Don (Jon Hamm) has hit a career peak. His ambiguous, artsy TV spot for a brand of floor polish has generated considerable buzz in the industry.
The agency, which employs far more captains than crew, has been able to generate business almost exclusively because clients want to work with its red-hot creative director.
Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce cannot live on Lucky Strike billings alone.
But Don's ascension is problematic on a couple of fronts. Most significantly, it puts him in the crosshairs of the trade press.
You may recall what happened the last time his face appeared in the newspaper. The past he had worked so hard to bury suddenly resurfaced. With grappling hooks.
In Sunday's episode, reporters from two publications interview Don for profiles. He stonewalls the writer from Advertising Age, resulting in a disastrous piece that describes him as "a handsome cipher" and compares him to Dorian Gray.
Speaking later to the Wall Street Journal, Don pitches himself like a product in a surprisingly distressing scene that stings like Aqua Velva.
The other downside of Don's success is that it makes him unbearably imperious, bullying both clients and poor Peggy (Elisabeth Moss).
Maybe his boorishness is the residue of his bleak personal life. Newly divorced, Don has moved into a furnished apartment in Greenwich Village.
Roger (John Slattery) sets him up on a date, rhapsodizing, "This girl's terrific. . . . She looks like Virginia Mayo. . . . Mount Holyoke gymnastics team."
That awkward blind date is one of the few missteps in this briskly choreographed episode set around the Thanksgiving holiday in 1964. Another, briefer encounter is more telling. Wait until you see the new wrinkle Don demands as foreplay.
