Mad Men: The Hobo Code

 "There is no system. The universe is indifferent."

This episode is, at once, a deep character study of Don Draper and a fascinating exploration of ideas and ideals. It's the finest episode yet and a magnificent piece of television.

We see flashbacks, for the first time, of Don's loveless childhood, raised by adults who are not his parents and connecting to a free-spiriterd hobo (Father Phil from The Sopranos!) who is invited in for the night, but screwed out of money by Don's dishonest uncle. This shows us, perhaps, the origins of his broodiness and inability to get close to people. It's also fascinating to see him exposed to conttrasting belief systems. Cooper invites him to his inner sanctum for an unexpected bonus, as Bert extols the "virtues" of that simple-minded cretin Ayn Rand with her morally and intellectually vacuous drivel, Atlas Shrugged. Don, not being a gullible aristocrat like Cooper, politely demurs.

And yet he ends the episode unexxpectedly getting stoned(!) with his lover and her Beatnik mates from right out of a Kerouac novel. Again he is criticised for his profession by Bohemian wasters who are doing nothing constructive whatsoever to advance the causes they claim to bdelieve in, but instead just smoking weed and listening gto jazz all day. Don has the last word; he is no Beatnik but no Ayn Rand either. Wisely, he understands that the world is a chaotic and indifferent place. Echoing Existentialism and carving out his own meaning in a world whefre one is not provided, he is less shallow than either extreme. And, able to walk out stoned right past the police by virtue of his sharp suit, he is paradoxically exhibiting the freedom of the hobo.

There's more; Pete and Peggy shag, but he begins to exhibit troublingly controlling behaviour over her as his marriage may already be falling apart, essentially because Pete is an over-privileged man-child. Salvatore has a female admirer and also a male one, but is as yet unable to express his gay sexuality. And Peggy's copy, with assistance from a bravura performance from Don, goes across omne. Is she destined, as society starts to change, for bigger things?