If you’re ever stuck looking for a theme for a particular episode of “Mad Men,” you could do worse than to listen to the song that plays over the show’s closing credits. It’s not that it’s impossible to guess said theme without a musical clue, but it’s nice to have tonally pleasing confirmation as each hour winds down. This week’s episode, “Waldorf Stories,” is not exception to the rule: every character was concerned with their particular rung up the “Ladder of Success,” to quote the Skeet Davis song that closed out another fantastic 4th season episode of the show.

Let’s look at each rung, shall we? Let’s go from the bottom up.

Danny. If you’re a “Buffy” fan, like I am, you squealed at seeing Danny Strong playing the cousin of Roger’s wife, Jane. He’s just starting out in the business, and apparently the role of “co-op” hadn’t yet been invented for people with little experience but mega connections. Roger sets up an interview between Denny and Don/Peggy almost as a lark, with the horrified employees of SCDP looking at a portfolio that consists of variations on the same ad plus a smattering of actual ads intermingled. Denny calls them “inspiration,” whereas Don calls them plagiarism. Danny is a bizarre combo of early Paul Kinsey and early Don Draper: he carries the former’s pipe and the latter’s nascent enthusiasm for the world of advertising. While he comes from money, what he wants is a job: to him, the latter begets purpose, something apparently missing from his life. Perhaps that’s inference at this point, but I think we’ll be learning more about him in weeks to come. Why? Let’s climb up the ladder a bit; we’ll get back to him eventually.

Peggy. While Don basks in the glory of the Clio nomination for the Glo-Coat commercial, Peggy stews that a commercial that largely sprung from her brain falls primarily on Don’s shoulders at the time of public approval/recognition. (Watch that first scene again between her and Don after Danny leaves: she gives him chance after chance to recognize her input into the project, and he swats them all away.) Rather than attend the awards herself, she’s stuck working the Vick’s account with Stan, the firm’s new Art Director. He’s apparently big into not working and nudity, in some order. Fed up with his slow work ethic, and forced into hotel seclusion to finish the campaign over the weekend, Peggy indulges Stan’s piggish impulses and gets naked to work. Stan joins in, only to find all the blood rush from his head to…well, his head. (A unimpressive redistribution, to here Peggy tell the tale the following Monday. Peggy FT freakin’ W.) She eventually breaks Stan by walking the liberated walk straight into my Peggy-loving heart. But she’s not the only person that asserts her position over a fellow SDCP employee this week.

Pete. Ah, Pete. You’re a partner, Pete. You’re alliteratively awesome, and yet you stew in flop sweat on a daily basis. A far cry from Ken Cosgrove, former wonder boy, constant competitor, and seeming ying to your yang. From Pete’s perspective, Ken is the type of competition that doesn’t seem to have to work hard to achieve the same results. This apparent lack of effort has always driven a wedge between them, even if the rift has largely been one-sided, sort of like the “rivalry” between the Boston Red Sox and The New York Yankees before 2004. At the Clio’s, Pete learns that Ken might once again be coming into his orbit, which sends him straight to Lane in a tizzy. Lane confirms Ken’s impending arrival, but couches it in terms meant to compliment Pete’s contributions rather than threaten his status. (Lane, in short: “Roger is only a figurehead now.” Ouch. More on Roger a little up the latter.) Watching Pete break Ken’s spirit in the conference room was brutal, but after doing the same to his father-in-law a few weeks back to earn the account that lost Peggy her weekend, I think he’s starting to get the hang of this. And Ken…well, he looks like he earned a little flop sweat of his own there at the end. But no one sweated more this week than the man next up on the ladder…

Don. Bloody hell, Don. I mean, this is your bottom, right? Your final, unequivocal bottom? Short of going out and clubbing baby seals with the corpses of freshly killed nuns, I’m not sure how you top your post-Clio’s bender. 36 hours of booze, regret, at least two women bedded, two children forgotten, and one ad campaign stolen. In his drunken state with the Life cereal clients after winning the Clio for Glo-Coat, Don and his swagger return to the office to pitch their campaign. However, after the initial slogan doesn’t go over so well, Don scrambles for impromptu inspiration and lands…right onto Danny’s ideas from earlier in the day. Peggy tries to cut him off mid-meeting, but only gets to inform him of his mistake that Sunday in his apartment. Don tries to pay off Danny rather than hire him, but in the end is stuck with the cure for the common entry-level employee. Broken, chastened, and missing his Clio, he trudges up the top of the ladder to see…

Roger. From atop the ladder, Roger can do little but look down, and look back. He alternates between writing his memoirs (which seem to consist of anecdotes about ice cream) and increasingly facing the fact that Lane already knows: he’s a figurehead, a man known for what he did rather than what he does. He’s long rued the spotlight lavished upon Don, regretting that account management does not have its own awards ceremony. All he wants is the recognition that he discovered Don Draper. But here’s the episode’s great twist, one that in a way changed everything one knows about “Mad Men”: Roger did NOT find Don. Don found him.

What this week’s episode showed, in a nutshell, is that the corporate ladder is both self-sustaining but also ever-evolving. It’s unidirectional but not infinite. Don is in the place he is now because he at one point inserted himself at the place into which Danny just inserted himself. Both owe their careers to the drunken state of a complete stranger. There’s nothing to suggest that Danny will turn into the next Don, but there’s nothing to suggest that he won’t, either. Pete’s as much a legacy hire as Denny, but turned out to be a shrewd and valuable member of the firm. Peggy, like Don, came from little money but much moxie. All received opportunities that could be described as “chance” but still made the most of these chances all the same.

Don may have won the award for a cleaning commercial, but he should really win the Clio for Best Persona. He literally sold not only himself, but his literal hire, to Roger Sterling. To think that Don’s entire career is based on a lie isn’t exactly news: the circumstances around his identity have circulated since Season 1. But all along, we’ve been led to believe that Don was plucked from obscurity by Roger and soon eclipsed his mentor. We believed this story because 1) Roger believed it, 2) everyone else believed Roger, and most importantly, a third layer added tonight, 3) Don let everyone keep right on believing it. All of thus collective collusion spread over the show and into the viewers’ minds.

So much of this season has dealt with the impending culture clash coming down the pipe as the 1960’s start to hit some truly rocky roads. For the first few weeks, we saw this play out on cultural terms. Last week, we saw the divide between the WWII generation and those that can’t remember the war. This week, we saw the divide between people holding onto jobs and those that wish to dislodge them and place themselves upon the corner office/mantle. But all three deal with elements of respect, or depending on one’s perspective, a lack of it. The elder generation can’t fathom why the younger generation doesn’t fall into line; the younger generation can’t fathom why anyone would want to wait in said line.

“You finish something, and you find out everyone loves it right around the time it feels like someone else did it,” Don tells Peggy, unaware that he’s speaking truth to would-be power. Holding onto ownership of the idea, whether conscious or subliminal, is Don’s way of maintaining a toehold on an increasingly slippery slope. He might consider Peggy to be a spiritual equal, but certainly not a work equal. That has nothing to do with her gender and everything to do with her age. (Though if Peggy shares her new naked brainstorming techniques, she’ll be partner by the next Clio Awards.) Don seeks recognition from the industry but hardly shows appreciation for his peers. A simple gesture of goodwill towards Peggy or Roger might have solved a lot of problems for Don this week, problems he was unaware even existed. That’s what happens when you’re too busy munching on your third order of Black Out Fries from Doris the Soon-to-be-Schtupped Waitress.

In a way, Don’s conciliatory gesture to Roger at the end is just another lie: he allows Roger to continue to believe in the myth of their mutual origin story. Just as kids don’t want to learn that the Easter Bunney isn’t real, Roger couldn’t bear to think that Don conned his way into Sterling Cooper all those years ago. But at some point, Don’s going to have to wake up from his own mythmaking journey and rediscover something approximating reality. That way does not lie at the bottom of a bottle of whiskey, to be sure. Hopefully by seeing a version of himself at the bottom of the latter, he can tighten his grip on his own rung and hold on more tightly.

Because right now? He’s ready to fall off completely.

Other thoughts about tonight’s episode:

I focused on the Roger/Don flashbacks, but holy Roger/Joan flashback. The long hair. The insane cleavage. “When I wear it I’ll think of everything that happened the night I got it.” Maybe Jane can sign up for the Army, she and Greg can go down together like the soldiers in Billy Joel’s “Goodnight, Saigon” and we can get Roger/Joan back together more quickly than “Mad Men” currently plans to do so.

Much better use of Mrs. Blankenship. “I don’t work for you!” heard muffled through Don’s door sent me to the floor. That, and the fact that she apparently reads the New York Times by looking through the Hubble telescope.

Did Matthew Weiner purposely throw an awards show onto “Mad Men” on the very night it aired against The Emmys? Probably. More than likely. (Also, congrats to “Mad Men” for winning a third-straight Best Drama!)

Another meta statement: Harry Crane giving spoilers about “Peyton Place” to the boys from Life. I knew I always disliked Harry: nowadays, he’d be the kind of guy that would leak scripts to Ain’t It Cool News and similar sites. Giving Weiner’s penchant for hating spoilers, I think we’re supposed to know pray that Harry gets hit by a bus on his way to work.

Fun use of time lapse effects this episode: at first, I thought it was simply a call-back to its use in “The Good News,” but clearly they expected that and used it to lull the audience down the wrong path before surprising them with an unfamiliar face in bed. I could have done without a second use in this episode, but it was still effective in showing Don’s personal perspective contrasted with the relentless march of reality.

Poor f#cking Duck. Sigh.

I confess not knowing my “Mad Men” timelines as well as I should, but I am assuming that Don was dating Betty at the time Roger originally came into buy Joan a mink, and asked her to pose for the poster. Imagine that: Don and Betty working together. Literally. Huh. Foreshadowing? Or just irony?

Nice little compare/contrast: Don steals Danny’s slogan, and his post-Clio’s conquest apparently stole “The Star-Spangled Banner” for the jingle of her own award-winning commercial. Also? I’m pretty sure Don could have hit that impossibly high “FREEEE” note had he actually maintained consciousness during sex with her.

I will forever say, “Make it simple, but significant,” when questioned about my drink order from here on it. Whatever drink arrives will be called a “Draper.” That is all.

What did you make of “Waldorf Stories”? Leave your thoughts below!