Mad Men Sell the Soap

I tuned into “Mad Men” Sunday night and found an episode of “As Sterling Cooper Turns.”
Somehow Matt Weiner and company managed to maintain the show’s detail and complexity while throwing enough relationships into chaos to fill a soap opera.
Will Betty Draper hook up with Henry Francis? Will Don Draper hook up with his daughter’s teacher? Can Peggy Olson please Don? Is Don’s relationship with Roger Sterling over?
And we had Duck wooing both Peggy and Pete and winding up in bed with . . . Peggy. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar and a Hermes scarf is more than a scarf.
The episode featured a number of great lines. There was Roger jealously talking about David Ogilvy getting “Confessions of An Advertising Man” published. “It should be called 1,000 reasons I’m so great,” he snarks.
During Betty’s Junior League meeting, one of the other women says that she too knows handsome Henry, advisor to Governor Rockefeller. But she surmises that if they want to stop a water tank from being built in their town, “I think we have a better chance if Betty calls.”
Meanwhile Don wants to launch Ho-Ho’s Jai alai league in Miami at first rather than going national. “Do you want to kill this in one year or do you want to shear the sheep every year.”
Don’s also “just making conversation” with Sally’s teacher, when she observes “You’re all the same: the drinking, the philandering.” Don acts as if he’s being misunderstood and that he’s different. “You’re all wearing the same shirt,” she says.
Pete busts into Peggy’s office after they receive gifts from Duck. Peggy got a scarf. “I hope yours is a different color,” she cracks. As Pete melts down, she barks at him “Stop barging in here and infecting me with your anxiety.”
Pete makes it clear he’s not going to Grey Advertising (whose offices Duck describes as “a Penn Station toilet with Venetian blinds”). Peggy says she’s not going either, and Pete says: “I’m not worried about you, I’m worried about Duck.” He doesn’t know the half of it.
Conrad Hilton beats Don to his office in the morning and is disturbed by the fact that it contains neither a bible nor a single family photo. “You should have those things. It will make you feel better about what you do,” Hilton says.
Hilton also correctly figures that Don knows about wandering eyes and “significant needs” before assigning the advertising business for his his New York hotels to Sterling Cooper. “I look forward to sharing my dreams with you,” the magnate says.
Of course working for Hinton means Don must sign a contract—three years guaranteed with a $5,000 signing bonus, which sounds like a pretty good deal.
Don resists, Roger calls Betty, annoying both her and Don. But Betty’s also annoyed at Don for not telling her about the contract, and for acting as if he doesn’t know where he’ll be in three years.
He leaves the house and picks up a young couple hitchhiking. They’re worried about Vietnam and give him some pills. As the drugs take effect, Don sees his dad, who tells a great old Hillbilly joke. Don laughs, then his Dad blasts him. “You’re a bum. . . You wouldn’t expect [Conrad Hilton] to be taken in so easily. . . Look at your hands, they’re soft as a woman’s . . . You grow bullshit.”
Then the hitchhikers beat Don, take his money, but leave his Cadillac. (I don’t what the folks at Cadillac, who bought an ad on the show, think about that.)
Don shows up bruised at the office, where he finds Bert Cooper waiting for him. Bert wanted Don to sign the contract. He asks Don if he doesn’t know a few things about his creative director. Indeed he does know something about Don’s mysterious past.
“After all, when it comes down to it, who’s really signing this contact anyway,” he observes before Don puts his John Hancock on the document, giving up the leverage he had on his employers and tying himself down.
The episode ends with “16 Tons” playing in the background: “I sold my soul to the company store.”
This would seem to kill the theory Don would start his own agency, taking Peggy with him. Any other guesses on what happens next?