SEASON 7, EPISODE 5.

(Mild spoilers.) Ginsburg has never been a real character, so I guess they felt they could dump some excess metaphorical freight on him and push him out to sea.  Nothing about his scenes rang true on any level -- even the great Elisabeth Moss didn't seem to know what kind of relationship she was supposed to have with him -- and it left me wondering: Why was he ever here? Maybe just to signify the infusion of nervy Jews on Madison Avenue (why not someone more like George Lois, then*? That would have livened things up), or merely to be wasted, so his psychotic break could be a harbinger of some end-of-60s bad craziness to come.

Unlike some watchers, I wasn't worried about Laurel Canyon in this regard. The SoCal sybaritism Megan's gotten into is as vapid as any of other supposed fun scenes, from Greenwich Village to poolside L.A., that Mad Men likes to sneer at from time to time, as if to say, see, they think they're better but they're not; besides, to tell the truth if Tex and the gang came helter-skeltering in I don't think I'd feel much loss. And I don't think Don would either. I have never, never understood that relationship except on the most banal Freudian level, and it never made less sense than when Megan was pushing him into a three-way and Don was looking at the two chicks with astonishment, as if they were Cosgrove tap-dancing on speed. By the next day maybe Megan thought so too. But why is that a big deal for her? Come to think of it, why is she here, either?

The most interesting person in the episode was Lou. I didn't realize Allan Havey, who plays Lou, had a comedy career, but it figures: Actors like to play villains, and the more ee-vil the better, but they don't generally like to play pricks and schmucks; Lou is both, and Havey applies a comic's malignant brio to him. His fit over the mockery his stupid cartoon engendered -- a hundred times better than Underdog! -- had some good sour stomach acid in it, which was a relief because the rest of the creative staff has been floating off into the ether for a while now. Jesus, fellas, back in the day they did some work in addition to getting stoned, you know.  

As much as we've been warned not to root for Don anymore, and as unbelievable as his pitch was, it was fun to see him throw elbows in the Commander pitch. But it's a guilty pleasure. They're the only kind, I fear, Don has to offer us anymore.

Oh, I wish I could remember the person on Twitter who noted that when Ginsburg said "What am I, Cassandra?" he might actually have been talking about this guy.

* OK, so Lois is Greek; that's close enough, right?

UPDATE. I forgot about the Francis family thread, which I liked very much. Betty, to my surprise, actually seemed stronger after she cracked; I wonder whether she was surprised too. Sally is becoming wonderfully horrible, and I admire her feeling for her brother, which is about the least narcissistic relationship in the whole show. Speaking of which, their discussion of running away reminded me of the episode's title, and of what I suppose is Don's equivalent -- pressing Harry to leave Megan's party with him for a bar, where he also shakes some useful agency intelligence out of the poor schlub by telling him, "I hope you know how much I appreciate this." Now that's narcissism.