SEASON 7, EPISODE 13.

First thought: Is Max Gail the new Brad Dourif?

I understand the necessity of the VFW scenes and even enjoyed the details, like the low-rent strip tease and the Hill's Coffee donation can (though Weiner made the room itself look Overlook Hotel bleak; if he weren't so eager to get cosmic, what would these scenes look like?). It's important for Don's journey that he tell somebody about what happened in Korea when he doesn't have to tell it (just as it was important that he spill his guts about his childhood to the guys from Hershey), and it's important for the cultural mirror people keep telling us Mad Men is that he express it, and the other vets receive it, as a fragging story of a sort that would become familiar after Vietnam. (But forgive me: I've known a few veterans; if one of them tells another vet he doesn't want to talk about the war, doesn't that normally end the conversation?)

Speaking of cosmic, Betty has revealed herself to be kind of Zen, albeit Westchester Zen: "Why was I ever doing it?" is a brilliant insight, and not accidental. (I bet she's a really good psych student.) Have I been mistaking her remoteness for severe emotional damage all along, when it was actually just a different kind of strength than what the Joans and Peggys have been trying to work their liberated selves up into? The matched shots of Betty bravely struggling up the stairs, even giving a gracious greeting through pain as she climbs, with Sally reading her letter seem to say so. I guess both things can be true. Remember all those times Joan gave Peggy frost for what she read as Peggy getting above or at least ahead of herself ("all you did was prove to them I'm a meaningless secretary and you're a humorless bitch")? Joan was insisting that, despite lacking the tools and opportunity Peggy had, she was also entitled to dignity. With these scenes the show does that on Betty's behalf. I wish there could be a Sally spin-off so I could see what she does with this knowledge.

As far as end-tying, this is by far the most elegant of the series, and what I'm guessing is the Pete Campbell resolution is the least. I'm not even a Campbell hater, but there's only one way his Trudy-in-Kansas fantasy makes sense to me: as a pale echo of Don's proposal to Megan -- an attempt to enforce normality and stave off the shadow of death. It may work out better for Pete than for Don because he has a smaller secret. Oh, yeah, that one: We have one more episode for that mantelpiece gun to go off.

I doubt that it will, though: Pete's drama can't be as big as Don's. The night this episode debuted I followed the stunned Twitter reactions to his Oklahoma adventure but when I finally watched the episode, it made perfect sense -- including Don's disposal of the Caddy. Keep in mind that so far Don hasn't really "lost it all" -- he's still very well-off and if he took a bus back to New York he could work his investments, maybe write a book, and wait out the McCann non-compete. All he's done so far is a bit of ritual self-mortification; the phonebook beatdown is a bit severe, but he seems to bounce back pretty good from it.  The weirdest part of this journey is that so far the America Don left behind so he could reinvent himself in New York still looks, upon his return, like a hell -- it's much richer than it was in Dick Whitman's childhood, but the people are still vicious and stupid. That's why Don blesses that Li'l-Abner punk. "You're lucky you feel guilty," he tells him, "that's the only difference between you and those animals right now." As far as he can see, that's the only difference between Don and the animals he grew up with, too. Giving the kid the car is a weird way to shine a light, but it was available and it cost him little. We'll see in the finale if he has to give up something that costs more.