I keep coming back to a line Roger said in one of the early seasons.  The firm was competing against a firm in Chicago, and Roger scoffed not only at the very notion of a Chicago firm being in the running, but seemingly at the very notion of Chicago itself.  Then he turned to Don, by way of apology, and said, "No…

"You can't even vote!"

None is weaker than Don's affair with the school teacher that I can't even remember, except for him running his fingers through the grass at some outdoor school function.

Would being employed really keep one out of the draft?  I know that as of the mid-2000s (when I last encountered these rules, as part of college financial aid paperwork), Selective Service requires young men between ages 18 and 26 to sign up, so maybe Stan is too old for the draft.  He's been working at SC/SCDP/SC&P…

@avclub-66fae5b05c0f64c4d2bdcdf1ad85f7b2:disqus , that's why my father majored in Zoology instead of one of the other sciences: at the University of Oklahoma, Zoology was actually a 5-year degree, and thus would get him an extra year of student deferment, as long as his grades were passing.  So the student deferment…

My rule of thumb this season and last has been that Don-heavy episodes are dull, and that the wind leaves the show's sails whenever we focus too much on Don at the expense of other characters.  Except when he takes drugs, because that's been great this season!

Well, I think Michael Phelps has categorically proven that smoking pot doesn't do anything to harm one's swimming!

SDCC?  Sounds too much like one of those groups of long-hairs out in the streets of Chicago.

Stabby Peggy, Bam-a-lam!

"but the girl is trying to break out of the iron box they have her in."  I don't think that's a justification that would win over the men on the show.  Hell, it only gets Peggy on board tentatively.  She respects the process, and thinks Joan should, too.  Don may be the biggest opportunist on the show (Nixon is only…

That's an interesting term, "next evolutionary step," because it puts me in mind of how David Simon similarly described Marlo on The Wire as "highly evolved."  Like Bob, Marlo was a new type of agent in a world created or inhabited by people we've become familiar with (not to say "comfortable with"), and his manner of…

Probably the hospital.

Maybe he and Abe get together and create Ad Busters.

Yes, I can't believe it's taken this long into the comments to raise the question of the meaning of the episode's title.  Todd certainly didn't deal with it in his review.  I think it has to do with Chicago's status (in 1968) as America's second-biggest city (hence, "Second City"), and how it lost that status to Los…

Not Duck.

I think word has gotten around about the circumstances of Joan's partnership. Remember that Harry made an oblique reference to it a couple of weeks ago when he went complaining to Roger and Bert.

The economy wasn't roaring in the 1990s; it was all just a tech bubble.

That's all true, @avclub-d11de0f4c77dba0ffe1273fce86f2ea4:disqus , and it may seem like a meaningless tie to the Mother Country to you, but it would be a huge deal to me, ideologically — both as an anti-monarchist in general, and as an American, since we were the first to successfully throw the British monarchy out of…

…and most shows live up to that conclusion!

Oh, yes.  When I talk about marrying for money, the eventual absence of the rich spouse (through divorce or death) is a key component to the plan.