What About Don?

I have to admit to having second thoughts about not including Don Draper in the most recent Three Up, Three Down. It was not a good episode for him, from the aborted pitch to McCann about keeping SC&P West running to not being able to find Diana to his inability to pitch the folding into McCann as a new beginning to the SC&P staff.  As has been the case for this half season, Don is losing parts of him at every turn, to the point where all he has is his assumed name.

But I left him off because the four people had arguably worse episodes. Joan, whose position as an executive has always been shaky, is going to get sidelined at McCann. Peggy has to go to McCann if she wants the sort of career success she's already identified as what she wants (all while keeping the stress of giving up her son under the surface). Roger is facing mortality even more squarely than usual, with the Sterling name now, as he notes, ultimately only naming the family crypt. And Trudy Campbell is facing parts of all of these issues, being a single divorced mom who knows that, soon, the husbands who keep sniffing around will stop doing so.

So as much as this episode continued Don's decline, I don't think it did so in a way that made things as measurably bad for him as the episode did for others. I do think Don's the one character in this group who is least likely to find the new beginning that he tried to sell to his SC&P colleagues. Unless he decides to head west on his own to take over the SC&P West space (maybe with Joan in tow if she decides to marry her new beau?).