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Our intro to Don begins just as mysteriously as the teaser trailers for the final season. He finishes shaving in an airplane bathroom and then, immobile and practically statuesque, is moved by the pulling of the airport conveyor belt and right into the passenger seat of Megan’s car. Although his marriage seems to still be holding itself together for the time being, it’s clear that Don is no longer in control of his own life. Control is not a thing that’s easy for Don to vanquish but if he has any hopes of keeping the things he’s so close to losing, he might have to learn how. Although home for Don is still in New York, there’s a frozen-in-time utopia that he seems to grasp for in LA, as is evident by the scene from the movie “Lost Horizon” that he and Megan watch on the new color TV that he bought for her despite her not wanting to appear rich in front of her starving-artist friends.

Meanwhile, like a golden ray of California sunshine, Pete Campbell beams as he greets Don with a hug at a seriously underwhelming New York-style LA diner. It’s clear that Pete’s loving life, with his new apartment by the tar pits, his new Barbie doll realtor that has him wrapped around her finger, and just his new life in LA in general even if he can’t find a decent bagel to save his life. That’s OK though, he has Ted to run back to NY to pick some up for him! (And also to throw a wrench into Peggy’s life, or so she makes it seem.)

We open on Roger Sterling’s story, how else, with him laying on the floor surrounded by a sea of naked bodies. His daughter calls him requesting some father-daughter brunch time in which she forgives him for being a generally horrible person towards just about everybody but himself. Feeling mostly indifferent, Roger returns to the bizarre orgy house and climbs into bed with who we assume is his current fling and another man, who we assume is her current fling. Perhaps this free-love hippie life that Roger’s been chasing ever since his first acid trip is more than someone of his generation can handle as he stares up at the ceiling.

Back in LA, Don hops a red-eye flight back to New York because he has to “work” (or so he tells Megan. Do you think she knows about his little vacation from SC&P?) and meets Neve Campbell on the plane (what is it about former 90’s teen babes that gets Don so hot and bothered?) The two share some intimate conversation as she describes her late husband’s death - a tale that sounds a little too close to our hero’s. I’m pretty sure that interaction is foreshadowing at its finest. She falls asleep on his shoulder and it looks as though we’re going to have another Linda-Cardellini-in-season-6 repeat but in complete not-Don fashion, he resists her advances. Maybe he really is trying to win Husband Of The Year.

Meanwhile in New York, Joan struts her way around SC&P getting approval from Captain Ken (who’s still sporting that stylish eye patch, by the way) to take on more account work as all of the responsibility seems to have fallen onto him with the recent change in staff. Being as it’s still the 60’s, Joan struggles to gain her clients’ respect as a business woman, but by the end of the episode, and with the help of a kindly business school professor, she has just about every man eating out of the palm of her hand. Who run the world? JOAN.

Peggy, on the other hand, much like Don, is having a hard time keeping in control. The position that she thought would be hers went to Lou, who, again, is apparently immune to feminine charm and also doesn’t know a good ad campaign when it practically hits him in the face (how great would it have been if she actually decked him in the face? We can still dream of that happening in the future, right?) and the residents in her building can’t seem to flush a toilet without her help. Unable to cope with the fact that she can’t take charge of her work, Peggy completely breaks down, shadowing the breakdown she had on her very first day at Sterling Cooper. Poor Peggy. If only shutting life’s problems out was as easy as yelling “PIZZA HOUSE!” and slamming the phone down.

Don’s on the verge of a breakdown too, we see, as he invites Rumsen into his apartment to talk about how his pitch went. (We all KNEW it was just too good of a pitch to have come from Freddie’s brain!) We see that he’s worked so hard to build up this lie of a still-perfect life that he’s resorted to using human-puppet Rumsfeld to try to weasel his way back into the firm. He can’t get work, he can’t have his wife in the same time zone as him, he can’t even get the sliding doors of his balcony to close. With a bottle of booze and without pants, Don pries the doors wide open and sits on the balcony exposed to the frigid January air and all of his lies and insecurities. It’s a powerful close to what’s, for sure, going to be an intense season.