Big props to Jon Hamm for the great anxiety attack performance, by the way. Really powerful.

Seriously good. I could do without hearing him act "vomiting" any more, though. He's way too good at it. Or their sound people are.

Straw poll: how many people think Joan didn't have the abortion?

I totally think she did.

Oh, also? The mother in the doctor's office was Susan May Pratt who you may know from Center Stage and 10 Things I Hate About You, but also starred in Hunger Point with Christina Hendricks [link]

I liked the detail that Joan claimed her daughter was younger -- I took it to mean that she chose that age to make the mother feel a little better.

A fair number of my friends who've had to have abortions could name the "ages" of their children without pausing for calculation. That's one situation I'm glad to have not been in.

She had the abortion. She didn't want to, but she's fiercely practical and there was really nothing else she could have done -- most people in her life would have assumed the baby was Greg's, but he's a doctor, he can count, and he knows for a damn fact that she turned him down the last time he tried to initiate sex. And Roger has shown himself, yet again, to be a feckless ass. He probably feels about as much for Joan as he's ever felt for anyone in his life, but it's nowhere near enough to weather the storm keeping the baby would bring on.

I was meanly, nastily delighted to hear the doctor ripping Roger a new one. Rude, unprofessional, totally denies her any agency at all, but still pettily satisfying.

That shot of Joan riding the bus home alone afterward could have been a Hopper painting.

And ah, God, poor Laine. How humiliating and nightmarish, and no wonder he feels so free and joyous in NYC. Felt. No possible good can come of his going back to England, can it?

Did anyone besides me keep thinking of Wesley?

I liked the detail that Joan claimed her daughter was younger -- I took it to mean that she chose that age to make the mother feel a little better.

I'm pretty sure she chose that age because it's the age the mother confesses she was "when I had mine." Possibly also the age Joan's own first child would have been, but mostly for that connection. It's the weirdest, saddest, most heartbreaking kindness I've seen a TV show portray in maybe ever.

eta: LeN, yes. Mr. Pryce could go toe to toe in a shitty father cage match with Mr. Wyndham-Pryce anytime. Following which I suggest we torch the remains.

Mr. Pryce could go toe to toe in a shitty father cage match with Mr. Wyndham-Pryce anytime.

OH! That's why the interaction seemed familiar. der.

The Pete/Don relationship is wonderfully conflicted and layered and intriguing. Pete was over a barrel, but I was surprised he took the whole failure on his own shoulders.

I think it was partly because that's what account people do everyday. You couldn't be good at accounts and not be able to suck it up like that. Pride is Creative's thing.

I stopped the DVR and rewound because I couldn't quite grasp that his father had hit him with his cane the first time around. Wow.

Did anyone besides me keep thinking of Wesley?

Very much so. And unlikely to turn out to be a robot in this case, more's the pity.