Peggy is the only woman who retained her virtue in this episode. Joan literally sold herself for a stake in the company, Megan tried to sell herself to the creepy "turn around" guys (you could see she was uncomfortable with the immediate emphasis on her body over her acting chops) but they weren't buying, Megan's friend just gives it away (like Lakshmi) crawling around on the conference room table, but for Peggy, "There is no number".

Surprised that Don didn't mention the effect on their children wrt Megan's taking off for three months.

Artfully done business with the necklace.

And because I am a child, my favorite line was, "Let me see em!"

my god this episode was good.
up there with the suitcase
got to rewatch it asap

Nice summary, PJ. That post has me reaching for the remote to rewatch this one already.

They never talked about getting a car before because they had Lucky Strike - also, I wouldn't imagine that the big 3 accounts changed hands too often in those days.

Damn this was episode was good. Not if I'm ready to say Suitcase good yet, but damn it was good.

He wasn't ambivalent. Joan's not in the habit of misreading people, and her comment as Lane left her office was telling. He pimped her out despite his feelings for her.

GOAT etc etc

The latter is true, but I disagree that means he can't be of two minds about it. When Pete first mentions the idea, Lane's clearly disgusted and bothered by it. Once it becomes clear that there's a fair bit of momentum behind the idea, his financial circumstances compel him to be the pitchman. He needs to get out in front of it so that nobody else can make the $50k offer. I think what he said to Joan was mostly honest - it almost certainly is better for Joan to get the 5% stake rather than the one-time $50k regardless of the real reason this is being proposed - but it wasn't the complete truth, either. I certainly imagine this will add to his self loathing.

i'm a big MM fan and generally enjoyed this episode, but a couple of nits:

(1) like someone else mentioned, the whole "gotta land a car" thing hasn't been sufficiently built up at all - definitely not enough to justify prostituting out employees. they gave it a couple of throw-away lines but that's it. i don't think they ever mentioned a car as being the be-all-end-all in any episode of any season prior, so this whole angle just felt very forced to me.

(2) in my mind, don's meeting with joan doesn't mean very much. it's not like she whored herself out because she wanted to satisfy the partners so the fact that don wasn't on board was pretty insignificant in joan's decision, imo. she did it for herself. i think they've been trying to build up a stronger relationship btwn don and joan this season, and perhaps they were trying to show that joan regrets the fact that she doubted don's concern for her well-being, but i definitely didn't feel like don could've changed her decision if he got there a bit earlier. it just doesn't make sense that way.

Don made it pretty clear a few seasons ago that he was willing to prostitute Sal out simply in order to keep a client (Lucky Stroke) happy who they already had on board. While he felt differently about this, I guess it doesn't defy my belief at all that Sterling and Cooper would be callous enough to sell out for what had at least been sufficiently built as a big opportunity.

Does Freddy not work for scdp any more? What happened there?

Great Episode, so well done. I am going to be sad when the season ends. Private Joker very nice post, thank you for sharing your thoughts, very insightful.

Does it seem realistic that they would offer 5% of their firm, for a one night fling, that didn't' even guarantee them the account?

I am a little confused about the Don/Joan scene, obviously she was already back from seeing the Jaguar guy, so how long did she spend with the guy?

Interesting that Joan had a price, but Peggy didn't.

Can't remember for sure. I think they fired him for being an alcoholic and embarrassing himself back in season 2 or so. I think maybe at the beginning of season 4 Peggy expressed interest in bringing him on for some work, and he came, having sobered up. But she found him challenging to work with given their new roles and so that relationship didn't last.

Freddy pissed himself at work while drunk when there was a client meeting about to happen. They quietly did away with him...not sure if it was officially a firing or a nudge toward a resignation or what.

Right, I remember that. But he worked at scdp like last season when he brought them ponds cold cream.

I don't think Megan sold herself, but she realized she is going down that path. She realized that a lot of being a young actress is trying to be the prize cow in a meat market. Her veteran actress friend is so used to using her promiscuity to be the center of attention, even as she berated Megan for being a trophy wife in "Dark Shadows". Megans cares about the craft and we don't know if she is good at it, but at least she is working hard and appears competent in other areas of her life, for all her prep the directors just care about her dimensions. It's a crushing realization for the least cynical character on the show.

Don has changed a lot in a couple seasons and Don didn't respect Sal as much as he does Joan and Don assumed all gays were promiscuous and had anonymous sex regularly.