Bill visits with Don and Peg, asking how they can do the marketing plan, and they talk about how the agency quote was $250,000. That is a scary number for old Don, but Bill's caught up in the "vision" still. Don tries to explain how the entire point of advertising sales reps is to sell you on "the vision," but Bill, as usual, has no concept of what being "in over your head" is actually about, so of course he knows he hasn't been snowed by that. Peg (I love Peg!) tells Bill straight up that these figures fly in the face of accepted conventional wisdom, in terms of advertising budget-as-percentage of sales. She tells him they'd have to dip into all kinds of places to front it up, and even then it would just be startup. "But it's a huge hit to absorb," she says. "It ought to make you very queasy." Bill stands up as Don tries to synthesize the arguments, suggesting that they halve the TV spots and double the radio ones, or take their advertising off peak times, but Bill says there would be no point doing it, then. "This isn't a business expense, it's a down payment on the future." Bill should get a diary and write in it. What lovely language he commands. He tries to explain to silly old Don and Peg, his trusted advisors who know more than him, that the best people to ask about how much money it takes to "brand a new identity" would be the people doing it -- the agency.

But the entire point of this episode is that the cost of "branding a new identity" is always too high, if you're doing it in the middle of lies and chaos: Home Plus, Nicki and Alby, Margene and Sarah, even Barb and Ben, they're all trying to become someone new because they're running from something, and not to something, and that's the difference. And that's the war with Roman right there: can the Hendricksons forge a familial identity in the face of their history? Or their present? Don makes my point, saying that, since they're "stuck in bed with Juniper Creek" they can't very well become "the face of Utah," or stick their necks out that far, so why even worry about it? Don's a simple and good man, really, and he doesn't understand that for every foot Roman pulls him back, Bill's going to put another yard into his stores, because that's what being a man is: providing the best you can for your many, many wives. Bill says that it's not a concern, because "before the week is out, that phone is going to ring," and it'll be Roman calling, begging to settle, and everybody will be fine. "You didn't see the fear when I mentioned the attorney general...we're doing this, we have to." Peg smiles, because she knows how Bill is, because he makes these kinds of speeches about, like, what donuts they get in the morning.