At Harry's insistence, SC&P gets a new computer. It's slated for installation in the creative lounge, causing the creative team to speculate and worry about where they'll do their work.
Lou puts Peggy on the Burger Chef account and assigns Don under her. Peggy asks Don to write 25 tags for her. Angered by the role reversal, Don — now working in Lane's old office — blows off the work and, against the stipulations set for his return by the partners, gets spectacularly plastered. Freddy Rumsen is able to shepherd Don out of the office before he gets caught.
Roger learns from Brooks and Mona that Margaret has run away to a commune upstate. Roger and Mona confront Margaret (now going by Marigold) to persuade her to come home and raise her child. Mona quickly loses her patience and leaves, but Roger stays behind and spends a night. While sleeping, he overhears her sneaking off to have sex with Clay, one of the other commune inhabitants. In the morning, done with the indirect approach, Roger attempts to force her to come home, telling her she's sick. Margaret calls Roger out, saying he never seemed to be sick when he was sneaking off to hotels to sleep with his secretaries. Defeated, Roger leaves her at the commune.
After being admonished by Freddy about throwing away his second chance, Don cleans up and returns to work with renewed focus, ready to do whatever he has to do to work his way back up.
This episode contains examples of the following tropes:
- Call-Back: Don gets Lane's old office, and finds his New York Mets pennant on the floor. He pins it on the wall in the same place it was when Lane was alive. Also highly symbolic, given that this episode is set in 1969 — the year the unfancied Mets became the first expansion team to win the World Series. Don's not the only one getting ready to overcome the odds...
- Calling the Old Man Out: Margaret calls out both Mona and Roger on their parenting:
- Margaret somewhat gently calls out Mona for not having a fulfilling life. When Mona says that she was grateful to be a mother, Margaret points out that Mona got through each day by locking herself "in the bathroom with a pint of gin every day".
- Margaret harshly calls out Roger for being a mostly absent father while raising her.Margaret: How did you feel when you went away to work, Daddy? Your conscience must have been eating you alive. Calling your secretary from a hotel to pick out a birthday present for me? I'm sure you were sick. It's not that hard, Daddy. He'll be fine.
- Cult: Margaret, now going by the name "Marigold", has joined an unnamed commune that abhors electricity and technology (it was touch and go as to whether they should have a truck, apparently). Mona and Roger drive out to take her back, but she refuses, finding herself happier and more fulfilled.
- Deadpan Snarker: Bert, when confronting Don.Bert: Why are you here?Don: Because I started this agency!Bert: Along with a dead man whose office you now inhabit.
- Downer Ending: Roger tries to force Margaret to leave the commune but Margaret refuses, angrily calling him out for a lifetime of failing to be a father to her. Completely dejected and with a tacit admission that he has failed as a father, Roger leaves her at the commune.
- Hidden Depths: Despite her privileged city upbringing, Margaret (or "Marigold" as she now prefers) has adapted very well to life at the rural commune, where everyone has to help with the menial jobs and there is no electricity or running water.
- Hypocrite: Margaret calls Roger one after he tries to force her to leave the commune; when he points out that she's abandoning her son, she counters by stating that he was basically an absent father throughout her life and therefore has no right to talk to her about parenting. Works on another level too, as Roger has embraced the counterculture more than most, but disapproves of his daughter doing the same; it is evidently OK for him to have casual sex with random women, but not for her to have casual sex with random men.
- Internal Reveal: Joan reveals to Peggy that Don's return to work has conditions attached but doesn't elaborate further. Nonetheless, it's enough for Peggy to know that Don wasn't Easily Forgiven.
- Karma Houdini: Harry, who despite lying to the point where Jim thinks he's the most dishonest person he's ever worked with, gets his wish of having a big computer at SC&P.
- Mood Whiplash: It looks like Roger and Margaret are getting on quite well after Mona leaves; he calls her "Marigold" and even helps out with some of the daily chores, following which they seemingly come to an understanding when they talk at night. So it comes as something of a surprise when he tries to force her to go home the following morning.
- Took a Level in Badass: Mona, when talking about her daughter running off to join a hippie commune and planning to go there and get her back after her son-in-law fails to do so.Mona: I'd say she'd been brainwashed, but there's nothing to wash.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Freddy, of all people, calls out Don for letting himself get drunk in the middle of a work day, which could trigger his termination from the office. When Don argues that the conditions he's being forced to work under are humiliating, Freddy counters that he nearly torpedoed the firm:Freddy: I mean, are you just going to kill yourself? Give them what they want? Or go in your bedroom, get in uniform, fix your bayonet, and hit the parade? Do the work, Don.
