[Disclaimer: I have avoided reading any other recaps, writeups, or other commentary on this episode before writing this, so if I express something similar to thoughts you've read elsewhere, it's entirely a coincidence. And as always, if you have not watched the episode, assume there are spoilers ahead and act accordingly.]
I guess I should have known better than to expect this episode to deliver some actual good news. Instead, we were dealt large helpings of irony, as there was plenty of bad news being learned.
We learned last week that Don is planning to spend the Christmas-New Year's break in Acapulco. He has arranged his trip with a stopover in Los Angeles, so he can swing down to Long Beach and visit Anna, the widow of the real Don Draper, that Don was last seen visiting during his attempt to escape from reality at the end of season 2. Don has taken care of Anna financially since she learned his true identity, in effect buying her silence, but he truly cares about her and has always felt very protective toward her.
When Don arrives he finds Anna in a cast from a broken leg. Her sister Patty and niece Stephanie soon come by; they have been helping Anna with her household needs while her leg heals. Stephanie is home from Berkeley for winter break; she's another fetching, nubile creature tossed in front of Don for him to make a pass at. He does, but his ardor is quickly doused when Stephanie tells him that Anna has cancer and has only a short time to live.
Anna is the only person who knew everything about Don's past as Dick Whitman, and how he switched identities with her dead husband in Korea (until Don confessed to Betty last season). She and her family call him Dick (I wonder if the sister and niece know the whole story? probably not), and he behaves differently around her. Anna is the only person who truly knows him, and learning that he will soon lose that connection weighs heavily on him.
Unable to be around Anna without telling her the truth about her condition (which has inexplicably been kept from her by her family), Don has lost his desire to go to Mexico and returns to New York and the office, to find Lane there, alone, working. Don introduces Lane to his classic shirk-work move of going to the movies, which leads to an evening of drink and debauchery, Don Draper style.
Along the way we learn the reason that Lane isn't back in London with his family: his wife has left him. He looks to Don for advice, which Don sidesteps, then distracts Lane with an offer of female companionship, which Lane accepts without much hesitation. It appears that Don is out to corrupt everyone around him in some way; maybe he thinks he will feel better by making sure other people are just as miserable as he is.
Elsewhere, Joan and Greg are trying to conceive a child (perhaps a hedge against the possibility that Greg won't come back from wherever the Army sends him). But we also learn that Joan has had two previous abortions (presumably in the days before birth control). I was a little puzzled as to why Joan wouldn't explain to Lane her reason for wanting time off--she did have a good reason. Maybe she just wanted to keep her personal life to herself.
Joan's gynecologist was urging her to go off the Pill and start a family now, but she said no, they were waiting until they were ready; I'm not sure whether she was there for her annual check-up or because she'd missed a few pills and was having side effects. I suspect this discussion about having babies was designed to haunt her when hubby gets killed in Vietnam in a few episodes. Or her gyn is wrong and she will get accidentally pregnant after missing just a couple of pills. She seems to be rather, ahem, fertile, having had two birth-control failures before.
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