For this "mid-season ending," I doff my beret, fedora, space helmet, and Pucci-like head scarf to Matt Weiner. Plus, I blink my false eyelashes furiously in his direction. What a finale!!

"The Strategy" opens with Peggy standing in a Burger Chef parking lot. She's invading the window of a station wagon in an attempt to extract nuggets of research wisdom from an annoyed, harried mom and her hungry kids. It ends with Peggy seated inside the Burger Chef, talking, eating, laughing, and enjoying the ease and warmth of her office family.

Jeez, Weiner!! One minute, Betty said she was "checking the Sterno," NOT the sternum. But the next thing we know, we're down one nipple!

Called "Monolith," this was one heavy-handed, overwrought episode, written by Erin Levy. Heavy on M's (the moon, Mona, Mona Lisa, The Mets) big lunar symbolism, and the show's official theme, death, it offered as much of a meta-commentary on "Mad Men" itself as a new storyline.