When you get beyond the cocktails and the costumes and the showy emotional breakdowns, what makes any given episode of Mad Men memorable is the dialogue. Matthew Weiner and his staff are particularly wonderful at crafting one-liners — funny quips, penetrating realizations, earth-shattering statements that cause time to stop and personalities to crumble. This season, we’re keeping track of which characters get each episode’s five best lines, assigning points to winners, and posting a cumulative leader board to determine Season 5’s pithiest mad man (or woman). The results of last night’s episode — our favorite of the season so far, and only partially because Pete Campbell got his face rearranged — are after the jump.
Pete (to Don, after an evening at a brothel): I can’t believe I have to explain I was doing my job to a man who just pulled his pants up on the world.
Roger (to Ken, on the topic of his second career as a sci-fi author): My wife likes fur, but you don’t see me growing a tail.
Don: No one grows up wanting to be in advertising.
Jenny Gunther: Things seem so random all of a sudden. Time feels like it’s speeding up.
Lane (to Pete): You’re a grimy little pimp.
Season 5 scoreboard
Roger Sterling: 9 Stan Rizzo: 7 Pete Campbell: 7 Michael Ginsberg: 5 Don Draper: 5 Bobby Draper: 5 Joan Harris: 5 Teenage Rolling Stones fan: 4 Pauline Francis: 4 Megan Draper: 3 Civil rights protester: 3 Jenny Gunther: 2 Lane Pryce: 1