'Mad Men's' meltdown

Editor’s Note: This post contains spoilers for the Sunday, October 3 episode of AMC’s “Mad Men.”

The hammer fell on last night's "Mad Men" when the gang at SCDP found out that Lucky Strike was jumping ship for competing agency BBDO. The news came via Ken Cosgrove, who found out from a fellow ad man while he was out to dinner with his fiancée. (Did you know that in 1965 there were three primary forms of communication: telephone, television and tell Ken Cosgrove?)

Anyhow, Ken told Pete and Pete told Don, and before long even Pete’s baby girl knew. Honestly, these guys are worse than a bunch of teenagers who just got access to an unlimited text-messaging plan.

At an emergency meeting, the partners – minus Lane and plus Ken – confronted Roger, who acted as if the defection was news to him. He agreed to travel to North Carolina the following day in an attempt to retain Lucky Strike, but instead hid out in a hotel in the city and placed a pitiful call to Joan.

He confessed that he’d known Lucky Strike was leaving and once again professed his desire to be with her. Later, Joan smartly put an end to their covert affair and sent Roger schlepping home to Jane, who was waiting to present him with a box full of copies of his sure to be New York Times best-selling memoir, "Sterling’s Gold." What a sad little book that was. Maybe there should have been a chapter called "Joan."

Meanwhile, the firm continued to hemorrhage clients when Glo-Coat pulled their account, prompting Don to fling his Clio award across the room and shout at Pete for failing to reassure the company that SCDP was in no danger of collapse. The underappreciated voice of reason and peacemaker at SCDP, I wouldn’t blame Pete for accepting Terrible Ted Chaough’s partnership offer at CGC.

The agency scrambled to pamper their remaining clients and set about trying to poach new ones, first at the memorial service of a departed ad man and then through Dr. Faye Miller, who Don guilted into dropping his name to unhappy clients at other firms. This angered Dr. Faye and they fought. Don later discovered Dr. Faye waiting for him at his apartment, where she said a bunch of nice things about their relationship and that she’d arranged for him to meet with representatives from Heinz. Surely this made Don feel like a sack of burning hair, as he had just come from a good old-fashioned 1960’s couch romp with Megan the receptionist, who wooed him with her Clio-mending prowess and promises of a no-strings fling. Oh, Draper, just when I thought you were on the up and up.

Elsewhere in the office, our resident mouth breathers – Rizzo and Danny – theorized that the firm’s imminent implosion was driving Peggy mad with desire when in reality she’d fallen fast and hard under Abe’s spell. Abe, despite a brief period of being a total creeperson, has resumed being a sexy dreamboat who is perfect for Peggy. And is it just me, or is Rizzo jealous and totally in love with her? Or maybe he’s just a misogynist dirt bag.

What did you think of last night’s show?