Season 6 Episode 5: The Flood

"We must constantly build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear."

- From his sermon, "Antidotes for Fear" published in his book "Strength to Love" by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., 1963

The flood is the metaphor in this episode for the unleashing of pent up racial tensions following the assassination of Dr Martin Luther King on April 4, 1968. Riots broke out in multiple cities with Washington, D.C., the worst. The National Guard was finally called in to quell the violence there.

It also about the "flood" of emotions for many of the characters, but primarily, the two major ones, Peggy and Don, who are contrasting mirrors. When Dr. King is killed, emotions spill out but not all these can be attributable to him. The emotions are complex, diverse and human. It can be summed up when Abe sits at his typewriter and says "its an emotional story."

The episode opens with Peggy looking out of a high rise apartment that she is considering to buy. She is coming "up" in the world and this is reflected by her now seeing sunshine and blue sky. When we see Don, he has come "down" to the lobby level with Megan and talks to Dr. Rosen and Sylvia about their upcoming train trip to Washington DC.

This contrast between Peggy and Don is further shown when Peggy finds out that Abe in interested in having children with her and has visualized their future together. She is happy in her relationship and in her job. Don, though, is losing his grip becoming more depressed, drinking and smoking more.

Bobby rips the wallpaper because it is not properly aligned, it doesn't quite fit together. The allusion is to the American social fabric: that it has been "papered over" hiding the cracks and imperfections that has buried prejudice and racism underneath.

The tearing of the paper can also be seen as Bobby peeling back the emotions in the household. Betty asks "why are you trying to destroy this house?" For Bobby, Henry is now the father figure. Betty, his mother, is not who she once was: the sexy blond model / mother figure. Now she can't fit into her old dress and she is not a blond. She's not even sure who she is. Her smile fades when Henry says that he's thinking of running for Congress and he wants people to meet "the real you". She is self conscious of her looks and figure. In addition, Betty's annoyance when Don "forgets" to pick up the kids for his weekend outing, shows her lack of maternal instinct and her sole concern with herself (she asks him to come get them even though is danger with looting and the potential for rioting).

When Don takes Bobby to the movie theater, they watch a movie twice, which is Planet of the Apes (1968). The movie was based on a story by the French writer, Pierre Boulle, and reset to take place in the United States. The story illustrates and reverses the roles in contemporary race relations by creating a future where white people are hunted and enslaved by talking apes. Boulle took the racist stereotypes of the portrayal of dark skinned peoples as monkeys (or gorillas, apes, and chimpanzees) and turned the stereotype on it's head by making the apes the dominant power and culture. In the film, white people had become animals.

Pete is rejected by Trudie when he volunteers to come home and protect her. He is angry. When he talks to her, he is trying to say that he cares for her and wants to come home, but the King assassination remains the surface topic of conversation, and he can not really tell her how he feels. At work, he takes the anger out on Harry and accuses him of being a racist because he is concerned with money. When we last see Pete, he has ordered Chinese take out food. He is alone in his dark and depressingly small apartment which he use to think hip. When he tries to talk to the delivery person, the man does not speak English. We realize that Pete is completely alone, isolated and cut off from the rest of the world.

The flood as creation myth, destroys life and then recreates it. Peggy loses her apartment, but finds out that Abe loves her. Pete's epiphany is that he can't go back to his previous life of domesticity. Ginsburg's arranged date with Beverly* is broken up but they may see each other again. The social turmoil has made Henry to think of accepting the vacant Republican seat in Congress that he has been offered. Betty, is adrift in suburbia. And like Pete and Don, Megan is emotionally separated: she is ignored by Don, by the award ceremony and by her father.

Don is aware of his failure as a husband and father. During the Washington, D.C. riots, Don wonders about Sylvia. He doesn't wonder about his children or wife. Don's misplaced emotions makes him feel guilty and he takes to the bottle and cries to Megan who shows sympathy. Don tells her that he really didn't love his children and wonders if he inherited this from his father. But when Bobby shows empathy with the African American theater employee, he finally feels something. He says to Megan, "you feel a feeling that you were pretending to have and it feels like your heart is going to explode." This is brought home to Don and closes the episode, when Bobby tells Don that he's scared because he's afraid someone will shoot Henry, his "new" father. Don tells him "he's not that important". When Bobby falls asleep, Don goes outside to smoke, alone in the dark city night. Bobby feels for Henry what Don feels for Bobby: strong familial commitment. In this case though, Don is not the recipient. 

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Misc notes:

Water references: the real estate agent: "you can smell the ocean", "I'll go flush the toilet"; Gingberg's father talking about the Genesis flood and lining up "two by two".

Animal references: Dr Rosen to Don: "you two going to the (race) track?". Pete calls Harry "a pig". Roger tells Randall to "go back to your cage". Randall later says that "all the animals are crying". In between the showing of the movie, Don reads "The Ape" newspaper with a headline that says, "Big Roundup of Human Beasts".**

* Is it a coincidence that she attends "Hunter" College and then we hear that Dr King is shot in the face?

** Was this a faux newspaper that they gave to the audience as part of the promotion for the film or a Mad Men prop?

Postscript: in a conversation with Gil Zeimer www.zeimer.com over the weekend, he mentioned something that I hadn't noticed before: all the ad campaigns that SCDP has done, does not have the name or logo of the products in them. As I thought about this later, I wondered if it had to do with getting approval from the company (like Heinz) to use their name and trademark. By not including the trademarked material, they could write the episode without prior permission and script approval thus avoiding losing creative control. It seems that they may have come up with a creative and elegant solution to a legal issue.

Season 6 Episode 4: To Have and To Hold

"…to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part, according to God's holy ordinance; and thereto I plight thee my troth" - Book of Common Prayer, 1549.

Relationships, friendships, partnerships and marriages are frayed and coming apart in this episode. War is in the background on a macro basis and creeping into social conversations (dinner with Mel and Arlene) as well as the advertising world (Dow Chemical, maker of Napalm, is protested against by Columbia students, resulting in Dow sponsoring Broadway Joe on television, a variety show with Joe Namath and friends). The glass ceiling for women and minorities is also touched on (Kate's inability to go any higher in Spokane and Dawn's not seeing any other African American faces except the shoe shine man. Joan's realization that she has no real power (firing Scarlett but she is over ruled by Harry).

Kate, from Spokane and a top earner for Mary Kay Cosmetics, is a friend of Joan's and visiting New York for a job interview with Avon. When we first see her she is applying rouge to Gail's cheeks. It is the color of "rust" (decay) and Kate is trying to cosmetically cover up the look of age. The Broadway Joe variety show is also a cosmetic gloss for Dow Chemical: to make them look good in the public eye and to forget that Dow makes a chemical warfare agent that is destructive to vegetation, animal and human life.

Women's roles in business is also looked at: when Joan tells Kate that after 15 years "they treat me like a secretary", Kate responds "I don't care how they make you feel, it's right there for you for the taking." When Joan gives Dawn the keys to the supply room and the time clock, Dawn says, "I don't care if everybody hates me here, as long as you don't." Joan has the respect of women, but not of men. 

There are also marriage references and the dependence on men: Timmy, from Heinz, when he is leaving Pete's apartment, removes his wedding ring and says, "I don't need much of an excuse to come (visit) at midnight". Pete offering his apartment to Don for extra martial affairs, a reference to the 1960 film "The Apartment". Gail, when Kate is applying the rouge, "I need all the help that I can get" implying that she needs a man in her life to be complete.  Don cheating on Megan; Sylvia cheating on Arnie. Dawn is also the Maid of Honor for Nikki, and is asked about bridal magazines or events each time they meet. Dawn also complains how she's not meeting any eligible men and when Nikki suggests going to church, Dawn says she doesn't want to compete against the "harlots" there. An indirect reference to Sylvia and her faith that ends the show?

Women's rise to power in the series has been mostly by marriage or by sex or by physical appearances: Betty, Joan (sleeping her way to the top), Megan (from secretary to Don's wife), Jane Sterling (also a secretary at Sterling Cooper to corporate wife), even Gail, when Kate shows here the diamond bracelet watch she received from Mary Kay, says, "what did you have to do to earn this?". The SCDP partnership is also under stress with Harry's demand to be partner saying that he "earned" it, implying that Joan didn't by sleeping with a client and saving the company. She sacrificed her dignity for the sake of financial gain.

Peggy has been the only one who has not advanced her career by her sexuality: it has been by brains and creativity. But it was a shock to Don to see her outside the hotel room door after Don and his team pitched Project K (k for ketchup). He hears her speak his own words "if you don't like what they say, change the conversation." Don and Stan's friendship with Peggy has now been changed from friend / mentor to ruthless competitor.

Mel and Arlene's open marriage (when he propositions Megan and Don, he calls it a "chemistry experiment") is a direct assault on the traditional concept of marriage by separating love and lust. It is echoed in the cab when Kate and Joan are asked by the manager of the novelty themed soda shop, to find out which is the best kisser. Joan says she doesn't want to play that game. 

The color, scarlet, has historically represented adultery. Harry's secretary is called Scarletl. Harry brings up Joan's rise to partner alluding to her sleeping with Raymond to land the Jaguar account. When Megan finishes her bedroom scene with the actor "Rod" (I don't have to point out the significance of this name, do I?) she drapes a scarlet colored robe and goes to her dressing room. She has now become the adulteress in Don's eyes. This scarlet symbol hearkens back in literature to Hawthorne's 1850 novel "The Scarlet Letter" and Betty Davis's dress in the 1938 film "Jezebel". Don accuses her of being a whore, asks her if she washes her mouth out after (kissing) and tells her to go sleep with Mel and Arlene.

The center of the episode, is all about Megan or references to her French background: when we see her at the TV studio, she is wearing a French maid costume and reading, Emmanuelle (1967), a soft core pornography novel about a sexually liberated young woman. Above her on the wall are etchings of French dancers by Toulouse-Lautrec; a French bottle of wine is on the table at the restaurant when they have dinner with Mel and Arlene; Harry tells Scarlet to get a bottle of champagne to celebrate the Broadway Joe sale; Scarlett buys a French scarf for Clara as a birthday present; the French language song "Bonnie and Clyde" by Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot is playing at the nightclub that Kate and Joan go to. The references are to remind us of Megan. Her simulated adultery is tame and artificial yet magnifies Don's actions when juxtaposed to his flagrant acts of adultery. His anger rings hollow because we know he is duplicitous. What's good for the gander is not good for the goose. He proposed to Megan on a whim when she was taking care of his children. But now that there are no children around, he doesn't know how to deal with her.

Sylvia has left a penny under the mat as a signal to Don that her husband is gone. Is he the "bad penny" that always turns up? A "bad penny" is a counterfeit coin, like Don. When he gives her the penny, there is a closeup of it changing hands, a visual reference for payment for sex.

Don tells Sylvia to take off her cross before sex. She says, "Why, does it mean something to you?" "No," he replies, "it means something to you." Don, the atheist with a broken moral compass is lost. Lost among the changing attitudes of the times and in his own spin of lies.

Season 6 Episode 3 The Collaborators

"No lover, if he be of good faith, and sincere, will deny he would prefer to see his mistress dead than unfaithful." - Marquis De Sade

The reference to Munich, is the key to this episode, aptly named, The Collaborators. When Pete asks, "what's Munich?" Roger explains that "we gave the Germans whatever they wanted, and they just wanted more." * The collaborators here are: Trudy, Sylvia, Joan, Peggy, and SCDP when the partners (save Don) pimped Joan to Raymond for the Jaguar account. Germany takes the human form of Don, Pete, Raymond, and Ted, Peggy's boss at her new firm. Each party needs the other in order to survive as it is a symbiotic relationship, however damaged. Sometimes the result is rebellion (Trudy ending the relationship with Pete); or self destructive silence (Joan entering Don's office and pouring a glass of Beefeater gin (a symbol for England / Jaguar) and only saying, "they're here"). For Peggy, it is an uneasy alliance, where she can economically benefit but possibly destroy her friendship with Stan by going after the Heinz account.

On a macro level, we have in the background, the taking of the USS Pueblo ** crew and ship by the North Koreans in International waters. Also the Tet Offensive, a military campaign by the North Vietnamese against the US and South Korea forces during a ceasefire that was agreed to by both sides. These two events at the time were important in US history (in hindsight) and both were seen as violations of trust between international parties. There is also a mention of Jim Garrison, the DA from Louisiana, on a tv clip with Johnny Carson. Garrison believed that Lee Harvey Oswald was not the sole shooter of President Kennedy and that there was a conspiracy to murder the President. This belief shook the faith in the US Government by many of the populace at the time. ***

When we find out that Trudy has only played the innocent and naive wife and that she was quite aware of Pete's infidelities, we are shocked. We thought that Pete was getting away with it. So did Pete. And we realize how the appearance of a happy marriage was more important to her that a real marriage when she says "there's no way for me to escape; to be an object of pity while you get to do whatever you feel like". She has lived with his indiscretions without complaint, but now she is forced to confront the truth. Pete, too, realizes the illusion when he speaks to Bob Benson "it's all about what it looks like." Pete has now "donned" the public mantle of a philanderer. He and Don are now the same sad figures in terms of their relationships with women.

We should have seen Pete's fall coming: at the start of the episode, Pete offers to give Brenda tickets to the play, Hair, and she says, "all my forays into Manhattan have been a disaster." After they sleep together in his apartment, she emerges from the bathroom and says, "you're out of toilet paper." Her statement become real: the "s**t hits the fan when she comes over to his house beaten by her husband and Trudy finds out about the affair. Pete asks Bob Benson to go buy him some toilet paper. Bob agrees and becomes his new collaborator, replacing Trudy.

Trudy has been indispensable for Pete's career. She is the one who talked her father in helping Pete by moving his control of advertising of his company to SCDP. It will be interesting to see if she will now be part of his or the firms' downfall.

When Megan is talking to the maid and Sylvia enters, it is in the laundry room. This is where Megan starts to "air her dirty laundry". When she later confides to Sylvia upstairs about the miscarriage, it is not because she is a woman (although that is part of it) but it is because they are both Catholic. Megan says, "I knew what I wanted to do. I was so relieved that I didn't have to do anything." Here Megan is talking about having an abortion, but Sylvia doesn't agree with her. This is why Megan does not join them for dinner and tells Don, "I'll be better by the time you come back".

The unseen blood of the miscarriage, Brenda's bloody nose , the blood soaked rag. Even Peggy's feminine hygiene product, given to her as a prank, reminds us of sex, motherhood and birth.

When Don gives Sylvia money, it is as though he is paying for sex, and she seems to enjoy it. When Don has flashbacks of his mother, it is when they move into the brothel where his aunt lives with Mack, his new "uncle". Don (or rather his true name, Dick) stands in the hallway with his mother who is pregnant with his soon to be brother. Don looks with interest at one of the prostitutes. Later, when his is watching his mother through the peephole with Mack, the prostitute calls him a dirty little spy and says "you get your own room, that's how things work around her." Don's mother becomes a prostitute because she has no other option available to her to take care of her family. She "collaborates" with Mack. Don, due to his young age, is helpless to help. He is also attracted as he grows into his sexual self and is conflicted with the role that his mother has taken on: as mother and whore. It is this blend of motherhood, sex and money that swirls around Don.

* the agreement by the Western Powers was the tacit approval for Hitler to invade Czechoslovakia. 

** the crew was released in December 1968. The ship is still held to this day by the North Koreans.

*** Garrison's writings influenced the 1991, film JFK, by Oliver Stone.

Postscript: when Peggy has a meeting with her copy writers it is about the Clearasil account. In real life, Elizabeth Moss, who plays Peggy, starred in a Clearasil television ad when she was a young girl. Clearasil re-released the ad due to the shows success. It is still on today. Having Peggy talk about the Clearasil account, becomes an in house joke.

Season 6 Episode 1-2: The Doorway

As for me, the silence and the emptiness is so great that I look and do not see, listen and do not hear.

- Mother Teresa to the Rev. Michael Van Der Peet, September 1979 

I can not remember having seen a film or photoplay* that has more in common with James Joyce's novel Ulysses, than Matthew Weiner's season premiere of "The Doorway". Joyce used Homer's tale of the Odyssey to provide a structure for his novel of a wandering salesmen in Dublin, 1904. In a similar way, Mr. Weiner uses Dante's poem of the Inferno for the general structure set in New York and Hawaii, between Christmas and New Year's Eve, 1967. Joyce's Leopold Bloom, as well as Don Draper, are both advertising men. Both authors use sex, mythology, the human anatomy, religion and multiple levels of meaning to create a portrait of contemporary life and the human condition. 

This is a bleak portrayal of a world where the old gods have fallen (Hawaiian / Christian) and characters suffer a crisis of identity and faith as a result. What was shocking was the portrayal of Christmas. It was a Christmas without Christ, empty of religion with forlorn illuminated trees used as room decorations; where the performance of a ballet replaces attending church and the business of selling product is non stop. When was Christmas? Was it before or during the events we just saw? Did we miss it? Did anybody? It doesn't matter, it's just another day at the office. Roger complains to his psychiatrist about New Years day as a holiday**. And at his mother's funeral, what is missing is that there is no person of faith there, figuratively or literally. The upcoming Super Bowl spectacle is the next focus of attention for the masses. Peggy is to "introduce…earphones to a huge drunk male audience". When Peggy speaks on the phone to Ted's pastor, she stumbles over her family's religion as she explains that her mother was a Catholic and her father was a Lutheran. By implication, she is somewhere or nowhere in between. But with football, she and the pastor agree with each other.

The old gods have fallen: what has replaced them? Movie stars: Megan is recognized as an actress from her soap opera "To Have and to Hold" and is asked for her autograph. Betty dyes her hair black and her husband calls her Elizabeth Taylor. Astronauts: Pfc Dinkins asks Don if he is one when they are sitting at the bar. Surgeons: Christian Barnard, who pioneered the first heart transplant in South Africa, and by extension, Dr. Rosen, who saves Jonesy, the doorman, when he has a heart attack in the building lobby. Musicians: in Hawaii, a performer calls himself the Hawaiian Elvis; Roger calls Don, Don Ho (the Hawaiian singer). Sandy says she is too old at 15 to be a child musical prodigy and gives up her violin. These are the new idols and gods, the fascination with celebrity, the new religion.

The episode opens with a black screen and Megan yelling, "Oh, my god. Oh, my god". With a fade in to show the face of Dr. Rosen, providing CPR to Jonesy, the "doorman" (the door to the episode; the door to the underworld). This beginning is the first brush with death that permeates this story. Other death references: Sandy's mother, Betty's mother, Bobby liking Sandy's violin case because it looks like a little coffin. The best man passed out at the bar at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel "you are either dead or you got great balance"; PFC Dinkins monologue of what a 50 caliber machine gun could do to a water buffalo; Betty getting a ticket and told by the police officer that he doesn't want to shovel her off the road; Jonesy's heart attack; American soldiers cutting the ears off Viet Cong soldiers; Burt Petersen, widower; the picture of President Kennedy in Peggy's apartment; Roger references the movie "From Here to Eternity" (set in Hawaii; the scene he mentions is where Prewitt kills Judson with a switchblade); Roger's mother's funeral; Roger proclaiming that his mother's funeral is his; Don's discussion of Hawaiian legend where the human soul leaves the body; the death of Georgio the shoe shine man; the reference to James Mason committing suicide in the movie "A Star is Born"; Don's Royal Hawaiian campaign that everyone but Don thinks it looks like a man committed suicide.

In Dante's Inferno, Dante himself journeys through the nine circles of hell which are: limbo, lust, gluttony, greed, anger, heresy, violence, fraud, and treachery. Mr. Weiner illustrates them all. Here are just a few: Hawaii becomes limbo, where the air and water temperature are the same, Don's watch stops working, and in a photograph, Don and Megan float upside down (when slides are shown of them on vacation). Lust is shown with Megan and Don having sex under the influence of marijuana; Betty's offer of helping her husband rape the 15 year old Sandy; Stan Rizzo lusting after Megan in a bikini and mental fantasy pictures of Joan in his head. Gluttony: Megan wanting more dialog lines from her show; Betty, Betty's mother-in-law, and Sally eating during the performance of the Nutcracker; the creative team smoking marijuana at work; the Hawaiian luau; Don drinking to excess and vomiting. Greed: Dr. Rosen accepting a camera; Don accepting a vacation in Hawaii; Roger accepting food from Bob Benson; Jane Sterling accepting a ring from Roger's mother; the copy writers accepting food from Peggy. Anger: Betty's anger at Henry Francis for sexually fantasizing about Sandy; Roger's anger at his mother's funeral. Heresy: Margaret's rejection of the baptismal water from the river Jordan; the young hippie squatters next to St. Mark's church and their rejection of society. Violence: the suggested rape of Sandy; Pfc Dinkins "I could paint this place red"; the cut off ears of the Viet Cong; Betty tearing her coat on a door; the headline in the paper when Don is about to return back to his apartment: World bids Adieu to a Violent Year. Treachery: when we find Don in bed with Sylvia, Dr. Rosen's wife.

What are we to think of some of the connections that the writer raises, such as the 50 caliber machine gun, Model M2 and the Leica rangefinder camera M2? Is it a coincidence? Or is it that in photography you metaphorically shoot someone? Or is it more subtle, such as the connection of a gun and German engineering, using products to remind us of another war (WW2)? What do we think when Don gave Dr. Rosen***, a German camera as a gift? Should Dr. Rosen be repulsed, since many Jews boycotted (and still boycott) German made products because of the Holocaust? When Dr. Rosen visits Don to get the camera, he says to the effect, that he had hoped that Don wasn't intelligent as well as being handsome. When we find out that Don is sleeping with Dr. Rosen's wife, was Dr. Rosen aware of the affair? Did he willingly accept the gift from Don as payment or tribute for his wife?

Dr. Rosen is an interesting character. He says that it is an "honor and a privilege" to heal people, yet he treats Jonesy with disdain and disrespect after saving him. Dr. Rosen's character is mouthing words that he does not feel or believe. Dr. Rosen's emotional detachment "I've never had a problem with life and death" is symbolized in his bedroom where, when we view Don and Sylvia in bed, there is a physician's model of a heart mounted on display as though it was a shish kabob. 

Sandy is the most tragic character: her mother is recently deceased and she is not accepted (into Juilliard) because she is not good enough. What does it mean, if anything, that she plays a Chopin composition for piano but on a violin? Is it to show us that her playing is not quite right? Not quite good enough? And, where is the father? How can she just run away and no one notice her absence but Betty? Is the missing father a symbol for a missing God? And why doesn't Betty tell anyone, even the police, that Sandy has run away? How can Betty go home, lie to her husband and later, change the color of her hair as though nothing has happened?

Indifference, to me, is the epitome of evil. 

- Elie Wiesel

At the Royal Hawaiian, Don gets up in the middle of the night and goes downstairs to the bar. The painting behind the bar shows a Hawaiian ruler, Kamehameha, sitting on a throne with adoring women dancers and other societal figures, including a child at his knee. During the photo shoot for the partners, Pete asks Don if was treated like Kamehameha. In the lower right hand corner of the painting is a tiki figure of Milu, the Hawaiian god of the underworld. 

Throughout this episode, we have many scenes of Don sleeping. Sleep is, according to Hawaiian mythology, when the soul can leave and return to the body. When Don is being photographed and is told to "be yourself" he looks puzzled because he doesn't know how to act as he doesn't know who he is. When he asks Jonesy what it's like to die, he asks if it's like Hawaii. Don, like the others, believes in a heaven, but not in a God who created it. Don's new fear is that he will become the James Mason character in A Star is Born, where the actress / spouse usurps the status of the male partner. Don's fantasy way out is "the jumping off point", where you swim out to sea so far, you can't swim back.

Motherhood gets bruised too: Sandy's mother dies; same with Roger's mother, but Roger's mother suffered the indignity of not being loved back. Sally disdainfully calls her mother by her first name. Betty, who expressed motherly concern for Sandy, abandons her. When asked about his mother, who was a prostitute, Don does not answer, but throws up soon after. Margaret, Roger's daughter, tells Roger with a small laugh, that her son came home from school with a bloody nose and couldn't remember how it happened, as if the child was forgetful. Peggy, who gave away her baby, makes the copy writers work on New Years Eve, but doesn't remember to feed them or to tell them to go home. She doesn't realize that she's a mother figure to them and responsible for their welfare. 

Food, the heart, the stomach, the bowels and private parts are well represented here: Sandy says that her mother would get a stomach ache from wearing a girdle to make herself look good for her father. Peggy and Abe come in from a restaurant and Abe runs to bathroom due to food poisoning. The goulash that Betty helps make with the young hippies looks like vomit. Don vomits at the funeral and later claims it's due to a stomach bug. The character Prewitt in "From Here to Eternity" suffers a serious wound to the stomach in a knife fight. A man is seen urinating into a pail. A regional store manager is caught in the men's restroom at Gimbels department store seeking a gay tryst. Sally complains that Sandy thinks she's older because she can use a tampon. "Love is in the Air" with Dow Chemical Oven Cleaner and the heart is shown to be replaceable. Don mentions that love is 10,000 volts. But, he doesn't say if it's 10,000 volts for the married man with his wife or the single sailor with a prostitute. Megan asks Don if he minds that she will play a "lying, cheating, whore". "As long as you don't push me down the stairs" he answers. 

God is dead. Long live Madison Avenue.

* the name of a magazine from early 20th c. to describe the plots and characters of films

** the term "holiday" is a contraction of the words, holy day

 *** in the elevator, Don says to Dr. Rosen, "I guess I can't wish you a Merry Christmas." He replies, "No, but you can to Sylvia."