Courtesy AMCtv
"Now I understand. You want to feel shitty, right until the point where I take your dress off. Because I'm going to do that."
—Don Draper
Don knows what he's going to do, because he's been doing it forever—pathologically unfaithful with women while old school in the work place, and increasingly half-assing it there as well—with Pete Campbell as his Mini Me, a little bit sloppier and more aggressive at both, and now Bob Benson trying to track the footsteps of both. Benson aggressively chases what the men above him have, only they never seem satisfied having it, and as Alan Sepinwall aptly notes:
Don invokes the Germans at Munich to Pete as a group who were given everything they wanted to be happy and yet still insisted on more, and we know that he understands that mindset all too well.
So Pete suffers the consequences of his serial, sloppy infidelity, while everyone at SCDP (or is it just SCD now?) is about to suffer for its fidelity to Heinz's vinegar, beans, and sauces division—does anyone doubt that Peggy and Ted are going to squeeze the ketchup into their client roster?
Thematically, I agree with Matthew Perpetua that this is the season in which we finally recognize that our protagonist is not our hero, that Don Draper's not getting redeemed and isn't particularly admirable. We are watching the consequences of his selfishness, of his inability to adapt, and the idea that Megan or his kids (whom we've yet to see him with this season) or Peggy are going to lead to some transformation ... well, that's not happening. One just hopes that Peggy can chart a different path for herself, and indeed this is an episode in which women speak up for themselves (Trudy telling off Pete; Joan to Herb, the sleazy Jaguar dealer), so maybe she's finding a way to capture the best parts of Don Draper without all of the negatives. Acting appreciatively to her staff is a start, the opposite of Don's that's what the money is for approach.
Two quick bullets: