I think it was last season I realized what you don't see on the show can be more important than what you do see. For instance, we saw a trip and hard-working peggy with no idea how the baby-denial-saga turned out (and we saw a gleaning of that particular storyline when Pete muttered angrily "Olsen is everywhere" when looking at his accounts list"; more to come there I'm sure).

But what struck me as the most interesting omission was: where was Duck?

Ostensibly the president of the new Sterling Cooper, we see none of him in the series opener. Instead we are shown a Financial Officer from across the pond filling in as PPL's voice. So what happened to him?

Certainly he could have moved-on, perhaps quit and gone somewhere he wouldn't be angsted by a independent-minded creative director. But I rather doubt that would fit into the show's ebb and flow of character resolution.

My theory? It stems from our last view of Duck in Season 2: angrily fuming about the fact he has to continue kowtowing to Don. You got the feeling his icing on the cake from the takeover was his getting to put his foot on Don's neck because of his contract. But without that, he's still stuck keeping Draper happy because if he walks, Sterling/Cooper is just a row of fancy aluminum lettering on the front of a building.

So with Duck back on the sauce, and his feuding with Draper more sharp than ever, I see a simple scenario taking place: he takes a poorly thought out swing at Don, either metphorically or literally. I can see him trying to cut Don off at the knees, and failing at it miserably, or showing up to work one day drunk up to his eyeballs and getting fed-up with Don at a meeting and trying to slug him one.

I'm looking forward to see how it turns out.

Interresting thoughts, however, I think he's still around as President.  Possibly located overseas because he has no family anymore.  If he's gone, I would have expected at least one comment about the blow up.

Hm, yeah something happened, but when is the reveal?  If Duck just went easily on to be president, why wouldn't they just have showed it and moved on?  They've created an intentional absence to build up some anticipation perhaps?  Also, it seems strange that a president of a branch would not have an office on location, even if he does have to fly overseas a lot to report to headquarters.

Also, I'm not too familiar with businesses of that time... but is the merger indicative of some general trend that was happening around the 1960's?  Globalization?  And what does that symbolize for our characters?  They're getting lost / losing their place/authority in a drastically changing world... Just like the intro sequence, where Don falls into the huge, disintegrating ad world he created.

Well, that solves that.  Episode 0305.