SPOILERS FOR EVERYTHING THAT HAS AIRED TO DATE
The metaphor-rich seventh episode of the season begins with three striking images:
1. Peggy waking up naked in a hotel bed next to a man.
2. Betty lying prone on a sofa.
3. Don regaining consciousness on the floor, with his face beaten and bloody.
That last one really gave me a start, and then we’re immediately jolted into a flashback, with Don meticulously getting ready for work, giving Betty superfluous, flippant decorating advice to placate her. “Seven Twenty Three” — the meaning of which doesn’t become clear until one of the final shots of the episode, though it’s also a type of mortgage — is primarily about these three characters and the physical manifestations of what happens to them emotionally through the course of ninety-six hours or so, a weekend which features that most symbolic of celestial events: an eclipse.
It all revolves around Don and Conrad Hilton. Hilton shows up unannounced at Sterling-Cooper and offers Don the advertising for his New York operations. This earns him a round of applause from the troops, and a hearty congratulations from the brass. Unfortunately Hilton’s lawyers have a problem with the arrangement: Don isn’t under contract with Sterling-Cooper. Don is handed a contract and asked to go over it with his lawyer, but Don hesitates. His lack of a contract, after all, is how he was able to outmaneuver Duck at the end of last season. But now the top dogs are wondering why Don should get to play by a different set of rules. Don agrees to take the contract home over the weekend.
Betty has apparently joined the Junior League, and has been asked to use her brief acquaintance with Rockefeller aide Henry Francis to try to stop the construction of a water tank near the local reservoir. “Real estate,” says fellow member Francinse, “That’s scary.” Henry, you may recall, was the strange man at Roger’s party who put his hand on Betty’s pregnant abdomen. Both Henry and Betty show up for their meeting alone, and after making vague promises to do what he can, escorts Betty outside where she stares directly into the eclipse! Henry quickly and heroically shields her eyes lest she be blinded, then points out a “fainting couch” at the local Wentworth’s, explaining how Victorian ladies frequently needed to lie down. “That’s what you need,” he says.
Meanwhile, Peggy receives an expensive scarf from Duck, who is still trying to court her and Pete. Pete demands that she send the scarf back, but Peggy isn’t sure. Pete explains that Duck is just trying to use them to get back at Don. Peggy calls Duck and tells him she is going to return the scarf, but he sees through her reluctance and asks her to return the scarf in person.
At this point, everything blows up.
Don’s experience is the most dramatic, of course. He gets beaten up by Ms. Farrell for being a philanderer, which he denies (plausibly since he hasn’t actually propositioned her). He gets beaten up by Betty for not telling her about the contract. “It doesn’t concern you,” he says. “They want me, and they can’t have me.” “Why would I think that has anything to do with me,” is Betty’s icy reply. He gets beaten up by a hallucination of his dead father, who derides him for having a career where he doesn’t actually make anything. Then he gets literally beaten up by a hitchhiking draft dodger and his fiancee. The pair slip him two phenobarbital — which he takes willingly — knock him on the back of the head, and rob him. They’re nice enough to leave him his car. Finally he is beaten up by Bert Cooper, who blackmails him into signing the contract. “Would you say that I know something about you, Don?” he says. “After all, when it comes down to it, who’s really signing this contract anyway?” Don, black eyes and bandaged nose, signs the contract a broken man. The date: 7/23/63.
It’s also worth noting, incidentally, that the episode begins and ends with separate, powerful men both seated at Don’s desk. He has kind of made a deal with the devil. He has subjugated himself. He also seems more than willing to take any drug he’s ever offered, but that’s another matter.
Peggy, on the other hand, gets screwed. She’s already been screwed out of a well-deserved raise because of Lane Pryce’s penny-pinching, and now she’s screwed out of being on the team for the Hilton account because she asks Don when he’s in a bad mood. It’s a great scene, so I’ll quote it verbatim:
PEGGY: I’m sorry. I was excited. And I heard there was an amazing assignment –
DON: And you thought you’d come in here and ask for it because I never say no.
PEGGY: You say no all the time.
DON: What do I have to do for you, Peggy? Tell me. You were my secretary! And now you have an office and a job that a lot of full grown men would kill for. Every time I turn around, you’ve got your hand in my pocket. You want a raise. You want this account. Put your nose down and pay attention to your work, because there is not one thing that you’ve done here that I couldn’t live without.
PEGGY: I am … I am sorry, Don.
DON: You’re good. Get better. Stop asking for things
Witness the emphasis Don places on “full grown” men, as if Peggy’s not only guilty of being female, but also a child. It’s worth noting that Pete didn’t get this kind of treatment when he asked for a spot on the account. So Peggy takes the scarf back to Duck, tells him she doesn’t want a job, then proceeds to jump into bed with him. It’s an icky scene, capped off by the alcoholic Duck grunting, “I love the taste of whiskey on your breath.” And yet when morning comes, Peggy hardly seems horrified with what she’s done. In fact, it looks like she’s fully yprepared to do it all over again, but there’s no indication that she’s leaving Sterling-Cooper. Is Duck playing the role of surrogate Don to Peggy not as a boss but as a lover? How exactly does she feel about Don anyway?
Betty, meanwhile, is overwhelmed by interior design choices, overwhelmed by screaming children who can’t figure out when to hang up the phone, overwhelmed by a handsome man who might be interested in her, and overwhelmed by a husband that won’t share anything about himself or his work. We’ve seen all season that Betty wants to live a life of privilege and free of responsibility, so the fantasy of being a wealthy Victorian woman reclining on a “fainting couch” must appeal to her very much.
So what does it mean to stare into an eclipse, or, if you prefer, be told that you shouldn’t stare at an eclipse? Carlton has one of the funniest lines of the episode in asking Don why it matters: “I stare at the sun every day.” But from a symbolic standpoint, are our characters blind because they’ve stared for too long (the way everyone gapes at Hilton when he’s in the office), or are they blind because they’re afraid to look at all (Pete not even considering Duck’s offer)? I haven’t sorted all of that out yet. Also Don and Roger walk into the office at the start of the episode with everything seeming to be fine between them, but Don finishes the episode by demanding that Bert keep Roger away from him. So file that under “appearances can be deceiving”.
This was a very good episode with wonderful thematic depth and strong performances, especially the light touch Robert Morse gives his climactic scene with Jon Hamm in Don’s office. Morse also has the funniest line of the night, speaking of Conrad Hilton: “I met him once. He’s a bit of an eccentric, isn’t he?” The symbolism may be a little heavy-handed for some tastes, but I appreciated it.
Rating: 
There goes my theory about Don leaving Sterling-Cooper to open his own firm.
