Silent flows the Don: Wondering how they'll wrap up Mad Men over the next 3 episodes

The final season, or half-season, if Mad Men is stumbling toward its close and has taken a while - finished now with the first 3 of 6 episodes, to figure out exactly how to wrap things up without going over the top and without leaving too many strings untied. We see quite clearly in the first (and 2nd) episode that Don is still a player - as he seduces a coffee-shop waitress and then tries to very awkwardly to enter her life: his visit to her tawdry, Hopperesque mid-town apt., a world away from his East Side penthouse, is one of the striking moments in the series. We don't see ex Meagan until the 2nd episode, nor do we see Betty or any of his children until episode three. But by episode three the shape of the final season begins to emerge from the fog: Roger dragoons Don into writing a piece for an agency annual Bahamas retreat, in which he'll reflect on the past accomplishments and present a vision of the future of the now corporate-owned ad shop. So Don spends time in episode 3 asking people about their goals - and he is surprise - not sure why he should be - about the mundane and predictable goals they espouse: success, fame, riches ... Obviously, he's going to write something far more personal, profound, and astonishing, though we have no idea what. Meanwhile, he squabbles w/ daughter - as his flawed personality becomes increasingly obvious to her as she mature - he's a shameless flirt and Don Juan, even among her teenage friends. A young ad exec also confronts done - saying he has no great strength or moral fiber, he's just good looking - and Don fires him on the spot. Hm. Meanwhile, Megan has left and cleared out all of Don's furniture - and he's selling the condo - leaving a sad shell of a place behind. Behind - but what lies ahead? A thrme of episode 3 is also atonement, or at least apology: Don wrestling with the idea of apologizing to those he's hurt or insulted or disappointed - but there are so many. We also have to wonder whether Don will also, in some way, come to terms with his complex childhood and the poverty of his youth that he's run away from - even from his identity - for his whole life: at the end of the previous season, he showed his children, for the first time, the house in which he grew up - blowing apart the myth he'd created of teh Midwestern boyhood - but will anything more come of that, or will Don's skills as a marketeer and a maker of illusion continue to hide the man behind the mask.