10 Times Mad Men Became The Weirdest Drama On Television

9. That Time Don Faced Off Against An Open Elevator Shaft

It's a hotly contested competition, but season 5 was one of Mad Men's most unashamedly miserable seasons, and not just because it's the season where Pete Campbell's hairline began to make a tragic retreat. It's also the season where Lane Pryce, one of the few good characters, meets his untimely end, and where Don realises he's married an absolutely awful person. The realisation of what he's really facing comes halfway through the season, in the episode Lady Lazarus. After Megan leaves Don's beloved advertising world behind for an acting career, neighbouring elevator doors ping open - Don gazes down, into an open elevator shaft, and the immense drop below. It's like Don temporarily leaves his boring Madison Ave life behind and enters The Twilight Zone, where the existential void in his life is made into a physical metaphor. Because what he's really facing isn't an open elevator shaft, but his empty, unstable existence - here, Don peers behind the facade to the ugly machinery and realises the bottom could fall out at any moment.