'Mad Men' Season 5, Episode 4 Recap - 'Mystery Date'

First off, can we get a round of applause for the twisted comparison between Mystery Date (the commercial for which is viewed by Sally in the episode) and Pauline's description of the murders of the Chicago nurses? Clever, in a creepy kind of way, how Pauline talked about women opening the door to a mystery man, just after Sally had been watching a girl open a door to meet her mystery date on the commercial.

The news of that massacre helped open the episode as well, as Peggy and the rest of her team marveled at photos of the murders while new hire Michael disapproved. Michael also flashed his genius in the board room during a pitch for Butler shoes... even though he and Don had already sold their pitch, Michael casually tossed his clearly thought-out pitch for a Cinderella concept at the clients and got them on his side. "I'm pretty sure you almost just got fired," says Cosgove after Don chews Michael out.

Speaking of Don, our anti-hero spent the episode with a cold that may have struck a lesser man dead. But if anything is going to get Don killed, it won't be an illness; it will be temptation. Don gets in trouble with Megan when Andrea steps onto the elevator and gets a little too friendly. That's cause for a spat, but it ends up staying on Don's mind.

So much so, in fact, that when he gets home, he finds Andrea at the door, sends her out the back, later wakes up to find her in his bedroom again, and finally gives in to temptation and sleeps with her. He tries to tell her it was a mistake, to which she responds, "A mistake you love to make. Because you are a sick, sick..." and at that point he murders her. No, really, he chokes her to death and then shoves her body under the bed.

Of course that all ends up being a fever dream, but the conflict is clear enough: even though Don has replaced Betty with a beautiful, 20-something new wife (and she says cute things in French and sings!), his temptation to cheat was never about whom he was with. Don has probably known this to an extent thus far, but maybe it's finally becoming clear to him.

Then again, in a show where the theme seems to be how, when everything is changing around them, men like Don stay static, maybe he's still in the dark.

Even Peggy, for all her ability to adjust to the times, had trouble in this episode. Feeling confident after practically robbing Roger blind for covering his ass on the Mohawk account (Roger continues to wane in relevancy in the company, but at least he complained about it less this week), she stays late and finds Dawn sleeping in an office.

Inviting Dawn to stay at her place, Peggy gets rather drunk and blabs about how tough her job is, her doubts about herself, how she doesn't want to have to act like a man, and how she understands where Dawn is coming from because she was once the only person like her in the office. That last one is obviously a stretch, and proof that even the more progressive characters on this show still don't quite "get it" where race is involved. It's worse when Peggy nervously eyes her purse, with the $400 in it, lying on the table near Dawn.

Winners of the week (yes, sometimes people do something right on this show) are Sally and Pauline, who bond over the murders and learn a few things about themselves. Sally realizes she's not as grown up as she thought, and Pauline actually does some parenting for the largely unparented Draper girl.

But the big winner is Joan, who starts off the episode fretting over Greg's return: her "oh no, the cake" moment had to have made Joan fans everywhere sigh, as we all know she's better than this. But when it turns out that Greg has to go back for another year, and that he volunteered for it even though he only just met his newborn son, Joan tells him to hit the road. "You're not a good man. You never were, even before we were married and you know what I'm talking about," she tells him, to much cheering from the audience at home.

Of course, the accordion had to come back just one last time before she got rid of him, though. It's those moments that make the show, folks.