MM-4-7

Without a doubt, one of a handful of the finest episodes this show has ever made. A piece of intimate drama worthy to stand alongside anything in Bergman. I have never been able to escape the feeling that while Mad Men is completely steeped in American details and lore, it gets its bag of special tricks from the Nordic Blues. The plays of Strindberg and Ibsen laid bare the sordid underpinnings of a society that seemed completely unperturbed at its surface - the people who seemed so civilized and educated at first glance were as much animals as we all are in our worst moments. Mad Men translates that feeling of the tensions smoldering beneath the surface better than nearly any other piece of American art. Much more than American Beauty, or Lolita, or Death of a Salesman, or As I Lay Dying, or even Blue Velvet and The Great Gatsby, Mad Men gets to the heart of everything we fear might be true.