On the whole, I found this episode much more tightly and carefully drawn than the last, with a more coherent overall effect of “variations on a theme” rather than the few incongruously startling scenes of last week. That theme, of course, dealt with the way parents raise their children, and the frustrating difficulty of cross-generational communication. The Drapers, Peggy Olson, and the jai-alai enthusiast Horace “Ho-ho” Cook Jr. all provided opportunities to say, in a variety of tones and emotions, “My children are not what I would have wanted them to be” and “My parents cannot comprehend my experience of the world.” As familiar and well-worn thematic territory as it is, Mad Men manages to maintain a sense of anticipation and the unexpected by perpetually shifting the roles of parent and child, so that Betty begs her father to remember that she is his “little girl,” even as her advanced pregnancy acts as a constant visual reminder of her own children.

One primary effect of this episode structure, where each new character provides insight and further depth to the central issue at hand, is that the audience’s focus is diffused across several plotlines rather than focusing on one character. Mad Men has always done this to some extent, and the device is made easier because each supporting character has a fully developed background and is ready to step in at any moment and carry some of the thematic weight. In the past, the heavy lifting of each organizing device rested on Don Draper. Much of the plot has dealt with locating a kernel of truth underneath the sales pitch, both in Don Draper’s identity and in the central premise of an advertising agency, and because of that, Don has always remained firmly at the core of the show. He has always been what Mad Men sells to us each week in the opening credits – a perfectly coiffed silhouette, the thing our eye always returns to, and an outline whose inner features we cannot fully see.

Except now, as season three begins to take shape, Mad Men is more than ever about its time period. We have more constant reminders of the exact date (this episode took place on June 11, 1963), we get more discussion of political events and the way the world is changing, and the thematic content of each episode mirrors the sentiments of an era rather than a single inscrutable man. If you’re going to be dealing with the coming social upheaval of the sixties, what better theme to deal with than the gap between parents and children? And in the midst of Grandpa Gene, Peggy’s cruel mother, and the somewhat silly jai-alai plot, Don’s childhood flashback is reduced to a silent examination of a photograph and muted against sharper emotions.

Don Draper's in the foreground, but Grandpa Gene's in focus

I’m not at all upset that Don Draper has become less of the central focus of Mad Men – I love it as an ensemble piece rather than the continued exploration of one man, and it makes sense that we could only find his mysterious past interesting for so long. Mostly, I’m impressed with what a smart technique this is to build an audience for an obscure television show: hook them on one (extremely attractive, complicated, subtle) character, and then as the audience grows and the world of your show becomes more familiar, you can afford to expand your scope. It’s something The Sopranos was really good at, and something The Wire never did, but might have made it a little easier to build a following while it was on the air.

I never want to lose you, Don Draper. But I’m happy to see you blend into the background a little.