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MAD MEN: "The Suitcase"

What can we take from "The Suitcase," widely felt to be the single greatest episode in seven celebrated seasons of "Mad Men"? (1) Top spin . Weiner's show (and Weiner wrote this particular episode) was always designed to be a vehicle for "tension and irony." Weiner himself said that before the show ever appeared on-air. A line of dialogue has "top spin" when there's a meaning underneath a literal meaning. Weiner really loves subtext; he loves it almost to a fault. (I am one viewer who desperately wanted a few more sincere, heartfelt conversations in the long history of "Mad Men"--not because I can't tolerate scheming characters, but because I think sincerity and heart do actually exist in the world, and MM became a bit stilted, at times, by seeming not to agree with me!) All that said, the "top spin" in "The Suitcase" is fabulous. "Why is there a dog in the Parthenon?" "You're twe...