In my Monday morning rounds of “Mad Men” recaps—Alan Sepinwall, Slate, A.V. Club, Vulture, Mad Men Footnotes, for those scoring at home—I noticed one glaring difference in interpretations of the episode’s last, ambiguous scene. 

First, Alan Sepinwall raised a specter of doubt that I hadn’t thought to register, before he ultimately dismissed it:

(I briefly wondered if Don had perhaps invented the job offer, knowing what we know about how Dick Whitman operates, but the parallels to Danny’s story are so obvious that I have to assume Roger really did blurt out a job offer, then blacked out and forgot it.)

Then Slate’s Julia Turner came up with the opposite conclusion:

I don’t know about you guys, but I never heard Roger say “Welcome aboard” during that martini breakfast. I think Don just made it up, taking advantage of the older man’s inebriation to con his way into a job.

The subtleties of “Mad Men” are just that. It is a smart show with a smart audience, and it doesn’t have to dumb down its writing with explicit plot monstrosities. Often, though, the show is pretty clear about its intentions. So when there is dissension, especially among top critics, it’s worth exploring, particularly when the plot point is also contentious for the sharp community of commenters on these sites. In this case, most of Sepinwall’s readers disagree with him, claiming that Don’s smug mien in the elevator reveals his thrill of conning Roger Sterling, a very important man at a very important agency. That type of twist would disrupt the episode’s entire arc—Don offers Danny a job; that does happen—but it is the closing scene, so! The more I think about it, the more I agree: Don’s first brilliant maneuver as an advertising man was his wedging a foot in Sterling Cooper’s door. (And not, you know, seeing it maimed by a lawnmower.)

From the little we now know about his time directly before Madison Avenue, such desperation is certainly within his character. Even when he was an overly enthusiastic fur salesman, Don was bold. He showcased Betty in his best stab at advertising. He slipped in his makeshift portfolio with Joan’s getting-to-know-you gift. (That he still carries a book, with a generic salesman’s business card trapped in the back, slightly askew, is telling enough.) He stakes out Roger at Sterling Cooper’s office, presumably waiting for a few hours to catch him at the elevator bank, and then, at 10 a.m., he dares to buy him a drink or five. This is a man undistracted and unburdened by his identity. No one cares that he is not Don Draper, because no one knows who Don Draper is.

He has revealed plenty of times that he wishes that were still the case. This week, he dismisses Faye Miller’s admiration of the Don Draper persona with a disgusted, suddenly alert retort: “Whatever that means.” But back then, when he was sneaking away from the fur shop to hunt for his break, Don might have been quite pleased with himself had he been able to peer into his future of Clios and Advertising Age profiles and big, wide, sparkling glass doors with his name on it. “Did you see the part where I won?” he gloats, with the slip of a slur, to Dr. Miller at the bar, looking happy and confused and more like Dick Whitman than we’ve seen in a good while.