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.

The future has arrived on Mad Men in the form of a giant IBM computer that takes up the space once inhabited by SC&P’s creative team. Episode 7.4 was called “The Monolith” and it was filled with the sounds of progress: saws screeching, hammers pounding, men working. The future also looked a lot like Don working for Peggy, crawling his way back up from the top. And for a show that has always been overly symbolic, this episode felt especially full of foreshadowing.

We find Don Draper almost self-sabotaging his career yet again, before Freddy Rumsen, of all people, pulls him back from the abyss, gets him home to the couch to sober up, and then gives him one of the great pep talk/reprimands in Mad Men history: “Just do the work, Don,” Freddy tells his sad, drunken colleague.

Don’s plunge back into the bottle at work comes after (we’re told) three weeks of office sobriety and extreme boredom. It’s clear that Don is the dead man walking, working in a dead man’s office. He has no work and he doesn’t seem to be making connections with his former employees. When he is finally given something to do, he gets placed on Peggy’s team to write copy for Burger Chef, a national fast food restaurant. I was surprised to see that my prediction of Don one day working for Peggy has come to fruition so quickly. Shame on me for thinking Matthew Weiner and company would wait until the end of the series to hit us with this role reversal.

To say Don doesn’t take it well would be an understatement. When Peggy assigns him 25 tags to write over the weekend, Don storms out of her office, into his own, and then throws his typewriter against the window. For years, Don was the one in control, the man asking for others’ weekend work. Now that he has been left to wither away by the other partners, it’s Don taking orders. He finds a Mets pennant under the radiator of the office while fishing for a dropped cigarette. Lane’s favorite team.

Here’s another instance of Mad Men being more literal than symbolic in this episode: the 1969 New York Mets defied all odds, rising from the gutters of baseball’s standings to win the World Series. Victory snatched from the jaws of not only defeat, but despair. Sounds a lot like our boy, Don. This allusion to the ’69 Mets left me with the striking suspicion that Don’s ending may not be the tragedy everyone suspects. And even if it is suspected, do people want to see Don’s story end badly? I’m not convinced that I do.

We usually save these kinds of TV Character Death Wishes for anti-heroes, for broken men like Walter White, Vic Mackey, or Tony Soprano. These are the characters that deserve demise because of legitimate holes in their moral fabric. Yet when I see Don wading painfully through the first few episodes of Mad Men‘s final season, I don’t see a bad man. Yes, he’s a drunk. He’s a womanizer, a terrible husband, and an average father. But Don Draper deserves some kind of happy ending. This episode was the strongest indication yet that he may get it.

The other not-too-subtle subplot this week involved Roger and Mona hitting the road to bring back their daughter, now going by the name Marigold, who has abandoned her family and joined a commune. Roger, who we’ve seen mingling with hippies many times this season, seems much more comfortable at the commune than Mona does. After his ex-wife storms away in the car, Roger even spends the night there with his daughter. They shared a great scene staring up at the stars, just Roger and his little girl.

Sometime in the middle of the night, Roger awoke to find his daughter sneaking away with some guy. That must have been the final straw for Roger’s patience; when morning came, he literally tried to drag Marigold back home. She fumed at him. He asked how she could leave her family, leave her boy without a mother. She fumed back at him — how could he have left her everyday by “going to work”? How could he have had his assistant pick out all of Marigold’s presents as a child? Roger left defeated. I’m not sure it was Mad Men’s most poignant comparison, but for Roger, it appeared to really hit home.

One last thought: Why the hell is Bert Cooper so mad at Don? I cannot figure this out. It can’t still be Hershey’s, can it? If business is booming and creative is working like a well-oiled machine even in Don’s absence, why is Bert still so full of vitriol? The scene where he callously compares Don to the dead man whose office he now occupies was jarring.

Spoiler warning: This column discusses recent plot details for Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Proceed with caution.

In this day and age, a slow build can mean death for a television show. Consumers and viewers expect immediate gratification. New technology gives audiences access to all kinds of products and information, right at their fingertips, and they’ve developed the same expectations for their television shows.

As a result, most shows need to be smash hits right out of the gate. Others tantalize us as they seem to be building up to speed, only to never quite get there. I myself tend to have a hard time giving up on TV shows I believe could still improve. (Two years in and I’m still hoping Revolution will live up to its potential, though the likelihood of it seeing a third season is very slim.) Occasionally though, my patience pays off in a big way. There is a third type of show that takes time to build a back story or corrects early mistakes before it hits its stride. This is the case with two of my current favorite shows on television.

I know I’ve mentioned previously in this column my love for all things related to superheroes. That’s one of the reasons why I didn’t even think twice about watching Arrow when it premiered last year. Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. was also a no-brainer for me; I will watch anything and everything that takes part within the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). Each of these shows was a little slow getting off the ground but is now proving that my patience and loyalty were definitely worth the wait.

While I had little in the way of expectations for Arrow, which I will discuss next week, I was very excited for the premiere of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. However, the show started out much slower than I had expected. For as much as I love the MCU, I was a little taken aback when I didn’t immediately love S.H.I.E.L.D. Sure, I liked it well enough, but it wasn’t as amazing as I was expecting right off the bat.

Judging from a lot of fan reactions I read the first couple of weeks, I wasn’t the only one. I had to remind myself that, although this was a Marvel show, it was also a Joss Whedon show, which meant I just needed to have a little patience. One thing fans of Whedon have learned by now is that, quite often, you have to give the man room to stretch his legs and find his footing when it comes to a television series.

For example, I enjoyed the first season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but the show didn’t really start hitting its stride until season 2, when Angel‘s transformation into the evil Angelus really raised the stakes (no pun intended) for the series. Suddenly, actions had very real — and sometimes devastating — consequences. Similarly, I believe season 2 of Dollhouse was much more cohesive than the first, though a large part of the problem with season 1 was Fox’s meddling with Whedon’s vision of the series.

Given this track record, it’s no surprise that S.H.I.E.L.D. didn’t necessarily hit the ground running. There’s also the fact that the show had to build nearly every character and their relationships from the ground up. Yes, the series was taking place in the MCU, which Marvel fans are all familiar with — and it was bringing back fan favorite, Agent Phil Coulson — but the rest of the cast was entirely new. It took time to develop the characters and for them all to trust each other.

While each episode had its moments — Coulson is the king of the one-liners — it wasn’t until the sixth episode, “FZZT,” that the characters really felt like they were starting to gel with each other. This episode saw the team coming together to try to save Simmons from the Chitauri virus. This was also the first time any of the characters really demonstrated any growth or change, as Fitz, originally one of the most timid members of the team, was prepared to jump out of a plane to save his partner. Instead, Ward took the leap for him and cemented the team’s trust — which, as it turns out, wasn’t necessarily a good thing.

From then on, each character seemed to grow individually and as a part of the team. Fitz and Ward spent some time bonding on their own mission, and Simmons and Skye got closer as they worked together in the Hub. Even May slowly started warming up to the rest of the team. Each episode seemed to raise the stakes a little higher, as we learned more about Skye’s background, the T.A.H.I.T.I. project, and the Clairvoyant. Then the show really kicked into overdrive just before Captain America: The Winter Soldier hit theaters.

The last episode before Winter Soldier was appropriately titled “The End of the Beginning” — and little did we know how true that title would be: this episode marked the end of S.H.I.E.L.D. as we knew it. The episode led directly into Winter Soldier, as Agent Sitwell left Coulson’s team and ended up being held hostage before being rescued by Captain America early in the movie. We had been told there would be a tie-in between Winter Soldier and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., but I think most fans were probably expecting a nearly inconsequential one, similar to when the agents had to help clean up London after the events of Thor: The Dark World. However, Marvel had something else entirely in mind. Winter Soldier saw the destruction of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the “death” of Nick Fury — both events that naturally had a huge impact on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

This is where all those fans who gave up on S.H.I.E.L.D. after just a few episodes are now missing out on one of the best comic books shows you could possibly ask for. S.H.I.E.L.D. followed Winter Soldier with “Turn, Turn, Turn,” one of the best episodes of the season. The events took place nearly simultaneously with the end of Winter Soldier, as Hydra emerged and revealed its corruption of S.H.I.E.L.D. The entire episode was perfectly constructed — and then the unthinkable happened. One of the last people we expected to be a double agent — in fact the very character who was our entry point into the world of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. — showed his true colors as a Hydra agent.

Every episode since then has lived up to every expectation I would have for a show taking place in the MCU. It’s been a roller coaster ride in which we’ve learned the hard way you can’t trust anyone. And the hits just keep on coming. Coulson’s unshakable calm has slowly been chipping away ever since he learned the truth about T.A.H.I.T.I. (hint: it’s not a magical place), and that culminated in a near-breakdown while searching for one of Fury’s secret bunkers — one of Clark Gregg’s best performances to date. In this week’s episode, we finally learned the identity of the agent who was heading up the T.A.H.I.T.I. project, and once again, minds were blown.

I really feel sorry for all those so-called Marvel fans who gave up on S.H.I.E.L.D. because they are now missing some truly great television. The last five episodes in a row have been one-hour films; it’s been intense in the best possible way, and there are still two episodes left this season. This is the show I expected to see when I tuned into the first episode back in the fall, and I’m so relieved I never gave up on it, because these last few episodes were definitely worth the wait.

Next week, I’ll Fan Out over another show that has improved since its first episodes, Arrow. If you’ve already given up on S.H.I.E.L.D. or Arrow — or have never even seen an episode — then you might want to give them a chance over the summer. Whether it’s a second chance or your first time viewing, you may be pleasantly surprised.

Gentlemen, I’ve been lying in wait for something to spark my analytic powers. As I watched “Field Trip,” the minutes flew by and I was rapt by the unfolding drama, but I was confounded by its duality. Why link Don and Betty now? And what really linked the stories in this episode, besides each character taking a titular field trip (or two, in the case of Don going to California and the equally foreign offices of SC&P)?

In my listless drifting in the days since the episode aired, I must admit I’ve taken a peek at some of our peers’ reviews of this episode (you know: GQ, Rolling Stone, The New York Times — the other outlets on our level). Doing so reminded me that either we were all right in high school when we thought our teachers were imparting unintended motives and themes onto long-dead authors’ works, or Mad Men is the genius of a modern-day Shakespeare, Poe, or Steinbeck, playing out right before our eyes.

I’ve been right there with many of the ideas picked up on by the wider critical viewing audience in the first two episodes of the year, but I felt far out of step this week. While I couldn’t latch onto a single solid theme, other’s found countless angles to analyze here: Megan’s confident handling of Don contrasted with her desperation in show business; Peggy’s lingering grudge toward Don, the roots of which have all but receded into nothingness; Joan’s shifting allegiance to Jim from Don; Harry’s scorched-earth approach; Roger’s ever-erratic behavior forcing his partners’ hands once again; Don’s admission to Megan that he didn’t want her to see him in a certain negative light.

It became evident to me that there was so much going on in this episode that my true struggle was figuring out where to put my focus. Even the smallest details have been called out as literary devices: Bobby trades away Betty’s sandwich while, back in Manhattan, Don eats a chicken salad on rye. I feel paralyzed by the sheer volume of significance in each action, camera shot, word, or gaze.

As I said earlier, nothing confounded me more than the continued saga of Betty Hofstadt Draper Francis. She seems an afterthought to the main narrative at this point. I came around to the view that she is being used as the backdrop to illuminate the personalities of the Draper children, to showcase their reflection of their father’s traits and the psychological damage he has inflicted on them. After all, that seemed to be the trajectory of Sally’s story last week. But Bobby has had less opportunity to be disappointed by his father. Instead, it’s Betty’s imperialism that continues to reign over the poor boy. I don’t see this week’s edition as Bobby-as-Don, but as yet another exploration of Betty.

I’ve come to believe the writers feel they owe Betty’s character some closure. I feel the show could have packed her away with the divorce, giving us the occasional cameo when Don had to pick up the kids. Instead, we got Fat Betty, and fish-out-of-water-in-the-Village Betty, and now Betty on the Farm. Her maternal abilities were called out this week, and she responded by chaperoning a field trip — a chance at character development that would edge us toward that closure the writers may be seeking. Instead, Betty showed herself again to be unable to perceive the love being thrown at her by Bobby. Instead, Betty showed herself again to be more concerned with being perceived as a good mother than with being one.

Coming out of this episode, I can clearly see the progressive strides Don has made over the course of a decade. It seems that those around him are either trapped in their unhappiness, like Betty, or veering off the tracks, like Roger, Peggy, and Megan. I fear for the health of the people around Don, not the man himself. I also fear for myself as I try to keep up with the brilliance and the layers of meaning packed into each hour of this program each Sunday night.

One of Kevin’s questions — what was the point of the Betty Francis story arc — seems to be the most pressing issue to come out of Mad Men 7.3. The scenes with Betty and Bobby were frustrating in their blandness. It’s a stretch to find much meaning in any of those scenes, but Kevin’s comparison of Bobby to a young Dick Whitman, and Betty to Don’s childhood caretakers, seems apt.

More than anything, I was frustrated at the continued waste of potential for the Betty character. January Jones has always taken her lumps for her portrayal of the former Draper family matriarch. But since her and Don’s divorce, Betty has had almost no meaningful story to tell. The ill-fated weight gain story arc from a few seasons ago was as laughable as the (digital?) fat suit required to show it. The only time I’ve been interested in Betty as a character was when she and Don briefly rekindled their relationship while out of town visiting Bobby’s camp.

I’m left to wonder if this show has anything left in the tank for Ms. Francis. I assume we’ll continue to plod through a few more painstaking episodes about her lack of maternal nature. Sadly, it’s a pretty tired storyline.

This episode did bring us the return of something I had missed: Don in the workplace. His awkward visit to SC&P, culminating with a caveat-filled return to duty, felt like the freshest breath of the season so far. I’m enjoying the slow-burn pace of the season, but let’s get to it: we need to see Don back in action!

He didn’t have much to do once there, as Roger didn’t feel it necessary to show up at the office before noon or tell any of the other partners about Don’s imminent return. It was fun to see Don’s brief interaction with Lou, and now that we know Don will be reporting to SC&P’s newest creative director, I can’t wait to see how it unfolds.

We know Don will take up space in Lane Pryce’s old office. I thought that was a particularly cold move by the remaining partners and surely, as Kevin mentioned, the red herrings could soon be flying as we’re left to wonder if Don is headed down the same road as our dear, departed Lane.

I still don’t think so. Don’s road to redemption has been bumpy and I’m still not sure if that’s the direction he’s headed. But there is still hope. The drinking has slowed. The womanizing has, too; we actually see Don in this episode take a pass on a string-free rendezvous with a mysterious blond at a restaurant. If you’re keeping score, that’s two women who’ve thrown themselves unsuccessfully at Don this season — maybe the man really is changing!

I thought Don showed some maturity by flying to California to check in on Megan, but that didn’t go very well. I think the writing is on the wall for that couple. Divorce is in the cards. I just fear that, with Megan’s increasingly erratic behavior, she may be the one to hit rock bottom long before Don does.

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.

Sometimes, analyzing an episode of Mad Men is, well, maddening. The show can be furiously uneventful at times — or, at least, hard to understand. The third episode of the final season was one in which a few things happened, but a lot of things were hard to make sense of. For example, what was the point of the entire Betty Francis story arc?

Betty has been a strange character since her divorce from Don. There’s really no reason to follow her outside of her interactions with her ex-husband. So after spending the day trying to figure out the thought process of the writers, I’ve come to the conclusion that the episode was meant to be an illustration of Don’s history and future, using his two wives to show how he has grown as man.

“Field Trip” followed Don’s struggles with Megan and his ex-wife’s problems with Bobby Draper. Bobby can be seen as a stand-in for a young Dick Whitman, as Don has shown several times throughout the show how much he sees himself in his son. The interactions between Bobby and Betty make more sense in this context.

Bobby is a good kid dealing with a parent who is petty and childish. He tries his best to show his mom how much he loves her, only to receive a severe response to a youthful mistake. In fact, Betty wasn’t simply mad about his error, but she viewed it as a personal attack, as though Bobby was going out of his way to hurt her.

This attitude was also on full display recently from Peggy Olson, who attacked her secretary for attempting to be kind. Peggy saw it as a personal attack, rather than an honest attempt by Shirley to do right. And where did Peggy learn to think this way? From her old boss, Don Draper, who learned it from his abusive father and stepmother.

Despite Don running from everything in his previous life as Dick Whitman, it seems he still found comfort in a woman like Betty, who is cold and emotionally abusive, like his own parents — though admittedly not as extreme. Betty’s behavior serves as a reminder of the man Don used to be, when he would berate those who dared to challenge him. Conversely, in his storyline with Megan, we see how much Don’s attitude has changed.

Megan’s behavior dealing with a Hollywood director seems as childish as Betty’s sentiments toward Bobby. Don, who would slam the behavior of Betty or Peggy in the past when they did something to disagree with him, treated Megan with respect, trying tactfully to address her actions and finally being honest with her about the mistakes he’s made. It seems as though Don’s evolution into a more honest man is continuing, even if it hurts the people he loves. But now that Don is back at work, we are left to wonder if Don will revert to his old attitudes. Does habitat truly play a role in our behavior?

The questions going forward are numerous. Are Don and Megan going to get a divorce? Will this lead to Don finally finding happiness with a more mature woman? Or perhaps Don moving into Lane Pryce’s office is foreshadowing the finale of the series, and Don’s second divorce will lead him to finally hit rock bottom, both figuratively and literally.

For the first time in seven years, a black character was given a substantial plot and character development on this week’s episode of Mad Men. In fact, Dawn and Shirley even spoke to each other, allowing the show to finally satisfy the Black-del test.

I find it appropriate that Dawn was so central to this week’s outing because the episode was all about the dawning of new days for our heroes. “A Day’s Work” brings into relief the transitions of several characters from one stage of their lives to another. Don is, of course, attempting to transition from the role we’ve seen him in for six years into a more even-tempered, sober, loving man. He is being critically aided in that journey by his daughter’s own evolution.

Sally is outside the oppressive bubble of Betty Francis. The complexities and nuances of life are beginning to register for her. She has been forced to confront death. (Remember she was shielded from her grandfather’s several years ago, and Don still doesn’t want her attending funerals.) She has seen adultery and robbery firsthand. The relationships Sally must navigate with Glen Bishop and with her classmates at boarding school are introducing her to the politics of life her father has mastered so well. She has edged her way under the tent flap and has a sense of how hard it is to be a grown-up. She can finally empathize with her father. She can finally love him instead of resent him.

Unfortunately, we are seeing a new dawn for Peggy Olson as well, and it’s not looking like it’s going to be filled with sunshine. Peggy demonstrated a disappointing, infuriating self-centered-ness in this episode. She could not even conceive of the notion that her secretary might be receiving flowers on Valentine’s Day. She could not see the lengths to which Shirley went to avoid hurting Peggy’s feelings. And when the truth was revealed, Peggy reacted like a spoiled child, completely disregarding Shirley and turning the situation into a poor-Peggy moment. I felt anything but “poor Peggy.” Ted’s jilting and L… what’s his name? Lyle? Lucky? Oh, Lou! — Lou’s suffocation have driven Peggy into Draper-like egotistical fits.

I think, ironically, it is Don who will set Peggy on track to success as a passionate but stable creative director and junior partner by series’ end. Peggy might also loosen up when she finally gets laid by either Stan or Ginsberg.

There were other transitions, too: Dawn to office manager, Joan to account “man,” Roger to professional (if not personal) impotency. I’m not sure where Pete’s headed, but it may just be the loony bin.

What was not a transition or out of place was Bert Cooper’s racism. I mean, keep in mind that if Cooper is as old as Robert Morse, the man was born in 1886 during the Cleveland administration. The first Cleveland administration!

I do believe Joan or another partner should have stepped in during the “rearranging” for the sake of enlightening Mr. Cooper and positioning SC&P for the new reality of 1969 and the decade to come, but I suspect that little speck of discrimination was simply a plot concession to move Joan around the chessboard toward the ever-approaching endgame.

Kevin nailed it with the Sally/Don stuff. The scenes with Sally and Don felt earned and genuine. The showstopper “I love you” scene was a fitting and surprisingly touching end to their road trip.

I’m skeptical, though, that Don is any further along on his road to redemption. Let’s remember that, for a man seeking forgiveness and change, Don drank A LOT in this episode. Note the marking of the liquor bottle and then the lunch with Dave. Don is still putting them back and I fear that he isn’t on the road to recovery as much as the gooey stuff with Sally would have us believe and hope.

This was one of those great slow burn episodes that Mad Men is both loved and hated for. Here it works. If you think about it, there’s a lot going on in this episode:

Roger (nice to see you outside of a hotel room) is slowly losing to Jim whatever decision power he has left. You can tell he is feeling less and less valuable in every aspect of his life.

The same can’t be said for Joan, who is movin’ on up to the office upstairs reserved for an “Accounts Man.” This, for me, was just as satisfying as Sally’s “I love you” scene. Joan deserves this, regardless of what a bitter Roger thinks.

Dawn and Shirley, perhaps the only two African American employees at SC&P, did more to highlight the racial strife of 1969 in this one episode than in any Mad Men I can remember. Their break room routine — where they called each other by the other’s name — humorously and yet sadly pointed out that no one in the office sees a difference between them.

And can we agree that Lou Avery is the worst? I’ll give him credit that it wasn’t his job to explain Don’s absence to Sally, but still, this guy could not be more condescending, sexist, or racist if he tried. Speaking of racist, it may have been an unfortunately common sentiment at the time, but Bertram Cooper’s order to remove Dawn from the front desk actually caused me to wince at the screen. I wonder if they purposely picked one of the firm’s more pleasant partners to make that stinging remark?

I thought the episode flowed well. The funny scenes with the conference call seemed to fit nicely between the heavier scenes, a lot of which dealt with the show’s regular, weightier themes.

It remains to be seen where Don moves next in all of this. We know now that Don has eyes and ears inside of the office, and if you add this to Freddy, who is his mouth, he’s got an entire head in the office at SC&P. I’m still not sure, though, where it gets him. The office seems to be moving along just fine in his absence.

As for Don’s home life, we’re left to wonder. When asked by Sally if he still loves Megan, Don gave one of those “of course” answers that felt patently untrue. Sure, he’s bonding now with his daughter, but will it last? It’s Mad Men, so probably not.

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.

The relationship between Don and Sally Draper has been adversarial for almost the entire run of the show. Don’s mistakes always seem to be revealed to Sally before anyone else, and she, understandably, never handles them well. The second episode of Mad Men’s final season continues the momentum of the season’s first by showing how Don is finally growing into a man more accepting of his flaws.

Don is still addicted to lying. Megan and others are completely unaware that Don is on forced leave. However, Sally is finally making a dent in Don’s heart and becoming the conscience that he’s sorely been missing. Last week’s decision by Don not to sleep with Neve Campbell now makes more sense after being reminded of Sally’s scarring vision of her father and his mistress.

It appears as though Don is finally learning from his mistakes. He decides against lying to Sally as he would in the past, instead telling his daughter the truth and letting her react appropriately. This is no longer the Don Draper who would degrade people into submission — a role which Peggy Olson appears to be moving into — but a man who realizes his mistakes and is looking to fix them.

This leads to the simplest, yet most incredible scene of the episode. When saying good bye to her father, Sally tells Don that she loves him. It’s surprising how jarring this moment is, considering it is just a teenage girl saying this to her dad, but then we remember all of the times when Sally’s hatred of her father was very evident. Don’s reaction mirrors that which he had last season with Bobby, in which he makes his father so proud that Don is unable to keep himself from crying. It’s a moment in which we realize that Don is finally coming to terms with his role as a father and the unbelievable love he has for them.

Whereas early seasons show Don Draper as a man going through the motions, constantly remembering his own childhood, the final season of Mad Men shows a man who is finally happy with the people in his life, even if he’s embarrassed by his professional mistakes.