Of course, each season finale has been like a little death for viewers, and discussions have already begun about the seventh season. Will Dick/Don redeem himself or least move on from the Inferno to Purgatorio? Will the company and show go bicoastal? Will Peggy ever make a wise dating choice? Here are some possibilities:

1. It’s 2014. A late-middle-aged Sally, played by Susan Sarandon, stands in the doorway of what is obviously a home office. The camera pans the room, ending with a manuscript on the desk. The cover says "Mad Men: A Memoir," by Sally Draper Bishop.

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We’ve all been where Sally was on “The Quality of Mercy,” last week’s episode of Mad Men, but not all of us have Glen. When she jumps up and yells for him to help her from the other room, where he’s gone with the pretty blonde, we’re thinking, or I was thinking, “He’s hooking up, he’s going to be pissed, he’s not going to come through.” Or: he’s going to want Sally – that’s what’s going to happen – she’s going to have to repay him. But what does Glen show us? That’s he’s the only virtuous man – the only non-man child – on the show. And possibly on the earth.

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The favors (literal and figurative) were flying, of course, with too many satisfying scenes to count: Three-way flirting between Peggy, Pete and Ted? Mrs. Campbell telling Peggy about her sex life? Don actually sticking his neck out for someone other than himself? Of course, whenever Don starts looking heroic, you know there's real trouble ahead. Still, any episode in which Peggy, Pete, Ted and Don all show us their vulnerable sides is a rare and beautiful thing indeed.

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"The poor dope. He always wanted a pool." Those opening lines of "Sunset Boulevard" fit the spirit of the sixth season of "Mad Men" to a T. Delusions and vanities have been laid bare; shallow desires and hungry egos have taken a back seat to existential reckoning; the triumph of paternalism and capitalist grandiosity have been supplanted by an angry uprising.

But near-drowning aside, Don is less struggling screenwriter Joe Gillis than aging starlet Norma Desmond, gracelessly discovering that his best years have passed him by. First he watches the Democratic National Convention riots on TV, but only manages to demonstrate on the phone to Megan that he identifies with The Man more than with the hippies on the street. Like Peggy's comments about Avon's ad campaign, he is "unintentionally old-fashioned." "Can you imagine a policeman cracking your skull?" Megan asks, making it clear where her sympathies lie. "It would change your whole life." Why does that sound like foreshadowing? And speaking of which, the next thing she says to Don is, "Go for a swim. It always makes you feel better." Not always, Megan. Don, though, just tells Megan to go to sleep, see also: Power down that pretty little head of yours, just like I have, and you'll be less tormented by these awful times.

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It's funny how Don and Betty's interaction goes from faintly intriguing to faintly repellent in a matter of seconds. "You'll get eaten alive out here," Don tells her, sounding extra sleazy. "You know mosquitoes ignore me," Betty answers, possibly referring to his tendency to ignore her. "In those shorts?" he asks, and then it's on. Don's pouring Betty booze, reminding us that these two go together like a pair of lying, cheating, remorseless drunks, a moment of mirroring that's echoed throughout the episode. When Don talks about teenagers in revolt, it's clearer than ever that Don and Betty are united in their old-school ways, two conventional mainstream beauty queens who never understood all the fuss about ideals and moral high ground.

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First, there's the dialogue. As longtime viewers, it's easy to get bogged down by the symbolic significance of every scene, and get distracted by Don's downward spiral into damnation, so much so that we can't see the trees for the forest. Maybe we tend to take the crackling, unpredictable dialogue of "Mad Men" for granted; this episode it was too good to ignore.

Second, there are the satisfying scenes. The best TV writers figure out ways to serve up some really tasty payoffs for viewers. On "The Wire," even against a dystopian backdrop, you had these great moments of connection between McNulty and Bunk, or Omar and his boyfriend, among others. On "Six Feet Under," Claire and Nate and Rachel may have been struggling or sinking into a funk, but they'd always have ways of gaining leverage on the people bringing them down. For all of its gloom and doom, "Mad Men" still offers some of the most satisfying payoffs of any drama on television.

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We begin with Bert and Pete scheming with Joan to take the company public, and Pete even has the gall to hit on Joan. (She says no, loud and clear, and then tells him, "I hope Clara reminded you tomorrow's Mother's Day." I love how she has become the moral center of the office – or at least the center of restraint and discretion.) Meanwhile, Roger ditches his inherited shoeshine kit (which signals his reckoning with death) to rush off to the airport to romance not his stewardess lover, but an executive from Chevy. Instead of mourning his eventual demise, Roger is thinking about his legacy – which we can see from the fact that he takes three copies of his autobiography out of his travel bag, but leaves the last one in. This idea of making your mark before you die is scattered throughout the episode, along with lots of talk of death (Roger says, of Jaguar, "This could be fatal"; Ted finds out his art director is dying of pancreatic cancer; Rosen says he has a heart and a kid who needs a heart and both are dead.) Everyone in this episode is looking for salvation, redemption, delivery from history's dustbin – but are they kidding themselves? Is their bravery in the face of absurd obstacles just another way of running away from the specter of death? Is their passion for work meaningful, or is it just a distraction that keeps them from facing the truth about themselves?

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After the premiere's death-and-paradise fixation, and last week's repeated guilt 'n' betrayal theme, I was starting to worry that every single episode of the sixth season of "Mad Men" would serve up Big, Obvious Themes and Giant, Flashing Symbols. As one of a giant herd of writers who enjoys unpacking these symbols, I don't want to bite the hand that feeds. But there is that point when the subtext upstages the actual text to such an extent that it's hard to focus on the emotional center of a given scene. For example, the second you see Joan's friend, Kate, putting makeup on Joan's mom, Gail, you know you're about to be swept away on a tide of double meanings. "Mary Kay always says it's really all about making yourself feel better," Kate tells her. "And that always starts with you doing something for you." That's the justification of the Glutton, anyway.

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A tone of shameless betrayal holds true throughout the whole episode. We'll start with the most expected betrayer, Don, who rides the elevator past the Rosens' floor, only to see Sylvia and Arnold arguing about money. Sylvia looks vaguely absurd in her hat and housecoat, but she still shamelessly locks eyes with Don while she's kissing her husband goodbye. Minutes later, Don boldly pretends to have forgotten his cigarettes so he can return to the Rosens' apartment for some early-morning action. (Remember how Don's "uncle" Mac later tells Don he's the rooster who runs the hen house and "brings on the day"?)

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"People will do anything to alleviate their anxiety." – Dr. Arnold Rosen

Whenever a wise and heroic character appears on "Mad Men," you know that Don will find some way to destroy him. That's how Don alleviates his anxiety, after all – by crushing all truth and beauty to dust under his shiny black wingtips. So when Dr. Rosen, Don Draper's charming new friend and neighbor, explains Don to himself right before skiing off through the snow to save someone's life, it's obvious that Don's not going to stand for it.

Enter Silvia Rosen, who's chosen a rather literal interpretation of her husband's instructions to "keep it in the building." Don's cheating again – no surprise there. But thanks to show creator Matthew Weiner's knack for sly storytelling and creepy omens, Don's infidelity lands like a baseball bat to the gut. If Weiner opened the episode with the doorman's heart attack, then showed us how Don and the surgeon's wife met and began flirting, not only would that feel too familiar to offer as much dramatic impact, but it would obscure the real object of Don's strong feelings: Dr. Rosen. Ever the paragon of imperialist greed, longing and envy, Don can't handle sharing oxygen with a true hero. This is Don's life-long undoing: He's all hero on the outside, and fraudulent, covetous worm on the inside.

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Pearce explains on the Burn Book of the Tumblr, Mean Mad Men:

After seeing Mean Girls, Girl World was forever changed: consoling someone when they were sick was replaced with “boo you whore,” fabulous was switched with “fetch,” and girls grabbed their boobs when there was a “30% chance it’s already raining.”

Then AMC decided to grace the earth with Mad Men and suddenly I found myself wondering WWJD- “What would Joan do?,” questioning if it’s ever too early to drink if you’re on Roger time, and daydreaming about whether I would have caught Don’s wandering eye.

In the end, if you’ve ever quoted Mean Girls, or cried during Mad Men*, you’re in the right place.

Credit for all images to Taylor Pearce's Tumblr, Mean Mad Men.

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The "prurient" media has enjoyed speculating the size of Hamm's penis for several years, egged on by the knowledge that the actor often goes commando under seemingly clingy pants. But after a particularly revealing photo of Hamm and girlfriend Jennifer Westfeldt walking down Madison Avenue went viral last year, Hamm's distinctive bulge became a full-fledged Internet meme.  In response to the photo, a "Mad Men" insider told the Huffington Post: “He doesn’t know this, but we used to have to airbrush it out of pics sometimes," adding, “Jon is a big boy but sometimes it can be distracting.”

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