Season four’s “Public Relations” opens with the question “Who is Don Draper?”, a query Don scoffs at for its cuteness and its suggestion of replying in the third person, but it’s a question that quickly becomes an obvious touchstone for the episode. The idea is particularly canny because “Who is Don Draper?” is the same question we’ve been asking all along, and by the end of last season, we had a pretty firm grasp on the answer. He’s a creative genius, a guy who works without a contract, a lothario, a liar, a neglectful father and husband – and he’s also Dick Whitman, an entirely different person. The opening line of “Public Relations” is a quick, chastising jolt. We thought we knew Don Draper, and perhaps we did, but he is not the same character we remember from last fall.

Everything about Don is now just a little different – all of the same qualities are there, but he’s been set inside an alternate universe where he is called upon to be a single father, a public figure, a company man, a guy with his eye on the bottom line, and a guy who dates rather than seduces. Unlike the man from the first three seasons, who was entirely comfortable in his skin, this version of Don has not yet quite caught up with the times, and hasn’t yet figured out how to give promotional interviews or how to handle his ex-wife and her new husband. In that vein, one of the episode’s most telling moments was the run-up to Don’s blind date. He smoothes out the bed (something we know he’s expecting will soon be seen by his date) and then pulls on his jacket over his white shirt, which has a pack of cigarettes straining against the fabric of the front pocket. Don stands at the mirror, hunched, fiddling with his sleeves, scrunching up his shoulders, and combing his hair. Where before we have watched him effortlessly slide from one persona into another, perpetually coiffed and polished to a high sheen, Don Draper is now a guy who has to adjust himself and pluck at his clothing before it sits the way it should. He has to work at being himself. Of course, he’s been working at being Don Draper since he gave up being Dick Whitman, but before, it was invisible. Now we can see all of the seams and rough edges.

Peggy seems to have undergone a reverse process, and I am absolutely in love with the new Peggy Olson. All of those little physical signals of discomfort and ill-fit (her hair, the dresses that managed to be both frumpy and girlish) have shifted into something much more self-assured, and Peggy can now spar with Don, joke with her illustrator about the Stan Freberg John and Marsha ad, and come up with ridiculous, back-firing promotional schemes all on her own. It’s about darn time, frankly, and Peggy’s confident stance in the office is just what’s necessary to balance a newly uncertain Don Draper.

Aside from these important and still developing character shifts, the thing I found most exciting about “Public Relations” was the commitment the show has made to all its foundational changes from the previous season. It would have been so unsatisfying to watch the show return to its regular status quo, but as I described in my post on procedurals, it’s just much easier for those blockbuster season-ending changes to quickly step backwards into familiar formula. In his interview with Alan Sepinwall, Matt Weiner talks about how important it was for him to commit to those changes, even the painful ones which required leaving behind characters like Paul Kinsey and Ken Cosgrove. Mad Men will continue to be a creatively interesting show for much longer because it’s clear that Betty and Don will not be getting back together in the near future, and Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce is here to stay.

So it looks like that’s Mad Men for this season: we spent three years watching it build on the outside while slowly crumbling underneath, and now after the final implosion, we get to watch it all build again. But this time, it’ll be something entirely new.