Kevin, I don’t know what twisted reality you live in where Linda Cardellini is preferable to Jessica Paré, but to each his own, I suppose. That point aside, I think you’re spot-on about addiction driving this show. And what is addiction other than a chemical need for self-validation? We find ourselves addicted to things that — at least at the start — make us feel good, smart, strong, powerful. Don has sought that feeling from liquor and women but always comes out feeling hollow. One addiction, though, leaves him fulfilled.

That’s why, Gabe, I don’t think Don’s goal is to get back into SC&P. Instead, he needs the work. I think being good at ad pitches is the only thing that has ever kept him centered and happy with himself. If he couldn’t keep doing that while on leave, he’d literally have nothing to live for. I also don’t know if Don was drunk in the last scene of the episode — just out in the cold. He was unable to shut out the unhappiness, so he just sat right in it and wallowed. In fact, Freddy was the only thing Don had control over this week. A moving sidewalk carried him, Graduate-like, through LAX. He rode in the passenger seat while Megan drove him around L.A. Then, he was back in someone else’s hands aboard an airplane, Manhattan-bound.

I agree with Kevin’s assessment that someone will die this season. I’m almost certain we’ll see the demise of Bert Cooper, but there must be something more shocking. There’s a growing sentiment in corners similar to this one around the Internet that the bull’s-eye is squarely on Megan. Last season, Megan wore a T-shirt famously connected with Sharon Tate — you know, the famous actress who lived in the canyon outside Los Angeles, where she was murdered by the Manson Family after having a final meal at El Coyote Cafe. The references are a bit heavy-handed, but things are not looking good for the third Mrs. Draper.

I’ve read some analysis of how Mad Men is shifting its focus from one generation to the next — it’s no longer about the Boomers’ parents, but about the Boomers themselves. The first episode is not quite evidence of that — we’re missing Sally and anyone else under age 25 — but the 1970’s are clearly on the horizon. The Mad Men universe is shifting into the timeframe in which the primary demographic of AMC viewers remembers as their formative years. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the series retroactively framed not as Don’s story — not even as Peggy’s story — but as Sally’s story (for perspective, Sally would turn 60 this month). It took eight minutes to bring Don into the story in the season premiere, and I think his fade into the background will continue.

As Mad Men enters the first half of its seventh and final season, a panel of viewers here at Curiata.com will engage in a roundtable discussion following each episode. Check back throughout the week for new entries in the series.

I caught up on the first six seasons of Mad Men over the last year, so this was the first episode I’ve ever watched along with the rest of the world. It’s exciting to finally be on the same page and not have to avoid spoilers. I settled in last night with a glass of Don’s drink of choice, Canadian Club, and realized what a terrible judge of whiskey he is.

It was great to see Freddy Rumsen again. That opening scene was intense, and the implication that he was speaking directly to us, the viewers, about something bigger than the Accutron watch was obvious. It’s also not a coincidence that the writers used a recovering alcoholic to be Don’s mole in the agency. Don’s own alcoholism has always been a simmering issue, but it came to the surface last season and is laid out as the central struggle of this one.

Viewers seem primed to anticipate one of two endgames for Don: he quits the bottle and returns to to form at the top of the advertising game, or he plunges to his death from his penthouse suite or the corner office of SC&P. I think Mad Men has built its reputation on too much subtlety to go either of those routes. I expect Don will enjoy a few sober weeks before crashing harder than he ever has before.

Don’s end will not be miraculous or suddenly tragic. Instead, he will fade into oblivion, the way we all will, as the world moves past him. I expect Peggy’s breakdown at the end of last night’s episode will come to be seen as the point at which she turned ruthless. She’ll find a way to get rid of that new guy (Lou?) before the end of our first set of seven episodes, and 2015 will bring the final showdown, when she seizes creative control of the agency and pushes Don into the role Roger has played for so long.

It was disappointing not to get any of sassy Sally last night, but we also have joint custody of the kids and can only see them in half the episodes. I expect another Don and Betty backslide this season, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see them end up in an uneasy, sunset years resigned-to-fate relationship as the lights finally dim next year.

I’m interested to see what you all thought of last night’s show and where we’re headed for the remaining 13 hours of the series. One final thought: will Megan or any of Roger’s dalliances ever grow nipples?

After nine seasons, the final episode of How I Met Your Mother airs in the United States on Monday, March 31. Curiata.com is reliving the series this week by looking back at our favorites of the 208 episodes.

I was late to the How I Met Your Mother game and, in a rare instance for me, I binge-watched the first four seasons over the summer of 2009. The whiplash of those first 88 episodes was perfectly encapsulated in the frenetic tale told in the second season episode “Lucky Penny.”

Ted Mosby, architect, has a job interview in Chicago but but he and Robin are late for their flight. As they try to wrangle their way on a plane, the couple recounts the series of events that led to their late arrival: Ted had a court date because Barney ran a marathon because Marshall broke his toe because Robin startled him because Lily was shopping for a wedding dress because Ted and Robin ate hot dogs because Ted found a lucky penny. Whew.

As I look back on the series, many high point stand out for me, but I was surprised how many were captured in this single episode. Barney’s subway collapse and Robin and Lily’s car-alarm chorus are two of the great moments in HIMYM history. “Lucky Penny” was situated in the middle of the greatest run of the series, the second season that came to form the heart of the show.

If you or someone you know has never seen HIMYM, “Lucky Penny” is a perfect introductory episode. It is a self-contained story that subtly communicates all the background information a new viewer might need to understand the characters and plot. Further, “Lucky Penny” has nearly all the elements that make HIMYM great: character development, intersecting plot lines, non-linear storytelling, and a perspective of how the events of the episode fit into the overarching story arc that led Ted to The Mother. Indeed, we learn at the end of the episode that had Ted made his flight and gotten the job he wanted, he would have had to move to Chicago three months later, taking him away from the future love of his life.

If there is one characteristic of HIMYM missing from this episode, it is a powerful emotional moment. The series knows how to do these especially well, from the blue French horn to the several break-ups throughout the series to the difficult realities of new life and abrupt death. In retrospect, we learn just how emotionally poignant the episode was, though. Ted never forgets how important this series of events was to the course of his life, commemorating that lucky coin by naming his first-born child Penny.

There are two types of sitcoms: those that stuff as many jokes as they can into 30 minutes of television and fade into oblivion, and those that use comedy to construct human stories we connect to. “Lucky Penny” captures the zeitgeist of high-quality, mid-2000s sitcom television.

Best Line: “Here’s how you run a marathon. Step one: you start running … There is no step two.”

Best Cutaway: Marshall’s marathon training

Mother Lore: Ted and The Mother name their daughter Penny. Also, as told by Future Ted in this episode, “But that’s not what happened. They didn’t reschedule. They hired someone else. And as it turned out, three months later, that guy ended up having to relocate to Chicago. Kids, funny thing about destiny, I thought I was destined to get that job. But I was wrong. My destiny was to stay in New York. Because if I hadn’t, I never would have met your mother.”