R.I.P., Ginsberg’s nipple. We hardly knew ye.

As Mike mentioned in his great analysis, Mad Men‘s fifth season 7 episode, “The Runaways,” was a wild one.

The rise and gurney-assisted fall of Michael Ginsberg was only the second or third most shocking development in this episode. His overstated objection to the SC&P computer last week gave way to full-blown paranoia this week, and we’re left to wonder if we’ll ever see Ginsberg again. I didn’t know what was coming when he entered Peggy’s office just two days after he crashed her apartment, claimed the computer was turning everyone “homo,” and tried to force himself on her.

The boxed delivery of his nipple was more upsetting than humorous. It is no longer possible to think of Ginsberg as eccentric; he’s clearly lost his grip on reality. It may have been a little heavy-handed to so closely tie Ginsberg’s fight for relevance with the arrival of the computer, but it worked nonetheless.

I also enjoyed the twist of discovering that Ginsberg did see Lou Avery and Jim Cutler engaging in some hijinks (planning a secret pitch meeting with Philip Morris). It just wasn’t the kind of hijinks Ginsberg suspected. Still, I suspect our time with Ginsberg has come to end, and I will miss him.

The discovery of Lou’s comic, Scout’s Honor, in the SC&P copier machine was one of those great Mad Men scenarios that comes along at least once a season. As soon as Stan found the copy, we knew we were in for a humorous detour from the sometimes depressing stories that inhabit this show. What was surprising was Lou’s outrage upon being outed by a bunch of “flag-burning snots.” Don hit it on the head when he chided Lou for having too-thin skin. I almost thought for a second that this episode would shed some sympathetic light on Mr. Avery, but it did no such thing for me. He arrogantly and dismissively treated his subordinates like ungrateful children and even made Don miss his flight to California. The nerve!

Don was in a hurry to get to California (is it the first time we’ve said that?) because his “niece,” Stephanie, had resurfaced: pregnant, broke, hungry for meat. Don told Megan to take care of Stephanie until he arrived. I was actually impressed with Megan’s willingness to help; there was genuine concern there, even if it didn’t last long. I feel for Megan. I still think her time with Don is coming to an end, and last night’s episode furthered my suspicions.

There were a lot of great scenes where Jessica Paré expressed her non-verbal frustrations with life and with Don, and those were a highlight of the episode for me. When Stephanie claimed to know all of Don’s secrets, Megan’s face immediately expressed so many thoughts at once: jealousy, contempt, sadness. She was quick to cut Stephanie a check and get her the hell out of her house.

So this set up an interesting juxtaposition: Megan scrambles to get one woman out of Don’s life and then turns around and invites yet another woman into their bedroom. The moment everyone is talking about is the threesome between Don, Megan, and “Amy from Delaware.” The scene was shocking, not only by AMC’s relatively tame television standards but also because of what it implied for the characters.

We spent a majority of the episode watching Megan try to comfort Don, trying to play the role of dutiful wife. In the bedroom scene, Megan dispensed of subtlety altogether. She knows her husband will never be cured of his desire for women, so she tries to give Don what she thinks Don wants. It’s not until the next awkward morning, after Don tells Megan that he needs to leave town and after he quickly gets on the phone with Stephanie, that Megan seems to come to the full realization that nothing she does — or will do — is going to change the way Don looks at her. He has become a man simply biding time in his marriage.

I loved the scene of Don crashing the clandestine meeting between Lou and Jim and the reps from Philip Morris. Don turns it up to 11 to make Roger Morris a pitch that will very likely make or break the remainder of his tenure at SC&P. And for a moment — a glorious and welcomed moment — the ad man in Don Draper returned in full force.

“You’re incredible,” Lou told him afterward. I’m still not sure if that was to be a compliment, an insult, or a bit of both. Think about it: that was almost surely the first time Lou ever saw Don give a pitch, and he gave it wonderfully. But in the process, he threw Lou under the bus. So you can imagine that Lou might have been both impressed and pissed off. Either way, it’s clear that Jim was the latter. He hissed his line at Don as he got into the cab:

“You think this is going to save you, don’t you?”

Yes, Don does.

And so do I.