THE EPIC CONFESSIONAL MOMENT

Almost three seasons of this series - among the decade’s best - all seemed to lead up to the moment Don Draper shared his early history with his wife, Betty, in the October episode “The Gypsy and the Hobo.’’ The scene gave Jon Hamm an opportunity to prove that he can be an expressive actor, as well as a withholding one, as he sobbed over his half-brother’s suicide. And it confirmed one of the show’s biggest underlying and unspoken themes - that if you don’t deal with something, it will deal with you.

Pictured: Jon Hamm as Don Draper in an episode of "Mad Men."