‘Mad Men’ and the Need for Speed

Last night’s disturbingly hilarious, pitch-perfect episode of Mad Men, entitled The Crash, had me thinking about speed—not the vroom-vroom engine-powered kind, but the drug in its various forms—and the creative process. After a wild opening that features account exec Ken Cosgrove on a symbolically dangerous, drunken joy ride in Detroit with managers from GM, the episode lopes—with a lack of lackadaisicalness uncharacteristic for the show—into a scene in which almost the entire creative team is dosed