Like a nautilus shell, we’ve spiraled out over 13 episodes, but finally circled back on ourselves, bigger, stronger, and more beautiful than before.

No, let’s try this instead. Matthew Weiner is composing and conducting a symphony, each of the players his instruments. As it is a modern symphony, he is unrestrained in choosing his instrumentation. Representing tradition, Roger and Bert are his woodwind section: Roger a high, melodic, occasionally erratic oboe and Bert a reliable, confident bassoon. The junior admen – Paul, Harry, and Ken – are a chorus of brass. Sal, poor sweet Sal, picks out a simple line on the tenor sax, unaware of the world of opportunities open to him if only he were to play with soul.

Peggy and Betty are dueling cellos. Each can be bright and lively and each can tear apart the heart of the men in their lives.

Pete, as tone deaf and tuneless a man as ever there was, beats out a rhythm on the drums. While he lacks subtlety, his timing is solid and he pounds out a beat consistently.

Don, he is the pianoforte. The most versatile of traditional instruments, he is percussion and string, rhythm and melody.

Pay special note to the repeated themes in tonight’s composition. Note how Don makes the big sale in his time of loneliness and grief, this time not to Kodak but Betty. Note the hotel room, where big-girl Sally wants to order room service. Note Pete in despair reach for his rifle. We’ve seen all of this before, but it’s all very new.

As Weiner builds his masterpiece episode by episode, season by season, a pattern starts to emerge. I’m only seeing the faintest of shadows, but the image is becoming clearer.

Don, who has run from his past and risen like a Phoenix from the ashes of Don Draper ((The real one.)), cannot run from himself. He is the image he’s created, but as surely as he sells “products, not advertising,” he believes in that image. He truly *is* that image. And every time he falls, every time he crashes to the Earth and has to face the reality of who he is, he rises again and soars.

Last year, he midwifed his own rebirth – through nostalgia and memories and family. This year he needed Anna’s help. Next, I image Betty’s. His journey of self-discovery is coincident with America’s, and will be as bloody and contentious over the next decade as any.

We finally know the truth about Peggy: she did not forget, neither did she give her child to Anita. She gave her child up to strangers knowingly and willingly because that is not the life she wanted. She truly is the most liberated woman of Mad Men. Her heartbreaking conversation with Pete – the most delicate and subtle I’ve ever seen from Elizabeth Moss – released her from the guilt and remorse she’s been bearing for two years now. It’s significant that Peggy crossed herself at the end of the episode in bed; she’s confessed her sin – hiding the truth from Pete – and carries it no more.

As Peggy frees herself from her chains, Betty finds another. She was very slowly coming to grips with her future. She was signing checks, taking care of the children and house, and preparing for a life much like Helen Bishop’s. She would have continued her campaign to cut all her friends out of her life in order to avoid their pity and disdain, and she would have soldiered on. But the pregnancy made her pause. Long enough for Don’s sentimental and sincere outpouring to wrap her in its warm embrace, like one of the furs she modeled long ago.

I truly hope we’ve seen the last of Don’s cheating ways. There are so many other ways for him to repeat his mistakes, I’d like not to see him fall into a boring and predictable pattern. This rebirth of the marriage between Don and Betty should see it strong and steady throughout the decade. Remember: we didn’t see their reconciliation last year. We saw only the aftermath of it, when Don was emasculated and broken. Seeing the two of them make their compromises this time – and seeing Betty finally succumb to her desire to even the score with Don – makes me more confident the raproachment will stick.

Other thoughts:

• Nice that Don noticed Peggy’s haircut immediately. So different from the monkeys.
• I tweeted this while watching the episode: “I get it now. Vincent Kartheiser’s Pete is just like Connor. Don : Duck :: Angel : Holtz.” In the battle over Pete’s soul, Don seems to have gotten the upper hand. The fact that Pete responded to the comment about loyalty made while the monkeys were stress-talking by going to Don speaks volumes. It might have been nothing more than a reaction to Don’s gladhanding of Pete when he returned, or it might be deeper; it’s hard to be sure with Pete Campbell. But right now, Don’s winning the daddy battle.
• I thought Betty’s aggressive handling of the drumstick ((Last year she shot birds, this year she’s eating one.)) after returning home from her tryst was wonderfully physical. She sated one appetite and then another.
• The different reactions of the monkeys to the news was interesting. I was particularly taken by the principled stand of Paul – so much less a poseur these days, even if that was how he started this season – and Harry. Harry in particular is painful to me. He’s always been the “nice” one of the monkeys, but now I see him as a namer of names and collaborator.
• Duck. Heheheh. “He never could hold his liquor.”

Don will be the president of SC next year, that much is certain. Beyond that…I don’t know what to expect and love that about this show.

What did everyone else think?