Mad Men/Recap/S4/E11 Chinese Wall

""I tried so hard not to think about what would happen if this happened.""

Trudy has already gone into labor, and Ken Cosgrove, Accounts,' fiancee is telling the story to an older couple over dinner. Ken runs into a former colleague at BBDO who tells him Lucky Strike is coming over. Ken leaves dinner and goes to the maternity ward to tell Pete Campbell. They call Don, who calls Lane in London. Together with Cooper they bring Roger into the office. Roger already knows this is a done deal, he has for a month, and he pretends to call Lee Garner, Jr. in front of them. They send him down to Winston-Salem and he pretends to go, a fact he confesses to Joan.

Peggy is blissfully unaware of this as she runs into Abe at the beach and they sleep together, but that ends the following day when an emergency staff meeting is held and everybody goes into damage control. Losing Lucky Strike is a sign that the agency is going under, and other clients might leave under that assumption. Cue Don giving his second-least convincing speech about taking the agency above and beyond. He keeps losing clients, he breaks his Clio (which is later repaired by Megan), and it isn't long before they crash a funeral for a rival agent. Don tries to get information on clients out of Faye, but she refuses and he has sex with Megan. And then Faye comes through.

Pete tells his father-in-law the news. Tom tells him to go to move on. To his credit, Pete sticks with SCDP, even when Ted Chaough tries to poach him.

Peggy makes a pitch for Playtex and Stan thinks she's sex crazed...and she doesn't realize she has lipstick on her teeth.

A despondent Roger goes home, where his oblivious wife gives him the first box of his newly-published memoir.

This episode contains examples of:
"Ted Chaough: We just got Alfa Romeo. Little Italian sports car? I think you'll really enjoy driving it. Pete: I don't drive. Chaough: I'll teach you."
 * Crowning Moment of Funny: Danny raises his hand, but he's so short nobody notices.