Mad Men: The One Where MLK Gets It

It wasn't a prediction I made in a public forum, but those are words I said to another human in advance of Sunday's episode.

Yes it's a spoiler, and yes it's as insensitive as Harry Crane bitching about missed commercial advertising opportunities with the ongoing MLK assassination coverage. Though I enjoyed watching Pete Campbell take the moral high ground with his displaced outrage.

Mad Men lives off these reactions to the times of 45 years ago, and the ensemble's soulful response was definitely something I was right to look forward to.

Matthew Weiner's storyboard also dealt with the ugly riots in the aftermath of the death of Dr. King. It was reminiscent of an incredibly poignant episode of The Jeffersons, which flashed back to "The First Store," George's first store opening the day Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot. George had to sift through his anger and find the perspective to cool down his son Lionel.

But I digress - we wondered how Don & Peggy would continue to be connected after she left SCDP.

After the submarine job by Peggy's firm did on Heinz last week, the shock on award night was a perfect opportunity for them to intersect. And the national tragedy was a great chance to realize what's around them that they've taken for granted.

Don has a son who is growing up, opening Don's eyes for the first time while they take in a double-feature of Planet Of The Apes. But Don is haunted by his own childhood and his own father and realizes briefly how lucky he is.

And Don has great scene with Megan. Despite all the pretending in their marriage, she seems to be the one person who can extract Don's innermost feelings.

Peggy put her bid in on an impressive Upper East Side apartment, and it fell through. So she finally asks Abe, her hop-along hippie/flunky boyfriend what he really thinks. Abe wants to raise their children around "different kinds of people," and suggests the West Side.

I think Peggy's move to the West Side over the East Side is one of the great triumphant, seminal moments in the history of the show, but I'm biased.

Don and Peggy's self-hating, shallow lives in advertising have somehow netted people that love them unconditionally. And it took a horrific event to jolt them into reality.

A Jeffersonian Sitcom

Well, Sherman Hemsley moved up to that deluxe apartment in the sky. We'll always remember that Jefferson Cleaners had seven stores - one near you!

George Jefferson was one of the iconic television characters of all-time. A black, self-made small businessman successful enough to infiltrate an East Side Manhattan high rise. Not that Jefferson ever complained about "the man," and was never looking for a hand out (or a give out). He was surely a Republican in his time.

Much like Archie Bunker, the lead character in All In The Family, Norman Lear's creation that spawned The Jeffersons, George had some anachronistic racial prejudices. He walked black, talked black, and rhymed black, but he was ultimately about every man for himself.

Vaulting the middle-class Jeffersons from Queens into their elite surrounding is a classic fish-out-of-water TV trick. They had welcoming neighbors, like the bi-racial Willises (George called them "zebras"), and the all-too cordial next-door neighbor in Mr. Bentley, who George always shut the door on (ha-HA emphasis on the second syllable).

But since the Jefferson family became rich, the comic relief took place in the lower class. Ralph, the white doorman always had his hand out. And the breakthrough star of the show was Marla Gibbs as Florence, the smart-mouthed housekeeper. She gave as good as she got with George, constantly putting him in his place and never knowing hers.

While Louise Jefferson (Weezy) was a strong, grounded wife, and the conscience of the show, I never understood why her name - Isabel Sanford - preceded Hemsley's in the opening credits. It could have been Lear making a statement. But she was no George.