As a die-hard Mad Men fan, I'd say there is no such thing as a "worst episode." Although, if you want to rank each episode, something has to have the lowest score - even if it's not particularly low. On IMDb, just like with movies or entire television series, you can rate individual episodes on a scale of 1-10, and the ratings are then added up, with the overall rating based on the mean. Taking all the ratings for each episode, the lowest rated episode of "Mad Men" ends up being "Ladies Room", which is only the second episode of the first season, receiving a rating of 7.5 based on 4.3K votes.

I'm surprised it's not an episode from one of the later seasons, especially season six where the Don Draper-like "Dante's Inferno" hell of repeating bad habits becomes somewhat boring to watch. What, exactly, turns viewers off The Ladies' Room? It might seem overly condescending after following up on one of the best pilots of all time, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, which introduced us to handsome, savvy ad man Don Draper. There is one unforgettable moment after another, from Don summing up consumerism and advertising as a salve for happiness to the incredible ending when he comes home from drinking, smoking, and the West Village trying to please his sleeping wife and children. Still, there's plenty of merit to "Ladies' Room" — especially the second episode — that makes its "worst episode" label seem too harsh.

"Some television shows struggle to establish an identity in their opening season, but 'Mad Men' knew what it wanted to be in its first episode." /Film writer Liam Gaughan shrewdly observes the season rankings, and we can say the same about "Ladies Room". The episode immediately established Mad Men as a slow-burn novel that you had to pay close attention to, one that was interested in studying the psychological nuts and bolts of its characters. "Ladies Room" isn't as dramatically engrossing as some of the future episodes, but the little details we discover are important and will flourish in later episodes.

Ladies Room sets up Donne's secrecy as it avoids questions about his childhood, but mostly establishes that the female characters are just as important to the narrative. Mad Men will be equally concerned with how they navigate a patriarchal world. Peggy must navigate the minefields of her angry co-workers, and their incessant advances slowly destroy her naivety. The scenes where Betty attends psychoanalysis are a bit long, but help to articulate her suburban lust and jealousy of the recently divorced Helen's freedom and stronger sense of self. However, this confessional is not a safe space for her thoughts and emotions either, as the final scene reveals her psychiatrist discussing her sessions with Don over the phone.

One odd element of "Ladies Room" is that it ends with RJD2's modern "Beautiful Mine," which sounds like an electronic lullaby. This may show how Don often views her with childlike innocence, expecting her to be nothing but a happy housewife. Until Ladies Room did mine list of the best Mad Men episodes.it's still very solid that it doesn't deserve the "worst episode" label.