By Dave Itzkoff 
Carin Baer/AMC You watch out for those Princeton boys, they’re always up to no good: Michael Gladis and Miles Fisher on “Mad Men.”This post contains spoilers, but they’re in a good place right now.
Is it just me or is “Mad Men” slowly turning into “The Sopranos”? No, the men and women of Sterling Cooper aren’t violently offing each other or hanging out in seedy New Jersey strip clubs. (Though an illicit visit to the office roof was almost made this week.) But increasingly, Matthew Weiner, a former “Sopranos” producer, and his “Mad Men” writing staff seem to be so enamored with their characters that they are content to assemble them in potentially interesting settings, let the cameras linger on them and hope that an interesting scene emerges. This unhurried strategy may produce the occasionally transcendent image — think of Don and Betty Draper kissing in the moonlight at the end of the episode — but doesn’t do much to advance the internal narrative of the series. When your biggest revelation of the night is that Pete and Trudy Campbell are pretty good dancers, it may be time to pick up the pace.
On the other hand, it does make for an incredibly efficient episode to summarize:
In the “Cheech & Chong” story line, Peggy Olson, Paul Kinsey and the little-seen copywriter Smitty are stranded in the Sterling Cooper offices while they struggle to create a Bacardi campaign over the weekend. When brain power and alcohol aren’t enough to get the job done, they turn to the demon weed: marijuana joints delivered by Kinsey’s former Princeton classmate Jeffrey. The subsequent carousing yields Peggy’s now-classic line, “I’m Peggy Olson and I want to smoke some marijuana,” as well as the revelation that Kinsey used to perform in an a cappella singing group, and possibly the funniest rendition of “Hello My Baby” since Michigan J. Frog. In the “Davey and Goliath” story line, little Sally Draper (who really is this generation’s Cindy Brady) steals a $5 bill from Grandpa Gene, then learns by-and-by that stealing is wrong. A scene from next week’s episode shows the Ossining police pulling up to the Draper household — are they there to scare Sally straight? In the “Untitled Woody Allen Fall Project” story line, Don and Betty attend a country-club party thrown by Roger Sterling and his secretary-turned-wife, Jane, where the Drapers reveal their true colors when not in each other’s company. Don may be emotionally unavailable and a hard drinker, but he’s human enough to be repulsed by Roger’s blackface routine. (Then he hangs out with a guest from a wedding also taking place at the club, to show he’s still a Man of the People.) Betty, meanwhile, demonstrates how even the simple act of touching a pregnant woman’s belly can be made unwholesome and icky. Then the Campbells dance, the Drapers kiss and all is right in the world. My goodness, we didn’t even have time to discuss the other awkward party of the week, at Joan Holloway’s apartment. What did you think of this week’s “Mad Men” installment? Were you shocked by its frank depictions of the horrors of drug abuse? Did you recognize Peggy’s secretary from the “Chinese Restaurant” episode of “Seinfeld”? What would $5 get you in 1963, anyway? Post a comment below and let us know.
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