Or, at least, drop out: Sunday night's show, the last before next week's series finale, ended with Don giving away his car, and in the land of the free, you can hardly be more out of step than that. In the prior episode, looking out a window while in a work meeting listening to a younger version of himself fill the room with bullshit, he saw a plane flying near a skyscraper. For some reason, I guess either the plane or the bullshit, he pushed back his chair and left abruptly, never to return. So, no job, no car, and, as far as I can tell, not much of a plan, either. First he drove to Cleveland, to find out about his latest love interest, the waitress with the Dos Passos paperback in her apron, but when that turned into a dead end the new plan was to go wherever the next hitchhiker liked. St. Paul! I was kind of hoping there'd be a show set in a Ramsey County motor lodge, but instead his adventures occurred in Kansas.
The leading theme of these last few episodes seems to be the opposing outlooks of zen-like Don and the career-chasers, like Peggy and Pete. A few episodes back, Peggy came to Don for some career advice, and he asked her what she wanted. When she named some conventional move up the ladder, he asked: "And what if you got it?" She named something more audacious but still conventional--the first female creative director, something like that. "And what if you get that, too?" he said, with the suggestion of a smirk. She got mad, said she hadn't come to have him crap on her hopes and dreams, and most viewers probably were with her. But what if she would become the first woman creative director, or whatever? She's still had a kid she doesn't know with Pete Campbell, whose career maneuverings make him if anything even more repugnant to everyone except his ex-wife.
Meanwhile, Betty, having received a bleak medical diagnosis, is cool as Socrates. She's got what you'd expect. The arc of the show is going to be from the Lucky Strike account to death from lung cancer.
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