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 — which featured the long-awaited and thoroughly bizarre return of Paul Kinsey, as well as some excellent Don/Joan bonding — are after the jump.
1. Harry: I can’t predict the future, Lane. I don’t know what the Russians are going to do. We may be living underground by Lincoln’s birthday.
2. Joan (re: Roger’s ridiculous Pearl Harbor Day shirt): Mr. Sterling, seeing as you’re dressed for fishing, you’ll have more success if you’re quiet.
3. Pete (to Lane, re: his sudden enthusiasm for distributing bonuses): What ghost visited you, Ebenezer?
4. Pete: If I had told you last December that we’d be in the running for a car, you would have kissed me on the mouth. Don: Maybe you and I should go as a couple.
5. Joan (to her oblivious receptionist, while destroying her desk with an airplane statue): Surprise! There’s an airplane here to see you!
Season 5 scoreboard
Roger Sterling: 24 Megan Draper: 12 Don Draper: 12 Joan Harris: 11 Pete Campbell: 11 Jane Sterling: 10 Stan Rizzo: 7 Michael Ginsberg: 5 Bobby Draper: 5 Harry Crane: 5 Teenage Rolling Stones fan: 4 Pauline Francis: 4 Mona Sterling: 4 Beth Dawes: 4 Civil rights protester: 3 Katherine Olson: 3 Betty Francis: 3 Jenny Gunther: 2 Raymond Geiger: 2 Emile Calvet: 2 Lane Pryce: 1 Peggy Olson: 1