Episode Report Card Couch Baron: A+ | 3 USERS: B YOU GRADE IT Draper's Eight
By Couch Baron | Season 3 | Episode 13 | Aired on 11.08.2009
Don heads upstairs to Gene's room to find Sally asleep in his bed with the lamp still on. Aw. He sits down in the chair, thinking about how he's going to miss this...
...before being thrown into another flashback, this one of Archie defending his decision about the grain to Abigail. Abigail, however, tells him that the bank is going to take the farm, so Archie angrily says he'll sell the grain for nothing, then. Dick watches uncomfortably as Archie gets up and goes on that he'll drive the grain to Chicago that very night, to which Abigail replies, "You're drunk." Maybe you can pull in some side money as a news reporter, Abigail. Once Archie's out the door, Dick gives Abigail a questioning side-eye, and she responds to the unstated question that he should go after him. "He can barely stand." That'll cease to be an issue in a moment.
In the barn, Archie tries to calm a jumpy horse for a bit before letting Dick have his first sip of moonshine or something else that only belongs in a jug, and now that I think of it I wouldn't be surprised if it was some of that garbage Connie and Don drank in their father-son conversation. In fact, it'd be quite fitting if that were the case. Archie then drunkenly drops the saddle in getting it off the wall, and when he bends down to retrieve it, an ill- (or well-, depending on your point of view) --timed crash of lightning causes the horse to kick out its hooves -- straight into Archie's forehead. At least he didn't feel a thing, I'm guessing. We see Dick desperately call "Daddy!" a few times, but the horseshoe marks on Archie's face suggest he's gone to that Great Big Cooperative In The Sky...
...and then we're back with Don, who's got to be thinking about how he doesn't want his kids to go through the pain of losing their father as well. He crawls into bed with Sally and reaches over her to take her hand as she sleeps, and at the very end of the recapping season you don't expect me to be able to make that funny, do you?
Cut to Don looking out his window at SC, drink in hand, when Bertram, Roger, and Pryce enter. After Don gets the rarely-seen second iteration of the episode title, he suggests they go to McCann directly, but Pryce thinks that's futile -- they were right about PPL being sold, "so it seems we're all going to McCann." Roger takes a moment to enjoy the thought that Pryce got shafted in the deal, but Don's too focused on the thought of getting a shot to buy SC back to notice. Pryce won't hear it, though, saying he should fire Don for even trying to involve him in "this conspiracy," and Don is too busy snapping back that firing people is the only thing Pryce did well during his stay at SC to notice the gigantic cartoon light bulb going off over his head. Pryce spits that he did a great many things while at SC, but instead of asking him to name a few, Don instead has seen the light, and softly recalls that Pryce has always had absolute authority to can anyone he chooses. A stillness overcomes the room as the other three feel what Don is about to say even before they fully understand, and he continues into the quiet, "Fire us." Bertram's face lights up as Don continues that Pryce can fire them and terminate their contracts, and Roger hilariously asks, "Can you do that?" Heh, but seriously, given that the answer seems to be a definite yes, some barrister in London forgot to cross some "t"s and dot some "i"s on Pryce's contract. And while I'm at it, I'm not completely convinced that it's realistic that Pryce could get away with what he ends up pulling off, but it was a long time ago and besides it's too awesome for me really to care.