The newly merged creative team of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce and Cutler Gleason Chaough brainstorm how they will market margarine for Fleischmann's. Don feels threatened by Ted's leadership and accepts Sylvia's offer for a midday tryst, which causes him to be late for the creative meeting. Ted chastises Don so as a peace offering, Don shares drinks with Ted, but the latter ends up visibly drunk, earning Peggy's ire.
Ted flies himself and Don to Buffalo for a meeting with Mohawk Airlines in his two-seater plane. Still playing a dominant sex role, Don forces Sylvia in a hotel room and keeps her in the dark about when he'll return. When he returns, Sylvia breaks off the affair, telling him she had a dream that he died in a plane crash. After comforting Megan at the funeral, she went home to her husband content.
As the CGC staff moves in, Joan falls ill, and Bob Benson discreetly escorts her to the hospital and secures expedited treatment. Roger fires Bob's new supervisor Burt Peterson, but a grateful Joan saves Bob's job.
Pete's mother is suffering from dementia, and only Pete can care for her, since she has become physically abusive to his brother's wife and Pete's relationship with Trudy is on the rocks. Her antics cause him to miss the meeting in Buffalo, and he fears he may be made redundant, since there was no chair for him at a partners' meeting. Pete's mother wakes him up to tell him "that Kennedy boy" has just been shot, but Pete shrugs it off, telling her that happened years ago. The following morning, as a distraught Megan watches the news of Robert Kennedy's assassination, Don reels in the aftermath of his break up with Sylvia.
This episode contains examples of:
- The Bully: Don definitely comes across this way towards Ted, by deliberately skipping out on the Creatives meeting that Ted called for, and then later by getting Ted wasted to embarrass him in front of the rest of Creative.
- The Bus Came Back: Burt Peterson was last seen getting fired from the old Sterling Cooper back in "Out of Town". Now, he's a senior account man with CGC — and following the merger, Roger calls him into his office. To fire him. Again.
- Call-Back: See above for Burt Peterson. Also, Peggy's advice to Don — "Move forward" — is the advice he gave her when he visited her in hospital after she'd had her baby.
- Cassandra Truth / The Cuckoolander Was Right: When Pete's dementia-addled mother tells him about "that poor Kennedy boy getting shot", he naturally assumes that she's talking about John F. Kennedy getting shot, and tells her that that was five years ago. Then he hears the news that Robert F. Kennedy has just been shot.
- Deadpan Snarker: Don towards Peggy:Don: Yes, Peggy, we risked our entire company just so I could have you in this office complaining again.
- Dude, Where's My Respect?: Ted calls out Don for not attending the meeting with Creatives that Ted called.
- Heel Realization: Sylvia decides to terminate her affair with Don after coming to this:Don: It's easy to give up something when you're satisfied.Sylvia: It's easy to give up something when you're ashamed.
- Karmic Jackpot: Bob is very nearly made redundant post-merger, but Joan speaks up on his behalf during the partners' meeting as thanks for his helping her out when she has to go to the hospital.
- Please, Don't Leave Me: Don essentially begs Sylvia not to end their affair, but she refuses.
- Safe, Sane, and Consensual: Don and Sylvia's affair takes shades of this, where he demands that she stays in a hotel room and wait for him. For a while, she appears to enjoy it.
- Shout-Out: Drunk Ted talks a fair bit about Gilligan's Island.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Peggy calls out Don's behavior towards Ted:Peggy: Well, he can't drink like you. And you must know that because nobody can.Don: Peggy, he's a grown man.Peggy: So are you. Move forward.
