Story (aired on May 4, 2014/written by Erin Levy; directed by Scott Hornbacher): The primitive and the technologically advanced both feature prominently in "The Monolith". Roger chases his daughter to a hippie retreat that has shorn itself of all (well, most) electronic advances in order to follow the rhythms of the sun, while the SC&P break room is torn apart to make room for a large computer much like the ones currently propelling man to the moon. Roger's adventure will be less successful than Neil Armstrong's although initially Margaret - sorry, "Marigold" - welcomes his openminded approach to her new home on the commune. Roger and Mona materialize at this upstate farmhouse dressed in a three piece suit and fur coat, but only Mona will play her assigned role as uptight square. Roger sticks around when Mona leaves, proceeding to smoke grass, peel potatoes, and ogle the locals in their billowy burlap dresses. At night he and Margaret sleep under the stars, but when she sneaks off with a lover, he decides he's had enough. Roger literally tries to drag her away in the morning and when she fights back, he ends up soaked in mud: a besuited parody of the Woodstock audience later that summer. Then Margaret tells her father the horrific truth: she isn't rejecting his legacy, she's living up to it - fleeing her responsibilities as a parent by getting back to nature rather than doing so by living the hypocritical high life in the city. Dripping muck on his long walk back to the highway as she watches him go, Roger has never looked more defeated nor more like the author of his own defeat.
Back in the Manhattan office, Don is undergoing his own humiliations. A new campaign is taking shape out west as Pete woos fast food upstart Burger Chef; his contact is George Payton (Josh McDermitt), a former Vick's rep (who casually informs an alarmed Pete that Pete's father-in-law/nemesis has had a heart attack). Seeking to twist the knife by finally offering work under demeaning conditions, Lou places Don on Peggy's team for this trial run. Tasked with typing up twenty-five taglines, Don would rather toss his typewriter into the window, mock his new boss by playing solitaire and reading Portnoy's Complaint on the couch, get stinking drunk while chugging straight out of a fifth of vodka, and then - inspired by Lane's old Mets pennant - demand that Freddie take him to Shea Stadium. Freddie takes him home instead, and gives him the talk when he wakes up hungover in the morning. "Fix your bayonet, and hit the parade," the recovering alcoholic orders the repeat offender. Don dutifully goes back to work, just as the new computer is rolled in behind him - an ominous sign, or a close call showing that he's come to his senses in the nick of time? Over the week, Don has been chatting with Lloyd Hawley (Robert Baker), the machine's owner, even pushing Bert to woo him as a client. Bert sets the former hot shot straight: "You thought there was going to be a big creative crisis. In fact, we've been doing just fine." Has Don become obsolete?
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