Finally, somebody dies. Matthew Weiner and Co. have done everything but run a scrolling text bar across the screen this season saying, “Someone’s a goner, who will it be?” Images of death (or the threat of it) were scattered throughout nearly every episode. And with the finale just one week away, we learn that Lane Pryce, who so boldly punched Pete Campbell in the face just a few episodes ago (for being a nasty weasel! For losing the account! For America!), is the chosen victim.
Prompted by a discussion of whether to alter fee structures for yet another new client Pete has wrangled in, Bert takes a look at the books and discovers Lane’s $7,500 check with Don’s (forged) signature on it. Bert attacks Don, thinking he paid out a bonus that had been decreed dead, and Don promises to “take care of it.” He confronts Lane, and Lane just crumples. It is painful. First, he tries to convince Don that he must have simply forgotten that he signed it, then he makes excuses for it (it was “just a 13-week loan!”), then he takes a large drink, then he gets angry and combative (ugh, it was for Joan!) and then finally he is weeping and begging and still drinking. Don tells him he’s out — he must resign, and Don will quietly repay the amount owed. But just when you think he’s going to have to get out immediately, Don tells him to take the weekend to think up an “elegant exit.”
And that’s when we realize, many, many terrible minutes before it actually happens, that Lane is going to off himself. It’s jarring how obvious it is.
Lane is a guy who has felt slighted for a long time, which has always made him desperate, but never so much as now, when he will be forced to explain his wrongdoing to his wife and son and country he’s adopted as his own. Drunk and reeling from his meeting, he pops into Joan’s doorway. Joan is reveling in the idea of taking an island vacation while also laughing at the idea of doing it with a baby and a crazy, racist, handyman-loving mom. “I suppose you’d rather I imagine you bouncing in the sand in some obscene bikini,” Lane sneers. Joan orders him out with an oh-hell-no. She’s made partner, yet she’s still an object. But the harassment element of this isn’t just obnoxious — Lane is angry. He doesn’t say he’d rather imagine the bikini. He’s saying she wants him to imagine the bikini, and that’s far worse. Joan’s part in landing the Jaguar account led to the retraction of the bonuses that led to his denouement, which all came about (in his mind) because of her willingness to have sex with a gross Jaguar dealer…and his willingness to let her do it.
Then, of course, there’s the icing on the cake: Lane arrives home to find his wife has purchased him a new Jaguar. She wrote a check, one that was not co-faux-signed by Don Draper — to celebrate his recent successes. So it’s no surprise when we see that Lane has chosen the car as the perfect “elegant exit.” He even stuffs the tailpipe with a silk scarf. It is also no surprise that the Jag doesn’t start. Lemons! I’d argue the most resonant, most depressing moment of the entire episode comes here, when a teary Lane snaps his glasses in half just before he attempts to start the car to no avail. Oh, Lane. After the car fails him, he goes into the office, types up a standard resignation letter, and resigns his fate to the back of his office door. No elegance involved.
Joan is the unfortunate one to make the horrible discovery when she attempts to go in Lane’s office and the door hardly budges. She sees the chair on the floor and gets a sharp whiff of, well, dead Lane. Pete, Ken and Harry peer over the office window and get the full gruesome picture. When Don and Roger arrive back at the office and learn the news, Don is appalled that they haven’t cut him down, so they do. Seeing Lane all purple and gray and very, very dead is disconcerting to say the least. But seeing Don’s realization about his role in what has happened is equally unsettling. Don doesn’t tell the partners what he knows that led to Lane’s suicide — at least not yet — perhaps in an effort to let his mistakes pass on with him. Only now is he giving him a break – the break he knows he should have given him earlier.
Also in this episode, when he’s not busy firing Lane and looking totally freaked out, Don is busy being angry/jealous that Pete is getting heaps of praise for the business he’s bringing in, because of both the slimy tactics Pete employs (selling Joan) and because he’s being increasingly marginalized (in that the vote to sell Joan went through in spite of his protests). This invigorates Don and makes him incredibly competitive, like the Don of yore. He tells Roger he wants to go after the big-name clients, and he starts with Ken’s father-in-law at Dow Chemical. Ken has given Roger the green light to approach him so long as he’s put on the account and Pete is kept out of every single meeting. Look at Ken, growing a pair! Anyway, Don’s pitch to Dow is so relentless and unapologetic that Roger tells him to wipe the blood off his face.
Lest you think that’s *all* that happens, Sally whines enough about a family ski trip with Betty and the family that Betty offloads her onto Don for the weekend, which means she hangs out with Megan the entire time. For those keeping a tally, here’s some more evidence to support Betty as Mom of the Year: In the span of about 4 minutes, Betty (1) calls Don to ask if she can kill Sally, (2) offers to leave Sally locked in the trunk of her car, (3) restricts what Sally eats and (4) suggests it’s fine if Sally sleeps with Don’s doorman. Creepy Glen comes into the city from boarding school while Don is at work chewing up Dow Chemical and Megan is auditioning for her new role (as irrelevant guest star?), and they jaunt off to the museum together. At the museum, we learn that Glen’s being bullied at school and that he’s not really interested in Sally for her womanhood, which is coincidental because her womanhood appears suddenly in the restroom. She hightails it home to the arms of SuperMom Betty, and they snuggle on the bed with a hot water bottle. Glen, totally confused about what just happened, heads back to the Draper pad to find Sally, and when Don arrives home from what may be the worst day at work ever, he decides to take him back to school. It’s then that Glen asks why everything always turns out crappy. So Don lets him drive, which was a nice lightly comedic touch at the end of a doozy of an episode.
I’m not sure how the finale can top the past two episodes, but I can’t wait to see what’s next. Will Don fall apart after suffering two major blows (the loss of Peggy to another agency, and the loss of Lane to the great beyond)? When does Betty start giving lectures at the School of Good Mothering? When will everyone tire of Megan’s whiny actress nonsense? Will the aliens come back for Ginsburg? Is anyone else due for a dirt nap?