Episode Report Card Couch Baron: B+ | 465 USERS: B+ YOU GRADE IT I Am Become Death
By Couch Baron | Season 5 | Episode 8 | Aired on 2012.05.06
Don walks a still-tearful Megan to the elevator, who tells him she'll be back after her lunch to get her box, but Don suggests maybe she doesn't need to put herself through the emotional wringer once more and says he'll bring it home. She nods and thanks him and when the elevator comes, gives him a long kiss that I'm sure the watching extras totally appreciate. She waves goodbye and then she's gone; then something very odd happens. Don presses the button and the next door down opens; when he sticks his head in, there's no elevator but an open shaft, down which he can see the elevator descending. There's no real indication of it, but I wonder whether this is actually happening, as it's such a major malfunction for a door to open this way, you'd think Don would have more of a reaction. I mean, this is how Rosalind Shays died on L.A. Law! But whether real or imagined and whether the imagery signals actual death or something more metaphorical, it's another jarring, disturbing moment in a season that's been full of them and against the backdrop of everything that's happening in the country, it seems evident that we're in for some sort of tragedy. And I'm not just talking about whatever production books Megan for her first role. Discomfited, Don returns to his office and makes himself a stiff drink; soon after, Ken enters with Stan and Ginzo in tow and happily announces that Rick found a song Chevalier likes for the Hard Day's Night spot; Stan cues it up, and soon Ken is white-guy dancing to "September In The Rain," a song that an aghast Ginzo tells us "is like thirty years old." He goes on that it's "stabbing [him] in the fucking heart," and I can't wait for Ginzo to have kids that think his musical taste is antiquated. Ken doesn't have time for this and kicks Stan and Ginzo out to make room for the elephant he has to bring up, that being the fact that Cool Whip is expecting him and Megan. Don instructs him to tell them Megan's sick and to have Peggy do it instead and given how acidly she told him to "Just taste it" in the earlier meeting, you can't really say that the coming fiasco was impossible to predict.