It was written by the series' creator and executive producer Matthew Weiner and the writer Victor Levin and was directed by Matt Shakman.
The episode takes place in July 1966, featuring much discussion among the characters about the Richard Speck murders in Chicago.
Sally becomes frightened after reading stories on the Speck murders, leading her step-grandmother to educate her on the concepts of fear and defense.
Dawn spends the night at Peggy's apartment after becoming too afraid to return home because of racial violence near Harlem.
The episode's title is derived from the 1965 Milton Bradley board game for teenage girls, Mystery Date, wherein several female players draw cards to advance to opening a door, hoping to find one of a variety of desirable male dates on the other side, while simultaneously hoping to avoid the lone undesirable one.
The storylines involving Joan, Sally, and Peggy were well received, although some felt the dream sequence was a heavy-handed way to have Don deal with his past infidelities.
Joyce Ramsay walks into Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce with graphic photos of the recently committed murders of eight nurses in Chicago by Richard Speck.
Panicking, he kicks her under the bed, but one of her red shoes remains visible, recalling both the visual of Ginsberg's Cinderella pitch and the lone survivor from the Speck murders.
Betty and Henry return home the next day to find Pauline asleep on a couch with the butcher knife on a table by her side.
Roger asks Peggy to devise a new Mohawk Airlines campaign over the weekend, in an attempt to cover for the fact that he had neglected to put the creative team on that task a week earlier.
She is absolutely horrified that Greg would abandon his duties as a father to head back to war, where he "feels like a good man".
[4] "The theme of sexual violence, of what it means to be a man, is a big part of that episode," creator Matthew Weiner said of "Mystery Date".
[5] Weiner was fascinated by the presences of the Richard Speck murders in the media, despite the 40 race riots occurring in America around the same time.
"[11] Eric Goldman of IGN declared it the "best episode yet for Season 5, with some very good material for Joan, Peggy, Don and Sally packed into a busy hour."
Goldman praised the resolution to the Harris marriage, crediting Weiner with mastering "the slow burn on this show, and it was just so gratifying to finally have this issue be dealt with.
It wasn't a story about helplessness and victimization; it was an episode about everything from sweaty discomfort to outright terror, and how we deal with those emotions.
"[13] John Swansburg, writing for Slate, said the episode was a "dud," with the fever dream a "very obvious (and not particularly enlightening) way to depict Don wrestling with his infidelity issues.
[15] Meredith Blake of the Los Angeles Times admitted that the dream sequence was "heavy-handed" but that "there’s also something terribly convincing about the link 'Mystery Date' posits between Don’s seemingly insatiable sexual appetite and his personal demons.
"[16] Rolling Stone writer Sarene Leeds praised Christina Hendricks' performance and the dream sequence, asking "even though it wasn't "real," what makes Don Draper any different from Richard Speck, the student-nurse murderer?