Everyone I know agrees the worst of the worst was the scene in the Baltimore hotel where the abnormal sex pervert Sal performs abominable acts of homosex with the bellman. It was no coincidence that they cast an Italian to play the deviate bellman with the Italian fairy Sal. The clear message was that male Italians are all closet pansies. Invidious Dago-bashing, symbolically spitting on the Vatican and the Roman Catholic Church. Next season we're likely to see a swarthy priest molesting a child.

Speaking of Gay Catholics, I could have done without the whole Father Gil story line. Not that I really think he is gay.

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abominable acts of homosex with the bellman???????

a kiss and a grope?????

that was worst than joan getting raped?????

odd values

Mynose,

You may want to consider changing meds. Lots of new choices out there.

I'm still waiting to see what becomes of the Elephant from Pete's mother's fireplace mantel. Remember she tells her daughter-in-law "just take it". But MW really spent time and dialogue on a scene so utterly idiotic.... or did he?

Hidey, Laurie, someone posted quite a while ago that they thought that something might be hidden inside that elephant....like some money or ?

I wish I could recall the poster, but it was so long ago, however, it stuck in my mind for some reason.

Intriguing thought, isn't it?

NYCguy - the episode you refer to is The Jet Set, where Don and Pete go to an aeronautic conference to drum up business. Don "sees" Betty everywhere. This trip was a sort of legal out for him, to get away from his marriage and hassles with Betty. He gets distracted by Joy and, for a while, intrigued with the rootless life she and her acquaintances live, moving from one mansion to another, sponging off wealthy friends.

It's a kind of modern "hobo" life and Don's experience of it convinces him that no, THIS isn't what he's looking for either, tempting as it might have been in the short run. He found the "jet setters" banal and shallow. He missed his kids, and couldn't bring himself to abandon them completely.

But he hadn't figured out what to do, so went to see the one person he could talk with freely, Anna (The Mountain King episode.)

Those two episodes laid the groundwork for events to come: Pete getting Don's approval for handling things while he was gone, thereby shifting the balance of Pete's loyalty from Duck to Don; Don's decision to try once again to be a better father and husband, to be inside his relationships instead of on the outside looking in, as he told Anna; his absence creating a void during which the other SC partners decided to sell the firm to PPL which, had he been there at the time, he might have persuaded them to at least wait a bit to find out what PPL was really up to, etc.

I have to totally disagree with you about the LA episode. It's actually one of my favourite episodes the girl was really beautiful and the music and the colour in the episode was fantastic. Also the great scene at the dinner table were they played the name game with the countries.