It was written by Keith Huff and series creator and executive producer Matthew Weiner, and directed by John Slattery, who portrays Roger Sterling on the show.
Reviews of the episode were generally positive, emphasizing particularly the emotional tension between Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) and Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss).
In February 1965,[1] reformed alcoholic Freddy Rumsen (Joel Murray) has returned to Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce after a several year absence, working freelance and primarily trying to help Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss).
Roger orders Pete to tell his father-in-law Tom Vogel (Joe O'Connor), a high-level executive at the Vicks Chemical Company that SCDP needs to drop the Clearasil account because it represents a conflict of interest, and Ponds bills more.
Pete and Harry Crane have lunch with Ken Cosgrove (Aaron Staton), who is engaged to the daughter of Corning's CFO.
When Harry leaves to take a call, Ken says his fiancée knows Trudy from a garden club and demands that Pete stop bad-mouthing him behind his back.
Allison takes this as indifference on Don's part and throws a brass cigarette dispenser at him, smashing some framed prints on the wall.
Don tells Joan to get him a new secretary, then immediately starts to get drunk and doesn't leave the office until late.
The next day, he finds that Allison has been replaced by Bert Cooper's former secretary, the aged Miss Ida Blankenship (Randee Heller).
Peggy makes friends with a young photo editor at Life magazine named Joyce Ramsay (Zosia Mamet), who also works in the Time-Life Building.
Peggy fields a pass by Joyce, who seems to be lesbian, but finds herself attracted to Abe Drexler (Charlie Hofheimer), an abrasive yet charming underground newspaper writer, whom she soon kisses while the pair are hiding out from a raid which police have launched on the building.
She wants them to sign a greeting card, and Peggy thinks it is for Pete's bringing in such a big and prestigious account.
His skepticism about Dr. Miller's psychological approach, hinted at in previous episodes, boils over, and he dismisses her role in the creative process as useless and intrusive.
David Zurawik of The Baltimore Sun emphasized the "moment of poignancy that didn't seem forced" between Peggy and Pete towards the end of the episode, after she found out about his wife's pregnancy.
At the same time he also voiced concerns that "Weiner’s stubborn insistence on keeping Don a lost soul could lead to creative stagnation".
[5] Mark Dawidziak, of the Cleveland newspaper The Plain Dealer, also highlighted the "poignant and telling glances" exchanged between Peggy and Pete, providing an "emotional payoff punch" to the episode.