I hardly even know where to start with last night’s Mad Men. The episode outdid itself with the number of scenes begging to be close read, ranging in blatant absurdity from Roger’s blackface number and Pete and Trudy’s Charleston to the countless unspoken moments of subtle eye contact and enigmatic dialogue. (Among the latter group I’d list Joan’s accordion performance and Peggy’s conversation with her secretary Olive high on the list of scenes that practically have a space for annotation written into the script.)

But my struggle with how to actually attack this episode stems from another direction entirely. Mad Men is begging to be analyzed, and the response to that invitation has suddenly begun to feel a little overwhelming. The usual suspects like Alan Sepinwall and Maureen Ryan of course have extensive commentary, and there are posts on Jezebel, the NYTimes Artsbeat blog, TIME and already three posts about it on slate.com. I didn’t fully appreciate just how appealing Mad Men is as a subject until I saw today that ABC News’ Senior White House Correspondent, Jake Tapper, has started writing weekly Mad Men blog posts. Apparently, we love to write about Mad Men.

The screenshot everyone will use from this episode

It’s not hard to see why, especially with an episode like last night’s. There was something for everybody’s own Mad Men hobbyhorse. If you’re into gender studies, Peggy and Joan had plenty of material for you, with Peggy blazing new territory and Joan suddenly realizing her traditional ambitions have limited her opportunities. If you’re more into social history, it’s hard to beat the Kentucky Derby party as a snapshot of life at the brink of change. For the political scientists (I’m looking at you, Jake Tapper), we get Roger complaining about the Roosevelt marriage and the likelihood of Goldwater as a presidential candidate, and for the lit. geeks (I’m looking at…me), we get Sally reading Gibbon’s The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and Paul Kinsey reciting from Eliot’s The Hollow Men. And anyone into civil rights and the history of race in American must look at that blackface scene and feel like they’ve been handed a Christmas present.

Enter my mixed feelings. I am thrilled everyone is writing about Mad Men. Whoohoo, thoughtful dialogue about a great show! Plus, there’ve been some seriously impressive discoveries about the episode I never

Decline and Fall

would have found, particularly the revelation that Don Draper was almost certainly talking with Conrad Hilton (socialite and hotelier) in the abandoned country club bar. On the other hand… really, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire? (The same could be said for The Hollow Men, but it was so obviously meant as a joke on Paul’s self-dramatization that it gets a pass). That text has been used a metatextual symbol for social catastrophe since the nineteenth century. The ‘X marks the spot, uncover-the-hidden message!’ cues in this episode were a little broader and more distracting than usual. It felt like the show’s desire to be legible and accessible in its references made the experience of watching less like an all-engrossing hour of television and more like a Find the Analysis puzzle book for grown-ups.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved the episode. Who am I kidding, if there were an entire television show called Find the Analysis: A Visual Puzzle Book for Grown-Ups, I’d watch every week. But I’m pretty sure I’d pay more attention to the answers than the actual show. A day after “My Old Kentucky Home,” I find myself thinking more about the coverage than the episode.