One thing about AMC's sterling '60s drama Mad Men: sometimes, it's tough to tell when this series is setting the stage, or when it's just artfully treading water.

Take, for example, last night's episode, "My Old Kentucky Home." It's centered on a weekend of three occasions: firm partner Roger Sterling's wedding party for a secretary turned bride; head secretary Joan's dinner party for her handsome, brutish doctor husband, Greg; and a work emergency that sticks Peggy, bohemian writer Paul Kinsey and another colleague at Sterling Cooper's office on a Saturday. Through these threads petty tensions play out without much forward motion.

The result is an episode that confirms a lot of what we suspected about these characters without pushing forward any one storyline.

Of course, executive producer Matthew Weiner is notorious for this; moving forward stories so slowly that fans are gnawing their fingers off before something actually happens.

But when will Weiner and his cohorts make all this subtext actually pay off?

WARNING: Spoilers ahead for Season 3, Episode 3, "My Old Kentucky Home."

What did we learn?

-- Peggy likes getting high, thanks to some mary jane that faux bohemian Kinsey sneaks into the office. Finding the weed makes her think better about their work, so she sends her knuckleheaded co-workers home, looking even more like a Don Draper in training, complete with stockings and a dress.

-- Annoyed that he has to make nice at Roger's Kentucky Derby-themed wedding party, Don earns a bit more of our love by showing disgust at Roger's racist blackface serenade to his new wife. By the episode's end, we learn Don may be most upset because Roger's new wife -- and Don's former secretary -- knows way too much about his personal life, as demonstrated by her drunken comments about the Drapers' separation last year.

-- Don developed his unique way of striking back at enemies early on -- admitting to a party companion that he used to relieve himself in the trunks of cars he parked at a roadhouse where he worked in his youth, because they wouldn't let him use the bathroom.

-- Joan's husband, Greg, is having problems at work, and thinks nothing of demeaning his wife by asking her to play accordion for his boss and their friends during a dinner party to take the heat off his disfavor.

-- Roger's new wife isn't above reminding her former boss, Joan, of her new status by coming into the office and making a few discreet, humbling comments. My only question here: Does the new wife know that Joan and Roger used to have an, um, special friendship (I'm guessing so).

-- It's obvious now that Don can barely stand Roger -- for his lack of discipline; his willingness to destroy his family by marrying a secretary; his tendency to let his personal life spill messily into the office and public arena. This may be the juiciest plotline in the bunch -- the leading edge of a coming conflict that is bound to leave Roger sucking serious wind. Or worse.

What's your take?

.