Tomorrowland. It’s how Disney saw the future in the 1960s, brimming with hope and the potential for progress, but come 2010, the future Disney predicted looks nothing but silly. With the future in mind, Mad Men closed season four, making moves thatMad Men’s modern day viewers will think are ill advised.

After a season of rocky patches and forced modernization, Mad Men is shedding its skin and attempting to start fresh. Don, the most tragic of heroes since Hamlet or James Dean, worked to become a new, modern man and ended up engaged to his new, modern secretary. It’s the oldest trick in the book, really, so passé and yet just the fix for Don’s penchant for progress.

Don pitches the American Cancer Society in a dark, dreary gray suit and tie in a wood paneled room that’s more stuffy than the interior of the National Arts Club. Pete, beside him, looks equally uptight in a greenish suit and black tie. A dark seriousness permeates the episode’s start, things still looking down from Lucky Strike’s departure. Once in sunny California, Don tries to brighten up, but still sticks out like a sore thumb. He wears a suit to the pool, in the hotel room, and to visit Anna’s home, before finally loosening up and jumping in (in teensy black swim trunks). Later, he’s looking more modern in a Stella McCartney-esque denim shirt and khaki pants. The next morning he’s switched out his suit shirt for a loose black button down at brunch, but back in the SCDP offices he’s looking pretty old-timey again in a dark suit and tie. Though at least he’s smiling while next to Megan.

Just when Mad Men starts turning into a gossipy, love triangled drama, it grabs the wheel and reverts to its business ways. In episode 12, all of Mad Men’s relationship issues were put down to highlight a bigger issue: That SCDP is down and almost out.

With Lucky Strike gone, SCDP is on its last leg. Don starts the episode in a gray suit and black tie, looking more serious than ever, in a meeting with Heinz. Desperate for business, Don will do anything to sign a client, but the fish aren’t buying. The SCDP accountant brings in more bad news to the conference room where we find Roger in another blue look, this time it’s a three piece suit, Pete in gray, Burt in sky blue, and Faye in a black and white optical print blouse and gray slim skirt. Aside from Burt, who’ll later resign in a khaki colored get-up, the colors of SCDP are dreary.

Roger reverts back to a gray suit later, Don gets gloomier in gray and black, Lane keeps it dark toned and somber in mismatched black jackets and tan vests, and even Peggy can’t help but feel down wearing a jet-black short sleeved dress with white, vertical stripe accents.

But just when you thought it was too bleak to watch, there, out of the bustle of midtown, appears Midge.

After an onslaught of highly dramatic episodes of Mad Men, episode 11 returned to the close and tense philosophy of seasons past. Sure the plot moved at supersonic speed, but the emotional reactions set off may take months to fully release.

Lucky Strike’s departure to BBDO was but the catalyst for everyone’s problems. Don goes off the wall, but instead of turning to alcoholism (he now has a three drink maximum) he turns to fury. Snapping first at Pete and later at Roger, Don is relentless in his desire to blame someone. Dashing into the office post-date with Faye, Don wears a tan overcoat with a white shirt, black pants, and a slim black tie, a look so perfect I had visions of his “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction” sequence. That perfection was short lived, as Don later changes into his first brown suit ever to deliver the bad news to the SCDP employees. Don says nothing will change, meaning everything will change, and fast. Glo Coat leaves SCDP moments after Lucky Strike is announced as lost, causing Don to plead with Faye to compromise her morals and push clientele to SCDP. It’s a totally unreasonable request, and Faye knows it, waltzing out in a huff wearing an orange tie neck blouse and straight hair.