We all know that Mad Men is pure quality, but I was particularly looking forward to last night’s episode. I’ve been enjoying this series on many levels, and one of them has been the historical aspect. I find that whole early-1960s period really interesting – it’s when old conservative America clashed with new, young, hopeful America. We all know where it led, but the seeds of change were sewn during the Nixon versus Kennedy presidential race of 1960. There has been a fascinating subplot in Mad Men – Sterling Cooper had been hired to boost Nixon’s profile and that storyline had been bubbling away beneath everything. Now it was the big night - the presidential race of 1960, and for Sterling Cooper it was a chance to see whether its nous and clout could be carried over into the political stage.

The episode started when Don Draper introduced a potential new a executive – this guy’s name was Duck – to the team. Slimy Pete was not happy, and felt that he was being overlooked for the position Duck was going for. He told DD his thoughts, and DD told Pete to go away and that he was still to inexperienced.

Then it was about the election. Sort of. In typical Mad Men style, it built something up only to go off in a slightly different direction. As soon as DD left the office, the office wheeled out the television and got out the booze for an enormous election-night party. The posse of young ad men bucks (especially the loathsome Ken) flirted with the girls, they filled the water cooler up with creme de menthe and after a screenplay was found in Paul’s office (he was quite embarrassed about that), the team acted it out in drunken fashion. Married Harry also shagged one of the office girls and instantly regretted it.

So this scene was about the election but not really – there was a brief frisson between Salvatore and Pneumatic Joan, and, like all good office parties, secrets, desires and drunken goings-on came to the fore.

One person who wasn’t at the party was Pete. Slimy Pete was at home looking through Adam’s box. One of the photographs had ‘Dick and Adam, 1944′ written on the back. Dick, judging by the photograph, was DD. Eh?

Pete stormed into DD’s office the next day (where hangovers were everywhere) and told DD he knew his secret – that he was not Don Draper, he was a man called Dick Whitman and that Dick Whitman had, according to records, died in the Korean war. But here was Dick Whitman standing right in front of him, so Dick must have deserted, or worse.

I didn’t know what to think of this revelation. It hit me for six, but I was feeling a bit disappointed - DD is a mystery man, a man of many contradictions and a man of few words. A real anti-hero, in a way.

I wanted Mad Men to keep this mystery, and the revelation that DD wasn’t actually the man we’d grown with during the past 12 weeks was a bit hold-on-there-tiger.

There was a flashback, introducing us to Dick Whitman in the war (it was indeed the man we know as Don Draper), and it was like… wooah!… we’re out of the cool Madison Avenue area and into a war zone. A WAR ZONE? Where did that come?! To say it was jarring would be an understatement.

Back in the present day Pete told DD that he would go to Cooper and reveal all if he didn’t give him the job. DD told him to sling his hook. DD then went to see Rachel. He was sweaty and was freaking out. He told Rachel to pack her bags – he wanted to move away with her, right now. She said she couldn’t… what about her store… what about his wife and children? He didn’t care, he wanted to go NOW. She was shocked – you don’t want to run away with me, she said in tears, you just want to run away.

By the time DD got back to his office, his resolve had stiffened. He strode towards Cooper’s office and was going to tell him that Pete was blackmailing him. Pete couldn’t believe it and accompanied him… the brown stuff was going to hit the fan – both men would tell their stories.

But there was another, more revealing, flashback. Dick Whitman and Lt. Don Draper were digging a trench. It was Dick’s first days of action and he was petrified. The trench they were digging for hospital purposes suddenly came under attack and they ducked for cover. The two men weathered the storm and, relieved, stood up, Draper pointing out that Dick had peed his pants during the bombardment. Looking down, Dick dropped his lighter while looking down but there was a trail of gasoline, which had spread all over the trench during the attack, and the whole thing went up in flames. Lt Draper was killed; Dick Whitman survived.

Looking down at Draper’s charred body, Whitman swapped name tags. Why? I guess it was guilt. Dick didn’t want the shame of killing someone, albeit indirectly, and the idea of being Dick Whitman now seemed like a bad one.

We saw Don Draper in a military hospital receiving the Purple Heart for his troubles. The officer asked DD to take Dick Whitman’s body home. He took the body on the train, and then… wow… there was Dick Whitman’s family receiving the body (except it wasn’t Dick Whitman, but they didn’t know that). DD couldn’t (for obvious reasons) present the family with the body, and he watched on as a young woman, a bloke and a young boy stood solemnly on the platform. Dick Whitman was now very definitely Don Draper. There was no going back. And he went off to he bar to have drink with an attractive lady.

The sight of Dick Whitman’s family was almost a bigger revelation than the fact he wasn’t the man who we all thought he was. It all clicked into place. We now know why DD is a very secretive man, and why he always keeps his family details close to his chest. But then there was the family – no wonder he has affairs all over the place and had no qualms about just upping sticks and leaving Betty and the kids for Rachel. HE’S ONLY BLOODY DONE IT ALL BEFORE!!!

The end of the episode saw Cooper tell Pete he didn’t care about his allegations – Don Draper is Don Draper and that’s the end of it, that’s what Cooper said. Slimy Pete stormed out, DD stood there a bit disbelieving and relieved.

I still question whether the time was right for this revelation (maybe later in series two or three would have been a good one), because now Don Draper’s mystique has been ripped apart. How we’ll react to him in future episodes I have no idea.

So I started off looking forward to seeing the Nixon v Kennedy face-off, but I got something entirely different and unexpected.