"Shut the Door, Have a Seat" -- The Series' Best Episode? (SPOILERS)

It is for me.

It is the Season Finale of Season Three...roughly midway through the show's run...and in some ways a great "mini movie" until itself.

The episode is about sudden change, the end of things...and new beginnings. Matt Weiner purposely ripped us away from what his series had been from the beginning(about Don and Betty Draper and about Sterling Cooper) and said...that's over. Where do we go from here?

As a matter of symbolism, it was pretty good, too. The killing of JFK(an episode before) is the great historical rupture that we always knew Mad Men was heading for. Its as if this jolt to America's system INSPIRED similar ruptures in the Draper family and at Sterling Cooper. As with the JFK assassination, "the fifties are over, the sixties now begin in earnest." Roger even spells out a date: December(something) 1963 -- as the date change occurs(the end of Sterling Cooper.)

There is always excitement as a series like Mad Men heads for its final two episodes of the season. JFK's killing -- outta nowhere was Jolt Number One(we knew it was coming but WHEN?) Now, this.

The episode begins with Conrad Hilton giving Don "advance bad news" : the Brits are selling Sterling Cooper(again.) Hilton dresses down Don about needing to deal with change -- "I worked for everything I got, I have no sympathy for those who don't" but Don's not having the insult.

Still, Don swings into action -- partner (Bert) by partner(Roger) by employee( Peggy, a refuser at first ) by employee(Pete) by employee( Pryce ). As some critics noted, what happens here is the excitement generated by "gathering the Magnifcent Seven" (or so) on the one hand, while planning a caper (Ocean's Eleven) on the other. The caper? Create a new ad firm out of Sterling Cooper -- by raiding clients and stealing away personnel.

Meanwhile, as Sterling Cooper explodes "just like that," sodoes the Draper marriage. We are stunned to realize that if we thought Don and Betty Draper would go to the end of the series as a married couple(ala Tony and Carmela Soprano)...nope. Its over. We witness Don Draper facing twin crises, only one of which(the Sterling Cooper collapse) can be "dealt with." the marriage is unsaveable -- Betty already has another husband lined up("You built yourself a life raft!" Don rages.)

One might say that this season finale "piles on the coincidences": JFK is killed AND Sterling Cooper is to be sold AND the Draper marriage goes to divorce, all pretty much simultaneously. But I've found in life, sometimes bad news indeed piles up. And the word is, those various assasinations int he 60's DID inspire people to change their lives.

And everybody is getting a second chance: a new country; a new ad firm with its own autonomy, maybe a new , happy romantic life for Don and Betty with others. That's life, too.

This very exciting and very important episode has one great scene after another as Don must go to the rest of the Sterling Cooper crew to make amends and recruit them for a new vision. Roger (as usual) gets the best lines and Pete(surprisingly) proves a weasel of some backbone and integrity. And Don gets a great speech(to Peggy) near the end.

That the scenes with Betty are hard and hurtful and painful reflect the difficulties of marriage and family in any era. These scenes are "no fun," and we are grateful to get back to the Sterling Cooper Caper.

Knowing now how the show would go from there -- the smaller sized Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce , its many switches in management and ownership; the false start girlfriends en route to Mrs. Draper Number Two (Claudia Cardinale to Betty's Grace Kelly, said Weiner) and the coming discontents of the late sixties -- I can't say that Mad Men's second half was as entertaining as its second half. It was like the sixties themselves -- discordant and rebellious.

In any event, it all comes together in "Shut the Door, Have a Seat" -- which is, by the way, a great title. Such a request -- which is made often in this episode -- is invariably an invitation to change. Good or bad? You'll find out!