Throughout Mad Men’s seven seasons, the show won three Golden Globes for best drama, and Jon Hamm won two as the elusive creative director Don Draper.
There are hours of episodes to stream before the workplace drama leaves Netflix (it remains unclear where it will go next, and when). However, it could be difficult to binge the whole show before then, so we made it easy for you and picked out some of the best standalone episodes to dive into.
Here are the seven episodes, with a few spoilers for newbies, you must watch before Mad Men leaves Netflix on June 10.
“The Wheel” (Season 1, episode 13)
“This device isn’t a spaceship. It’s a time machine,” Don Draper, formerly Dick Whitman until he stole the real Don Draper’s identity, says during perhaps his most moving pitch and the first season’s final episode. He shows the men of Kodak the best way to sell a carousel projector, painting an idealistic life he doesn’t have. Don shares memories of his picture perfect nuclear family, to whom he doesn’t feel connected anymore. He focuses the ad on nostalgia, “pain from an old wound.” The central irony hits the end of “The Carousel.” Don goes home to an empty house during Thanksgiving weekend, after telling his Norman Rockwell–esque family he doesn’t want to spend the holiday with them. Although he sold the American dream and convinced Kodak that he had lived it, he actually has nothing.
“The New Girl” (Season 2, episode 5)
Don is stuck in the middle between a TV comedian and his wife. After a drunk driving arrest with that woman, Don’s secretary, Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss) gets called into action to bail him from jail. Audiences find out through flashbacks that Don once gave Peggy important advice at the hospital after she gave birth. “This never happened. It will shock you how much it never happened,” Don says. This episode shows how deep their relationship can go, beyond their roles as secretary and a boss at Sterling Cooper.
“Guy Walks Into an Advertising Agency” (Season 3, episode 6)
The “Red Wedding” of Mad Men, this episode is packed with dark comedy, sharp one-liners, and a secretary riding a John Deere lawnmower in the office and running over London account executive’s foot. The drunken lawnmower accident effectively left everyone splattered in the executive’s blood. Peggy and Joan Harris (Christina Hendricks) also exchange kind words on what was expected to be Joan’s last day at the office. Joan also delivered the best line talking to Don in the hospital waiting room: “One minute you’re on top of the world, the next minute some secretary’s running you over with a lawn mower.”
“The Suitcase” (Season 4 episode 7)
The focus of the episode is Don and Peggy, a mentor and his protégé, while she’s stuck in the office on her birthday perfecting a pitch for Samsonite luggage. While in the empty office, they find Roger’s private recordings and bond over the secrets he spills about himself and their co-workers. They wind up going out for dinner and drinks, laughing, sharing secrets about themselves and deepening their relationship. The episode ends with Don receiving the bad news he was avoiding about his friend Anna Draper (Melinda Page Hamilton), wife of the real Don Draper, dying of cancer.
“Faraway Places” (Season 5 episode 6)
The nonlinear storytelling of the episode of makes it memorable and definitely rewatchable. Don and Megan (Jessica Pare) go on an impromptu trip upstate to a Howard Johnson motel. However, the spontaneous getaway goes awry when they argue and Megan makes a hurtful remark about Don’s mother. He storms out of the restaurant and strands Megan. Although he does return sometime later, Megan is gone, and he worries about what happened to her. Roger Sterling (John Slattery) and his wife Jane (Peyton List) take LSD while at a dinner party with her “snooty friend,” and have a moment of clarity about their ill-fated marriage. Meanwhile, Peggy’s relationship with Abe (Charlie Hofheimer) is negatively affected by her preoccupation with work, she gets frustrated over her Heinz pitch not winning over the clients, and smokes weed in the movies to take a break from reality. Don, Roger and Peggy’s stories all intertwine, but it only makes sense at the end of the episode. You’ll want to watch it all over again to better put the pieces together.
“The Crash” (Season 6, episode 8)
Also known as, “the one where everyone does speed.” The creative department gets shot with a vitamin concoction from Jim Cutler’s (Harry Hamlin) physician the weekend they work on the Chevy account. Despite the increased levels of energy, the team is anything but productive. Don, who also fought off a rough cold during the episode, has flashbacks to his childhood that help explain why he treats women the way he did. Megan also leaves Sally (Kiernan Shipka) to babysit her siblings when an intruder shows up at Don’s apartment. Ken Cosgrove (Aaron Staton) also memorably tap dances.
“Waterloo” (Season 7, episode 7)
The midseason finale of Mad Men’s final season is Olson’s time to shine. The day after the Apollo moon landing (and Bert Cooper’s death), Olson executes the Burger Chef pitch. Draper passed the metaphorical torch to his protégé, and he beamed as she took the reins of the presentation and owned it. She did learn from the best after all. “Waterloo” also left many (myself included) teary-eyed when Cooper (theater veteran Robert Morse) appeared to Draper at the end of the episode to sing and dance to “The Best Things in Life Are Free.”
