Signal 30

"You're a grubby little pimp."

It's one of the best insults ever and it sounds even more insulting coming from Layne in his British accent. This is my hands-down favorite episode of the entire series. This is the Mad Men's "Pine Barrens" or "College." SCDP gets a crack at Jaguar's business through a friend of Layne's and while Layne tries his best, he turns the meeting over to the big guns of Roger, Don, and Pete. When they're out for lobster, they're informed that while he's Layne's friend, he doesn't feel like he can cut loose around such a close acquaintance.

I'm not putting spoilers in here because the episode is so epic, even a spoiler warning would fail the viewer. But if I had to watch just one episode of Mad Men, it'd be this episode 1000 times.

Oh my, what a tragic show this is. How much pain is here, hidden in the depths of everyone. Take Pete, for example? In appearance, a happy family man with a wonderful wife and a successful job. But he unsuccessfully tries to become the big man, like his colleagues, and he is so desperately trying to do it throughout the episode: but he can't fix the tap, and he can't even fight. But he tries to act like the the big men! What is the problem? And the problem is in his irrepressible desire for more, in the eternal desire to be more important and more powerful than he already is. This contrasts beautifully with Ken and his quiet passion for writing stories: he knows how to find what makes him happy, and no amount of ambition compares to that. Pete's ambition only results in a broken face and a look that he can't get.

Or, take a look at Lane, who so longs to feel needed. A similar problem with Pete, but at the same time completely difdifferent. Here, he has a chance to prove it, but is immediately deprived of this action, demonstrating that he, too, will not become a "big man" in any way. He might forever remain a quirky foreigners in everyone's eyes.

Overall, very solid tragic character and great writing throughout the entire episode!

The greatest aspect of MAD MEN (and there are very many great aspects) are the very, very, very end (yes, there is a character-count)...

This episode has the greatest very, very, very ending of all the episodes, and it won't be spoiled, but it has to do with a certain rhythmic thing that occurs throughout the episode...

A strange one here, having to do with Pete and his too-perfect suburban home, and wife, and then a flirtation with a sexy high school girl at driving school...

Pete has always been a wannabe-Don, on the show, on purpose, but the writers also make him one by putting him into affairs that, frankly, are pretty contrived, like the one he'd get into very soon from this point with a lonely housewife of a guy he talks to on the train...

This, however, was a great near-romance flirtation that really sums up the depth of Pete's endearing shallowness... and, again, what an ending!