Mad Men: Meditations in an Emergency

"I sell products, not advertising." -- Don Draper, during tonight's Mad Men Season 2 finale, one with so many water-cooler moments any spoilers will be out before anyone makes it to work in the morning.

Don Draper is the ultimate salesman. Nobody works a room like him. We learned through flashbacks this season that he used to sell cars for a living, and was so great at that he was able to make enough money to keep his "widow" on his payroll. Don has landed more accounts for the Sterling Cooper advertising agency than any Account Executive. He saved the Lucky Strikes account in the series pilot, and most famously closed the deal that brought in Kodak. As Alice Cooper (Bertram's sister, not the rock star) noted last week, "Don's very savvy." Don was the only one to immediately pick up on Peggy's new haircut for crying out loud. You would think Duck Phillips, for all of his jealousy and personal vendetta he has against Draper, would understand the importance of Don Draper at Sterling Cooper. Roger spends most of his time chasing the hot young Secretary, and Bert makes an occasional figurehead experience.

Duck's been reaching the boiling point with his frustration in making a big impact at Sterling Cooper for sometime. And out of all of the great scenes tonight, my favorite had to be the poker game that Duck played in the conference room, Duck on one side of the table with the new British owners, Don on the other end with Bertram and Roger. Duck and Don had their aces up their sleeves, but Duck was blindsided by two very important things: Don knew about Duck being named President; and most importantly, something we the audience have know for sometime, Don Draper doesn't have a contract. So Duck got his head handed to him, as Draper was playing with house money. "If the world is still here on Monday," Don says as he leaves the meeting, "We can still talk." Duck's been back on the bottle for a few episodes now, and his inability to hold his liquor contributed to his temper tantrum following Don's exit. Nobody knows who will be running the new Sterling Cooper, but we know one thing for certain: It will not be Duck Phillips.

As anyone into Mad Men surely realizes, not all story lines get tied up nicely. But there were two biggies that had to at least be addressed tonight. The obvious one being Don and Betty somehow getting back together, and the other regarding Peggy's baby. We'll deal with Peggy first, because her storyline set-up a scene between her and Pete that will surely go down as one of the greatest in this series short history, one that will warrant major recognition for Elisabeth Moss and Vincent Kartheiser.

You could never tell how Pete would eventually find out about knocking Peggy up, her having the baby and giving it away. But the entire storyline regarding Pete and Trudy this season and their fighting over adoption a child led you to think that somehow those story lines would cross. What I didn't see coming was Pete finally breaking down and professing his love for Peggy, even getting to the point of calling her "perfect". Pete and Peggy get an incredible scene together in Pete's office (on the very couch where they wildly had sex early one workday last season, which was also a nice tough). It's a long conversation, one that allows for pauses. This is especially important for Peggy, who's had to keep so much bottled up inside of her through the season in order to keep her career on the fast track. Mostly inspired by Father Gill's continuation to unburden herself of her guilt, Peggy finally admitted to Pete what happened. Father Gill only appeared in three episodes, and it often seemed like he wanted Peggy to admit her secret to him. I'm glad it didn't work out that way, and the scene with Pete finally showed him to be more human, even allowing him to tear up when Peggy leave the office. The wonderful inter cutting between Peggy in bed later that night, relieve and smiling as she does the sign of the cross with Pete sitting alone late in his office with the rifle suggests the new differences between the two. Peggy is content with her professional life, and free from carrying around the guilt that plagued her outside the office. Pete with the rifle is startling. Remember, this show spent the better part of an episode this season ("Six Month Leave") surrounding suicide. Pete's lost both women in his life, after not exactly admitting that he loved Trudy when she left their apartment earlier.

"It must be nice, needing time and just taking it," Betty says sharply when Don finally comes back, literally hat in hand, to meet Betty at the stables. But unbeknownst to Don, Betty just learned she's pregnant, even though she doesn't have any idea "How that's possible". She continues to ride horses, smoke more cigarettes than Don on a normal day, and even orders a Gimlet at a bar while Don sits in his hotel room watching "Leave it to Beaver" with the kids. Part of Betty's growth during her separation with Don is that she's spent many times trying to actually walk in his shoes (remember last week, when she even endorsed his own checks). She had the manipulative revenge moment with Sara Beth, and tonight she wanted to see for herself how Don spent many a night. A gentleman who doesn't look that much different from her husband orders her a drink, and after first waving off his advances, she winds up in the Men's Room with him in the back of the bar (very convenient to have a nice couch at the ready in case such situations arise). She makes sure he understands this is a one-time thing. "I'm married," Betty tells her suitor as they enter the Men's Room.

Part of what makes Don an incredible salesman is how he picks up on things in preparation for his pitch. And he learned something from his California trip. Dick Whitman can go back to being Don Draper, let Betty move on without him, and go around and have affairs with the Bobbie Barrett's of the world without a care in the world. But Anna Draper helped him understand how he doesn't have to be alone. When Don writes Betty that letter -- the one that finally has her call Sterling Cooper ans ask him to come him -- he remembers all of this: "I understand why you feel it's better to go on without me, and know you won't be alone for long. But, without you...I'll be alone forever." The episode ends with Betts having to tell Don something. For a moment, you think she might admit to the affair, thinking that Don would finally do the same and they could officially move on. Instead, she simply offers, "I am pregnant." Jon Hamm gets his James Gandolfini moment here, where he can say so much with small facial expressions that suggest so many different emotions. We fade to black as Betty and Don hold hands, with the idea that they're at least going to give their family another try.

The back drop for the entire episode is the Cuban Missile Crisis, something many of us thought would be a part of this season. Those who lived through those 13-days in 1962 will tell you without exaggeration who absolutely terrified people were. It's a great way for Matthew Weiner to show how the main characters react to the news. The Don Draper who comes back to New York (at least the Don we see at Sterling Cooper), remains the center of calm. "Nobody really knows what's going," he tells Roger. The newly rich Roger, madly in love with Jane, can't believe Kennedy would ruin all of his fun, "Just when I was getting a second chance at life." Harry's big concerns are over how Kennedy's news bulletins will interrupt his programming and cost the agency money. And poor Pete. Just when he thinks it's the right time to proclaim his true feelings to Peggy, he spends his Friday night alone with that rifle, pondering his own demise.

Overall, what a season. Mad Men only has two completed seasons in the books, and both are like separate novels. What do Weiner and company do from here? Does he jump 2 more years to 1964, where Beatlemania is about to take America by storm? The one thing Weiner is on record about is how he doesn't want to deal directly with the Kennedy Assassination as that's been so over-played. The one thing that Duck did get right was about the future of television and the need to spend more advertising dollars with that medium. It's just too bad Duck won't be around to see any of this, at least not at Sterling Cooper.

I hope we haven't seen the last of Jimmy Barrett, and remember his "Grin and Barrett" television show has a 36-episode commitment, which would give the series at least a 2-year run. Could accidentally watching one of those episodes bring back further friction into the Draper marriage? I just don't want Jimmy's story to end with Don knocking him down at that bar in "Six Month Leave". That punch came from Jimmy's blunt "You're garbage...and you know it" confrontation to Don, and of course Jimmy telling Betty about Don fooling around with Bobbie.

There will always be such big questions regarding Don Draper. Will he ever let Betty in on the whole "Dick Whitman" story? Can he really go and give this family life a legitimate effort, even after seeing the Jet Set life isn't for him? Or will he grow bored after a while, like he did after just two episodes this season and giving in to Bobbie Barrett's evil charms simply for the reason that he could?

Another question (and again, on a show like Mad Men, something like this is completely possible): What if Pete Campbell really can't take working in the same place as Peggy Olson? A few weeks ago, audiences might have rooted for Pete to blow his head off right there. But after that tearful meeting with Peggy, Pete won over the audience.

The really big questions remains: When does AMC start season 3?