Reprinted with permission from www.hautetalk.com

Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce may be going public, which would net Joan nearly a million dollars and justify all of the hard work she had to do to get that partnership. But the trick is getting Don to go along with the plan since he seems to have little regard for money.

This episode was all about beds. We find Roger in bed with a lovely young blonde flight attendant, Daisy, who gives him business leads along with…other things. Pete, on the other hand, crawls into bed next to a raven-haired beauty—oh wait, that’s Trudy, his wife, who quickly jumps out of bed and into a neon pink robe.

Meanwhile, Peggy comes home to her less-than-glamorous life with Abe, who is renovating their new apartment in a transitional neighborhood. “There’s poop on the stairs again. It’s human.” She’s wearing a totally cute canvas jacket with bright horizontal green and neon orange stripes that I would kill for, while Abe is sporting overalls, like a hobo.

When Roger finishes up with the blonde and wanders back to the office, he tells Don that Pete has been cut out of the Jaguar dinner meeting. Also, the meeting is not likely to go well so they should all bring their ladies to soften the blow. Megan’s mother, Marie, is in town, which means that Roger has a date for dinner.  But when it comes time to meet Herb and his lovely wife at the restaurant, Roger bails out in favor of a lead from Daisy at LaGuardia Airport. When Herb’s wife takes the ladies to the powder room so that Herb and Don can discuss business, Herb lets Don know that from now on, all of his ideas will have to be run past some ad copy kid in Jaguar’s office. Instead of complying with this request and keeping the account, Don pushes back and, as Herb puts it, Don “doesn’t know where his bread is buttered.”

When Pete Campbell learns that Bert Cooper negotiated a price of $11 per share for their public offering, he takes the account guy go to a whorehouse to celebrate. Pete’s timing is either terrible, or perfect, because he sees his father-in-law exit one of the rooms with a very large black prostitute. I suppose that must be a little bit awkward, for a WASP like Pete Campbell.  When he tells Ken Cosgrove about it the next morning, Ken gets a call from Jaguar. SCDP will no longer be the agency of record for Jaguar. This sends Pete tripping all over himself (and down the stairs) to strangle Don because it screws up the public offering that Don didn’t even know about in the first place.

While all of this is happening, Roger walks in with “some good news, and some bad news.” When Pete tells Roger that Don fired the Jaguar account, Roger revises that to “then I just have good news.” Roger has a ten thousand dollar check and a meeting to pitch for Chevrolet’s new car, the XP-887 (which is ultimately the Chevrolet Vega), on Friday. Don is over the moon, but Joan is pissed. Livid, actually. “Honestly Don, if I could deal with him, you could deal with him.” Joan had to climb into bed with that vile Herb in order to get the account, yet Don Draper couldn’t even sit through a dinner to keep it. She kind of has a point, but one that is completely lost on the men.

Peggy finds Ted alone in the office. He needs her on the Chevrolet account and somehow that turns into a kiss, which Peggy doesn’t exactly stop. She finally gets Don’s attention, only it’s the wrong Don. When Peggy gets home and into bed with Abe, all she can see is Ted. It’s almost like Peggy enjoys the idea of Abe, the self-righteous journalist, and the apartment in the questionable part of town, but in reality, she kind of wants the slick ad man and the fancy Upper East Side apartment.

Roger and Don see their competition at the airport, and they mock Roger for losing Vick Chemical. It turns out that Pete’s father-in-law fired SCDP from the account because of the whorehouse incident. He is disgusted that his daughter’s husband, the father of his granddaughter, would sleep with a prostitute. Which seems just a tad hypocritical, but whatever. Roger’s solution is to have Daisy lose the competition’s luggage because Roger will always be the most clever and conniving person in any given situation.

Don sits by himself at the hotel bar, like he always does. Ted walks in and realizes that his dream of Chevrolet is dead because this means both agencies have lost before the game even gets started. According to Ted, when it’s two top ten agencies, one of the little guys has a chance. But when it’s two little guys, all Chevrolet is going to do is take one of their ideas and give it to the big guys so that they have a name brand agency. They compare pitches.

Ted: This is a car for the young, and the young at heart….Power plus design equals adventure.

Don: Just music, peoples’ faces, all kinds….it’s so new, this combination of power, technology…that it’s impossible to imagine. But not at Chevy. The future is something you haven’t even thought of yet.

They’re both good, and Ted is a heck of a slick presenter. He asks, “So should we go home?” Don’s wheels start spinning. “We. That’s interesting.” And just like that, the agencies merge. Separately, the will continue to fight for the leftovers. But together, they will have the creative credentials of a small, scrappy agency with the power and infrastructure of a large agency. The next morning, the four partners from the two agencies walk into the meeting together, with one set of creative, and land the account.

When Ted arrives back in New York, he asks to see Peggy. Don’s there, and she’s more than a little freaked out. They won Chevy, and they merged. Peggy is the head writer of the new agency, and Don is her boss. Again.

Next week, Don, Peggy moves back in to the old office, Roger, Joan, Bert, and the old team is back together.

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