It’s not a destination; it’s on the way to some place. - Megan Draper
The most ambitious and entertaining arc in this episode revolves around Roger Sterling and his trophy wife, Jane, as they decide to take LSD. "You always say I don't take you anywhere," Roger quips before downing a dose of the drug. Its metaphorical arc soon becomes clear: Roger and Jane are going to go somewhere in their relationship neither of them has ever dared to go. And that destination ends up being the realizations - and sad, sad acknowledgment - that their relationship was not meant to last. "You don't like me," Jane whispers. "I did," Roger responds, heartbroken. They reach the clairvoyant moment they so desperately sought; and out of that moment Roger and Jane both finally admit their marriage is over. For a show that so often veils its true intentions and downplays its emotions, this scene stood out as an amazingly touching moment of honesty and mutual respect.
But like any good trip, the destination is often not as important as the journey itself. It's been obvious since Roger and Jane first married that these two individuals had no connection beyond the physical. Jane’s young and hot; and she's looking for a philosophical experience with her contemporaries. "Dude, I'm trying to explore my mind," she seems to tell Roger. So she and her friends drink wine and take drugs and discuss things like reality and truth and groovy things at dinner. Roger, on the other hand, isn’t the least bit interested. He’s set in his ways; and more importantly, he's past that age of exploration. There's a great moment during Roger's acid trip wherein he stares at himself in the mirror, mesmerized by his reflection: half of his trademark silver hair is now black, youthful and anachronistic. It sharply divides his face in two - one half of him recognizing and finally admitting his age; the other half helplessly holding onto a time long past and gone. And just in case we didn't quite understand Roger's dilemma, Weiner brilliantly overlays The Beach Boys' I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times over the LSD trip. If ever there was to be a theme song for this season, I could not think of a better one.
In another part of town, Peggy begins to find herself pulling away from her intellectual fencing partner and boyfriend, Abe. Peggy tries to explain how important her job is to her; but Abe is feeling slightly like a used piece of meat. This turmoil brews until Peggy blows a presentation at work and, in a move reminiscent of Don Draper himself, escapes to the local theater for an afternoon matinee. She meets a man there and promptly gives this stranger a "special tug" in the dark, again echoing Don's philandering ways.
But Peggy's realization doesn't occur until she’s back at the office with Ginsberg. He jokes that he’s from Mars - a far away place - instead of admitting he was born in a concentration camp. This jolts Peggy into realizing just what kind of person she's become. Indeed, it seems like not that long ago Peggy Olsen was the naive, idealistic secretary roaming the halls of Sterling Cooper. Now she's blowing presentations, arguing with her boyfriend, and giving out hand-jobs in local theaters like they were Sour Patch Kids. Who is this new Peggy? But she calls Abe and quickly admits that she needs him. In comparison to Roger and Jane's façade, it's becoming clear that Peggy and Abe's relationship lies not just on a physical level, but on an intellectual one as well.
The final arc of the episode - but certainly not least - revolves around Don and his own trophy wife, Megan, as they decide to go away for the weekend. But after an infantile argument at a diner, Don drives off in a fit of adolescent anger, leaving Megan alone in the parking lot. It isn't until much later that Don begins to realize that he may have actually lost Megan, physically and emotionally. This doubt brews in Don until he comes home to find Megan and in a fit of anger, chases her around the apartment only to both collapse on the floor, angry and distraught. “I thought I lost you,” Don whimpers. The way they're laid out on the floor, so close physically yet so far apart emotionally, echoes Roger and Jane’s own drug trip on the floor, wrapped up in their robes and matching towels. It's a great bookend to the collapse of Roger's marriage; and at the same time, it's a dark foreshadow of where Don and Megan may be headed in their journey.
I find it amazing to track this season's continued examination of each character's life in such turbulent times, of its dissection of this theme of dissolution, of presenting characters incapable of keeping up with the changing times. We've already seen two marriage dissolve - Joan splits from Greg, leaving her to raise a child alone; and Roger mercifully ends his marriage with Jane. And now we're witnessing the cracks in Don and Megan's marriage. "You've been on love leave," Bert Cooper even tells Don, finally shedding a ray of light on how distant Don has been emotionally, on how inherently un-Don-Draper-like Don Draper has been so far this season.
This idea of getting lost in the changing world outside is then brilliantly visualized in the final scene. Don, having just been scolded by Bert Cooper, finds himself alone in the conference room. He's isolated, dejected, and most importantly, off-balance. He stares outside the glass walls as Peggy walks in one direction and Stan, Ginsberg, and Megan Draper walk in the opposite. The times, they are a-changing; and it's all intersecting before Don's very eyes. But he remains still, off-center, and unsure of which way to go from here.
