You're very right about consequences setting the show apart, but there's no "turn" in S2:  taking consequences seriously (not just within the fiction of the show, but as a narrative precept) was baked into the show from the get-go.  In fact, it seems a key part of what motivates BB, as commentary on its precursors:…

This is a terrible English-prof sort of quibble, I know, but … "stamped on these lifeless things" isn't the end of a sentence, or even a thought.  Really shouldn't be read with that big pause like that if the next line's going to make any sense.

Ricin beans.

She looks weirdly like Aimee Mann in that shot.

There needs to be a German word for how I feel about the approach of the Final Eight, 'cause English isn't cutting it.  Like … dreadticipation, or … anticipadread.  Yeah, really need German for this.

The spittle symbolically flying out of commenters' mouths?  What does the spittle symbolize?

What's weird, and maybe telling, is that the switch to America let so much air out of the balloon.  I'm not a massive fan of Guest's stuff generally, but I've been really persuaded, through the first four episodes, by the specificity (of place, of reference) of the English humor, and even more by the emotional…

I got an "I cut myself every night" notification for this?

How does it keep up with the news like that?

I want a supercut of Stan just being amused at things.

"Every time we get a car, this place turns into a whorehouse."  That's what sold the episode to me, finally.  It's so brutally, thuddingly obvious that it comes right back around obvious to—I'm not sure what, but something extraordinary.  I mean, how do you end a Mad Men episode on what amounts to a punch line?  A…

The thing about that "busy" line:  it's Draper being as opaque as possible—and being opaque, of course, behind an immaculately put-together suit—but for I think the first time on this show we see the effort, we see what that opacity costs (simply in the fantastic extension of that elevator moment, which deserves…

What about macaroni—let me finish—salad?

As throwaway as the Gilligan's Island bit seems, I think it's actually the key to this episode.

I was a little disappointed that he was given something to do this episode.  I really hoped to see him all season long, coffees in hands, framed in some window or door in the background, like some weird extended Hitchock cameo.

Roger is Thurston Howell (conniving, gleefully rich, ready to use his money at the drop of a hat); Bert Cooper is Lovey.  (Have to allow for gender substitutions.)

Jesus, that was vomitous.  As in, if I ate an Oreo and thought of that commercial, I'd spew it.

Oh, absolutely, that had to be a deliberate reference.

They way the news was broken—Pete's mom waking Pete up to tell him they'd "shot that Kennedy boy" and Pete dismissing her:  "Mother, that was years ago"—that was breathtakingly audacious.  And speaks to what I think was true at the time, the surreality that filtered the horror of the assassination.

I had pretty much the same reaction as you, Battlecar.  It's fascinating to me the way certain shows, late in their runs, start to coalesce around more or less explicit critiques of their own popularity (the Sopranos did it, I think it started to emerge on Breaking Bad last season).  I'd never seen it happen until…