Did you get pears? I’m sure we’ve all found ourselves asking that very same question at some point in our lives. Or maybe it was just an example of Mad Men at its most deliberately obscure – I’m not sure if it was a brilliant moment, or just a cynical attempt at faux-profundity. But enough about that for now, we’ve got a whole episode to get through first.

The episode began with an amusing, although rather unethical conference call with Lee Garner Jr. over at Lucky Strike. Considering the fact that SCDP are surviving solely because of this contract, and Lee’s very much aware of the fact that they’re over-billing him to cover their other expenses, Don and Roger really should have tried harder to butter him up rather than just have Alison listen in and inform them whenever he referred to either of them by name, and terminating the call by pretending (very badly) that there was a fire going on outside the window. When they’ll inevitably lose the Lucky Strike contact, I can’t say that they won’t deserve it. Although Roger may well have been offering to pimp out Lane to the closeted Lee, as he did promise to get him to the foot of Lee’s bed within 20 minutes, so I suppose that counts as good customer service.

Following this most of the episode was concerned with showing how the Ponds Cold Cream contract could be more trouble than it’s worth, what with the related chaos spreading throughout the offices of SCDP. Not least for Pete Campbell who, thanks to a potential conflict of interests, had the unenviable duty of getting rid of his father-in-law’s business. Luckily this was Pete Campbell rather than the average human being with and so, untroubled by the usual feelings of guilt, loyalty and compassion, he had no qualms about rejecting family members. Things didn’t quite go Pete’s way however, as at the dumping dinner his father-in-law dropped the bombshell that Pete’s wife was pregnant, news so shocking that it even made Campbell show some regular human emotions for a fair amount of the episode (well, at least until he started wondering the next day if he should have used the good news as an excellent opportunity to dump his father-in-law’s business).

Despite begging Pete not to tell Trudy that he had let the cat out of the bag, Trudy’s dad then landed himself in it by getting drunk and confessing to her over the phone. I think Pete is having a bad influence on his wife as she was perfectly fine with him having to ditch her dad’s business as well, and even arranged a dinner for them the next night to help with the matter. It all went pretty smoothly for Pete in the end, he may have been called a son of a bitch by his father-in-law because of it, but as Pete is impervious to insults on his character he just shrugged it off (literally), and ended up convincing his father-in-law to give him the contract for the much more profitable range of Vicks chemical. And on top of that he got to brag about his news to his old rival Ken Cosgrove (his turning up was an unpleasant surprise, or at least it would have been one if the actor hadn’t been included on the opening credits since the start of the season). Although Ken seemed quite sincerely happy when he said ‘Another Campbell, that’s just what the world needs’, that choice of phrasing does suggest otherwise, but I suppose that’s what makes a great accounts man, being able to act warm and friendly when you don’t mean it at all. And despite Pete and Ken’s faults, Harry Crane came out the worst from the three’s dinner date, thanks to his using a phone call to brag once again about his contacts in Hollywood (in this case CBS), and his telling Ken what Pete had been saying behind his back, and not even that accurately as he’d attributed some of his own thoughts about Ken to Pete – ‘Textbook Harry’, as Pete said.

Meanwhile, the creative staff at SCDP were having their own Ponds related crisis as a result of the focus group in which they asked the young girls of the office (as an older secretary pointed out, neither she or Joan were wanted as they were too old and married, which Joan looked pretty livid about). Needless to say it soon descended into drama and misery – as Freddy Rumsen said, while creepily leering at the young girls through the two-way mirror, ‘How the hell did this get so sad so fast’ – with the girl’s talk about beauty tips going from cute stories about childhood practices (in Dr Miller’s case) and French mothers (I’m not entirely sure how being of French extraction means you don’t have to wash your face with soap, but in that girl’s case the results of her fairly lazy beauty routine were very impressive) to tearful stories of being mocked by cheating boyfriends. By the end of the session even the most defiant girl in the room, who declared at the start that they shouldn’t be worrying about impressing unworthy men ended up sympathetically recommending make-up. So it was hardly surprising that Don’s secretary Alison, who was still feeling sensitive from the events that transpired on his sofa after the Christmas party, would find the experience overwhelming. I can’t quite tell what made it seem more disturbing though, the fact that while she was going through this the man who had callously used her was sitting in the next room watching with old past-it Freddy making comments about which girl would be ‘the first to crack’, or the fact that she and the other girls were clearly aware of the fact that they were being watched. Peggy who felt ‘responsible’ for the whole thing (probably quite rightly, what with the focus group being based on her idea of the beauty routine ‘ritual’ which she had been going on about repeatedly, like a sort of mantra) attempted to comfort Alison outside, although it didn’t go quite according to plan, what with Alison assuming that Peggy had been in the same situation with Don as her. Although rightfully offended by the suggestion that she got her position by sleeping around, Peggy didn’t do a great job of cheering up Alison, and if she was right and the company’s focus groups often ended up with someone crying I can’t help but think that they’re doing them wrong.

To make matters worse for Alison she then had to deal with Don who, although trying to act kind and pleasant, was completely disinterested in her situation, even to the point of suggesting that she write her own recommendation letter from him and he’ll just sign it. Don may have been trying to show that he trusted her but it was an unbelievably untactful thing to do, and Alison minor act of destruction in his office, and her assessment that Don ‘is not a good person’ were really quite justified.

On top of that, the whole focus group turned out to be a massive waste of time. Freddy’s original and highly offensive idea was right – the girls really were interested in beauty merely as a method to snare a husband, which is hardly surprising when you consider the rough treatment they were getting in the workplace, but still incredibly disappointing to Don when Dr Miller told him to focus the campaign on matrimony; ‘Welcome to 1925’ as he so wearily responded. If there is a positive to take from the process, it’s that we did get Alison’s replacement, the hilarious Miss Blankenship out of it. It has been mentioned elsewhere that she’s so broadly drawn that she doesn’t really belong in a show as slow-burning and subtle as Mad Men, but even if she is essentially a female Mr Magoo, I already love her (as if Miss Blankenship wasn’t great enough, there’s also the brilliantly nerdy fact that the same actress played Daniel’s mum in the original Karate Kid, which brings back all sorts of feelings of nostalgia).

Despite all the workplace related bitching and misery, the episode actually had quite a joyous feel to it, mainly due to Peggy’s indoctrination into the world of New York hipsters thanks to Joyce (played by the daughter of legendary playwright David Mamet) who worked in the same building as an Assistant Photo Editor for Life Magazine. Peggy may have shot down Joyce’s sexual advances incredibly quickly albeit tactfully (Joyce didn’t seem to care too much fortunately, based on her exchange with Peggy at the end of the episode I wouldn’t be surprised if she also had some sort of relationship with SCDP receptionist Megan), but that didn’t get in the way of them having fun. In fact not even terrible sub-Warhol based film-making got in the way of them having fun as Joyce took Peggy to a film screening of her photographer friend’s provocative movie (Peggy’s response to him that as she was Catholic, she probably wasn’t meant to like the film was a moment of tact that Don really could have learnt from), nor the fact that Peggy is dating the unbelievably wet Mark (the man who she so romantically put it, is ‘renting’ her vagina) as she ended up making out with one of Joyce’s male friends in a cupboard while hiding from a police raid (presumably somebody had called them to get out of watching such a crappy film). It was great seeing Peggy come further out of her shell especially considering she also had to deal with the dramatic news about Pete’s new baby (I enjoyed the fact that the writers went for a more comedic rather than tragic reaction from her, with her responding to the news by banging her head against her desk). Although the scene of her and Joyce running gleefully away from the police raid really reminded me of something and annoyingly I can’t quite work out what it was (I think it might be My Summer of Love but I’m not entirely sure – the dramatic device of a previously stuffy and conservative girl running away laughing from doing something vaguely illegal might well be a surprisingly common one, if anybody else had that same feeling of déjà vu and a more clear idea as to why, please let me know in the comments).

The division between Peggy and Pete also formed much of the end of the episode with them (and their separate entourages) passing each other in the SCDP lobby. The two shared a meaningful look, despite their very different circumstances – Peggy associating with a fun, if pretentious, group of bohemians, Pete trapped in another boring business lunch – before parting, in a warm moment tinged with a hint of sadness. And Don was left to wander home alone, where he witnessed the aforementioned pears incident. My theory about that is after being reminded of the depressingly old-fashioned way of thinking people have with the Ponds focus group, his frustrations were being reflected in the sight of the dull familiarity of the elderly married couple (of course it’s probably not a coincidence that Pears is also a brand of soap). But that does seem a bit clunky and obvious, so please do share your pear-based theories in the comment section below.