This episode was the perfect ending to Peggy's arc on Mad Men. From her initial exploratory meeting with Freddy, to Ted's absolutely stunning pitch to join Cutler, and closing with the emotional farewell with Don... I am extremely sad to think this is essentially the last we see of Peggy... but it would truly cheapen how incredible this episode was to ever see Peggy again as an SCDP employee.

RIP Peggy, damn, you will be missed

wow , so much to take in , ill just let it simmer for a bit and post some thoughts later . excellent episode .

edit//
what was great about the joan/don interaction in this episode was how they bonded last week and how that played into this ep .

also hope they still keep peggy on the show , shes been probably my favorite character all season .

inside the episode: http://www.amctv.com/mad-men/videos/...he-other-woman

Man before this episode what would the odds of a Joan/Peggy first partnership at SCDP bet have been? I would have put it like 20-1 for Peggy.

Was just reading Sepinwall's review of this episode and some of the comments, thought this was an amusing point made by one of the posters:

Lobsters aren't kosher? lol I had no idea.

Wait they can't eat ANY shellfish? WTF, that's messed up. More for me yo.

it's a bit shellfish, i agree

WTF Al, there's no way this is the last we see of Peggy. Peggy stuff was great, and I suspect we'll see plenty of her at her new job. If nothing else, there's her broken pact with Ken to deal with.

I need to rewatch- I can't decide if I thought the Joan stuff was bad, or just that I responded to it badly because it made me so uncomfortable. I think I might agree with Pudge inasmuch as I don't think it felt very true to anybody's character. Kinda feel like we needed a slight break from Pete being a pile of **** before he went here. In the unlikely event this is the last of Peggy (and this is why lol- she's not going anywhere) we're running a bit short on sympathetic characters.

Mostly I don't know that they've done enough to sell us on how important the car stuff is. A few lines from Don and Bert just aren't enough for me. I don't know that they set up the stakes enough where I think the desperation people showed made sense.

All that said- it was still very well executed.

(it was also really hard to make the shift in tone from the awesomeness that was GoT into this.)

Yeah....my biggest complaint for season 5 is how all of a sudden getting a car is this huge milestone. They've done a good job within this season....but it seems strange that nobody talked about getting a car as a great leap forward before.

Granted, at the start of the show they were a cigarette firm so it's possible the most desirable clients change over time.

What is the pact between Ken and Peggy?

I haven't said this before in 5 years: that was the best episode of Mad Men I've ever seen.

The best.

#1.

Like they needed anything more awesome for this season to be such a towering achievement -- but this takes the cake. Better than The Suitcase... better than Palm Springs... better than anything. I'm crying from the sadness of the Don saying goodbye to Peggy scene, but overjoyed that something this good is on basic cable television. These 44 minutes were the best film I've seen in about three years, with the possible exception of Breaking Bad (the best show of all time).

A lot of hyperbole in this post, but I mean it all.

But how much is $12,500 today? That's what Joan was making as an office manager (50k was "4x what she makes annually"), and that seemed really high.

EDIT: turns out it's $88,767. Jesus, Joan was already making mad bucks.

Can we talk for a second about how good the acting is on this show?

Jon Hamm

He just demolished it in this episode. Slayed it. The confidence of his pitch, after he had thought he talked Joan out of whoring herself (meaning the pressure rested on his shoulders to deliver), was out-of-the-park... then the look on his face when Joan walked into the partners' meeting... and ultimately the painful look of betrayal and loss when he realized Peggy was serious about quitting... I was afraid to be watching him from my living room, let alone that I would have been afraid to be in the same room with him. Veins popping out of his head -- his career diminished by Joan doing more "work" to get the account than he did; his wife pursuing acting despite its freedom; and now his protege taking his best talent to a competitor... just devastating, and it all showed on his face without him having to say much at all. Just a kiss on the hand. WOW.

Elisabeth Moss

She borrows from the Hamm school of stoicism when he tosses cash at her face. She walks into the office, claims she isn't crying -- then turns around to reveal she really wasn't crying. She's hard. She's mature. She's a boss. That was the beginning of the end of her at SCDP. And her final words to Don: haunting, aching, professional, subtle. "Don't be a stranger." Boom. Wow. And how about that giggle during her lunch meeting with Ted? She was on fire. Best Actress Emmy, please.

Christina Hendricks

I thought she played this brilliantly. She didn't pretend she hadn't done some things before. She has always been the type of woman to do whatever it takes to get what she wants -- but this time, for as depraved as the act was, there was a sense of loss to herself; to her identity. But the most heartbreaking expression on her face was when she discovered that Don was not on board with the plan. The first time we seen the scene, we think it's that she is relieved to hear that he was against it, and might be reconsidering. The second time we see it, we realize that the expression was one of regret; a "what did I just do..." as if it was possible that had she known Don was against it she may have refused. But there's no turning back. Great, great work from Hendricks, who really knows what makes Joan tick and just how subtle to play it.

Vincent Kartheiser

Not mentioned enough as a shining star of this show, but he plays the smarmy villain so well. And the reason he's so good is that he makes Pete more human than anyone on the show. This is a guy who can read "Goodnight Moon" to his daughter so tenderly that his wife looks on silently with a smile as wide as the Amazon. But moments later he will be pitching to his wife that he gets a flat in the city basically so he can bang chicks on the side. Meanwhile, he's manipulating Lane, Roger, and Bert on one side, while manipulating Joan on the other (he tells the partners that Joan was willing, then tells Joan the partners are all on board), all in the name of business. He is a snake, but not a one-dimensional one. And Kartheiser knows how to show just enough vulnerability in Pete's facade to make it all so real. Excellent, excellent performance.

I am just in awe of this show. We're truly in a golden age of television.

But that wiki graph shows that $12.5k was about a 25th percentile household income in 1967, so I dunno what to make of this CPI adjustment math. (25th percentile today is $26k per year)

They also mentioned that the new top of the line jaguar was only $6k, so that gives us some perspective.

EDIT: using GDP deflator instead of CPI; $12.5k in 1967 is equivalent to $61.5k in 2009, which seems like a reasonable salary for Joan.

and $19k is equiv to $94k

**** I would have ****ed that guy for a five percent partnership in scdp.