On this week's episode of Mad Men, I found myself experiencing déjà vu, momentarily brought back to a night in my bed spent deep in the trenches of the novel 50 Shades of Grey, reading through pages where the mysterious and sexually deviant Christian Grey tells the protagonist, Anastasia, to wait for him in his fantastical sex room with her head down, in a crouched position. 

Whatever happened to a simple, "Make me a sandwich, woman?" The strange sexual dynamic between Don and Sylvia seemed condescending rather than kinky. Throughout their relationship, the two philanderers have been each other's escape-a rendezvous, from time to time, where they could each slip away from life's troubles and indulge in their most carnal desires. It was romantic...until this week.

After an argument with Arnold, Sylvia called Don during the afternoon, saying she needed him and that no one else would do. When Don responded by telling Sylvia to get a hotel room and he would meet her there, I was hoping for some, I can't wait to have you action, complete with a trail of clothes leading to the bedroom and passionate skin-grabbing holds on each other's bodies as they sank onto the bed. What proceeded was neither hot nor sexy, deflating my expectations.

The hotel room turned into a den of domination and submission, and Don turned into an unraveled man, trying to mask his insecurities of the revolution at the office by exerting his male authority in the bedroom.

When Don ordered Sylvia to crawl on her hands and knees to find his shoes, even the most misogynistic of men could agree it was a bit too theatrical of a power move. Stripping on command, fine. Waiting for him naked in bed, also fine. But, being confined to a small space with nothing to do and no one to talk to? Not fine. That island of white sheets and a plush mattress quickly became Sylvia's cot in the psych ward, seeing as she must have been crazy to have submitted to Dom, ahem, Don, in such a radical way.

The always cavalier Don did not only strip Sylvia physically, but emotionally as well, reducing her to the so-called piece of meat that no woman should ever be belittled to by someone she places value in. "You are for me," he tells her. "You exist in this room for my pleasure."

Sylvia finally stopped taking the metaphorical pills, because when Don returned from the Mohawk meeting, she was packing her belongings. She must have realized that their equal rights extramarital affair was no longer tipping in her direction, whatsoever. And no woman likes to know that a man has a complete hold of her. They're supposed to be wrapped around our fingers, last time I checked.  (Which is not a bad trade-off considering how good our legs look wrapped around them).

"It's easy to leave when you're satisfied," Don tells her.

"It's easy to leave when you're ashamed," Sylvia retorts, giving moral depth to her seductive character. Her found self-respect and integrity shot Don with a sharp bullet that tore through his ruthlessness. Don offered a meek "Please," at the end...why? It could have been a last-ditch effort to return to how their relationship was before, the anticipated escape rather than the dark, jagged place he took it to.

Maybe Don really did love Sylvia and was sincere in his plea. Or perhaps he was somehow apologizing for playing the game too competitively. People play games because they're fun. When they stop being fun, people stop playing. (I hope that's as ambiguous as the slideshow of scenes that play at the end of the show, after the ominous male voice announces, "Next time, on Mad Men...")