t seem to have changed her “me, me, me” mindset in the least.

Other thoughts…

• Hard not to smile at Ted Chaough’s Robert Kennedy prank call.  Even with the horrendous RFK impersonation, I completely bought it at first, just like Don did (even though I thought during the scene that it was a REALLY atrocious Robert Kennedy impression and wondered why they didn’t just show us Don’s side of the call only.)

Dropped into the middle of all hell breaking loose in the wake of the ad, it actually seemed like an RFK call could point the way to saving the agency.  Having the call, bad accent and all, turn out to be gloating from super-annoying Ted was a nicely-executed, amusing little piece of narrative misdirection.  Well played, guys.

• We haven’t seen art director Stan Rizzo engage in much at SCDP outside of his quasi-mating rituals with Peggy, but I enjoyed the moment of respect as Stan reads Don’s letter to the congregating staffers.  While Stan doesn’t often seem too impressed by much of anything, his brief acknowledgment of Don when his boss walks into the office after the ad indicates Stan endorses Don’s stand.

We’ve heard how brilliant Stan is, but we haven’t seen much to back that up.  Being one of the few who understands what the ad could mean for SCDP, Stan rises a couple notches in my book.

• Unfortunately, the shrinking account dollars mean staff cuts, none more painful than seeing Danny get the axe.  “He’s kind of grown on me,” Peggy admits – and I gotta agree.  As with Matt Long earlier this season, the addition of Danny Strong, even for just a few episodes, speaks to the caliber of young actors a show with the pedigree of “Mad Men” can attract, even for mostly small roles.  We’ll miss ya, Danny…

• …But that can’t really be it for Bert, right?  For a minute, I actually thought Bert might be the only one of Don’s partners crazy enough to see how the ad may not be the professional suicide that it appears.  But no, angry Bert collects his shoes, wishes the kids well and ditches SCDP, possible for good.  Could this be the latest episode of “Oh, that’s just crazy old Bert again” or might we actually be seeing Bert Cooper’s farewell this season?

• Now that we’ve had a return from Don’s other season 1 extramarital conquest, isn’t it getting to be time for another drop-in from Rachel Menken?

We haven’t heard from Rachel since she bumped into Don in that restaurant and told him she was married back in “The New Girl” early in season 2.  That was four years ago in “Mad Men” time and it seems like she’s due for a return of some kind.

Hopefully, Maggie Siff’s regular gig on “Sons of Anarchy” wouldn’t preclude that from happening.  You’d think if Alison Brie and Rosemarie DeWitt can make guest appearances while serving as regulars on “Community” and “United States of Tara” respectively, Weiner and Co. could find a way to get Siff in should the story opportunity present itself.

• I’m sure I probably missed it somewhere, but I was surprised when Lane confirms that he isn’t a senior partner at the firm.  Because of his role in the original Sterling Cooper mutiny, not to mention having his name on the door, I guess I thought Lane was on equal footing with Don, Roger and Bert.  However, Lane clearly says the bank wants $100,000 each from the “senior partners” and “$50,000 from Mr. Campbell and I.” Of course, considering the company is sinking under his feet, maybe it’s something of a relief.

And even though he admonishes Don for not alerting the other partners to the Times’ ad, Lane does seem to be the only one who even entertains the possibility that Don’s bold gambit could pay off.  Just another reason we love Lane…that and his big Texas belt buckle.  Yee-haw!!!

• With the finale just days away, it’s hard not to wonder what that last episode, not to mention the inevitable time jump forward between seasons, will hold.  I won’t make any predictions here (mostly because Weiner and Co. always seem to prove me wrong anyway), but there is at least one prophecy I think we may see a hint of next week.

It was back in “Christmas Comes but Once a Year” when Faye predicts that Don will “be married again in a year.” Considering how right she seems to be about everything else, I’d be surprised if that little toss-off line wasn’t a clue about what’s to come.  Could Don and Faye be hitched by the time season 5 rolls around?  Just a thought…

• Finally, not an overwhelming abundance of great lines tonight, but as a writer and mostly creative type myself, I thought Don had the quip of the night…

“We’re creative – the least important most important thing there is.”

Here’s the full text of Don Draper’s open letter to the New York Times featured in the Mad Men” episode “Blowing Smoke”:

===========

Why I’m Quitting Tobacco

Recently, my advertising agency ended a long relationship with Lucky Strike Cigarettes – and I’m relieved.

For over 25 years, we devoted ourselves to peddling a product for which good work is irrelevant – because people can’t stop themselves from buying it.  A product that never improves, causes illness and makes people unhappy.

EPISODE REVIEW: Read the Bunker review of the Mad Men episode “Blowing Smoke”
ARCHIVES: Read all of this season’s “Mad Men” reviews

But there was money in it, a lot of money.  In fact, our entire business depended on it.  We knew it wasn’t good for us, but we couldn’t stop.

And then, when Lucky Strike moved their business elsewhere, I realized here was my chance to be someone who could sleep at night – because I know what I’m selling doesn’t kill my customers.

So as of today, Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce will no longer take tobacco accounts.

We know it’s going to be hard.  If you’re interested in cigarette work, here’s a list of agencies that do it well:  BVDO, Leo Burnett, McCann Erickson, Cutler Gleason and Chaough and Benton & Bowles.

As for us, we welcome all other business because we’re certain that our best work is still ahead of us.

Sincerely,

Donald F. Draper

Creative Director, Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce

This week’s Rubicon episode “A Good Day’s Work” may as well have been called “The One Where the Excrement Full and Truly Hits the Air Blowing Device”…

Well, this sorta changes everything, doesn’t it?

It would seem the dynamics of the show have changed irrevocably after this one.  Once Spangler uncovers how deeply Will has burrowed into the Fishers Island cabal and orders his execution, the battle lines are fairly well-drawn.

It’s Will, Kale, Katherine and (possibly) Will’s team against Spangler, Roy, the surviving members of the Legion of Doom and the untold resources of API, Atlas-McDowell and the ridiculous labyrinth of multinational conglomerates and government agencies they control.  Not exactly a fair fight, it would seem…

LAST WEEK: Read the Bunker review of last week’s Rubicon episode “In Whom We Trust”
ARCHIVES: Read all of this season’s “Rubicon” reviews

Spangler continues to be the most intriguing, not to mention original, character in “Rubicon,” thanks in no small part to the rumpled authority and strange vocal pauses of Michael Cristofer.

While my initial theory that Spangler wasn’t the ultra-boogeyman he appeared to be seems pretty well blown at this point, he’s no less fascinating.  Or conflicted, apparently, about the means he must take to reach his ends.

During a fantastic scene in Will’s office, Spangler seems genuinely sorry about his role in David’s death and just as remorseful that Will is about to meet a similar fate.  Of course, that won’t stop him from issuing that order – but it does seem to show he’s not the straight-up monster that he appears to be.

Which leads to a big question left in the aftermath of “A Good Day’s Work” – what part of the conspiracy puzzle is Will still missing?  For the most part, Will has pieced together what’s happening:  a group of childhood friends, now titans of industry, are using API intelligence and capitalizing on – or possibly even engineering – world catastrophes for huge financial gain.

While money itself could explain all the moves made by Spangler’s Legion (God knows, even the hint of real money will make people do pretty much anything), it’s not just the almighty dollar that’s driving this train, right?

While Spangler’s moral compass is heavily compromised at the very least, is it just a lust for cash that made David, and then Will’s deaths necessary?  Is the Legion more of a Brotherhood, prompting a defense of his fellow conspirators as more of a family obligation than a business maneuver?  Or is there a deeper ideology or worldview that’s acting as the roadmap for the cabal’s actions?

With all indications now that the upcoming Kateb terrorist attack is somehow tied to the Atlas-McDowell crew, what’s Spangler’s endgame?  From his dealings in Washington in “The Outsider” to his handling of all the API investigations so far, Truxton Spangler seems to be a dyed-in-the-wool patriot.  While it could all be a skillfully constructed lie, is this group of New York born-and-raised boys really backing a terrorist assault on American soil?  I keep thinking there’s one last crucial piece to this tapestry that we’re missing…

Speaking of Kateb, it was engaging to watch Will’s team really ratchet up their game under the pressure of an impending attack.

What would seem to be the toughest part of Rubicon’s bizarro-“24” aesthetic – leaving action off-camera while basically focusing on eggheads thinking (basically, it’s Andy’s football players vs. AV club analogy) – has actually started to work.  For weeks, it felt like a tough sell trying to engage the audience and make them invest in the fate of characters we never saw like Kateb or George or Yuri.

But at this stage, it isn’t so much about those characters or what they plan to do that has our attention.  It’s the stress their plans and movements put on Will and his team and the toll that takes that holds our focus.

It was rewarding to see Grant make the breakthrough linking the Keyser Soze-esque Kateb to New Jersey’s own Joseph Purcell.  We actually care that the stress of coming back to work and an impending terrorist strike has Tanya searching for pills.  We enjoy the small hand touch that indicates that the Miles-Julia dinner seemed to work out pretty well.

Too bad they’re all apparently working for Satan.  While Spangler’s lure may keep Grant and, to a lesser extent, Tanya under API’s thumb, it should be interesting to see how Will’s “situation” gets spun.

And what about Will’s situation?

I have to admit, by the end of “A Good Day’s Work,” I have no idea where we’re headed with Will.  He can’t go back to work.  He can’t hide out at Andy’s — especially after kicking her to the curb for her own safety.

I assume Kale has some sort of plan (because Kale is the kind of guy who always has a plan), but other than going to Joe Turner route, where can he go and how can he turn this thing around?

Am I buying that an unsuspecting Will could fight off and eventually kill a longtime spook like Donald Bloom?  Not really…but I’ll let it go because I’m genuinely stumped about where all this is going.  Where earlier in the season that lack of direction seemed like shoddy construction, the open possibilities now hold a fair amount of intrigue.

Just two episodes left…still a lot of questions to answer, but I’m far more invested – and far more interested – in the answers now.

Is the cost of having it all too high?  David Montgomery’s family would almost definitely tell you that it is.

The message of “Chinese Wall” shines most clearly in the faces of the widow and daughter of the longtime ad man and SCDP rival, sitting stoically through eulogies from David’s business colleagues.  We hear how Montgomery spent his daughter’s 5^th birthday pinning down a big client in Detroit, then buying a pendant for his little girl and talking about how she was the “best thing” in his life.  We hear how he chased the British Petroleum account for three months in the U.K., picking up thimbles for his daughter’s collection as a substitute for his presence.

We hear the tales from professional associates about how family was the most important thing in David Montgomery’s life.  But the faces of Mrs. Montgomery and her daughter tell a different story.  All the time spent chasing business deals was time lost with those who were supposed to matter the most.

LAST WEEK: Read the Bunker review of last week’s Mad Men episode “Hands and Knees”
ARCHIVES: Read all of this season’s “Mad Men” reviews

Funeral attendee Don Draper gets the message.   So does Pete Campbell.   As each think of their own families, neither is comfortable with the implications.  Building boundaries between work and home is no easy task.

Of course, it’s usually tough for anyone to figure out what’s really important in the wake of crisis.  And with the Lucky Strike account gone, the Sterling Cooper partners are scrambling like crazy, fighting to keep the agency doors open without their meal ticket client.

After finally making a genuine effort to get his life straightened out after “The Suitcase,” the thought of losing his agency is testing the limits of the new Don.  And at this point, it’s hard to tell whether Don is going to be able to hang on to his new, improved self or fall back into some of his less savory old ways.

Glo-Coat’s defection sends an angry Don running for his office bar, but Faye’s earlier warning to maintain a “clear head” is keeping him conscious of his drinking.  “Stop me at three,” he tells secretary Megan. “This is one.” He ends up reaching four, but at least he’s still counting…that’s got to be a good sign.

And he’s not letting the stress of the Lucky Strike situation fully transform him into the boss from hell that we’ve seen in the past.  After snapping at Pete for “scaring” Glo-Coat into leaving (a move that unwittingly pushes Pete to at least consider overtures to leave SCDP from hospital stalker Ted Chaough), Don later acknowledges that Pete never would have allowed Lucky Strike to leave in the first place.

It’s nice to see the more honest post-“Suitcase” relationship between Don and Peggy continue as well.  With office fear running rampant, Don confides to Peggy that he doesn’t know how bad the loss of Lucky Strike will get and tells his right-hand girl “I’m counting on you.”

Unfortunately, the stress of business ruin does bring out some of the old manipulative, more callous Don Draper.  Don threatens to blow up his chances for a happy relationship with Faye when he crosses professional lines, pumping her for confidential information about clients he can raid from other firms.

At first, Faye holds the line.  “I know the difference between what we have and this stupid office,” Faye says.  But eventually, she relents, setting up a meeting with potential new client Heinz.

Through panic attacks, kid drama and the whole Dick Whitman thing, Faye Miller has gone way above and beyond the call to make things work with Don.  But even though Faye gave in to Don’s plea (a spur-of-the-moment request even Don seems to realize later shouldn’t have happened), you have to figure pushing her to compromise her business ethics like this may end up being the eventual deal-breaker that puts an end to their relationship.

Or it could be that whole sleeping with Megan thing…oh, Don, you did it again…

While sleeping with yet another secretary – his second this season – is undoubtedly a bad idea, you get the sense that Don really does consider holding Megan off.

But the girl from Montreal and budding New York artist (a well-established Draper turn-on) won’t be denied.  She’s definitely the aggressor in sparking the latest in Don’s steady stream of office trysts, reassuring Don that she can keep her mouth shut and not reenact the ugly scene that happened with Allison.

So is Megan just a girl looking for a fun time with her hot boss?  Or does she have designs on something more from the mysterious Mr. Draper?  It’s hard to assess exactly how sincere any of Megan’s purported interest in the inner workers of the ad world are.  While she says she’s an artist (which makes her prospects for a career in advertising plausible), Megan seems far more focused on getting Don on the couch than mining any pearls of professional wisdom.

“This has nothing to do with work,” Megan says…and I tend to believe her.

And so far, she seems fine with having a casual relationship with Don.  But now that she’s staked some claim to her boss, will jealousy or scheming come into play once she finds out about the Don-Faye relationship (assuming she doesn’t already know)?

If everything blows up personally (which seems likely at the moment), will Don be able to keep his aspirations for a more honest, more fulfilling life on track?  I guess we’ll get a better idea of what’s in store over the final two episodes.

Meanwhile, Pete is having his own problems drawing lines between home and the office.  The soon-to-be dad has Chaough and father-in-law Tom Vogel telling him how family is number 1 at the same time that they’re both trying to woo Pete away from SCDP to CGC.

“There’s no business in here, son,” Vogel tells Pete in the maternity ward waiting room.  Of course, that’s seconds before he calls SCDP a “folly” and suggests Pete joining Chaough’s agency may be best for Trudy and their new baby.

From Pete’s cold, conflicted relationship with his own father in season 1, it’s not hard to see how Tom’s seemingly empathetic demeanor with his son-in-law could provide the paternal guidance that might steer Pete away from SCDP and the more domineering, less attentive father figure Don.

As for Roger, he’s just trying to keep his lies straight.  After successfully (for the moment) making his partners believe he hasn’t known for weeks that Lucky Strike was about to fly the coop, Roger has a tough time living with the aftermath of that lie.

Little does Roger realize that his business transgression may have just pushed love-of-his-life Joan away for good.  Even though Roger seems to think that coming clean with Joan will offer some proof of how much he needs her in his life, what it really proves to Joan is that Roger Sterling will never change.

“I’m not a solution to your problems,” Joan tells Roger. “I’m another problem.”

There’s probably no one outside of Joan who knows Roger better than Bert Cooper, who succinctly sums up Roger with a moment of sobering clarity.  “Lee Garner Jr. never took you seriously because you never took yourself seriously,” Bert says.  Ouch.  All the more painful because it’s true.

Roger sadly slumps home to trophy wife Jane and the first printings of his vanity press memoirs “Sterling’s Gold”…and can’t talk with her about any of it.  Roger made his own disaster, but it’s still hard not to feel sorry for him, despite the shambles he’s made of things.

One sidenote here: Am I the only one worried that we may be about to say goodbye to Roger permanently?  Without Lucky Strike or other new clients to contribute, his future at SDCP seems borrowed at best.  His relationship with Joan seems to be a closed book at this stage.  His betrayal of his partners will undoubtedly come out.  Would it be stunningly out of character for a guy like Roger to wind up in the Hudson River by his own hand?  Or maybe that third and final heart attack is around the corner?

Playing armchair showrunner for a minute, it seems unlikely that Matt Weiner and crew would end a second straight season with the end of the firm.  And barring another brush with having Don’s secret exposed, what kind of season-ending stakes could light up the audience like the death of a beloved character?  I can only imagine how difficult it would be for Weiner to let a John Slattery go, but it’s hard to argue that against Roger’s death being a stomach punch event that could propel the action into season 5…

Of course, Slattery did direct this episode, so even if Roger dies, Slattery’s involvement with the show could continue in a more behind-the-scenes fashion…just food for some disturbing thought.

Other thoughts…

• Peggy seems to be the only one having any luck balancing home and the office.  From reveling in her new relationship with boyfriend Abe to channeling her on Don Draper-ness to nail the Playtex pitch, it was good week for Peggy, notwithstanding the Lucky Strike drama.  Of course, Peggy’s happiness can’t last, right?  “Every time something good happens, something bad happens”…indeed.

• So since I can’t imagine you hire an actor as awesome as Ray Wise – Leland Palmer himself – for one line in a dinner table scene, I think it’s safe to assume that Ken’s soon-to-be-father-in-law Ed is going to play a more prominent role in the future, probably within these next two episodes.  Maybe the season finale unfolds around Ken’s wedding, perhaps?

Oh, Leland…we still miss your incredible brand of crazy…

• Not a terribly humorous episode, but “Chinese Wall” definitely had its share of dark comedy moments.  It was hard not to at least chuckle at Roger’s virtuoso solo performance in his one-sided “phone call” to Lee Garner Jr.

And while Don’s not usually the comedy focal point, his address to the SCDP troops was an amusing mix of blue sky cheerleading with steel-fisted autocracy.

“We’re going to push ourselves, shoulder to shoulder, and we’re going to overcome this and succeed tenfold,” Don tells his employees.  Of course, when he closes with “…and it’s going to be exhilarating,” it doesn’t sound as much a promise of better days ahead as an order.  You WILL be exhilarated, dammit!

Honorable comedy mentions in that meeting for Freddy’s “been there, done that” reaction and Danny’s raised hand being ignored by

• Speaking of great lines of the week…

“You never stop talking.”

“So the night we got mugged…that was the last time?  Wish I’d known that.”

“David Montgomery died?  Well, there’s your silver lining.”

“Get out of here.  All of you.  Go chase a hearst.”

And my vote for favorite line this week, courtesy of scene-stealing Danny Siegel…“I can’t imagine Don saying that.”

When I realized circumstances were going to prevent me from posting thoughts on “Hands and Knees” by a few days, I was really hoping the episode would be one of those more self contained stories without a ton of major series-impacting developments.

Oh boy, did I pick the wrong week to hope for that.

“Hands and Knees” starts the run-up to the season 4 finale, laying the groundwork for the last three episodes of the season while landing jaw-dropping bombshell after bombshell.

Joan’s pregnant!?   Lucky Strike is out!?  Lane’s leaving!?

And oh yeah, Don’s whole life is instantaneously dangling by the most minuscule of threads.

Wow. Not much happening this week, right?

LAST WEEK: Read the Bunker review of last week’s Mad Men episode “The Beautiful Girls”
ARCHIVES: Read all of this season’s “Mad Men” reviews

Secrets and the havoc they can wreak were the theme for everybody this week at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce…you didn’t think Matt Weiner and Co. used that instrumental version of “Do You Want to Know a Secret” just because they were looking for a cool Beatles song to close the show, do ya?

First, security clearance issues with the North American Aviation account put Don’s past as Dick Whitman right back in the limelight – and most definitely, not in a good way.  Don’s felt threatened before with the disclosure about what really happened in Korea – first, with the reappearance of his half-brother Adam, then Pete’s clumsy blackmail attempt back in season 1.

But U.S. Department of Defense agents Norris and Landingham are honest-to-gosh G-Men – and their investigation into “who is Don Draper” threatens to open up a hellstorm for Don that makes all previous fears seem pretty insignificant by comparison.

While Don’s big secret has been a linchpin of the show since episode 1, the danger of having the Dick Whitman-Don Draper switch exposed has felt much less ominous this season.  Whether it’s because Betty already knows or because of Anna’s death or because so many of his co-workers at Sterling Cooper either outright know about Don’s con (Pete, Bert) or at least suspect he’s hiding some skeletons (Roger, Lane, even Peggy), we’ve started to feel like the heat was off.

I mean, Don sat for interviews with Ad Age and the New York Times earlier this season…if that didn’t put him in the crosshairs, he didn’t have anything to worry about, right?

Considering the sensitive nature of NAA and their government ties, the fear of Feds pouring through his life probably should have been a more obvious sign to Don that future repercussions may lie ahead.

In fact, it doesn’t even take Pete more than a few seconds to put together how a Defense Dept. investigation into mystery man Don could not only crater the account, but potentially torpedo the whole agency and wreck his own budding career.

“How is it that some people just walk through life, dragging their lies with them, destroying everything they touch?” Pete asks Trudy. “I loathe it.  No one ever knows…except the honest people who have to pick up the pieces.”

Despite the obvious hypocrisy (our young Pete has told his fair share of lies and half-truths since the show started), Pete takes the pragmatic path when confronted with the realities of letting Don get busted.  He reluctantly gives up the $4 million NAA account to end the investigation into Don, then falls on his sword in the partners’ meeting and takes responsibility for the break-up.

Once again, the maturation of Pete from the conniving, little shyster of season 1 into the responsible, dare-we-say even respectable ad man of season 4 is one of the more interesting (and least explored) character arcs of the “Mad Men” series.

When Don thinks of running away from the government and suggests Pete could run SCDP in his absence, I don’t think that was insincere praise.  Pete Campbell has grown – and while the old Pete may have cheated and committed some unsavory deeds, maybe the new Pete really has found the moral compass to be angered and sickened by Don’s perchance for secrets and lies.

Meanwhile, Don’s dirty secret is dragging everyone into the web.

Betty, who’s become the biggest piñata at the party for “Mad Men” fans to bash this season, takes another step toward audience rehabilitation, stonewalls Hoover’s boys as she sweats under their questioning.

Whether it’s about protecting Don or just serving her own interests, Betty doesn’t crack and even plays along with the phone charade when she and Don fear the line may be tapped.

But she’s still clearly conflicted about what to do with maintaining Don’s double-life to new husband Henry.  “I don’t want any secrets,” she tells Henry even as she tells a lie of omission by not revealing to him the full scope of Don’s lies.

Considering Betty’s own internal conflicts, not to mention the mixed messages we get about how she truly feels about Don these days, I tend to think the Draper fiction is not one Betty will keep up forever.  Factor in Henry’s political ties and dislike of Don and I’m not sure Mr. Draper is quite finished burying the Dick Whitman lie for good.

The other woman in Don’s life these days doesn’t fare much better this week.  Whether Faye is taking care of Don through his panic attack (even as Don wickedly – but rightly – points out that she “isn’t a real doctor”), through her understanding and acceptance of Don’s secret (“My goodness”), she does everything right to help Don.

But even though Don says he’s “tired of running,” he still doesn’t quite seem to know what to do when the women around him find out the truth.  Despite Faye’s concern and offers to help, Don chooses to postpone their dinner – then, seconds later, takes a long, perhaps even longing – look at hot secretary Megan.

Is Don ready to run from the threat of real intimacy with Faye by sabotaging the relationship with yet another tryst with a secretary?  Joan better scour the secretarial pool for another Mrs. Blankenship. It looks like Don may be about to subconsciously scuttle his relationship with Faye at the same time that he creates another vacancy on his desk.

While the threat of Don’s exposure seems to have passed (just for the moment, I’m guessing), there were plenty of other secrets in “Hands and Knees” that will undoubtedly carry us through the rest of the season.

Even though she was never able to conceive with Greg, one spur-of-the-moment quickie on the streets of New York with Roger has Joan pregnant and scared for her future.

Roger, in all his Roger-ness, tries to be supportive, but even though his love for Joan seems genuine, he’s got no answers for what to do about their sticky situation.

When Roger off-handedly suggests Vietnam could morbidly tie up Joan’s troubles over what to tell Greg, Joan matter-of-factly dismisses the thought.  “Greg dying (in Vietnam) is not a solution to this,” she says.

Even though Joan tries to hold Roger at arm’s length over the pregnancy and her possible abortion, her guard seems to slip for just a moment when she asks him if she should have the baby.  “Of course not,” Roger immediately blurts out.  Even though he backtracks seconds later and postulates of the possibility of keeping the child, I think a big piece of Joan wanted him to say yes.

They don’t seem to make sense on the surface and their timing through the years has been nothing short of horrendous, but there is gravitational pull going on between the SCDP version of Romeo and Juliet.

And how about this — even though we saw Joan in the doctor’s office and she told Roger they “avoided a tragedy,” could Joan STILL be with child?  After Peggy’s covered-up pregnancy in season 1, I’d been surprised if the show went back to that same creative well with Joan.  But by the same token, I wouldn’t be stunning if we came back for season 5 to find Joan cooing at a little mini-Joanie or Roger Jr. of her own.

Roger’s problems – and secrets – extend far beyond being the father to a bastard child, unfortunately.

Lee Garner Jr. has been 30 years of nothing but trouble for Roger, but you make concessions for $25 million clients that represent over two-thirds of your firm’s business.  In typical Garner fashion however, that loyalty isn’t reciprocated. With a simple “it’s over,” Lee dispatched Roger and SCDP with all the ruthlessness of a professional hit.

Garner gives Roger 30 days to “put our affairs in order,” but it’s tough to imagine Roger will meet with any kind of success shoring up the massive damage the Lucky Strike hit will inflict.

Roger’s been getting by on the Lucky Strike golden goose for years, allowing past clients and other business relationships to decay to the point where he doesn’t even know one of them died until he cold calls the man’s widow.

Roger rips into Pete for “losing” the NAA contract, but he’s the only one of the partners who truly realizes the state of emergency the firm is in.  Rather than fess up about his secret and solicit help, Roger’s going to have to pull some serious magic out of his bag of tricks to fix this one.

Of course, there’s one major upside should Lucky Strike finally be finished as a SCDP client…anybody know a much-missed former art director-turned-commercial director looking for work now that Garner’s libido isn’t getting in the way anymore?

Maybe it’s too much to hope for Sal to come back as a regular, but c’mon…we’ve got to at least get a guest appearance one of these days, right?

And then there’s Lane…  Cheery old Robert Pryce really does explain a lot about his son, doesn’t he?  Wonder how Lane could swallow all the Puttnam, Powell, and Lowe crap he stomached for so many years without question before defecting with the Sterling Cooper crew?  Wonder why he fought so hard to stay in America, even though it meant the end of his marriage?  Look no further than papa Pryce and all becomes clear.

As we learned during their drunken night on the town back in “The Good News,” hard-living American Don and curt, stuffy Brit Lane are cut from very similar cloth.  Just as Don saw the opportunity to reinvent his life in Korea, Lane grabbed hold of a new life in America and is hanging on with everything he’s got.

The more we learn about Lane, the more pathetic and constraining his old life seems.  Looking back at the middle manager who assumed control back at Sterling Cooper, could anyone have predicted that he’d be the character most embracing the freer, less uptight U.S. of the mid to late 60s?

He hasn’t just abandoned his old life and family in the U.K.  He’s a swingin’ single guy in New York, a proud key holder at the hot new Playboy Club and falling in love with, ahem, “chocolate bunny” Toni Charles.

“Are you more distraught that I found someone I love, or that she’s a Negro?” Lane asks his father.

Veteran character actor W. Morgan Sheppard delivers a great performance as Robert Pryce, whose practically a sphinx-like specter haunting his son.  Robert orders Lane to return to Britain and straighten out his family — and no matter how much Lane tries to charm, impress or even antagonize his father, the old man never flinches or tips his hand.

That is, until he cracks Lane over the head with his walking stick.  It’s a swift, momentary burst of violence that seems so alien to a show like “Mad Men” that when they happen, you’re that much more stunned by what you just saw.

It’s safe to assume Lane has been in this position more than once before in his life, looking up at his father’s boot bearing down on his neck — literally.   Despite all his growth in America, the crack of his father’s whip immediately snaps Lane back in line.

The next morning, he’s telling his SCDP partners he’s taking a leave of absence, heading back to London to attend to his family for “two weeks, maybe a month.”  His secret relationship with Toni is out in the open, but the secret of his father’s controlling ways is still very much intact.

I would hate to think that Lane’s return to Britain would in any way signal the end of Jared Harris’ time on the show.  He’s become such an indispensable piece of the Sterling Cooper world that it would be hard to go back to a Lane-free office.

And God knows, with what’s coming for the firm, Lane will be very much needed to help keep the doors open.  Whether it’s Don’s identity crisis or the Lucky Strike defection, there’s plenty of danger brewing as “Mad Men” heads toward its season finale.

Due to circumstances beyond my control, this week’s “Mad Men” and “Rubicon” reviews will be a little late.

The “Mad Men” 410 “Hand and Knees” write-up should go up Wednesday, while thoughts on “Rubicon” 110 “In Whom We Trust” will post on Thursday.

I know, I know…everyone, be calm.  The world will continue to spin, trust me.  I’ll see ya all back here in a couple days.

Tomorrow – Sept. 23, 2010 – will mark exactly six years since “Lost” debuted on ABC.

The show hit the air with tremendous pedigree, an obscene level of promotion and truckloads of viewer interest.  With all of those factors at place, not to mention sky-high expectations, it’s almost hard to fathom how it could buck the odds the way that it did.  It not only didn’t disappoint, but it was actually…you know…really, REALLY good.

From jump, we were rattled by the crash of Oceanic 815.  We immediately felt for all of Jack’s daddy issues.  We couldn’t figure out how a nice girl like Kate could be a fugitive.  We were intrigued by the mystery man John Locke.  And c’mon, who could not instantly love Hugo Reyes?  “Lost” was a home run in its first at-bat, dude.

Thank you, J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof.  Us TV viewers have been paying for your genius ever since.

That’s because once “Lost” took off, the time-honored Hollywood art of stripping down a hit, slapping on a new coat of paint and trying to sell it as something new went into full swing.

TV REVIEWS: Check out all the Bunker’s TV reviews, featuring Mad Men, Rubicon, Boardwalk Empire, ESPN’s 30 for 30 and more

Some of those copies turned into mostly noble failures like “Invasion.”  Others were disjointed messes from the start like “The Nine.”  Still others cribbed just enough from “Lost,” usually the painstakingly cryptic mythology, to feel like cousins if not direct siblings (yes, “Heroes,” I’m lookin’ at you.)  And then there’s “FlashForward,” which recklessly spun through so many divergent, even conflicting personalities in its one season of shamelessly apeing “Lost” that you half-expected to see Sybil Dorsett or Tara Gregson’s names in the credits.

Which brings us to the latest entry in the “We’re going to out-Lost Lost” sweepstakes – NBC’s new series “The Event.”

And what is The Event?  Well, you didn’t expect them to tell you in the first episode, did you?

In fact, don’t expect to learn much of anything that would help you piece together exactly what’s going on here from the dribs and drabs of oblique information we’re served in “The Event” pilot.

“I haven’t told you everything,” says a mysterious woman-slash-leader-slash-whoknowswhat (Laura Innes) to the President of the United States (Blair Underwood).  Boy, no kidding…

Mystery woman Sophia is the leader of 97 people being held by the U.S. government at a secret base at Mount Inastranka in middle-of-nowhere Alaska.  We don’t know who they are and we don’t know what they did or why they’re so dangerous.

President Elias Martinez knows.   So do Vice President Raymond Jarvis (Bill Smitrovich) and Joint Chiefs head General Whitman (Tony Todd). Intelligence chief Blake Sterling (Zeljko Ivanek) knows too and delivers a passionate plea to Martinez not to “let THEM out.”  In fact, the only people in the room during their conversation about the detainees that don’t know what’s going on are the audience.

Normally, that would be fine – I don’t need to be spoon-fed every plot point.  But “The Event” goes out of its way to be obtuse, couching every conversation in ambiguous pronouns and non-specific warnings of ominous doom.

As Sophia talks with CIA agent Simon Lee (Ian Anthony Dale) about “William” who is “going to tell everyone about the event,” it’s like they’re actively trying to keep information from the TV camera they know is just behind them — almost like they’re, you know, characters on a TV show that wants to stay spooky and mysterious.

Are Sophia and her people aliens?  Folks with superpowers?  Refugees from the future?

Meanwhile, how did young man in love Sean Walker go from having his girlfriend Leila Buchanan (Sarah Roemer) disappear on a cruise ship to finding himself hijacking a jumbo jet seven days later?  And why is Leila’s father Michael (Scott Patterson) flying the plane?

And was Michael trying to kill Martinez with his kamikaze run at the president’s Miami retreat party?  Or was he just trying to fly the plane into that murky, silvery, wormhole-like, time-rippy, space distortiony thing that gobbled the whole plane up without a trace?

At this stage, it really doesn’t matter.  Even if “The Event” pilot had been fantastic (which it wasn’t), a show like this is only as good as the mystery, or in this case, “the event” that it’s setting up.  Hell, the first episode of “FlashForward” was pretty damn good before the whole series spiraled into chaos.

The “Lost” pilot created firmly-drawn, relatable characters as a first priority, while carefully seeding the threads of the island’s mystery as a backdrop.  In the first hour of “The Event,” the paper-thin characters are used only as puzzle pieces, pushing forward story points without offering any reason why we should care about these people.

(Confession:  the only reason I knew the characters’ names by the end of “The Event” pilot is because I Googled them.  Trust me – so far, their names are completely irrelevant.)

Maybe the event at the heart of “The Event” will make this a show worth keeping up with.  But despite the breakneck pace of the pilot, I’m not sure “The Event” needs to be on anyone’s calendars just yet.