Reprinted with permission from www.hautetalk.com

The episode opens with a drunken car crash, and is that Ken Cosgrove at the wheel? Ken hobbles into the office with a cane, and all Ted wants to know is what the client said about their seventh round of creative. The client is Chevy, and they “didn’t like ‘em.”

Don gets a call at the office from a very angry Silvia who tells Don that he needs to stop wandering her hallway, leaving his cigarette butts around. So…Don has turned into a stalker, and Silvia is in control. Silvia explains that their relationship was all about trust, and both sides having equal amounts to lose, but it appears that Don doesn’t care as much about Megan as Silvia does about her husband. After reminding Don that he once loved Megan, Silvia hangs up the phone.

Sally gets Bobby and Gene ready for a weekend with Don and Betty shows up with recently re-blonded hair.

There is yet another death in the office as we learn that Frank has passed away, which leaves half of Sterling Cooper Draper And What Is This Agency’s Name tearful. Coincidentally, the agency has brought in a doctor to administer an “energy serum” to the creative department that gives 24 to 72 hours of uninterrupted energy and focus. It requires Don to drop his pants, and while I’m generally very pro-pantsless Don, there’s a needle involved so I have to look away.

The drug seems to work because the hallways are riddled with creatives running around like mice in a maze. The running then turns into pacing as the creative team desperately tries to revive the Chevy account with a dad buying a son a car, and a son asking his dad for a car. The look on Peggy’s face shows that they’re grasping at some very tired straws.

Over in Don’s office, Don promises Ken Cosgrove that he’ll have fifteen new ideas by Monday, but that Ken needs to get Don in that room so that he can look the client in the eyes, and rambles on about how “the timbre in my voice is as important as the content, I don’t know whether I’ll be forceful or submissive, but I must be there in the flesh.” Then, Ken starts tap dancing on his injured foot, and is this what the late 60s looked like? Man, I missed all the good drugs. Don then visits the creatives to give them a totally creepy pep talk about how it only takes one good idea. Peggy wearily asks Don what that one good idea is, and Don’s got nothing. She’s the only one who has figured out that Don is useless. He then gets a stroke of drug-induced genius and instructs Peggy to go into the archives and look for a soup account from the mid-1950s because it has the solution.

While Don is flying on amphetamines, Megan is taking care of the kids. But Megan has to leave in even higher hair and a very short mini dress, so she bribes Sally to watch her brothers by promising a pair of boots to go with a skirt she bought her the week before. Sally agrees and spends the evening reading Rosemary’s Baby when an intruder wanders into the apartment and claims to be Sally’s Grandma Ida. But…she’s black. She says that she raised Don, and Sally isn’t buying it at first, but then Grandma Ida knows Don’s name and she knows that he’s handsome, and for a fourteen-year-old girl, that’s enough. When Grandma Ida starts going through too many drawers and cabinets, Sally calls the police. Unfortunately, Grandma Ida catches her and hangs up the phone.

The Sterling Cooper Something Or Other Drug Den has turned their attention to chucking X-Acto knives at Stan. One lands in his arm, but thanks to drugs, he doesn’t feel a thing.  Peggy takes him away to clean him up and receives a few semi-unwanted kisses from Stan. She eventually asks him to stop because she has a boyfriend and doesn’t like beards.

Don visits Silvia’s hallway on his way home and lightly knocks on the back door. No one answers, but he doesn’t go home. Instead, he returns to the office to look for that old soup campaign. He finds it, and it’s nothing more than a kid looking up at his mother with a spoonful of soup and the headline, “Because you know what he needs.” It reminds him of a hooker from his youth who healed him back to health and then took his virginity, so naturally it’s perfect for Chevy.

Don calls Peggy and Ginsberg into his office to announce his big idea. They’re desperate for him to be right, but he’s just a sweaty old man rambling a lot of words that don’t add up to a Chevrolet car. Peggy asks, “What have you been doing the past three days? Have you been working on Chevy at all?” Having solved all of Sterling Cooper Draper Please Shorten This Name’s problems, Don finally goes home to find the police, Megan, Betty, Henry, and the kids sitting in what’s left of the living room. Grandma Ida held the kids hostage and robbed Don blind. She got in through the back door, which had been left open. With nothing left to do, Don collapses. The next morning, Don runs into Silvia in the elevator. She’s in a gorgeous canary yellow suit with a perfect wave of black hair, and they say nothing to each other. It is the longest elevator ride in the world. When Don gets to the office, he calls Sally to tell her that he’s okay, and that he left the door open so it’s his own fault. She’s in a canary yellow nightgown and I get the impression that he’s trying to apologize for more than just the robbery.

Ted returns from mourning the loss of Frank and wants to know what went on over the weekend. He has looked at the new Chevy campaigns and half of them are jibberish, and Chevy is spelled wrong (Shevy? Chevvy? Chevie? Cheavy?). Don cleverly sets himself up as Ted’s boss by announcing that from now on, Don’s role is Creative Director, which means that he will be evaluating work, not creating it, and “I’m sorry, Ted, but every time we get a car, this place turns into a whorehouse.” Ted has no idea what he’s talking about, which perfectly sums up the last few days at the office.

Next week, Peggy, Megan in a v-neck, Joan in a fuschia dress, Pete, Don, and drinks.

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