Mad Men - "A Night to Remember"

So after last week's fireworks display, Mad Men managed to keep its momentum and come with another mind-blowingly awesome episode.

Let's start with Peggy, who said my favorite line of the episode, "this is how it works and I'm better than them." Peggy's always been my favorite character, and it was good to see her back in action, even if it was in a smaller plotline. Her scene with the angry church women was awesome and her moment in the office was powerful. However, I'm not sure how sold I am on this priest storyline. I trust the writers that its going somewhere (and that when it gets there it will be awesome) but for now it seems like there are other directions I'd be more interested in seeing them take her.

On to Joan, who is indeed "so much woman" (Warren, the person responsible for that line which could just as easily have come from the forums at TWOP, is my new favorite character). Joan followed in Peggy's footsteps by being given an advertising assignment from the frazzled Harry. And she excelled at it, until she lost her position. Joan's been floating around a lot of these ideas all season (she's getting older and in need of a boost of self-worth) and its nice to see this start to really develop.

But of course the big action of this episode was with the Drapers, as poor Betty tried dealing with last week's events the same way she did in season 1: by suppressing her feelings. But that isn't working anymore and the result is her finally standing up to Don. That scene was probably January Jones' best work so far (she tends to get overshadowed by the other women) and it was a long time coming. Noel at the AV Club makes an interesting point: that maybe she was angrier at realizing how calculating Don really is: everything's a pitch with him. That's an interesting idea, but given the historical time period we're dealing with, I think what we're seeing is Betty starting to wake up to her own independence. She's seeing less and less of a reason why she has to put up with Don's shenanigans.

Grade: A-