Mad About You: Another Case of Co-Dependency

The continuing, evolving drama of a night with Don and Peggy told you everything you wanted to know about what this show is all about. Watching them take on a the Samsonite campaign, a mouse, and a Duck in an all-nighter, was very reminiscent of watching the way a mentor and protegee bicker on their AMC compadre show, Breaking Bad.

Don naturally backed Sonny Liston against Cassius Clay that night in 1965. The way he liked Nixon over Kennedy a few seasons earlier. Don liked the guys who didn't brag.

And Peggy is Don's #2 now. Peggy gives don ideas and she tries to boast about it, but he shits on her. At least that's Peggy's take on it. But Don is adamant.

"That's the way it works. There are no credits on commercials."

"I give you money. You give me ideas."

When Peggy complains, "But you never say thank you!" Don is incredulous, "That's what the money is for!"

It is a pivotal night in Don's life. Not just because Don lost $100 on Liston, but because of the death of Anna Draper - and the close relationship he had with the woman who allowed him his name. And Don showed vulnerability for the very first time.

But at the end of the night (really the next day), a "spruced up" Don Draper realizes he has a stable relationship in his life. Despite the death of his great friend, his divorce, and his reckless drinking, he found someone to complete him, and not in the usual way Don relies on a woman.

And the constant shake-up of the pecking order on the Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce totem pole continues. At age 26 (Happy birthday!) Peggy Olson is in a tremendous position at her job. And she didn't know it until now.

Mad Mentor: When Roger Met Don

On the eve of Don Draper's first Clio Award for television advertising excellence, Roger Sterling walks down memory lane to how it became possible. When he met Don, the fur guy. And it's kind of a hazy path considering how much they each drink along the way. Just consider Roger's ramblings in the dictation of his book.

And for Don the award is a culmination of his crooked path to the highest heights of his profession. And after the win, the calculated Draper lets his guard down. First comes the most exaggerated case of hubris, then the drunken blur.

Don still didn't pull a Duck Phillips, ranting out in a crowded banquet room, but his spouting at the mouth caused him to inadvertently steal a slogan from an idiot he interviewed earlier. Then naturally he winds up in bed with a waitress he doesn't remember.

For Roger, the alcohol reveals the truth in his feelings. He's jealous of Don, who always gets the credit and naturally he transfers his anger to any target he can find.

Ultimately, Roger's behavior is damaging his own company. Lane Pryce, the London corporate lackey who runs the nuts and bolts of the agency said so much calling him a "child" in his empowerment of Pete Campbell. This ultimately begs the question, "Who runs Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce?"

1. Don Draper - He's the face of the firm, but ultimately a creative diva who goes off the reservation whenever he fells like it.

2. Roger Sterling - A buffoon who is tied to Lucky Strike, the company's biggest client. But he's a loose cannon (see what he did with the Japanese Honda people?) who isn't up to date in 1965.

3. Bert Cooper - Older than Sterling, his presence is mostly ceremonial.

4. Lane Pryce - He really is in control of everything with a dollar sign attached. But he's just an operational wizard who doesn't do accounts or creative, and is still an outsider.

5. Pete Campbell - This is the best character arc in the 4 seasons of the series. He went from a conniving kid to a savvy, confident exec who is well on his way to running the show.

Pete has been challenging Roger this season, and took the balls of his former colleague/competitor Ken Cosgrove while hiring him back.

The next generation is on the rise on the creative side as well with Peggy taking the balls of her creative cohort in the art department in a metaphorical game of strip poker. "Let's get liberated!"

When she "won," she was promptly tagged as "the smuggest bitch on the planet."

Just another major character evolution on a show where the kings are becoming the jesters, and their loyal servants are becoming enlightened.

Don Draper's Unlucky Strike

While Don Draper isn't too fickle about who he sleeps with, he knows he fucked this one up.

After leaving the Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce Xmas party, Don had left his keys in his office in his usual drunken form. While he was ready to jump on the firm's psych consultant or the cute nurse across the hall, there are some lines Don doesn't cross.

Which of course he did when he nailed his own googly-eyed secretary after she came to the rescue with the keys in one of the queasiest scenes in the show's history. Alcohol is a hell of a drug. Just ask Freddy Rumsen, returning to the agency clean and sober after 16 months.

So what makes Don so different from Big Tobacco heir Lee Garner, Jr.? While the Lucky Strike prince can make any demands he wants (they are the #1 client responsible for some 70% of SCDP's billings), he does so in the brashest possible fashion.

Lee Garner, Jr. can threaten to fire the agency if he isn't accommodated by Art Director Salvatore Romano in a same-sex tryst. That was the likely tipping point for the likable character's departure from the firm last year.

Or he can pull out his swinging dick (figuratively of course) and demean the boss, Roger Sterling, in front of the entire agency, forcing him to be Santa at the Xmas party and putting his hands on Roger's wife. But Roger handles it with charm.

Nobody seems to know exactly what Roger Sterling does. When he comes back drunk from a client meeting, Peggy says, "I can't believe that's his job." But it's the ability to keep the big fish clients, the quirky, greedy, selfish perverts and their insatiable appetites...happy.

So back to the scoundrel tale of the tape:

Lucky Strike's Lee Garner Jr. is a bully who gets what he wants through sheer power and intimidation.

Don Draper uses his power to persuade and use and hurt people to get what he wants, from the same people who only want to please him.

"The morning after" meeting with his secretary was just as icy and sad as it could possibly be. He thanked her for bringing him his keys, which translates into "last night never happened." Allison gets a $100 bonus on a generic holiday card, while Don walks out of the office with the presents for his kids that she shopped for and immaculately wrapped.

Who is the more dangerous predator?

Mad Men Season 4 Premiere: Be Careful What You Wish For

Want to go rogue and start your own ad agency? Well you just might get it.

Welcome to Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, a "scrappy upstart" of an ad agency, that Creative Director Don Draper has just put on the map with a very clever Glo-Coat TV spot.

Now Don Draper is the headline name of the company, even though we all know that's not his name. But as Don plays "modest" to an Advertising Age reporter, he comes across as aloof. In one of Roger Sterling's signature one-liners, he spells it out to Don, "You turned all the sizzle from Glo-Coat into a wet fart."

So the one-story agency isn't growing as fast as the partners would like, no matter how many chairs Don kicks around in the non-conference room.

Want to save the Sugarberry Ham account, with a bold plan to stage two women fighting over a ham Thanksgiving week? And make an end run around Don? Be careful what you wish for, Peggy and Pete.

When the play fight turns real and assault charges are filed, the bail and hush money escalates. And Peggy gets a tongue-lashing to boot.

And there's the suddenly sympathetic figure, Henry Francis (thanks to a very well-placed scene with his mother).

Want a beautiful trophy bride? Be careful what you wish for. You just might get Betty Draper.

As much as I love the ad agency, this is the storyline that resounds. Henry's mother calls Betty a "silly woman," and he's seeing it himself. A spoiled child, who went straight from Daddy to Don to Henry, Betty still lives in Don's house and does nothing but badger her own children.

And for those of you who think Sally Draper is an annoying, ill-tempered child - you obviously don't own the feisty Daddy's Girl home version.

The whole episode comes full-circle, when Don's smart, somewhat risque presentation to a potential ladies swimwear client strikes out. He realizes that being modest is ignorant and tells the Wall Street Journal the more confident and appealing Don Draper story.

Maybe next Thanksgiving, Don won't have to hire a prostitute to smack him around (not pictured).