Heh at Pete thinking Bob is Don 2.0. I loved seeing Bob stand up for himself. It was hot.
Poor Peggy being in the crossfire of another one of Don's mishaps, even though Don was right this time. (Though the way he went about it was gross.)
Don moved a checkmate on Ted, and Ted knows it. Peggy knows it too. Peggy is in it for emotional reasons. Ted doesn't want to be but he keeps falling back into it unintentionally. We know Ted doesn't want that from the conversations we've seen him have with Peggy. Don senses this weakness and conflict in Ted.
Ted will probably appreciate what Don did. It took someone like Don to expose Ted to his own bullshit to put an end to it. We already know Ted isn't capable of ending it himself. Hearing it from the likes of Don, with the impact of how Don did it, will ensure Ted stays far away from Peggy as possible romantically.
Peggy knows Don better than Don thinks and in the end exposes Don's real motives. It isn't about the firm for Don, or about Ted. Its all about Don's relationship with the women in his life and his ability to control some aspect of their lives. Don is indirectly preventing Peggy's happiness, while saving Ted from self-destructing, and preserving the firms credibility by disrupting such a controversy from ever happening.
His final response at the end is a half-truth. For the firm, Don says. For a character as complex as Don I find it easy to dismiss his surface answer. I think its clear Don is trying to draw Peggy onto his side in the best possible way with the least collateral damage with respect to Ted and the firm. In his own weird way Don is attempting to consider matters outside of his own motivations and he wants recognition for it from Peggy, his prize.
Don's relationship with Peggy has taken a complex turn with the context of this episode. The ending of last episode to his conversation with Betty regarding Sally in the start of tonight's episode exposes the fatherly jealousy he has for Peggy is an interesting contrast in this episode. On one hand, he loves Sally because she is his actual offspring, yet they share nothing and are apart and distant. With Peggy, on the other hand, Don raised her into the fine ad executive she is in the events of Mad Men. They shared more time together, had more conversations together than Don and Sally ever had. I think Don sees Peggy as a daughter and cares deeply for her in that fatherly figure way. Its even more interesting because Peggy didn't have a father growing up either.
