I haven’t seen Mad Men for the past several weeks, so I was wondering if I had missed loads of crucial stuff and important plot machinations. I’m sure there has been a few things I’ve missed, but watching Mad Men again last night was like slipping on a new pair of newly-ironed pants. A very pleasant experience, if you were wondering.

So, last night there were a few themes flowing through the episode (which was excellent, as usual). First of all there was the theme of home. The very first shots were of the Drapers’ neighbour’s homing pigeons, and the story soon moved on to Don and Betty meeting a hotshot ad executive who worked for a rival ad firm at, hmmm, some sort of concert. This guy, Jim, offered Don a new job with big new money, access to some of world’s top brands and access to some hot Pan Am action (Pan Am fights to London being the height of cool at the dawn of the 1960s).

While Don and this guy’s wife went to the bar, the man slipped a card to Betty and told her that she could be a model. Smooth. Betty, we then found out, used to be a model. Now Betty, in previous episodes, has always felt trapped in the role of housewife. She may have the beautiful home, the trophy ad exec husband, but she has been suffering from depression.

Throughout the episode, Don wrestles with the idea of the new job, while Betty sees going back to modelling as a way back to feeling some sort of independence. When I saw lovely Betty take the job and a smile return to her face I was rooting for her.

Don, meanwhile, decides to turn the new job down. Which, in turn, spells the end of Betty’s new modelling career. In his telephone call the the rival ad man to turn his offer down, Don said that he knew all along that asking Betty to model again was a ploy to get to him to take the job. The rival ad guy asked Don if he could blame him. Nice guy. Both Betty and Don were staying home.

The other theme running through the episode was the old guard vs the new kids on the block. While Don was mulling his job offer over, oily old Pete Campbell was busy trying to manoeuvre himself into prime position. With the Nixon v Kennedy presidential race hotting up, he came up with a winning and inspired way to get Nixon more TV airtime.

Then there was Peggy. She was becoming the butt of some nasty jokes in the office – she had put on a bit of weight – and Joan (the most incredible woman I’ve ever seen, I think) took her aside to have a quiet word. It was the woman who had been around the block and knew how to play the game versus the woman who was new and had ideas above her station. The woman who was new and had ideas above her station seemed to win this particular bout.

But Betty! She was back at home, the victim of inter-ad firm politics. She thought she had a new modeling career, but it was all a sham designed to lure her husband to the big ad firm.

The final scene saw Betty, dressed in her nightie, fag hanging out of her mouth, shooting next door’s pigeons with an air rifle. You don’t get an image much starker than that.