It's a scene we're all too familiar with and somewhat tired of. "Severance" by and large was a refresher course on Don's existential crisis and not much else.
But will he ever change his ways or find what he's looking for?
In many ways, Season 7's return felt like Don trapped on the carousel from his famous nostalgia pitch. He's stuck in the past (notice his hairless lip, slicked hair and sharkskin suit), and I'm not sure he wants to get off the ride.
During the pitch, he talks about his old-pro Greek copywriter who told him that in Greek, nostalgia means, "the pain from an old wound," and that it's "more powerful than memory alone."
Don's comfortable in the past. That's why he's always going in circles, coupled with soaring high and plunging lows, always starting all over again only to relapse.
At times "Mad Men" is caught in this cycle of familiarity, a yearning for the good old days. Looks like showrunner and creator Matthew Weiner has the itch for nostalgia, too.
If "Mad Men" wants to push the boundaries of Don's character, he'll have to do more than have a self-revelation after sitting shiva and sitting gloomily at a Greek diner.
That's one of many Greek references episode, and it wasn't added casually. It's hinting towards his fate, whatever that it may be, but more on that in a bit.
But while these themes of self-hatred and relapse are as tired and flawed as our antihero, Weiner manages to craft a beautiful and poignant episode on nostalgia's nastier and more painful cousin: regret.
You wouldn't expect regret from Don Draper, a man who finally has things looking up for him. His name is back on his office door, as if the Hershey scandal never happened, and he's getting so much action he's hired a secretary to take down his booty calls. And for once, he's comfortable to talk about his past openly with Roger and a gaggle of bimbos.
But still, he's not at peace with himself.
Everything is haunting him from his past, starting with the opening scene. The fur client is a nod to Don's long-ago stint at the coat shop where Roger discovered him, prime in his talent, and the Greek motif on the coffee cup he's sipping from is a reference to the Greek boss.
Then in his dream, he's actually haunted by a ghost of regret. It's the pain from a wound from not leading the life he should have lived.
It's a wound Don shared with many this episode.
For Ken, it's trying to write a book with a badass cover, thanks to that eye patch. For Peggy, it's wanting a spontaneous trip to Paris with a first date that goes surprisingly well. And for Don, it's dreaming of living the perfect life with the one who got away, Rachel Menken Katz.
Of all the flings, mistresses, girlfriends and wives Don has had, Rachel's my favorite. She was a brilliant businesswoman who refused to take his chauvinistic guff.
But more importantly, she was smart and strong enough to look past his dashing façade and save herself from inevitable heartache when he asked her to run away with him, leaving his wife and family behind.
"You don't want to run away with me," she told him all the way back in Season 1, "you just want to run away. You're a coward!"
Nailed it. Don bolts whenever he needs to step up to the plate with major life decisions. See: His desertion from the Korean War, his failed two marriages, his estranged children, etc.
Little does Don realize that every time he has run away, it was an opportunity to make things right. Instead, he lets them slip by.
"I'm supposed to tell you you missed your flight," Rachel tells him, as she appears in his dream for the fur coat commercial.
Don at first takes this message to mean how he blew his chance with Rachel.
The funny thing about "the one who got away" is that even if you're horribly mismatched for each other, you can't help but wonder "what if"?
What if they had run away together? What if he married her? Would he have been happy then?
So, he reaches out to her department store to reconnect with her, only to find out she had passed away in the past week. Even worse, he's told flat-out that her life was perfect without him.
"She lived the life she wanted to live," her sister tells him when he comes to her funeral to pay respects. "She had everything."
Except you, Don, and that's a good thing. You weren't there to ruin her precious few years of remaining life with your philandering, alcoholism or general infuriating apathy.
Dejected and confused, he finds solace in Diana, a waitress at a Greek diner he met when Roger insulted her.
(More Greek symbolism here: First with the Greek diner and second with the waitress' name. Diana is the Roman goddess associated with the heavens and the sky. I realize she's not a Greek goddess, but who's called Artemis nowadays?)
Don drops the classic "Don't I know you?" line everyone has used (guilty!), except it's not actually a line. He's genuinely convinced he knows Diana.
My first guess was that he did know her, and that she was one of his former mistresses. (Their faces kind of blur together for me.) But for once, it's a woman Don hasn't slept with. He fixes that with a back alley quickie.
But does that cure his existential crisis? Of course not. Boozing and whoring around never has worked for him.
So, when is Don going to have his chance to have everything he's wanted in life? The better question is: What hasn't he had in his life?
He's had the beautiful wife (twice), the darling kids (three of them), a scorching-hot affair (too many to count) and the dream job (which he lost then regained), so what hasn't he really had?
Happiness? Self-peace? He's not going to find that at a Vogue party or sitting shiva.
The answer to Don's happiness might very well be in his past, or at least people from his past.
Rachel isn't the first apparition to visit Don. Bert visited Don after passing away at the end of the first half of Season 7, and his half-brother Adam visited him after Lane's suicide.
They all impart some advice or message from beyond the grave. Because, you know, ghosts.
I have a feeling we'll be seeing more apparitions or visits, and I wouldn't be surprised if they were all women.
"There are three women in every man's life," Ted says. If that sounds like a cryptic prophesy from a badly mustached oracle, that's because it is.
The three women are Fates from Greek mythology. (I told you there was a point to all this Greek symbolism!) And if Rachel was the first Fate to visit Don, who will the other two be? And what otherworldly advice will they give him?
But what is Don's fate? I've previously said I don't think he'll die at the end of the series, but this is an awfully morbid way to start the final season.