It Wasn’t the Day to Ask Cuomo About the Mood in Albany

ALBANY - Maybe it was just Monday. Maybe it’s the constant bad news regarding corruption surrounding the Capitol. Maybe it was just quitting time.

Nathaniel Brooks for The New York Times Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo conceded that the indictments and corruption news had been “emotionally draining for some people” in the Legislature, but not for him.

Whatever the cause, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo seemed just a touch punchy late Monday afternoon when asked by a reporter whether there was a climate of fear in Albany following a number of federal charges against lawmakers.

“Do you feel fear?” Mr. Cuomo retorted. “Are you afraid?”

The reporter, Zack Fink of NY1, said no. Mr. Cuomo said he was also not afraid.

“I think they’re afraid of you,” said the governor, smiling a little. “I think you strike fear into the hearts of men and women.”

Another reporter, Karen DeWitt, the Capitol bureau chief for New York State Public Radio, pressed the question, asking the governor whether the legislative session - due to end in late June - might be effectively over now. Was there any truth to that?

“No,” the governor responded. “Do you really want to discuss this?”

Mr. Cuomo then proceeded to say that he was hopeful for the rest of the session, which he said had already been “a phenomenal success,” citing a new gun-control law, an on-time budget and an increase in the minimum wage.

That said, he conceded that the indictments and corruption news had been “emotionally draining for some people” in the Legislature. But not for everyone, and certainly - his mood notwithstanding - not for the governor himself.

“I think it’s basically irrelevant,” he said, “unless you allow it to become relevant.”

It Wasn’t the Day to Ask Cuomo About the Mood in Albany

ALBANY - Maybe it was just Monday. Maybe it’s the constant bad news regarding corruption surrounding the Capitol. Maybe it was just quitting time.

Nathaniel Brooks for The New York Times Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo conceded that the indictments and corruption news had been “emotionally draining for some people” in the Legislature, but not for him.

Whatever the cause, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo seemed just a touch punchy late Monday afternoon when asked by a reporter whether there was a climate of fear in Albany following a number of federal charges against lawmakers.

“Do you feel fear?” Mr. Cuomo retorted. “Are you afraid?”

The reporter, Zack Fink of NY1, said no. Mr. Cuomo said he was also not afraid.

“I think they’re afraid of you,” said the governor, smiling a little. “I think you strike fear into the hearts of men and women.”

Another reporter, Karen DeWitt, the Capitol bureau chief for New York State Public Radio, pressed the question, asking the governor whether the legislative session - due to end in late June - might be effectively over now. Was there any truth to that?

“No,” the governor responded. “Do you really want to discuss this?”

Mr. Cuomo then proceeded to say that he was hopeful for the rest of the session, which he said had already been “a phenomenal success,” citing a new gun-control law, an on-time budget and an increase in the minimum wage.

That said, he conceded that the indictments and corruption news had been “emotionally draining for some people” in the Legislature. But not for everyone, and certainly - his mood notwithstanding - not for the governor himself.

“I think it’s basically irrelevant,” he said, “unless you allow it to become relevant.”

Upgrades on Schedule for Gowanus Canal Pumping Station Despite Hurricane

As Hurricane Sandy swept across the Gowanus Canal last year, a pumping station that redirects sewage to a pollution-control plant was damaged and went offline for almost 33 hours, according to a report released by the city after the storm. About 13 million gallons of raw sewage flowed into the canal before the city installed a generator that restored power to the station.

The hurricane halted a city project, started in 2009, to upgrade the pumping station to minimize the effect of sewage discharges on the canal. The city later changed its plans to prevent similar releases of sewage to the canal in future storms.

On Monday, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced that the modified project was still scheduled to be completed this year, as originally planned. City officials had been concerned that the storm might delay the work.

“The upgrades to the Gowanus Canal facility are among the unprecedented investments we’ve made to protect our world-renowned water quality,” Mr. Bloomberg said in a statement. He and other city officials held a news conference at the canal on Monday to discuss the plan.

Among the changes is an upgrade to an underground tunnel used to pump clean water from the Buttermilk Channel into the Gowanus Canal, so that more water can flow through the tunnel. The city is also raising the elevation of mechanical equipment used for the pumping station and will build a wall and floodgates to protect buildings and generators from water damage. The changes have increased the price of the project to $190 million from $140 million, officials said.

The federal government is moving forward with its own cleanup of the Gowanus Canal, which is listed as a Superfund site.

After an Artist Steps Away From His Bag, a Summons and a Legal Battle

Michael Appleton for The New York Times Enrico Miguel Thomas, an artist, worked on a sketch Sunday near Grand Central Terminal. Mr. Thomas is fighting a disorderly conduct summons he received for leaving his bags unattended at the terminal three months ago.

Enrico Miguel Thomas, 42, an artist who has been drawing subway stations for years, arrived at Grand Central Terminal one night in February, plopped down his bags and began drawing.

“I momentarily stepped away, maybe eight feet,” from his two bags - a large, flat artist’s portfolio and a backpack full of his Sharpie markers - in the terminal’s main concourse near the big clock to get a better vantage point, and began sketching.

Mr. Thomas - who has become fairly well known for using subway maps as his canvases â€" turned around a few minutes later to see several Metropolitan Transit Authority police officers and a bomb dog gathering around his backpack. Finding only art supplies in the backpack, the police issued a summons for disorderly conduct to Mr. Thomas, who claims he stepped away from the bag for perhaps five minutes, at most.

The summonsing officer said that Mr. Thomas was away from the bag for at least 10 minutes, and that, upon returning, he told the officer “he had just left the bag,” said Aaron Donovan, an M.T.A. spokesman, adding that officers, while walking over to the bag, were approached by several commuters also pointing out that it was unattended.

Mr. Thomas called this unlikely since there were few, if any, people nearby. He was working on a drawing to be included in an coming exhibition on Grand Central at John Jay College.

Mr. Thomas went to Midtown Community Court on May 1, accompanied by Thomas E. Wojtaszek, a Brooklyn lawyer he hired after striking up a conversation with him - where else? â€" on the subway.

Mr. Wojtaszek asked the judge, Felicia Mennin, to dismiss the summons because leaving an unattended bag did not seem to fall under the New York State penal code’s description of disorderly conduct.

He disputed the description by the officer on the summons - that Mr. Thomas showed “intent to cause a hazardous condition by leaving a bag unattended, causing a crowd to disperse and cause alarm” - saying Mr. Thomas certainly did not intend this, nor did his action cause dispersion or alarm.

And the state’s penal code does not make leaving baggage unattended a crime.

“The bag was still within his custody â€" what artist would leave the tools of his trade behind?” Mr. Wojtaszek said in an interview last week. “But this judge was not susceptible to reason.”

“She said, ‘I think in the light of the facts of the last two weeks,’ and I cut her off because it was apparent that she meant the bombing of the Boston Marathon,” he recalled. “I said, ‘This happened back in February,’ and she said, ‘But it happened after 9/11.’”

“The judge did not cite any precedent or case law,” Mr. Wojtaszek said.

The judge upheld the summons. She said that Mr. Thomas could plead guilty and receive a day of community service and the charge would be dismissed within six months if he avoided other legal problems. Mr. Thomas refused the deal.

Michael Appleton for The New York Times Mr. Thomas said he carried all his materials in his bags and would never leave them unattended for very long.

“In my mind, this was punishment supporting a lie â€" I didn’t do anything wrong, so why should I accept a punishment,” said Mr. Thomas, who will be tried for the charge on June 20 and face a penalty of up to $250 or 15 days in jail, his lawyer said.

David Bookstaver, a spokesman for the state Office of Court Administration said that the judge’s comment “was only about whether the summons was sufficient to go forward, not about his guilt or innocence, which will be decided by the facts of the case at trial.”

Mr. Thomas, who lives in Red Hook, Brooklyn, has produced thousands of renderings of interiors and exteriors of subway and train stations and the cityscape. He charges several hundred dollars for the drawings, which have been featured in numerous exhibitions and garnered him plenty of media attention. Last year, he gave a workshop at the New York Transit Museum in Brooklyn on his methods of drawing the subway. He is featured in a television commercial for Sharpie markers, which shows him drawing, against a gritty urban backdrop of trains.

He noted wryly that the footage was shot in Chicago because the M.T.A. asked for too high a fee for shooting on its property.

Regarding the disorderly conduct violation, Eugene O’Donnell, a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a former New York police officer and prosecutor in Brooklyn and Queens, said the disorderly conduct violation covered a broad swath of conditions, which makes it a handy tool for officers to cite people who are not technically breaking other specific laws.

“It’s the most abused statute in America,” he said. “Just about anything can fall under it, so it’s a sweeping tool that officers can use for just about anything. On any given day you could walk through Grand Central Terminal and start handing out dis-con summonses left and right.”

Regarding the judge’s upholding of the summons, Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said that incorporating the Boston Marathon or Sept. 11 attacks into a legal decision was “drawing the wrong lesson” from terrorist attacks.

“It’s shocking to think that someone would be vulnerable to criminal prosecution based on a prior horrific event, and not on their alleged actions,” she said.

But for police officers, the decision to issue a disorderly conduct summons in these kinds of cases is based on the consequences that bomb scares can cause, said Michael O’Neil, former commanding officer of the New York Police Department’s counterterrorism division, and now president of MSA Security.

“Cops have some latitude in giving the summons,” he said, especially when the leaving of unattended luggage “creates public disorder.”

Mr. Thomas said he began doing art seriously at age 8 to escape abuse by his biological father who once scalded him with boiling water. As a teenager, he ran away from home, lived in a shelter and earned a scholarship to the Pratt Institute.

“Art saved my life,” he said, adding that he will fight the summons because, “I’m all about justice â€" I’m not going to continue to be hurt over and over again.”

New Plan to Auction Banksy Mural Rekindles Battle

For a work scarcely a year old, “Slave Labor (Bunting Boy)” by the British graffiti artist Banksy has been at the center of more than its share of battles, and a new one has broken out with the Sincura Group announcing that it will auction the mural at the London Film Museum on June 2.

The mural, which shows a young boy, stenciled in black and white, sepia and grey, creating red, white and blue Union Jacks on a sweat-shop era sewing machine, made its first splash last May, when it cropped up on a wall in the Turnpike Lane neighborhood of North London. Given the timing of its appearance, during the Diamond Jubilee celebrations commemorating Queen Elizabeth II’s six-decade reign, and the mysterious Banksy’s reputation for social comment, the piece was taken as an acerbic commentary on the British class system, the economy, or the Jubilee itself.

Then it suddenly vanished, its whereabouts unknown until February, when Fine Art Auctions Miami included it in auction of contemporary works, with an expected selling price between $500,000 to $700,000. The Haringey Council, which represents the district where Bansky had created the painting, cried foul, and after insisting that they had the piece legitimately, the auction house backed down.

Now it’s déjà vu all over again. The Sincura Group has said that the piece has been “sensitively restored under a cloak of secrecy,” and that it plans to sell it at an auction that also includes works by Damien Hirst and Andy Warhol. And the Haringey Council is having none of it.

“This is a piece of art given to the community for public enjoyment,” Alan Strickland, a member of the council, told the BBC, “and people will find it galling that you can only view this work at an expensive champagne reception, when it belongs with the people of north London, not a private owner.”

“We saw the level of public anger last time, as the story went around the world,” he added, “and I expect the same this time.”

The auction by the London-based Sincura Group â€" which describes itself as “concierge specialists who pride themselves on obtaining the unobtainable” â€" is the latest obstacle for a campaign, backed by the council, to restore the work to its original site.

New Plan to Auction Banksy Mural Rekindles Battle

For a work scarcely a year old, “Slave Labor (Bunting Boy)” by the British graffiti artist Banksy has been at the center of more than its share of battles, and a new one has broken out with the Sincura Group announcing that it will auction the mural at the London Film Museum on June 2.

The mural, which shows a young boy, stenciled in black and white, sepia and grey, creating red, white and blue Union Jacks on a sweat-shop era sewing machine, made its first splash last May, when it cropped up on a wall in the Turnpike Lane neighborhood of North London. Given the timing of its appearance, during the Diamond Jubilee celebrations commemorating Queen Elizabeth II’s six-decade reign, and the mysterious Banksy’s reputation for social comment, the piece was taken as an acerbic commentary on the British class system, the economy, or the Jubilee itself.

Then it suddenly vanished, its whereabouts unknown until February, when Fine Art Auctions Miami included it in auction of contemporary works, with an expected selling price between $500,000 to $700,000. The Haringey Council, which represents the district where Bansky had created the painting, cried foul, and after insisting that they had the piece legitimately, the auction house backed down.

Now it’s déjà vu all over again. The Sincura Group has said that the piece has been “sensitively restored under a cloak of secrecy,” and that it plans to sell it at an auction that also includes works by Damien Hirst and Andy Warhol. And the Haringey Council is having none of it.

“This is a piece of art given to the community for public enjoyment,” Alan Strickland, a member of the council, told the BBC, “and people will find it galling that you can only view this work at an expensive champagne reception, when it belongs with the people of north London, not a private owner.”

“We saw the level of public anger last time, as the story went around the world,” he added, “and I expect the same this time.”

The auction by the London-based Sincura Group â€" which describes itself as “concierge specialists who pride themselves on obtaining the unobtainable” â€" is the latest obstacle for a campaign, backed by the council, to restore the work to its original site.

New Plan to Auction Banksy Mural Rekindles Battle

For a work scarcely a year old, “Slave Labor (Bunting Boy)” by the British graffiti artist Banksy has been at the center of more than its share of battles, and a new one has broken out with the Sincura Group announcing that it will auction the mural at the London Film Museum on June 2.

The mural, which shows a young boy, stenciled in black and white, sepia and grey, creating red, white and blue Union Jacks on a sweat-shop era sewing machine, made its first splash last May, when it cropped up on a wall in the Turnpike Lane neighborhood of North London. Given the timing of its appearance, during the Diamond Jubilee celebrations commemorating Queen Elizabeth II’s six-decade reign, and the mysterious Banksy’s reputation for social comment, the piece was taken as an acerbic commentary on the British class system, the economy, or the Jubilee itself.

Then it suddenly vanished, its whereabouts unknown until February, when Fine Art Auctions Miami included it in auction of contemporary works, with an expected selling price between $500,000 to $700,000. The Haringey Council, which represents the district where Bansky had created the painting, cried foul, and after insisting that they had the piece legitimately, the auction house backed down.

Now it’s déjà vu all over again. The Sincura Group has said that the piece has been “sensitively restored under a cloak of secrecy,” and that it plans to sell it at an auction that also includes works by Damien Hirst and Andy Warhol. And the Haringey Council is having none of it.

“This is a piece of art given to the community for public enjoyment,” Alan Strickland, a member of the council, told the BBC, “and people will find it galling that you can only view this work at an expensive champagne reception, when it belongs with the people of north London, not a private owner.”

“We saw the level of public anger last time, as the story went around the world,” he added, “and I expect the same this time.”

The auction by the London-based Sincura Group â€" which describes itself as “concierge specialists who pride themselves on obtaining the unobtainable” â€" is the latest obstacle for a campaign, backed by the council, to restore the work to its original site.

At Fund-Raiser, Gay Community Shows Support for De Blasio

An ample-bodied drag queen (stage name: Flotilla DeBarge) declared that “just because it’s gay doesn’t mean it thinks our way.”

A curiously masculine version of Tina Turner cried that New York City “doesn’t need another Bloomberg clone.”

But perhaps nobody summed up the evening’s raw emotion and risqué tone better than John Cameron Mitchell, the actor and writer, who invoked an unprintable obscenity as he mocked the City Council speaker, Christine C. Quinn.

A rowdy and occasionally raunchy series of performances on Sunday night at a fund-raiser for Bill de Blasio, a Democratic candidate for mayor, offered a potent display of his support from the city’s gay and lesbian community.

But, as much as anything else, it highlighted a splintering of the gay community in this year’s mayor’s race, laying bare simmering frustrations with Ms. Quinn, who is gay, from parts of a voting bloc she has long symbolized and championed.

Much of the evening was given over to a biting critique of the Quinn era of government, which the actors on stage treated as synonymous with Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s tenure in office.

The ill will toward Ms. Quinn was so great that the mere mention of her name drew catcalls and laughter.

At one point, the actor and writer Charles Busch belted out a sarcastic song, titled “Yurtle the Turtle,” that depicted Mr. de Blasio as a noble frog challenging a cruel king (Mr. Bloomberg). Near the end, he paused for effect.

“I haven’t even mentioned Christine,” he said, to loud applause.

A man dressed, unconvincingly, as Ms. Turner put an anti-Quinn spin on the singer’s hit song “We Don’t Need Another Hero.”

A sample lyric: “We don’t need another Starbucks. We don’t need another Duane Reade. We don’t need another bank branch - or a Bloomberg clone.”

The audience of 300 at the Cutting Room, a venue in Midtown East, roared.

A skit featuring the actors Stephen Spinella and Sarah Paulson touched on Ms. Quinn’s biggest political vulnerability: her vote to extend the city’s term-limits law.

“Isn’t a third term illegal?” Ms. Paulson asked mischievously.

At times, the evening tested the boundaries of taste.

Midway into the fund-raiser, a woman dressed as Reba McEntire took the stage, offering fictitious recollections of her high jinks with Mr. de Blasio.

“We were tripping on acid, riding horses naked through my pastures,” she recalled, as she looked in Mr. de Blasio’s direction.

“I can say that?” she asked in mock horror, as Mr. de Blasio and wife, Chirlane, sat a dozen feet away.

In a closing number, the actress Bridgete Everette emerged from the audience, a glass of wine in hand, and sat on Mr. de Blasio’s lap, caressing his hair and bouncing on his knee as she delivered a halting version of a song she had written for the occasion.

“So comfy and roomy,” she rhapsodized of the candidate’s knee. “Feels natural to me.”

As the laughter grew, Ms. Everette leapt off Mr. de Blasio’s knee.

“That was tasteful!” she told the audience. “I did not do anything sexual.”

Afterward, a seemingly scandalized Cynthia Nixon, the evening’s co-host and the former star of “Sex and the City,” playfully assessed the political fallout.

“I don’t think the campaign is ever going to recover from this evening,” she said.

Ms. Quinn’s campaign expects to attract much of the city’s gay and lesbian votes in the Democratic primary this fall and has lined up its own list of boldfaced gay endorsements.

Still, members of the audience, who paid $25 each to attend the fund-raiser, were openly skeptical, if not hostile, to Ms. Quinn, saying that the gay community had moved beyond the moment when it needed to speak with a single political voice.

“She has done a lot for us,” said Leslie Smith, who said he had worked with Ms. Quinn on gay rights issues in the past. “But the race is bigger than her.”

After the show, Ms. DeBarge, the drag queen who sang a riotous version of “Don’t Mess With Bill,” walked out of the theater into a packed bar area to accept her plaudits and explain her remarks.

“I’m supposed to like Christine Quinn because I’m gay,” she asked, incredulously.

Asked whom she would vote for, Ms. DeBarge eyed a reporter’s Blackberry. “I see you typing,” she said, adding a curse.

“No comment.”

She brushed by with a sigh. “I need a drink.”

After DVD Shipping Error, BBC Asks Fans Not to Spoil ‘Doctor Who’ Finale

BBC Worldwide Matt Smith as the Doctor in an image advertising the “Doctor Who” season finale, “The Name of the Doctor.”

Ah, if only the BBC had some sort of device â€" possibly one that’s bigger on the inside than it appears from outside â€" that would allow it to traverse time and space so it could prevent a few lucky viewers from getting their hands on the season finale of “Doctor Who” ahead of schedule. But it does not, and instead the broadcaster can only plead with those audience members not to reveal the details of that episode before it is shown on Saturday, and thus not risk shattering the fabric of the science-fiction fan community.

The problem began, BBC News reported, when “a small number” of “Doctor Who” fans in the United States who pre-ordered the series on DVD began receiving their orders about three weeks early, according to BBC Worldwide. Contained on these discs was the culminating episode “The Name of the Doctor,” which is not scheduled to be shown until Saturday, and which promises crucial details about the mysterious intergalactic adventurer known only as the Doctor (played by Matt Smith) â€" including, perhaps, you know, his actual name.

BBC Worldwide said in a statement, “We are asking fans who may have the discs not to divulge plot details so that fellow fans who have yet to see the episodes do not have their viewing pleasure ruined,” adding that it was “currently investigating how this has happened.” As a trade of sorts, BBC Worldwide said that Steven Moffat, the “Doctor Who” producer, would share a special video featuring Mr. Smith and David Tennant, the actor who preceded him in the role of the Doctor, if in-the-know audience members kept their mouths shut.

But you don’t need to be a time-traveling alien from the planet Gallifrey to know how this is probably going to end.

Talking ‘Mad Men’: The Woman in Room 503

Every Monday morning, Sloane Crosley and Logan Hill will be offering their post-”Mad Men” analysis here. Read on and share your reactions to Don and Sylvia’s last tryst, Joan and Bob’s new alliance and more, in the comments:

Sloane Crosley: Happy Mother’s Day, Logan! Or, in the tender words of Pete Campell, “My mother can go to hell!”

Logan Hill: With two ice cubes tinkling in her gin and tonic, while Ted flies her there! What did you make of Pete and his mom?

SC: I apologize if this sounds exactly as macabre as I expect it to sound but this is just the wrong week to have a “men trapping women in rooms and throwing away the key” theme. On a lighter note, I didn’t quite get the point of Pete’s mother’s Alzheimer’s until the “they shot that poor Kennedy boy” scene. And on an even lighter note? We’re talking about a show where Alzheimer’s is the lighter note.

LH: Oof. Exactly. Every time I think I understand how bleak Matt Weiner’s comedic sensibility is, I soon realize I’ve underestimated him. But it’s the sort of riskiness I love about his best writing, and even those scenes were so sharp and cutting this week â€" though everything paled in comparison to the the hotel scenes between Don and Sylvia. We got the return of the Don Draper Treatment (TM), in all its splendor.

SC: I love when Sylvia’s all “what’s gotten into you?” and I’m all (actually shouting at the TV, mind you), “James Spader!” I thought that thread, unlike Pete’s, which was a means to an end, was the show at its finest. The promise is that hotel room is a universe unto itself, an emotional sea-monkey kit. And it is. And the shift in power dynamic at the end is so graceful. Don wanted her to exist only in that room? Wish granted. But then look what happens when she gets so far into it she wants out of it.

LH: This is basic cable television, grappling with sexuality in a sincere way that I’ve never seen before. It’s groundbreaking television in that it never felt like it was pushing Don’s desire into more extreme places (after Bobbie Barrett and so many others) just for shock value. I noticed more prudish fans tweeting their disapproval, but when Jon Hamm bleated, “Please,” it revealed so much about his Don: his compulsive need for control, his desperate insecurity. The pivot worked perfectly for me.

SC: But aside from his genuinely desperate “please” at the end, were you mourning the loss of this affair?

LH: No, I’m glad to see Sylvia gone. This is the only episode in which their affair fascinated me. You?

SC: Oh, no, still not fascinated. He could have locked anyone in that room. Truly. But what I do like is that Don is back in terms of range. The most basic barometer fans have for the show is, in some ways, “How much is Don like Roger Sterling?” So when Don is selfish and heartless and articulate about it but then shows just a sliver of heart and kindness, the show gets better. When the ratio is off, it gets worse. Clearly these are two different men but … the ratio was good in this episode. What did you think of all the merger trappings? It was like Noah’s ark up in that office.

LH: Matt Weiner and his writers are so damn good at zany shenanigans that it sometimes feels as if they could write the best office sitcom ever, and in episodes like this, I think the show trounces so many other workplace dramas: The rivalry between Don and Ted is gimmicky, but it stings. As fans, we, like Peggy, know that Don once pulled the same trick on Roger. Whereas Ted just looks undeniably studly in those aviator shades.

SC: Well, it’s no “Ally McBeal,” Logan. No really, you’re right about the gimmicky bit. And it’s the twist that stings. In this case, the twist is the older brother-big brother peer pressure dynamic between the two men. Merger-wise, mostly I was thinking, “I’m glad they fired you, Burt. Pretty sure that’s a Pierre Jeanneret chaise you just openly mocked.” That and the fact that the merger bits included all your zany shenanigans in an episode that also covered cancer and affairs and ovarian cysts. Speaking of cysts: Should we give Bob credit … credit for what, exactly?

LH: Bob is such a cipher: In the comments folks have been speculating that he’s just a younger Don, working his way up, or an investigative journalist working on a tell-all, or a federal investigator looking into Don’s past, or a good robot sent from the future to kill Pete (O.K., that last theory is just mine). I’m utterly at a loss.

SC: Let’s lock him in a room and send him a dress from Saks! Can we please? Or, in the word of Don, “please.”

LH: He’d be into it. He’d do anything for Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. Or whatever the new firm may be called.

SC: He knows where his bread is buttered, that’s for sure. Speaking of which …

LH: Oh, look at you. You should apply for a copywriting job, where you could come up with ideas and have both Ted and Don ignore you: Double the fun!

SC: I did like seeing the new creative gents and the old stress out over an account.

LH: I liked seeing Harry lose his office. Again. … But did you think this episode was as groovy as I did? I feel the last two episodes have refocused the series on business, which has always been the straw that stirs the pitcher of Don’s bourbon. When the main storyline is business, everything else seems to fall into place.

SC: Actually, I thought it was kind of a recovery episode. Sometimes the pendulum swings with this show. Also, with little Peggy, no Betty, less Megan and little Joan, this was the men’s turn to take the stage. Matt Weiner, in that sense, really did lock the women in a room somewhere for an hour while we watched the boys hash it out. And I enjoyed it, but the plot hasn’t moved forward much.

LH: Yes, Joan’s health-scare is barely there; I was more fascinated by Bob. And Peggy has that nice moment with Don, but it’s just a moment. Obviously, there will be a crisis coming soon and all hell will break loose. What form do you think it will take?

SC: What I want is for Peggy to get over her borderline Florence Nightingale relationship with Ted so that she and Stan might live happily and hair-ily ever after. What will actually happen? It will turn out that Bob has been secretly raising Peggy and Pete’s bastard child. You?

LH: Bob does seem like he’d make a swell dad. I guess I just want the series to continue to contract: Structurally, I think eliminating Sylvia and a few others may really help the show focus on characters we know best, though I do want to see much more of Ted, and see if he molts his nice-guy skin. Also? I want more “Gilligan’s Island” references, because Ted’s analogy was amazing. And I want to replay Roger’s exchange with Burt because his kiss-off was so pleasurably cruel: “You stole my goodbye.”

SC: Remember, Logan, if you wait patiently by the river, the body of your enemy will float by.

LH: Lovely.

Sloane Crosley is the author of “How Did You Get This Number” and “I Was Told There’d Be Cake“; Logan Hill is a journalist who has contributed to The New York Times, New York, GQ, Rolling Stone, Wired and others.