Mad Men Season 4, Episode 6: "Waldorf Stories"

When I saw the title of this episode, my first thought was that there might be an appearance by Conrad Hilton, but as usual, that's too obvious for Mad Men's writers. However, I'm sure Connie is keeping tabs on Don and his work, and we may yet see him--the show does tend to bring people back. Like Ken--now we know why we've been seeing Aaron Staton's name in the opening credits each week, even though he had only appeared in episode 4 this season. It remains to be seen how well he and Pete can work together.

So Roger's wife's cousin Danny is looking for a job in advertising, even though he doesn't seem to have much in the way of original ideas. This is presented in contrast with Don's first encounter with Roger and subsequent pursuit of a job at Sterling Cooper. Danny is trying to get a job through connections rather than real talent, whereas Don at first tried to impress Roger with his ideas, but when that didn't work, he apparently took advantage of Roger's inebriation to trick Roger into believing he had offered Don a job and didn't remember.

Of course, Don wasn't remembering much of anything over the course of his lost weekend, causing him an assortment of problems: his misplaced award, his obligation to his children, the fact that the slogan the Life cereal guys liked best was the one Danny had used over and over in his work. The missing Saturday was especially jarring, and a sign that Don's drinking is seriously out of control. I liked that Peggy told him off; her instruction to "fix it" refers to much more than just Don's borrowing of Danny's phrase. Peggy is also angry with Don about not sharing the recognition for the award, but that may not be as easily fixable. What's it going to take for Don to wake up?

Meanwhile, Peggy has to deal with the unorthodox work style of the agency's new art director, Stan Rizzo. He's supposed to be this free spirit, but Peggy manages to embarrass him, which presumably removed the roadblock to their making progress on the Vick's project. He's no Sal, that's for sure. Clearly we are supposed to dislike Stan, at least not now, but we'll need to see some demonstrable talent from him to justify his presence. I didn't care for wormy Danny either, but my opinion of him is colored by knowing the actor playing him, Danny Strong, also played the weasely Jonathan on Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

So another little piece of Don's past is filled in, and it's as nearly checkered as his assumption of the real Don Draper's identity.