Mad Men- Mystery Date

What Happened- Megan and Don run into Andrea, a woman Don once slept with. Megan is severely annoyed by this and makes it known. Don is sick, so he goes home. Andrea shows up at his apartment and Don sends her away. Later, he has a dream/hallucination where Andrea comes back, they have sex, and Don ends up strangling Andrea to death. He wakes up to Megan smiling and bringing him food.

Several student nurses in Chicago were raped and murdered, and Joyce comes to work with exclusive crime scene photos. Everyone is very interested, except for Michael (the Jewish new hire), who is disgusted. Sally reads about the massacre in the news and gets scared. Sally and Henry take a road trip, leaving Sally home with Pauline, Henry’s mother. Pauline gives Sally extra information about the killings and then gives her half a sleeping pill so she won’t be up all night, frightened.

Greg comes home from war and meets “his son.” He also has plenty of sex with Joan until Joan finds out that Greg is only staying for ten days. Greg volunteered for another year as a military doctor. Joan tells Greg to leave and never come back. She tells him that she is glad the military makes him feel like a man, because she is stick of trying to make him feel that way. She tells him that he is not a good man and wasn’t even before they were married. This is a clear reference to the rape. Greg leaves.

Roger forgets to get Michael on a campaign for Mohawk and tries to fix it by paying Peggy to work up a campaign. Peggy ends up getting $400 out of him. When working late, Peggy finds Dawn (the new black secretary) sleeping in the office because she’s afraid to go back to Harlem due to outside chaos. Peggy invites Dawn to stay the night with her. Peggy gets drunk and confesses that she doesn’t know if she really has the talent to be a good copywriter. Peggy ruins the budding friendship by momentarily hesitating to leave her purse alone with Dawn. Peggy wakes up to find a thank you note from Dawn, but Dawn is gone.

Comments- Alrighty. Back to the adventures of America’s classiest scumbag. What’s this we saw? Wait, what? Whoa. Don didn’t cheat. How is he still Don if he doesn’t cheat on his woman?!! Does Don love Megan more than he did Betty? Is he scared of Megan? Is it just that Megan is hotter than Andrea? Is he still in the honeymoon phase of marriage and uninterested in cheating? We doubt that last one is the case, since he hallucinated sleeping with Andrea. We loved Megan from the last two weeks, but now we love her even more. Megan doesn’t seem like the type of woman who will take cheating lying down. She’s got some oomph and gumption, and not in a passive aggressive way.

Pauline is fairly awful, but she’s entertaining. We like that the show still gives Sally storylines and things to do. We think she’s a strong character. We love Michael for being disgusted at the victims’ pictures and his co-workers’ voyeuristic, sick reactions. We need another good person in the office besides Peggy. The best character of the night is obviously Joan. The show FINALLY addressed the rape by having Joan stand up to Greg, confront him about it, and end their relationship. Her words were right-on and if anyone is strong enough to be a single mom in the 60s and rock it, it’s Joan. It also frees Joan up to return to work and nab a new, better man. The end of this marriage is the best thing ever. We are glad we watched this episode just for that scene.

This episode was a little slow but nicely subtle. Fans of the show know that they have to wait a while before a secretary dies at her desk, secrets are found out, or feet are overrun by lawn mowers. Overall though, this show is worth the wait and slog through quieter episodes like this one.

Episode grade: B-