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 — one of the all-time darkest hours of television we can remember, and not even mostly because it seemed to confirm our fear that we won’t be seeing much of Peggy at her new job — are after the jump.
1. Joan: Is there a difference between Bermuda and Hawaii? Lane: Neither are suitable for celebrating the death and resurrection of Our Lord.
2. Don: Even though success is a reality, its effects are temporary. You get hungry even though you’ve just eaten.
3. Don (to Lane, after firing him): I’ve started over a lot, Lane. This is the worst part.
4. Don: Why do we do this? Roger: For the sex, but it’s always disappointing.
5. Don: What happened to your enlightenment? Roger: I don’t know. It wore off.
Season 5 scoreboard
Roger Sterling: 27 Don Draper: 19 Megan Draper: 12 Joan Harris: 11 Pete Campbell: 11 Jane Sterling: 10 Stan Rizzo: 7 Lane Pryce: 6 (final score) 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 Peggy Olson: 1