Forget Don Draper’s road to becoming a better man. He is a good man. He just also happens to be Machiavelli when it comes to the cut-throat world of advertising.

As Gabe and Mike have pointed out, the final scene of the episode with Don getting the better of Lou and Jim was priceless — and vintage Draper. Does having sex with women other than his wife give him some kind of superpower? When the man is good, he is good.

However, as someone who is rooting for Don to find happiness, I was pleased to see the return of the real Draper family this week. The character of Stephanie is a nice reminder of the fact that, as I mentioned earlier, Don is a good man. He just hasn’t found true happiness yet. He sees in Stephanie a genuinely good person and wants to take care of her and her child, perhaps because he still thinks he owes something to the real Don Draper.

Caity Lotz plays a truly wonderful character. She’s an honest, well-meaning person who tries, despite asking Don for help, not to be a burden. Stephanie was at a difficult crossroad in her life and handled Megan’s assumptions about her relationship with Don incredibly well. She even held her own against Deathstroke’s army of super-humans … err … wrong show.

But the true show-stealer on this episode was undeniably Ben Feldman’s Michael Ginsberg. Since his first episode, I have been waiting for this wacky character to get some more screen time. He’s been killing it in every scene he’s been in since his first appearance, including a lot of scenes in which he obviously irritates Don, who never even had the patience for Peggy. Ginsberg’s nipple scene may go down in television history as one of the most unforgettable.

Ginsberg, however, is a strange animal. He feels like a television character. Ginsberg is the TV Trope living in a world of real people. So, why is he a part of the show?

Ginsberg, Stan, and the rest of the creative team are representative of the change in the times. When we first began following the men on Madison Avenue, we were treated to hard-drinking, ambitious, wine-and-dine, business-minded characters like Pete Campbell, Harry Crane, and Ken Cosgrove. Since the change to SCDP and, later, SC&P we’ve seen the times, and the cast, change into the next generation. Stan is rude, crude, and anti-authority. Ginsberg is psychotic, neurotic, and anti-authority. And management handles them very differently. When Pete got out of line, Don or Roger would shout at him until he was on the verge of tears. Now, as Don said to Lou, they have to have thicker skin.

The rest of the episode had its brilliant moments. Don riding the tricycle comes to mind. But Sally telling off Betty was perhaps Sally’s best scene in the show’s seven-year run. At least, next to the time she told her father she loved her. Sally has finally evolved from being the annoying kid who always thinks she’s right to actually being right most of the time. And she showed that she’s a good person, too, by letting Bobby stay with her.

Betty, however, continues to be terrible, even spouting some nonsense about Vietnam. Thankfully, Henry Francis set her straight. He continues to play the likable Nixon-era Republican, and though his berating of his wife should make him the villain, Betty is so terrible and so wrong that we end up rooting for the man.

This week’s episode will go down as one of the best, with allusions to the past and a lot of evidence of growth, combined with several shocking and important scenes. I, for one, look forward to the rest of the season.

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.

A panel of viewers here at Curiata.com will engage in a roundtable discussion following each episode of Mad Men’s seventh and final season. Check back throughout the week for new entries in the series.

That was a wild episode. Where to begin? The threesome? Ginsberg? Another Draper power play?

Right from the start, “The Runaways” was compelling, with interesting narrative threads, new characterizations, looming threats, and a familiar face from the past. For the first time, Lou Avery (he’s finally remarkable enough to have a memorable last name) is humanized; of course, that puts him on the defensive and he spends the rest of the hour as a bigger prick than usual: embarrassing Stan, toying with Don, and plotting with Jim Cutler.

The Lou/Jim conspiracy was executed flawlessly. As Ginsberg, being driven quite literally crazy by the hum of the new computer, spies the men in cahoots, our minds jump to the same conclusion as Ginsberg’s: Lou is being taken care of by Jim in more than just a professional way. The plotting and direction of this scene brought us on board with Ginsberg’s mania; his interpretation seemed valid, so maybe he wasn’t teetering on the edge.

This mastery held us in suspense both for Ginsberg’s impending breakdown and the true story behind the secret Saturday meeting. And both were revealed magnificently. Ginsberg insisted to Peggy that the computer was turning them all homosexual, a red-handed Harry Crane spilled the beans to Don, and the episode had become a runaway train, hurtling toward an explosive end.

The resurfacing of Anna Draper’s niece, Stephanie, pregnant and penniless, was a nice trip down memory lane. Few things seem to light up Don’s life like the extended Draper family. Don is tripping over himself to get to California to see Stephanie, in stark contrast to the reluctance with which he visits his own wife. That discrepancy is not lost on Megan, who makes a bold, desperate play to make her husband happy.

Megan’s party kicked off a final 15 minutes that unfolded like a delirious dreamscape. Time seemed to dilate, smoke filled the air, and a fantasy unfolded. As Megan’s friend, Amy, stepped into the bedroom to “tuck [Don] into bed,” the pre-show warning about “adult content and sexual situations” began to make sense. When lips met lips and hands were placed where they didn’t belong, I couldn’t help but repeatedly ask myself, “Is this really happening?” I was waiting for the moment when the drugs would wear off or the sleep would end and Don would stare into the distance wondering what his most recent hallucination had meant. Instead, Don woke in the morning to the sober reality of two beautiful women in his bed.

As the show cut to commercial, I sat there wowed by what had just transpired. With only five minutes until 11 p.m., I didn’t imagine the intensity could be ratched up any more. Boy, was I wrong. What followed was some of the most over-the-top and brilliant television I have ever seen.

Peggy started the episode still flexing her muscle over Don, but she was quickly and clearly shaken by Ginsberg’s antics, culminating in his epic, vangoghic gesture. The Peg-berg shippers must have had accelerated heart rates as Ginsberg put his unique set of moves on Peggy midway through the show. Unfortunately, he was just acting out one step on the way to collapse.

Early in the hour, I was reflecting on how Ben Feldman had always played the “neurotic Jew” character to the hilt. Little did I know that he would take Ginsberg to the absurdist peak of that neurosis by the time the credits rolled. The scene where Ginsberg finally dropped off the deep end fueled an adrenaline-filled conclusion not soon to be forgotten. I had complained several weeks ago that Mad Men needed more nipples; I should have been careful what I wished for! I was certainly caught off-guard when the writers decided to go “full crazy,” and Stan’s emotional reaction to his friend being carted away was a highlight for me.

But even a strait-jacketed employee being wheeled out of SC&P wasn’t the climax of this hits-keep-coming edition of the show. Lou’s and Jim’s jaws nearly dropped to the conference table as Don strode into their meeting with Philip Morris. The man who penned the kiss-off to the tobacco industry was sure to be canned if SC&P could land the big cigarette fish. Don did what he does best: he turned his liability into an asset.

After all, working with Lucky Strike gave Don years of tobacco ad-writing experience and an understanding of the competition. Don isn’t dead weight but exactly what Philip Morris needs on their team. Jim and Lou try to tell Don his play won’t save him, but they don’t seem so sure of themselves, and the confident Mr. Draper, whistling for a cab of his own, knows he has won the day.

The reestablishment of Don Draper has begun. He got some wife-sanctioned strange, had a little to drink at her party, and hit the ground running back in Manhattan. It may not be rock-solid footing, but Don seems to be on a gradual journey to stability.

Oh yeah, and something happened with Betty. I guess she thinks she has a mind of her own? Yawn.

This episode was the most brilliant in quite some time. I am eagerly looking forward to reading everyone else’s impressions. Scout’s honor!

Game of Thrones (HBO)
Where to binge: All four seasons available on HBO GO

God, this show is exhausting. And I mean that as a compliment.

Watching three seasons of Game of Thrones in less than a month is one of the crowning achievements in my Binge Watch-ing history. It’s not that I haven’t watched more shows in less time (looking at you, all five seasons of Friday Night Lights), it’s just that watching a single episode of Game of Thrones feels akin to reading a 1,000-page novel written in a foreign tongue. This is dense, sweeping material, spread across multiple lands and told in multiple variations of European accents.

And yet, with each passing episode, the viewer gets drawn in by the show — slowly, almost begrudgingly at the start, as you wade through the first several hours of season 1. These are the episodes in which you’re introduced to the various tribes and clans that inhabit Westeros, author George R.R. Martin‘s sprawling country made semi-famous in A Song of Ice and Fire, the on-going book series of which Martin has so far penned five of a planned seven books.

The names, faces, and places come at a relentless pace during the first season: King’s Landing, the House of Lannister, Winterfell, Daenerys Stormborn Targaryen, and many others. These are also the episodes that will make or break your interest in GoT. If you can weather the early storm, you’ll be rewarded.

As the first season moves along, the show slows its pace and allows you to visit each land and learn the backstory of each character. Admittedly, some of these lands and stories are more interesting than others. If you’re a fan of king-and-queen drama, you’ll love the intrigue and deception surrounding King Robert Baratheon and his wife, Cersei Lannister. If you enjoy gladiator-esque sword play, there’s plenty of that from the Starks, the family in charge of Westeros’ northern city, Winterfell.

Stark family patriarch, Lord Eddard “Ned” Stark, serves as a de facto main character in season 1 and, as portrayed by the perfectly-bearded Sean Bean, Ned is about as morally righteous a character as there is on GoT. It’s interesting to see how morally righteous characters get “ahead” on this show. Regardless, the show knows that it’s a marathon, not a race, and head writers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss do a fantastic job of luring the viewer into this expansive world.

To even try to synthesize all of the goings-on in the various plot lines that make up GoT would require another four Binge Watch columns: the show is never devoid of “stuff happening.” After a few episodes, it becomes easier to follow the action, but it is interesting to note how the show chooses to unfold its action. GoT is the most densely-plotted series I can recall, yet its storytelling trajectory is actually quite short. Most of the stories told on GoT are spread across multiple seasons, and when you’re watching them in big chunks, it becomes clear that this show actually moves at a snail’s pace.

I have not read any of the Martin series, but those who have read the books know that, as GoT entered its fourth season, less than three books’ worth of Martin’s material had been used so far. Still, from what has been reported of season 4, the show does seem to be picking up speed. That presents GoT with a difficult — and, I believe, unique — problem: what happens when the show catches up with Martin’s writing? (Please feel free to make your next Internet stop right here.)

Some episodes feel painstakingly slow, there’s no denying that. But this is a minor complaint, and one that might not even register with most viewers. If the worst thing said about a show is that it takes its time to establish strong, yet morally ambiguous, characters and tell vivid, often-jaw-droppingly-surprising stories, then I’d say the show is doing just fine.

After three seasons, I feel confident saying that GoT is certainly one of the more enjoyable shows on television right now. But as hype continues to build — the season 4 premiere was the show’s most watched episode to date — where does the show rank among the greats? It’s still too early to tell.

What I do know is that few shows have ever felt this epic, and I mean that literally and not in the way the word is bandied about in most writings. Over the first several seasons, GoT has been shot in countless locations, across multiple countries: Croatia, Morocco, Ireland, Iceland, Malta, and Scotland. These locations give breadth and substance to almost every scene. The show feels huge, and I think that lends itself toward a feeling of grandeur for the series overall. I will need to see where Martin goes with the story — and how the show runners tell that story — before I try to rank this one with the greats.

Still, if you haven’t taken the plunge into the world of Westeros, Game of Thrones is highly-recommended. For binge-watching purposes, two or three episodes at a clip is the most you’re likely to get in on one night. The material is heavy and often harrowing, and for that reason, I suggest you pace yourself.

Season 4 of Game of Thrones is currently airing Sundays at 9 p.m. EDT on HBO.

A thought struck me about an inevitable plot point we are all overlooking. It was laid out years ago, but we seem to have forgotten about it. Before the end of the series, Roger Sterling will die.

The Russian writer Anton Chekhov famously said, “If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off.” Way back in our first chapter, season 1, Roger suffered two heart attacks. That health scare served a narrative purpose at the time, offering Roger a shot to reform his ways — from which he promptly back-slided. But my sense is that, given the nature of Mad Men storytelling, Roger’s heart disease is not a resolved plot point.

“The Monolith” brought this to mind because of Roger’s struggle, both of will and of force, to remove his daughter from the upstate commune. Yes, giving Roger an overnight stay at the hippie stronghold was a way to take his licentious behavior to its absurdist end and hold a mirror up for him to choose a path. But I think the rift with his daughter is also being played up to add stress to the character.

Combined with his drug use and the ongoing civil war at SC&P, Roger’s heart surely cannot take much more stress. He is also trying to navigate a difficult relationship with a lovechild and the muse he can never have. I have to believe all these factors are conspiring to send Roger to an early grave.

And Roger’s death would serve the greater story as well. Staring at Roger’s ashen face in a casket would certainly shake Don Draper, quite possibly providing the last, great catalyst he needs to get a handle on his own behavior. For a series taking its final bow, a Sterling funeral would be a perfect venue for a showcasing of old faces (where are you, Sal?) and a forcing of reconciliations (Mona and Margaret? Don and Betty? Pete and Trudy? Peggy and Ted?).

With Roger out of the picture, the breakup of SC&P might not come to fruition, but a major restructuring would be in order. Bert Cooper might decide the time has finally come to ride off into the sunset, eliminating both the S and the C, making way for Draper, Olson, and Campbell.

I wouldn’t be surprised for Roger’s third and final heart attack to be the cliffhanger that has us on pins and needles until 2015. And as much as I love the character, it would be a fitting end for the Mad Man most willing to throw caution to the wind.

There are about a dozen things that the previous posts mentioned that I had not even thought of for a second. The allusions to the Mets’ World Series run and to 2001 had not hit me at all. Kudos.

To me, this episode was about war. Lou, for no reason other than a competitive killer instinct, has decided to bring down Don Draper. With the partners agreeing to put Don to work on the new Burger Chef pitch, Lou decides to use the opportunity to embarrass Don and prepare for inevitable war. What do good leaders do when they’re about to start a fight? They draft the best fighters for their own side.

Peggy was possibly as much of a threat to Lou’s dominance as even Don. It’s been made apparent from the beginning of the season that Miss Olson finds Lou infuriating, as well as a roadblock to her success. With Don back in the building, however, Lou realizes he must make amends to limit his opposition — and make a soldier out of a rival.

Peggy, despite her incredible creative talent, falls into the trap, reveling in the power that she now wields while also continuing as the “woe is me” character she has become. Do the work. Peggy has, and now she has something to show for it, even if her latest step up is as a pawn in a giant chess game.

Bert Cooper’s resentment toward Don is definitely jarring, but it leads me to wonder about another potential evolution in the series. Despite the perpetual reminders about Lane’s suicide, I am no longer sold on the idea that Don will off himself to end the series. The cut-throat world of SC&P seems to finally be developing into a Civil War of sorts. Don’s constant statements to the partners about having founded the agency seem to point to Don’s next move. Do the work. Start a new agency.

Don has already made an ally in Freddy Rumsen and seems to have the support of Dawn and most of the creative team. With Harry Crane’s heel turn, along with Cooper’s, and Cutler’s infatuation with the new computer that has led to a literal displacement of the creative team, the line in the sand is obvious. It even points to an inevitable split between lifetime partners Sterling and Cooper.

The potential divorce with Megan now appears to be another case of foreshadowing — this time, of the divorce between Sterling and Cooper and the creation of a new agency. Don, Roger, and the creative team will start anew, with Cooper, Cutler, Lou, and Crane leading the opposition and likely maintaining control of the current firm. Campbell appears to be siding with Don more often than longtime fans of the show would expect, but the move makes sense after we remember that Don is at least the devil Campbell knows, and Don seems to have developed at least a grudging respect for Pete.

If this situation comes to pass, the real winner will be Peggy Olson. She can’t stand Lou or Don, so where would her allegiance lie? I can see Lou offering her head of creative to side with their agency, while Don would finally have to give in and offer Peggy a position as a full partner.

Perhaps I’m reaching, but this story could come to pass. Sure, the “new agency” plot has happened already, but this is their second chance — which is something every one of the new agency employees needs or has needed. Freddy is a recovering alcoholic; Peggy has a young child whom she ignores; so does Campbell. And Roger and Don have too many moral failings to count. Perhaps this final season truly is about redemption.

Gabe, you’ve stolen almost all of the points I had planned to make! I’m especially excited you also caught the Miracle Mets allusion. After my existential breakdown last week, it’s a relief to know I was picking up on the same things as the other great minds of our time. So are we to believe Don’s upcoming recovery will be aided by a miracle — some work of God? Or is it going to be grounded in the hard work he seems set to do after this episode?

This episode is about chickens coming home to roost, for both Don Draper and Roger Sterling. Don has put himself in a position where his every move will be monitored, his spot in the hierarchy subjugated to those who have not yet or who never will surpass his abilities. He accepted those terms last week, but now he has to deal with the real consequences. At the same time, Roger is confronted with his own shortcomings when his daughter, Margaret, holds a mirror up to her father as he lectures her about her son needing his mother in his life.

Don’s challenge is brought into relief by a new addition to the office. A Space Odyssey has come to Sterling Cooper & Partners. The employees circle the installation of a new computer in what used to be the creative lounge like apes trying to understand what this means for their futures. The creative team is, of course, in a tizzy. Already stifled by Lou’s vanilla approach to business, they have now lost the space that served as the incubator of their output. They’ve been pushed to the edge of extinction by Lou, Jim, and Harry Crane, who has turned full heel.

At the same time, the most creative mind in the building, that of Don Draper, is relegated to entry-level copy writing. No one has a starker moment of deciding how to adapt to a new reality in this episode than our hero, Don. Lou obviously put Don under Peggy’s direction to punish him, but I can’t decide if he was also doing it to frustrate Peggy. Regardless of Lou’s intentions, the expected turmoil follows. Without Roger around to talk him down, Don hits the bottle again, coming perilously close to throwing away any chance of redemption at SC&P before his guardian angel, Freddy Rumsen, can save the day.

Critical viewers are given a piece of red meat not just in the Monolith being wheeled through the SC&P doors, but also in Don’s choice of reading material as he ignores his assigned work. The protagonist in Portnoy’s Complaint, written by Philip Roth in 1969, is described as “a lust-ridden, mother addicted young Jewish bachelor.” Don may not be Jewish, but he can certainly relate to the rest of those descriptors.

Gabe, to your point: Bert Cooper has made it clear to Don that he is no longer wanted at SC&P. Like you, I can’t understand why Cooper is so angry. He wasn’t even in the room for the Hershey’s pitch, and he has known about Don’s double life for years.

The Monoliths of Arthur C. Clarke’s novels were omens from the future that spurred technological innovation among the natives. The computer at SC&P is appearing at the same time Don seems to have been motivated to work his way back to the top. Combined with the Mets pennant, now proudly hung on Don’s office wall, his path to redemption seems clear.