Don did it again. He caved to lust and slept with Miss Farrell. It falls in line with his pattern of behavior though I would have liked to see Don control himself for once. Maybe that will happen...in 5 seasons.
Good ol' Connie can shoulder some of the blame having pushed Don too far. We see Hilton call Don in the dead of the night for meetings. The conversations between them are quite humorous. Hilton is a megalomaniac with lofty words and a complete detachment from reality. Don sits there listening most of the time not knowing exactly what to do. Hilton is like a father figure to him and while the father might be a tad crazy, all the attention Don's getting not related to business must feel pretty good to someone who hasn't had a father for much of his life. I'm not entirely sure what the writer's intent was with Hilton. To me, Hilton seemed more crazy than simply eccentric.
Don struggles to come up with a pitch, striking down several ideas including Peggy's who clearly does not want to get on his bad side. Don ends up with a plan in true Don Draper fashion. Simply, everything in the world is one word: Hilton. Hilton strikes it down for the ludicrous reason that the moon wasn't Hilton. Yes, Hilton actually wanted an ad that was about Hiltons on the moon. Not figuratively, literally. Maybe he expected Don to join NASA? Whatever the reasoning, he leaves Don off balance and clearly confused.
Betty's story ends much differently that Don though both could have ended the same. She calls Henry Francis, and he shows up at her door unannounced, and she has to explain to Carla about some "fund raiser." To fit the excuse, she does hold a fund raiser for Rockefeller's presidential campaign which as we know ends with a loss. Francis does not show up and Betty is mad. She shows up at his office and confronts him. Francis locks the door and is expecting to get in on, but Betty says no. Out of all the guys forcing themselves onto women in the past few weeks, Francis is not able to seal to deal. This is a testament to Betty, because while she may not know what she's doing all the time, she puts her foot down and realizes she has power over Francis. She's not Gudrun, Peggy, or Miss Farrell, and knows she will get what she wants. If she doesn't want to have sex on the table, she can wait to have sex on a bed if she wants.
Sal is another character cornered in quite a difficult position. The Lucky Strike client Lee Garner Jr. touches him and indicates they should do something. Sal is shocked and refuses, but Jr. calls Henry Crane to have Sal fired. Henry Crane doesn't and Lee Jr. is angry. Henry and Sal tries to smooth things over, but Don fires Sal anyways. If Hilton hadn't been hanging over him, maybe he would have saved Sal, but either way, it was a cold business decision and now Sal is out of luck.
Score: 9.6/10
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