The entire third season of AMC’s landmark drama Mad Men has unfolded with the foreshadowing (for viewers) of the catastrophe in Dallas that would change the world forever—and shake up the world of at least a few of this show’s characters. Sunday’s remarkable episode brought the shattering tragedy of JFK’s assassination into focus in the same way all of America shared the news: on TV, whether in the office, in a living room, or even in a hotel room during a secret tryst. The entire country stayed glued for days, through the on-camera shooting of assassin Lee Harvey Oswald through the stately funeral.

How did it play on Mad Men, where so many of the characters have been poised at the precipice of change for some time? Let me count the ways, in an annotated list of memorable moments from the episode. 63 ways, to be exact, in honor of the year (1963) this season has so painstakingly documented.

1. The temperature. As the seasons change, the thermostat inside the Sterling Cooper office is too cold, then too hot. (I can attest to that, working in a pre-war building in Midtown.) Once the awful news breaks, though, no one’s griping about the weather.

2. Pete complaining about the instant hot cocoa (using water instead of milk), then thanking his secretary anyway because it hits the spot. He’s still such an awkward man-child, and the opening shot of him curled up on his couch speaks volumes.

3. Pryce lowers the boom on Pete. Change is a constant in this office, and little of it is pretty. Golden boy Kenny Cosgrove is promoted to senior vp of account services, while Pete is named head of account management blah-blah. Pete is stunned. “I think I’ve done a lot with what I was given in this arbitrary scheme.”

4. Salt-in-the-wound time. Pryce explains: “Mr. Cosgrove has the rare gift of making clients feel they haven’t any needs.” (As opposed to Mr. Campbell, who excels at making them feel their needs are being met.) Poor, needy Pete.

5. Pete takes it like a man, with a handshake: “I hope this was a difficult decision.” Or does he? He stalks out of the office immediately afterward, pouting that he doesn’t feel well.

6. Peggy still has a roomie, is still involved with Duck (yuck) and is still a miser, griping about wasting her coins at a lunch counter. When she tells her roomie that Duck’s not married, here’s the response: “Oh! Then why are you with him?” Wouldn’t we all like to know?

7. The return of Mona Sterling, Roger’s formidable ex (played by Talia Balsam, John Slattery’s real-life wife). Looking at the gaudy earrings her bride-to-be daughter Margaret has been given by the well-meaning new stepmom, Mona remarks: “Van Cleef. How very Jane Siegel Sterling.” Such contempt for the nouveau riche and emotionally gauche.

8. Margaret is a drama queen, and I pity poor Brooks, her intended. “You’re babbling like a little fool,” says mom, who’s right. On the phone with Roger, who’s also over the drama, Mona shares a moment. Oh Roger, you so did not trade up.

9. Margaret blabs on about how in India, the bride is burned alive if the wedding fails to go off as planned. Given how annoying she is, I start flicking my Zippo.

10. When Roger yells at Jane for having muddied the waters by giving Margaret such an expensive gift, the pretty new trophy wife throws a fit. “I’m the good person here,” she cries, stalking out of the bedroom and locking the door behind her. Poor Roger. How much does he miss a level head like Mona’s, or Joan’s, for that matter?

11. Pete sulks at home, eating a casserole out of a bowl. He whines to Trudy about Pryce’s announcement (“All I saw was his froglike mouth flapping”), and while Trudy sympathizes, quietly happy he didn’t openly lose his temper, we see what Pete can’t: That he’s not a natural at this ad game the way Kenny is.

12. Duck calls Peggy “pee-wee” (yikes) over the phone as he begs her to join him at the Elysee because it’s been three weeks since the last time. He promises room service, a monte cristo. (Wonder if the Monkey Bar was functioning in the Elysee back then.) “Come on, ‘Creative,’ be creative,” he teases her.

13. Paul, overhearing Peggy’s conversation: “I know a nooner when I hear one.” Heh.

14. The moment that changes everything. As Pete unloads to Harry, who turns down the volume of the TV soap opera he’s monitoring, we see in the background the famous “Special Bulletin” interruption of Walter Cronkite (whose death this summer had us reliving all of this all over again) delivering the first report of the shooting in Dallas. “There’s no future for me here,” Pete is saying at the time. If we only knew what the future holds …

15. We realize Don Draper has been MIA so far this episode, as he storms into Pryce’s office demanding a new art director to replace Sal. (We miss Bryan Batt!) Tempers, and the temperature, are boiling over.

16. Back in Duck’s room, he watches the early news bulletins as he waits for Peggy, then switches off the set as she arrives. She says the room smells like smoke, unaware of the fire raging in the world at large.

17. “I’m going to die at this desk unnoticed,” Harry whines to Pete—they’re still not paying attention—when the rest of the office rushes in to watch the news.

18. They turn the channel to NBC—Cronkite wasn’t yet the #1 newsman. Nice detail.

19. As Don walks through the now-empty office, phones are ringing off the hook. You can only imagine this scenario playing out in offices all over the country.

20. Betty is watching TV in the living room, obviously shaken. Carla walks in, having fetched the kids from school, as the news registers that the president is dead. In one of the most quietly affecting moments of the episode, or maybe the season, Carla sits beside her employer on the couch, lighting up her own cigarette. No social divide here as the women watch, distraught and weeping, in stunned shock.

21. Little Sally puts her arm around her grieving mother. I have a feeling she’ll be doing a lot more of that over the years.

22. Post-coital Peggy (“Did you give me a hickey?”) tells Duck, “You didn’t seem distracted” as he turns the TV back on just in time to hear the news that Kennedy is dead. Pee-wee, please take this as a sign! He kept you in the dark until he’d had his way.

23. Margaret Sterling weeps and wails, splayed on the floor in front of the TV in her gown and veil. “It’s over!” Is she talking Camelot or her wedding? You guess.

24. Don comes home to Betty, who says she can’t stop crying, as the kids lie rapt in front of the TV. His first response, post-hug, is to criticize: “Why are the kids watching this?” His second reponse, even more maddening, to Betty: “Take a pill and lie down.” Which she does. But: Oh, Don.

25. Don gathering Sally and Bobby to his lap: “Everything’s going to be OK.” (He says that a lot, having weathered last week’s emotional storm.) “We’re going to be sad for a little bit, and then on Monday there’s going to be a funeral.” Bobby asks if they’re invited. Actually, son, the whole world will be invited—on TV. In moments like these, the personal is epic.

26. Don takes his own pill after everyone else is to bed.

27. The Sterling nuptials haven’t been canceled? Don urges Betty to get dressed: “I can’t sit in front of the TV all day.” Why not? As the years go on, we will get used to this ritual of communal national mourning at times of crisis.

28. “The whole country’s drinking.” Pete the next day, as he and Trudy prepare to go to the wedding. She says it’s business: “We have to show.” But after Pete rails about the arrogance of the Sterlings, who he imagines are happy about all of this (they never supported JFK), Trudy declares, “I don’t care what your politics are. This is America. You don’t just shoot the president.” She kicks off her shoes, and they decide to stay home. The Campbells’ stock has just risen in my eyes.

29. Pete says Harry has been busy calculating the loss of commercial time during the marathon news coverage. Wow, that’s cold. Also probably accurate.

30. Our first look at the wedding reception. A half-empty ballroom. The day is sad, and this is just pathetic.

31. Henry Francis is there. “Of course,” Betty whispers, unable to take her eyes off her imagined white knight. And vice versa.

32. Who is that lady greeting Henry Francis? That’s no lady, that’s his daughter.

33. “I heard the church was packed,” the tardy Henry tells his hosts. “Those weren’t our guests,” says Margaret. Point taken. What a scene that must have been.

34. Cooper, Kenny, Harry and even Jane are clustered around the TV in the hotel kitchen, to Roger’s dismay. How perfect is that?

35. Roger tells Cooper to keep his eye on Jane. Like that’s a problem.

36. Roger makes a great wedding toast, all things considered. He states one of the themes of the episode’s title (“The Grown-Ups”) when he remarks, “The adults, we all wanted to be strong for you, but your spirit, your love, your hope is giving us strength.” Nice sentiment, if not exactly true. Extra points for the shout-out to his “lioness” of an ex-wife, Mona. Final thought: “If you can make it through a day like this, marriage is a cakewalk.”

37. Don takes a distracted Betty to the dance floor and again insists: “Everything’s going to be fine.” She doesn’t want to hear that from him: “How do you know that?” she counters, enigmatically.

38. A haunting moment as Betty emerges from the ladies’ room as they leave the reception, seeing both of her admirers, Don and Henry Francis, waiting with coats. She doesn’t even acknowledge Henry. Yet.

39. Jane once again shows she’s the opposite of a lioness, so blotto from the stressful wedding party that Roger has to carry her to their bed. “He was so handsome, and now I’ll never get to vote for him,” she cries over Kennedy, a welcome moment of levity.

40. As Jane lies there, passed out, Roger calls his soulmate: Joan, who else? “So what’s new?”

41. Joan is the perfect sounding board. Wouldn’t we all like to call her after a rough day? “Poor thing,” she purrs about poor Margaret. She regales Roger with talk about Greg working the night shift at the ER, a sign that life and death continues to go on. “Nobody else is saying the right thing about this,” Roger laments. “There’s nothing funny about this,” she agrees. “Hang in there, Red,” he says.

42. Betty watches Oswald get shot on live TV. “What is going on?” she shrieks in panic. January Jones owns this episode.

43. Don goes to console her, and she visibly flinches. “Please leave me alone.” She’s not taking comfort any more from this lying liar.

44. Betty gets dressed. “I’m going out. For a drive.” Alone. No Don. No kids. “I need to clear my head.”

45. What she needs is a little alone time with Henry Francis. Who cares if it’s in the front seat of a car? “He’s been lying to me for years. I couldn’t be in that house.” The events of the last two days were the shocking catalyst she needed to move her to action.

46. Henry offers to leave the Rockefeller campaign immediately if necessary. “You don’t have to answer me now, but I want to marry you.” (Weirdly, a variation of this same twist happened an hour earlier on Desperate Housewives between Karl and Bree. Never mind.)

47. They kiss, rather passionately, in the car (so much for Betty’s reservations about such sordid behavior) after he says, “If you search your heart, you’ll know that I can make you happy.” Is happiness even possible for this woman?

48. Henry is a romantic. “I wish that I could take you to the movies right now—some theater that’s playing your favorite movie.”

49. Betty is a child. Singin’ in the Rain is the movie that first comes to her mind. An escapist golden-age musical, I get it. But surely a love story would be more appropriate. Although to Betty, Henry Francis may be as much father figure and protector as prospective lover in her mind. (She still hasn’t gotten over the death of her father months earlier. And as the family lawyer recently told her, she doesn’t have much leverage on her own if she files for divorce.)

50. Monday is a national day of mourning. And for Trudy and Pete, a day for reassessing. “You don’t owe them anything,” she tells her husband, urging him to gather his clients. Will he defect to Duck?

51. The Draper marriage is broken. Betty, having taken the upper hand last week in the confrontation over Don’s hidden past, now backhands her lying liar of a husband. “I don’t know where to begin. I want to scream at you for ruining all of this. But then you try to fix it. And there’s no point. There’s no point, Don.” January Jones is astonishing here.

52. Words one simply can’t take back, once uttered: “I don’t love you,” she tells Don.

53. Don tells her she’s distraught, that she’ll feel better tomorrow. But Betty is no Scarlett O’Hara. Tomorrow may be another day, but she knows her mind. “You can’t even hear me right now,” she says. More to the point: He doesn’t want to hear what she’s saying.

54. Salt-in-wound department revisited: Betty tells Don that when they kissed, she felt nothing. “I don’t love you anymore,” she repeats. Don, she really means it.

55. Don retreats to the bedroom, alone and chastened. The world outside has fallen apart, and now the family life he has so carefully structured—and yet endangered with his own selfish actions—is coming apart at the seams. It’s a tragedy within a tragedy.

56. Don prepares to go to work, pausing outside the kitchen as he looks at what on the surface is a blissful family scene of breakfast in action. He, and we, know better.

57. “It’s cold outside,” cautions little Bobby. Have you seen your mom, son? It’s colder inside.

58. Sally doesn’t miss a beat. She knows something’s up, and it has nothing to do with the Kennedys.

59. Who would go to work on a day like this? Don and Peggy, that’s who. She needed to get away from the family grief (you can only imagine her mom and sister mourning the loss of the first Catholic president).

60. Peggy’s task du jour: Rescuing the Aqua Net campaign. The original storyboard shows people riding in an open-air convertible. After the Kennedy assassination, not such a great idea. Too bad Sal’s not around to draw up something new.

61. Don retreats alone to his office. Will work provide solace for him now that everything’s come unhinged? We still don’t even know where Sterling Cooper is headed once the Brits sell them off. More change looms.

62. What a perfect song for the end credits: the lyrical “The End of the World.” (Sample lyrics: “Don’t they know it’s the end of the world, because you don’t love me any more?”)

63. Trailers for next week’s season finale: Wait, they’re showing a greatest-hits montage from this season? The show is keeping the finale under wraps, not sharing advance screeners with critics either. Guess I know where we’ll all be next Sunday night. Can’t wait.