How does a TV show follow perhaps one the best episodes ever in its run? If it's Mad Men, it does so by only getting better. I'm sure many will argue that this episode didn't pack the same punch as the previous one — there was, after all, no mowing over of an ad exec's foot. But in the same way I laughed through the over-the-top horror last week, I found myself compelled by the intricacies of this week's mini-bombshells, the ones whose seeds were planted early this season and are just now blooming.
The jaw-dropping blood spray was replaced with an unsettling narrative structure. The show settled for quiet-but-powerful one-liners ("I don't want to have any more contact with Roger Sterling") and cold stares instead of screaming secretaries and fainting copywriters. Gone was the roaring John Deere engine, and in its place Betty silently swoons while thinking of a man other than her husband.
Mad Men doesn't get much better than this...
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