As "Mad Men" is so faithful to its 1960s setting to the point of fetishism, the show would be remiss if it never touched on the psychedelic drug use of the time. In the advertising realm, it made plenty of sense to see younger generation creative types like Peggy and the sadly departed Paul Kinsey experimenting with marijuana as a muse, and it seemed inevitable that "mind expanding" LSD would be utilized for a creative breakthrough in the boardroom. However, instead of witnessing the profound or perhaps unintentionally comic influence of LSD on adventurous copywriters, Matthew Weiner and company decided it would work better on Roger Sterling as a plot device to manufacture his divorce with child-bride Jane Siegel. As if their marriage wasn't already dissolving like a sugar cube ...
Roger becomes the first "Mad Men" character to turn on, tune in and drop out thanks in part to Don. With a potential new client in the Howard Johnson's hotel chain, Roger proposes that he and Don partake in a weekend fact-finding mission to an upstate location, for reasons having little to do with business and more with acting like "rich, handsome perverts." Of course, this means the wives stay at home, but newly-chaste Don rebuffs Roger's debauched scheme in half-hearted favor of a couples weekend with Megan and Jane. Naturally, Roger backs out of the deal, leaving Megan and Don to go upstate while he is forced to go to a dinner engagement with Jane and her snooty friends. There's a telling scene where Roger catches a glimpse of Don and Megan hand-in-hand as they depart for the sunshine and sherbet of HoJo's, the look on Roger's face illustrating his envy for the wedded bliss that he's never experienced with Jane.
Thankfully, Roger doesn't have to intentionally mispronounce Frank Lloyd Wright's name for petty amusement, as Jane's dinner party gathering of snooty intellectual friends are a merry band of headshrinkers with a serious jones for the teachings of Harvard psychologist-cum-acid guru Timothy Leary. It turns out that Jane's friend and psychotherapist has invited them to try LSD as a means to discover the "truth." Roger is nonplussed by the endless psychobabble and references to Tibetan Books of BS and wants to leave after dessert, but Jane guilts him into taking a trip. While Roger is skeptical of the drug's effects, the requisite sound and sight gags eventually ensue, signalling Roger's awareness of his situation. As Brian Wilson plaintively emotes "I Just Wasn't Made for These Times" ( a very fitting song for Roger's plight in the office in the last few episodes), Roger is told by a hallucinatory form of Don to go and be alone in the truth with Jane.
Several hallucinations later and back at home, Roger and Jane finally discover the painfully obvious truth of their wedded misery, with Jane confiding that her therapist was waiting for her or Roger to end the marriage. Other "truths": Jane's attraction to older men isn't exclusive to Roger and she almost had an affair; Roger never really loved Jane, but "used to like her" (read: "stopped caring after the sex became routine"). After the acid wears off in the morning, shrewd opportunist Roger declares to Jane that the marriage is over, framing the LSD trip as a "beautiful" moment of mutual agreement to part ways without the lawyers and acrimony. While Jane is hurt but relieved, she warns Roger that "it's going to be very expensive."
Roger married Jane in a (horn)dogged pursuit of midlife happiness. Now that he is free from her, will he finally be able to unite with recently divorced paramour and baby mama Joan? It's easy to assume this will happen, but "Mad Men" isn't a show known for predictable plots.
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