I don’t think it’s possible to watch Ken Cosgrove burst into the office on a riding lawnmower without knowing that sooner or later, the lawnmower is going to cause havoc. And naturally that’s exactly what happens in the third act of “Guy Walks into an Advertising Agency”, though I have to admit, I never expected it to cut someone’s foot off.

This was the episode where the masterplot of the season really started to take shape. This is going to be a season about expectations: dreaming big, counting your chickens, taking chances, the grass is always greener, and be careful what you wish for. It will be a season about the loss of Camelot, and in larger terms the loss of one’s identity. Much of that was on display in this episode, right from the symbolic announcement that the Fourth of July has been canceled.

Let’s start with Roger, who has been left out in the cold since selling the company to the Brits (and left off the new organizational chart). What does he even do anymore? It’s not clear. But upon hearing that their British overlords are coming to check up on them, Bert sends Roger and Don to his barber for a shave. There’s something kind of emasculating about having another man remove one’s facial hair, but it doesn’t compare with Roger getting a manicure (which he seems to enjoy). The question for Roger is whether or not he can be satisfied just being rich without being relevant.

Lane, on the other hand, is defined more by his skills than his humanity. He’s done such a great job getting Sterling-Cooper’s books in order that the bosses are sending him to the office in Bombay, which he is encouraged to think of as a “reward and a challenge”. “I feel like I’ve just attended my own funeral,” he tells Don later. “And I didn’t like the eulogy.” It’s a bitter comeuppance for Lane, who sparred with Don over the price of the little things that make workers happy only to be treated the same way by his superiors.

Joan has come to be defined in two ways: as the efficient timekeeper of the Sterling-Cooper offices and as the wife of a successful doctor. Now it turns out her husband isn’t remotely successful, and she’s quit her job at Sterling-Cooper in anticipation of her husband’s never-received promotion. The scene between Joan and Greg after he comes home drunk is the high point of the episode. The performances in that scene are fantastic, and felt as real as anything on television this past year. It’s certainly hard to feel sorry for Greg — I can’t get past the fact that he’s a rapist — but it’s always good to see Joan out of the office. Christina Hendricks does a marvelous job keeping Joan in control even when she appears to be losing control.

And of course if Sally is to be believed, then Baby Gene’s identity is in question too. Sally — for reasons that seem hard to swallow — believes her baby brother is actually the reincarnated spirit of her recently deceased grandfather!

Only Bert and Don seem to be at peace with the constant string of unexpected developments. Bert, who sums up the turmoil at Sterling-Cooper by stating flatly, “We took their money. Now we have to do what they say,” seems as though he’d be more than content to spend the rest of his days shoeless in his office looking at Japanese art. And though Don allows himself to dream of a life in London, he eventually comes back to earth and explains his reserve to Conrad Hilton (aka “Connie”) by citing a metaphor about a hungry snake that suffocates on its food. Don wants the food, but he’s smart enough not to ask for too much at once. Contrast that with Peggy, who wants not only the “man’s job” but also the “man’s pay” to go with it. Contrast that with the civil rights battles about to heat up. Don wants the good stuff, but he’s ultimately passive. He’ll let things happen to him.

He thrives on that. Remember that Don is a man who is contemptuous of familiarity. That’s why he’s always cheating on his wife. That’s why he sneaks off to Palm Springs with a complete stranger. And he sums up this philosophy when talking to Sally about Baby Gene: “We don’t know who he is yet or who he’s going to be. And that is a wonderful thing.” Don would like to think that we don’t know who he is going to be a year or month or day from this time. And maybe we don’t. Don craves a blank canvas.

Ultimately that desire for “more” seems to be at the heart of this season. Peggy wants more money. Pete wants more responsibility (or respect). Don wants more surprises. Joan wants more life as a happy housewife. And next to this we see a desire to return to the way things used to be: Roger wants to be in charge again. Betty wants a life free of the duties of adulthood. Guy Mackendrick wants his foot back (presumably). Not everyone is troubled, of course. Harry, for example, is taking on more and more prominence at the agency, and John Hooker has just become the new office manager now that Joan is gone. But on the whole, it’s not a satisfied lot.

Speaking of Guy, I enjoyed him. He seemed phony for sure, but also seemed like a genuinely decent fellow underneath. A little too big for his britches perhaps. I must say that the joke about Guy never playing golf again struck me as too obvious by half. Where was the rimshot? The rest of the episode, however, killed. From Peggy’s greeting to the British delegation (“I was just writing copy.”), to the bosses telling Lane that his best attribute is that he always does as he’s told, to the janitor squeegeeing Guy’s blood off the office window, this was a hilarious episode from beginning to end.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

I don’t find it at all surprising that a budding feminist like Sally wouldn’t want a Barbie. Nor is it surprising that she’d scream when the Barbie mysteriously reappeared. It might as well be Gloria Steinem’s nightmare.

Rarely has there been a more offensive image on television than that of Roger Sterling, black shoe polish smeared across his face, singing to his barely legal bride about how difficult it is to be a slave on a Kentucky plantation. He is, at best, painfully out of touch with the times he is living in, rapidly disintegrating into a fossil before our very eyes. When Don walks away from Roger’s performance in disgust, it’s unclear whether he is offended by the overt racism or the lack of dignity, but it hardly matters. If Roger and the attendees of the Sterlings’ soiree think this kind of thing is entertaining in 1963, how can Sterling-Cooper compete as an advertising firm?

This third episode of the season is very much about home, or the pale imitations of it that we content ourselves with. And the Sterlings try to find their home at a country club, surrounded by friends. Or, barring that, coworkers and their spouses. But the only people who actually seem at home among the party guests are Pete and Trudy, who break out an intricately choreographed Charleston routine. It is the most genuinely happy Pete Campbell has ever looked in his life. Everyone else mills about uncomfortably and with nothing to talk about other than work. Jane gets plastered and grabs Don by the belt, but not before opening old wounds by saying how happy she is that Don and Betty have reconciled. And poor Roger laments that his big mistake must have been letting everyone see him happy. “No one thinks you’re happy,” says Don. “They think you’re foolish.”

Don, for his part, finds the country club bar where he meets an older gentleman named Connie (the ever-present Chelcie Ross) who is at the club for a wedding, and the two talk about not belonging. Connie, from New Mexico before it was a state, explains that even though he’s just as wealthy and Republican as everyone else in the country club, he still feels like he has the head of a jackass. “It’s different on the inside,” he says while Don fixes their cocktails.

Paul, Smitty, and Peggy don’t get to attend the party because they have to spend their Saturday in the office trying to come up with scenarios for drinking Bacardi rum. Peggy has a new, middle-aged secretary named Olive who also comes in on Saturday, since Peggy has to be there. Paul calls on Jeffrey, an old college choir buddy, to set them up with some inspirational marijuana, and Peggy, over Olive’s objections, joins them. The four of them smoke up in Paul’s office while Olive sits at her desk all day and frets. It turns out stoned copywriters aren’t really all that creative after all, and they mostly just lay around the office until Jeffrey and Paul start insulting each other, with Jeffrey landing a devastating blow impugning Paul’s singing voice. Peggy eventually comes up with an idea and tells the guys to go home.

But of course, they kind of already are home. No one expected to get anything done (except for Peggy, although she spent the morning napping on her desk). There’s no logical reason for them to stay — especially Olive. And by filling the office with their reefer smoke, they essentially turn the room into their home. But the payoff for this whole scene comes once Peggy takes her inspiration and leaves. When she returns to her office, Olive scolds her. “You think I don’t know what you’ve been doing in there?” she says. “You’re not thinking about your future.” And Peggy responds with a little speech that packs a whallop even if it is a bit on the nose:

The thing is, I have a job. I have my own office with my name on the door. And I have a secretary. That’s you. And I am not scared of any of this. But you’re scared. Oh my God, you’re scared. Don’t worry about me. I am going to get to do everything you want for me. I’m going to be fine, Olive. I really am.

In those few sentences, Peggy not only responds to the over-dedicated fans of the show who might be concerned that Peggy is “going down a bad path”, but also to the women of her mother’s generation — those who are afraid of what will happen if women like Peggy fail and are afraid of what will happen if women like Peggy succeed.

In fact, Olive could easily be a figment of Peggy’s imagination, couldn’t she? Where did she even come from? Did anyone else talk to her or acknowledge her presence?

The third home of the episode belongs to Joan and her rapist/surgeon husband Greg. They are hosting a dinner party for Ronald Ettinger, Greg’s boss, as well as a coworker and their wives. They almost fall into a fight over seating assignments before the guests arrive, but Joan defuses the situation by suggesting a buffet. Still, Joan wants Greg to sit at the head of the table in his own home. Throughout the course of the party, it becomes slowly clear that Greg isn’t really destined for the head of anybody’s table. “The fact that Greg can get a woman like you,” says Ronald’s wife, “makes me feel good about his future no matter what happens.” Never mind that the only reason Greg has a woman like Joan in the first place is because he’s a doctor and she’s afraid of being an old maid. It comes out in conversation that Greg lost a patient on the operating table. It sounds like he won’t be advancing very quickly. Greg changes the subject by convincing Joan to play her accordian(!), which she does while singing in French. And in fact, she might as well be in France. She suddenly seems very far away.

The final home belongs to the Drapers, where Roger’s inept racism comes full circle in the person of Gene, who assumes Carla knows his old housekeeper because both are black. Gene is outraged that someone has swiped five dollars from his money clip, and immediately suspects Carla. But the culprit is little Sally Draper, Mad Men’s most tragic character, who eventually returns the money to her grandpa by tossing it onto the kitchen floor (and then “finding” it). Gene may not have all his wits about him, but he seems to know children, and later calls Sally into his bedroom. Rather than punish her (or even accuse her), he insists that she continue reading aloud from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Sally’s theft of the money seems almost pointless. Where is she going to spend it? But by not lashing out at her or giving her a lecture, Gene may have made an ally in the Draper household. That’s bound to pay off in some way later. As for Sally, which will win out in the end: her rebellious spirit or her guilty conscience?

I’ve stumbled across a few headlines in the past couple of days suggesting this was one of the all-time great Mad Men episodes. Maybe I’m just dense, but I’m not sure I see why it’s worth that kind of hype. It was, however, a solid entry and planted more interesting seeds for the remaining season. There’s probably more that could be said about it — particularly all the themes I’ve overlooked and the scene where Betty lets a stranger touch her belly — but I’ll leave it at that.

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Governor Rockefeller just married a recently divorced woman. Looks like Goldwater has the nomination sewn up.