- The creative department has a wild, drug-influenced weekend as they work on the Chevy account, Don has trouble letting go of Sylvia, and Sally walks in on an unwelcome intruder.
- Don has been loitering outside the Rosens' apartment. Sylvia sees the signs that he has been doing so and implores him to stop although Don is desperate to continue the liaison with her. At the office, Ken has been taking the brunt of the issues with the Chevy account, and it is he who relays to the partners that GM has provided a three year timeline with key deadlines, the next to take place the upcoming Monday in 72 hours. It's bad timing especially for the former CGC partners and staff as Frank Gleason has just passed away, meaning that some have to make a presence at the funeral, while others have to work the weekend for that next presentation to GM. To deal with a work related injury that Ken suffered, as well as provide those working the weekend with a boost, Jim calls in his personal physician who provides a vitamin and energy shot to most of the creative staff and partners to get them through the weekend to battle the probable exhaustion that would occur otherwise. The stimulant in the shot takes over the creative thought for most of the weekend. The shot, in combination with a severe chest cold, is making Don remember back to a situation during his puberty, relating both to his relationship with Sylvia as well as the Chevy campaign. Having to work, Don will miss his weekend visit with the children. As Megan has a theater date which she hopes to parlay into a stage role. She, as she has done before, leaves Sally in charge of looking after the boys. Their weekend is disrupted by an unexpected visitor.—Huggo
- Don and the others at the merged ad firm are having major difficulties with their new client, General Motors. They've been at it for weeks and GM has so far rejected every idea they've put forward. They're expecting a new set of ideas by Monday so Don decides everyone will work the weekend. Already exhausted from the work so far, Jim Cutler says he knows just what they need and calls in Dr. Shelley Hecht to inject them with his secret vitamin concoction which is guaranteed to give them a boost. Soon they're on a speed-induced high that is anything but productive. The drugs lead Don to remember aspects of his childhood that might explain why he treats women the way he does now. Meanwhile his children are spending the weekend with Don and Megan. With Don at work and Megan having to go out, 14-year-old Sally is left in charge. She awakens in the night to find a woman in the apartment claiming to be Don's mother.—garykmcd
- "Mad Men" - "The Crash"- May 19, 2013
The Chevy account is turning the new firm upside down and everyone is exhausted.
If the drunken executives aren't taking Ken out for drunken joyrides in Detroit--in which he gets injured during an accident-- they are shooting down every idea the creative team is coming up with every week.
Then Ken returns with the news that they're actually on an over two-year plan and that this madness will continue for the foreseeable future. Plus, Chevy wants some new ideas by Tuesday which means that the creative team will have to work for the weekend.
Into this already potent atmosphere, two things happen: Frank Gleason dies-- which takes the sensitive Chaough out of commission to grieve his friend-- and Cutler invites his doctor in to give everyone souped up B-12 shots, which include a "mild stimulant." This turns everyone but Ginsberg loco. (Ginsberg abstains but Peggy does manage to get drunk by the end of the weekend.)
Cutler and Stan are having footraces. Stan is hitting on Peggy. Even though he is injured Ken starts tap-dancing, literally, as he talks about how he has to tapdance for the clients.
Meanwhile, the creatives are babbling a mile a minute about cars and life and fathers and sons but not actually coming up with anything usable. Frank Gleason's hippie daughter Wendy comes in after the funeral and starts reading the I Ching to everyone and hitting on all the men until she gets Stan-- hyped up after kissing Peggy-- to finally sleep with her. Cutler peeps this through the door and beckons Peggy over to watch, which is the final straw for her and she leaves.
It is Don of course who has the heaviest trip. Apparently the shot and its stimulant start bringing back a specific memory for him and we cut between the present day of manic Don working on two things: the Chevy account and getting Sylvia back, while we see glimpses of this younger Don as well.
In the flashbacks a teenage Don has a chest cold and fever. His stepmother wants to shunt him off to the basement of the whorehouse so he doesn't get everyone else sick with consumption. But a sweet working girl named Amy takes him into her room, feeds him soup, comforts him and nurses him back to health. Once he is better she takes his virginity. When she is thrown out of the house for holding out on the pimp she announces that she took his "cherry" and his stepmother beats him in front of the other whores for being a dirty boy.
In present day he feverishly appears to be working on Chevy but it turns out, when he shows Ginsberg and Peggy what little he has, it's really more of a pitch to get Sylvia back. He had been lingering outside Sylvia and Arnie's backdoor and eavesdropping and smoking cigarettes. When Arnie found them he thought Sylvia was smoking again. So Sylvia called Don claiming to be Arnie. Don steeled himself before the call and then Sylvia said she just did that to him so he could see what it would feel like to fear that Arnie would find out and place that call. She implores him to stop stalking her basically. He begs to be able to talk to her. She shuts him down. He goes on his weekend bender and just as he's about to go knock on her door and give his speech about taking him back, he heads home first.
Megan had been left with the kids all weekend but she had an important meeting with a Broadway director that she felt she couldn't miss so she paid Sally to babysit Bobby and Gene. Left alone that night, Sally hears a noise and goes to investigate. An elderly black woman is rifling through the drawers. She tries to claim to Sally that she was something of a nanny to her father as a little boy and thus a kind of surrogate grandmother to her. Since Sally knows so little about her dad she believes this at first but when Bobby awakes and the woman asks where his dad's gold watch might be so she can "fix it" Sally gets wise and tries to call the cops. The woman catches her and stops her and takes off.
When Don arrives home he finds a full living room: all three kids, Henry, Betty, Megan and a cop. It turns out the woman was going through the whole building pilfering from apartments where the back door was left open, like Don had left his. Betty is incensed and begins yelling at Don. Don, who had expected to rush off to Sylvia, is totally overwhelmed and coming down from his shot simply faints dead away at the sight of all this commotion.
The next day he rides in silence with Sylvia in the elevator. He then calls and reassures Sally that she did the right thing and it was he who left the back door open. He then goes to Cutler and Chaough and says he won't be working on the Chevy account until the end of the two year process because he can't work any other way and walks away from the two astonished men.
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