This brilliantly constructed but majorly foreboding episode is called "Time & Life," after the prestigious building that was formerly home to Sterling Cooper. But as with any Weiner enterprise, the title has many meanings; in the existential sense, it shows that each part of T&L is fleeting.

Any episode that offers quality time with Joan, Betty, Sally, and Peggy gets my two opposable thumbs up -- way up.

What? The waitress is back, and Fugue State Don is still chasing her? Listen, Weiner, we have precious little time left. And although we know you love this dream stuff (you wrote the never-ending Tony-in-a-coma episodes in "The Sopranos," too) we find these Johnny-come-lately cipher figures mighty irritating.

Though we would like it to be, "Mad Men" is not really about advertising. Instead, it's about the death of the American Dream, using advertising as the come-hither window through which to watch the wreckage.

Did Jon Stewart hire Trevor Noah to replace himself as host of "The Daily Show" because they both identify as male persons with two first names? That's as good a question as any to start plumbing this mystery inside an enigma wrapped in a riddle within the general "WTF?" that is the Noah hire.