When you get beyond the cocktails and the costumes and the showy emotional breakdowns, what makes any given episode of Mad Men memorable is the dialogue. Matthew Weiner and his staff are particularly wonderful at crafting one-liners — funny quips, penetrating realizations, earth-shattering statements that cause time to stop and personalities to crumble. This season, we’re keeping track of which characters get each episode’s five best lines, assigning points to winners, and posting a cumulative leader board to determine Season 5′s pithiest mad man (or woman). After last night’s finale — which left us appropriately vexed (look for more on that later at Flavorwire) but at least seemed to dispel our fears about Peggy’s departure from the show — we’ve crowned a winner for the season. Click through to find out who came out on top, and let us know if you’re surprised. (Hint: We’re not.)
1. Marie (to Megan): Not every little girl gets to do what she wants. The world could not support that many ballerinas.
2. Pete: And then he realized… that life with his family was just a temporary bandage on a permanent wound.
3. Emily (to Megan): I’d ask you who I have to sleep with, but I don’t think you’d like it.
4. Marie (to Don, about Megan): This is what happens when you have the artistic temperament but are not an artist.
5. Train officer: I am an officer of the New Haven Line. Pete: Well, I’m president of the Howdy Doody Circus Army.
Season 5 scoreboard
WINNER — Roger Sterling: 27 Don Draper: 19 Pete Campbell: 16 Megan Draper: 12 Joan Harris: 11 Jane Sterling: 10 Marie Calvet: 7 Stan Rizzo: 7 Lane Pryce: 6 (final score) Michael Ginsberg: 5 Bobby Draper: 5 Harry Crane: 5 Teenage Rolling Stones fan: 4 Pauline Francis: 4 Mona Sterling: 4 Beth Dawes: 4 Civil rights protester: 3 Katherine Olson: 3 Betty Francis: 3 Emily: 3 Jenny Gunther: 2 Raymond Geiger: 2 Emile Calvet: 2 Peggy Olson: 1