Description
Set against the backdrop of the 1968 Democratic National Convention and ensuing confrontation between police and protestors in Chicago, Don, Roger, and Harry travel to Los Angeles to meet with clients, including Carnation, where Roger and Don try to avoid being dragged into a political discussion involving Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon. The three attend a Hollywood party, where Don smokes hashish and hallucinates a pregnant, hippie Megan and a one-armed PFC Dinkins, the soldier he met in Hawaii, who claims he was killed in Vietnam. Don winds up face down in the pool and Roger saves him. They also encounter former SCDP copywriter Danny Siegel (Danny Strong), now a successful Hollywood producer, whom Roger taunts mercilessly and who literally brings Roger to his knees. In New York, Joan goes on what she believes is a lunch date, which turns out to be a meeting with a potential client, who represents the cosmetics giant Avon. Joan brings this news to Peggy, who brings it to Ted, who in turn asks Pete to meet with the client and makes Pete head of New Business on the spot. Seeing this as her opportunity to bring some legitimacy to her status as a partner, Joan deliberately cuts Pete out of the meeting, and Peggy worries that Joan has botched the whole thing. The two women candidly reconcile their different paths to advancement, after which Joan gets an earful from Ted and Pete, and Peggy improvises a fake call from Avon that saves Joan's neck. Jim Cutler and Michael Ginsberg argue about the war, Bob Benson intervenes, and Jim assigns Bob to "babysit" the meeting between Ginsberg and the Manischewitz client. Jim plans a coup within the ranks of the new agency. Ted informs Jim and the other partners that he has broken through the management layers at Chevy, and Jim later adds Bob Benson to the account and assigns him to Detroit, without input from Roger or Don, who are still in California. To distract the former SCDP principals from Jim's plan, Jim and Ted suggest "Sterling Cooper & Partners" as the name of the recently merged firm. This concerns Pete (who has excluded Joan from the meeting), but Don tells him to leave the firm if he's uncomfortable. Frustrated with his inability to control both his life at work and at home, Pete relieves Stan of the joint Stan is smoking in the creative office during work hours and takes some puffs of his own.