One of the things I love about Mad Men is that every line seems to be loaded with meaning. In light of all the political machinations – both vocational and social – it’s only the viewer who’s aware of the hidden meanings, and this, to me, is an example of truly masterful writing. And Mad Men’s dialogue is so loaded with double-meaning, it leaves you constantly on the edge of your seat. When Don Draper’s long-suffering wife said, “I don’t need a manual to know what little boys get up to”, it said pretty much everything.

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Unusually, this episode wasn’t revolving around the marriage of Don and Betty Draper. It was all about a conflict of interests, and, in some ways, more about Pete than anyone else.

First though, the episode started with a party round at Paul’s swanky condo. Creepy Ken was letching, as per, while Peggy was impressively brushing off a smooth-talking potential suitor, but it was the exchange between Paul and his ex, Pneumatic Joan, that caught the eye. Paul brought over his new lady friend, a black woman, who revealed to Joan that she was a check-out girl (I think that was what she said). Cue catty remarks from Joan and the later accusation to Paul that he was just going out with her because he wanted to look cool and interesting.

Anyway, back to the meat of the story. An horrific plane crash in the Hudson River (horribly and weirdly mirroring the recent news story) killed all on board, and it turned out that one of the victims was Pete’s dad. Aside from dealing from family issues (the kind of old, simmering clashes of personality that funerals tend to expose), Pete and his employer Sterling Cooper had some choices to make. They already had an airline on its books, but American Airlines (the owner of the crashed plane) wanted an image revamp in the immediate wake of the crash.

The bigwigs at SC, despite the timing, salivated at the prospect of pitching for a contract with one of America’s biggest upcoming companies (bear in mind that air travel was still a relatively young industry in the early 1960s). Duck, Don Draper’s rival in the company was well up for it. Don Draper, again displaying a new, kinder, softer moral side, thought it was tasteless and didn’t want anything to do with it and explained that he would rather stick with the airline they already had on their books.

Still, SC went for it, and Duck even went as far as to ask Pete – still having trouble accepting his father’s death – to be at the forefront of the pitch. Pete told him where to go, but, during Duck’s dinner with his American Airlines chum, he turned up and swung the pendulum back into SC’s favour.

And this was the main drama story in this episode, and it was terrific. Elsewhere there were family feuds over at Peggy’s family, and Roger and Joan’s relationship was still simmering.

Great stuff.