The death of a president darkens Mad Men

I was wrong, but kinda right. I knew that Season 3 of "Mad Men" was heading toward a denouement, which I thought would culminate in the Kennedy assassination, but it happens that the assassination occurs in episode 12, the penultimate. Though one of us thought this was among the most powerful episodes, I have to disagree. I think the Kennedy assassination, so troubling and dramatic, dominates the show. I was far more interested in seeing the many news clips, which they cleverly play on the old b/w TVs with the ever-annoying "vertical hold" issue, who remembers that?, disturbing the images, ever in the background. That's what I wanted to watch, the old film clips - makes you realize what a different world we're in now, the newsmen then all rumpled and the information moving so slowly and no visuals or backgrounds or news crawls or logos or anything that glows in the dark today. Strangely, this made the whole hi-def set of Mad Men look much more contemporary, a jarring effect. In this episode, focused on the disastrous wedding of Roger Sterling's daughter (ill timed), Betsy tells Don she doesn't love him, she's even colder than usual, just as he seems (somewhat) chastened and maybe willing to become a good father and husband. But she's driving him away, and again wrestling with her attraction to the governor's adviser. Meanwhile, Peggy continues her relation with the hateful Duck, Pete Campbell passed over for a promotion and extremely bitter (I actually begin to like him for a moment), and what ever happened to poor Sal? Increasingly, I begin to think that, with the exception of Don, the Mad Men have better wives (or ex-wives) than they deserve.