Whew. And: Wow. We’ll be reeling for some time from Sunday’s extraordinary finish to another spectacular season of AMC’s Mad Men. This delivered everything you could hope for in a grand finale (except, I guess, a happy ending for the Draper marriage, which was unlikely anyway). It tied together so many disparate stories, and brought many of the show’s far-flung characters back together, in a way that was entertaining, surprising, moving and dramatically satisfying. The writing and acting? Out of this world. Change has been brewing all season at work and at home, but this wildly eventful episode felt more like a revolution had just taken place.

The episode, beautifully written by Matthew Weiner and Erin Levy and directed (masterfully) by Weiner, wastes no time plunging us into several metaphorical crossings of the Rubicon, from which there will be no return. Let’s break it down.

The big news, delivered by Connie Hilton in a meeting to which Don is late (thanks to being banished to sleeping in dead Gene’s creepy room with a travel alarm): British agency PPL is about to be bought by “sausage factory” McCann-Erickson, with Sterling Cooper to be swallowed up in the sale. Connie assures Don he’s a “prize pig,” but that doesn’t stop Don from squealing.

Don doesn’t fancy becoming a small fish in that oversized pond, and he barks at Connie for having gotten him tied up in this mess with that blasted three-year contract he was forced to sign. Seeing the Hilton account vanish in front of his eyes, Don accuses Connie of using him, of cutting his surrogate “son” down to size. Such a complicated relationship. No false sympathy from Hilton, who’s “immune to those who complain and cry” and is disappointed that Don is showing those tendencies. “Some other time, we’ll try again,” Connie says, trying to soften the blow.

But in reality, this is the episode’s divorce #1.

It will not be the last. With Christmas wreaths in the office, and Don flashing back to an especially dire chapter of his unhappy Whitman childhood when the family farm was in danger of being foreclosed (a situation that later turns into tragedy when his dad is kicked in the head by a horse), the offices of Sterling Cooper aren’t exactly brimming with holiday or one-big-happy-family feeling.

Don first confronts Cooper, making his opening bid that they all buy back the company from PPL. Don is reborn as a man of action, “sick of being battered around like a ping-pong ball … I want to build something of my own. How do you not understand that?” Old man Cooper is all been-there-done-that, but he eventually responds to Don’s passion and they take the case to Roger Sterling. And how deliciously does Roger savor the irony of this situation. “I want to see what you look like with your tail between your legs,” he says to Don. (Roger’s not the only one getting revenge on Don’s arrogance in this episode. Wait till Don approaches Peggy later on.)

As Don admits that he doesn’t have a head or the temperament for accounts, Roger rubs it in: “You’re not good at relationships because you don’t value them.” (We later learn that Roger already knows more about Don and Betty’s estrangement than Don could imagine.) But when challenged by Cooper that he’s lost his appetite and might as well start fitting himself for a coffin, Roger perks up. To Don’s “We have to try,” Roger muses, “So you do want to be in advertising after all.”

Game on. And now the episode brilliantly seesaws between twinned storylines of divorce and dissolution, as Don discovers just how serious Betty is about divorce—she’s contacted a lawyer and visits him with Henry Francis, where a trip to Reno is discussed—while Don, Cooper, Roger and Lane Pryce (still unaware just how deeply he’s been betrayed by his British overlords) begin to orchestrate their new future by creating a new agency.

At the lawyer’s, Henry urges Betty to detach herself completely from Don: “You don’t need what he can provide. I don’t want you owing him anything.” Meanwhile, Pryce is informed by the smug Saint John from London that, despite assurances to the contrary, PPL really is being sold. “What’s my place in this?” Pryce demands to know. He already knows. It’s time for him to detach from the parent (company) as well.

As anxious as Don is to break up the old Sterling Cooper gang, he is crestfallen (after flashing back to the horse incident) to think about his own broken family. Ain’t that a kick in the head? Don climbs into bed, fully clothed, with a sleeping little Sally.

Back at the office, the master plan takes shape. Pryce has the authority to fire all the execs under contract: Cooper, Sterling and Draper. “We’ll make you a partner,” Cooper promises Pryce. (And so Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce is born.) The plan: to gather as many accounts as possible, with American Tobacco (Lucky Strike) as the cornerstone of the new business, and to assemble a skeleton staff to service them. “We have to steal everything,” gloats Don, fire in his eyes. All must be done over the weekend, before London wakes up to what’s going on.

“Well, it’s official,” muses Roger. “Friday, December 13, 1963. Four guys cut their own legs off.” But good heavens, are they ever standing tall.

And now comes Don’s turn to grovel. First stop: Peggy Olson, the rising star he has both promoted and oppressed along the way. When he refuses to give her any substantive details about the new agency, Peggy resists: “You just assume I’ll do whatever you say, just follow you like some nervous poodle.” (Go, Peggy!) When he says he won’t beg, she shoots back: “Beg me? You didn’t even ask me.” Her backbone growing by the minute, Peggy sends him off: “I don’t want to make a career out of being there so you can kick me when you fail.” Elisabeth Moss is awesome here.

Next stop: To Pete Campbell’s pad they go (Don and Roger), where Pete has been playing sick because of his interview with Ogilvy. Pete is so ready to move on, but when he’s clued in, he like Peggy plays hardball (though he flinches whenever Trudy pipes up off-camera to let him know she’s keeping tabs on what he’s doing). Having also been abused by Don and the company, Pete’s suspicious about why they went for him over Cosgrove. (So are we.) But Don’s sales pitch, referencing Pete’s progressive research into the teen and minority marketplace, is convincing: “We need you to keep us looking forward. I do, anyway,” he says, eating humble pie as he slyly plays to Pete’s considerable ego. Pete says he wants to be a partner and have his name inscribed in the lobby—“I don’t think you get conditions,” he tells his bosses—but Don laughs: “There’s not going to be a lobby.”

Well, maybe a hotel lobby, but that’s another story.

Pete agrees to corral his clients by Sunday. He already has the files with him, along with his Rolodex (squirreled under the bed), and once the big guys leave, he brings Trudy in to make some calls. The Campbells are back in business—with Don and Roger! Good times.

Over drinks, Roger lets slip to Don that thanks to daughter Margaret (who’s friends with Henry Francis’ daughter; ergo their presence at the misbegotten wedding), he knows all about Betty and Henry Francis. This is news to Don, who is visibly gobsmacked and shaken. Roger is sorry he let it slip. We aren’t.

Several drinks later, Don arrives at home, yanking Betty out of bed, demanding to know all about this Henry Francis character. The acting in this scene is devastating from Jon Hamm and January Jones, both on electric fire. It’s old-school classic-movie-style acting, although it probably never was as raw and honest as it is here. Don is bristling, glaring with rage and contempt. Betty matches him every defiant step.

Don sneers at Betty, “because you’re good and everyone else in the world is bad,” he snarls. “All along you’ve been building a life raft.” Then this manufactured mad man who comes from poverty cuts to the chase: “You never forgave me.” Betty cuts back: “For what? That I’ve never been enough?” Don: “You got everything you ever wanted. Everything! And you loved it. And now I’m not good enough for some spoiled Main Line brat?” The fury fueled by self-pity is terrifying, the emotional violence overwhelming. After telling her she won’t get a nickel and threatening to take the kids while he’s at it—“God knows they’ll be better off” (he has a point there)—Don calls her a whore. She wants him out of the house. He grabs her, then pushes her away as the baby cries. This is the final point of no return.

The morning after, Don and Betty call in the kids to announce what Betty calls “a little bit of a change.” This entire scene is heartbreaking. Sally is devastated: “You said you would always come home,” to which a chastened Don counters, “It’s just a different home.” Sally won’t be comforted, and confronts her mother: “Did you make him leave?” before she storms out. (Sally knows the answer, since Betty already made Don sleep in Gene’s room, which she finds really scary for all sorts of reasons.) This scene ends with little Bobby hugging his dad around the neck while Betty hides her face in her hands, unable to bear any more. “Nobody wants to do this,” Don mutters. Anger has turned to sorrow, and it’s too much to bear.

Round two: Don and Peggy, this time at her apartment. Another incredible, emotion-filled scene. Peggy’s right. “You look awful,” she tells him. There’s no vanity in Jon Hamm’s portrayal of this dejected and newly desperate man, who apologizes for taking Peggy for granted and being so hard on her. “I think I see you as an extension of myself, and you’re not.” He makes another eloquent sales pitch, saying that only she understands how things have changed since that terrible thing (JFK’s assassination) happened, and how valuable that knowledge is. “With you or without you, I’m moving on, and I don’t know if I can do it alone. Will you help me?” Don’s appeal is from the heart, and there is anguish in his eyes as she responds, voice quavering: “What if I say no? You’ll never talk to me again.” Don: “I will spend the rest of my life trying to hire you.” I wonder if even Betty Draper could resist a line like that. Peggy surely can’t. She’s coming on board, too! Score one for Don!

Piece de resistance: I’m seeing Red! Joan is back! Perfection! Pryce had been fretting all along that no one knows how the business of Sterling Cooper actually operates, but Roger knows exactly who to turn to. Joan is the queen of the office and regains the throne of this new, smaller kingdom. She takes it all in hand and in stride, tells everyone where to find everything, and begins arranging the big secret weekend move. One problem: The art department is locked, but Don kicks the door in so they can raid what they need. (Am I the only one who thought maybe they’d recruit Sal for their new venture? One drawback: The new agency’s biggest client is still Lucky Strike, for whom Sal is persona non grata. But maybe they could keep him, um, closeted?) By this time, Harry is also on board, having caved when Cooper threatened to lock him up over the weekend if he didn’t join.

How things have changed, and so quickly. As they sort through the accounts, a weary Roger bleats: “Peggy, can you get me some coffee?” Peggy: “No.” Brave new world, and brave new girl. What a brilliant moment.

Lights out at Sterling Cooper. Roger and Don are the last to leave, giving the place one last lingering look. “How long do you think it will take us to be in a place like this again?” Don: “I never saw myself working in a place like this.” How simply yet profound a sentiment.

Come Monday, the remaining employees of the depleted Sterling Cooper (including Kenny and Paul) return to find work a different place. Pryce gets his moment of delicious revenge as Saint John fires him for his treason. Pryce leaves the odious Hooker to pick up the pieces. Don’s secretary takes a look around and screams, “We’ve been robbed.” Yes, they have. Of talent.

Said talent is now holed up in a suite at the Pierre, and what a merry and bustling scene it is. Roger gets the last word: “If you leave your shoes outside the door here, somebody polishes them.” Love that Roger.

As a new workplace family takes shape, Don does damage control on his own. He calls Betty and assures her he’s not going to fight her on the divorce: “I hope you get what you always wanted.” She is relieved, touched, and assures him that he will always be the children’s father. They say goodbyes, and it is very sad. But also necessary.

Off Betty flies to Reno, with the baby and Henry Francis, while Carla stays behind with poor Sally and Bobby. And Don is left looking fondly at his scrappy new agency, as everyone scarfs down the lunch Trudy brought. Proud as a papa Don is. Don’s about to start building something of his own, and wouldn’t Connie be proud. Wouldn’t he?

This episode was a game changer in every conceivable way, setting the stage for a transformative fourth season that can’t arrive soon enough. What did you think? Were there moments I didn’t touch on that blew you away? Share in the comments below.