Skeeter Davis, meet "Mad Men".

      Her classic plays as the credits roll at the end of this past Sunday's episode (the spoiler alert is wailing as I write this--you may want to come back if you haven't watched the show although I promise to give away no major plot developments) and boy, does it ever fit.

       Even casual fans of the hit AMC series knew going in that Sunday's episode was going to deal with the Kennedy assassination--as I said in a previous blog, it's that time of the season.     There was a time when November 22nd would pass with nary a mention in the media, but it seems that Kennedy's murder got renewed traction right around the time Oliver Stone's "JFK" came out and the tires never lost grip.    

       "Mad Men" delved into events of the day in past seasons but never has an outside sitaution so thoroughly dominated an episode.     The t-v is a constant companion as the characters try cramming their lives into the the few dead spots in the news coverage.    If you were a kid back then like I was, you remember seeing your parents cry, perhaps for the first time.     You remember them being stuck for answers when you asked, "What's happening?    What does this mean?"    Being just six, I figured the murder of a President was just another t-v show that would play out in a neat 60 minutes on the tube, just like "Gunsmoke" or "Burke's Law".     I even thought they'd bury JFK the same night he died, right after taking the casket off Air Force One.     I couldn't believe that Mike Wallace was on television early Saturday morning instead of my beloved Shari Lewis and Lambchop--what's the big deal, I'd ask my dad?     Why are they telling the same story over and over?     He seemed disappointed that I wasn't staying in the house to watch the wall-to-wall coverage, choosing instead to go out and play.   I remember him telling me that I was missing history.     Maybe it's latent guilt that turned me into the freak about the story that I am today.

       As good as "Mad Men" is, I expect it to only get better now that the series is past JFK.      Creator Matt Weiner led many to believe that he wouldn't touch the assassination but instead, he let it take an episode over.    It was the right thing to do, because that what the event did to the adults who lived through it.

       There's a school of thought that says the 50's ended with Kennedy's death.     If true, then the 60's now begin for Don Draper/Dick Whitman and the rest of those who orbit around his characters.     Civil rights, Viet Nam, the Beatles and so much else lie ahead.     If Weiner gives them the same treatment he gave theKennedy story, we're in for some really awesome Sunday nights.