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Don Draper finally told the truth, and it ruined his life.

Perhaps that shouldn't have been such a surprise. Because Don has mostly been a master of the lie — especially in the form of an ad pitch. And he never lost his touch: He suckered everyone last season with one of his best pitches for Hershey's chocolate bars.

Facing a roomful of Hershey's executives, he told a heartwarming story of getting one of their candy bars as reward for mowing the lawn. "And as I ripped it open, my father tousled my hair and forever his love and the chocolate were tied together," Don said. "That's the story we're going to tell."

But that bit about his dad was a total lie. And as his partners in the advertising firm were practically spending their first check from Hershey's, Don couldn't resist dropping a bombshell that brought it all to a halt.

"I grew up in Pennsylvania, in a whorehouse," he said, voice nearly cracking. "Closest I got to feeling wanted was from a girl who made me go through her john's pockets. If I collected more than a dollar, she bought me a Hershey bar."

This infusion of truth dropped jaws in the boardroom and in the TV audience. Don had never spoken like that in public before.

So when Mad Men returned Sunday, beginning the first half of a final season ending in 2015, any hope Don might have developed a habit of telling the truth was dashed.

He had already found a new lie to tell.

The first hint dropped in the episode's very first scene. We were mesmerized by a near-perfect advertising pitch which had become a Don Draper specialty: "You go into a business meeting. Is there food in your teeth, ashes on your tie? And you've got nothing to say. But you're wearing an Accu-tron. This watch makes you interesting."

Smooth and professional. A Don pitch if ever there was one, only it wasn't Don delivering it. It was Freddie Rumson, a recovering alcoholic who had been forced out of Don's firm long ago.

Turns out Don is still on the outs at his firm, and he's using Freddie as a proxy to deliver his perfect pitches as a freelancer. But Freddie had a few words of advice for Don while the two shared a couple of sandwiches and gossip.

"They had Christmas without you and the Super Bowl,you know, I've been there," Rumson said, pushing Don to find a new job before he got canned. "You don't want to be damaged goods."

This is what will stand out in all the Mad Men talk today; how Don Draper is still stuck living a lie. To the outside world, he still looks like a bicoastal advertising executive married to a rising actress in Hollywood. But just like before, that appearance is a thin facade. He's living in New York, increasingly estranged from his young wife and barred from his job.

As fans obsess over every nuance of new Mad Men episodes, I hope the show answers one of our biggest questions: Whether Draper can find peace in a truthful life or surrender to the lies.

One real-life liar even appeared in the background of a crucial scene. The show's writers slyly staged Don and Freddie's conversation in front of a TV broadcasting Richard Nixon's 1969 inaugural speech.

This is what Mad Men truly does best. Don and Freddie have an important personal moment while a historic event unfolds around them. They see the promise of a new presidency, but we know it all ends in lies.

It's a terrible omen. A brutal future is coming for everyone.

And I can't wait to see more.

In Chile, a large fire that burned forest land and consumed houses has reportedly killed at least 11 people and destroyed 500 homes. Thousands of residents have been forced to evacuate areas near the port city of Valparaiso.

The BBC says the death toll had been 16, but it was dropped to 11 after authorities realized a family had been counted twice.

President Michelle Bachelet has declared a state of emergency and put the military in charge of maintaining order. The fire started Saturday afternoon, officials say, and raged overnight.

Reporter John Otis filed this update for our Newscast unit Sunday:

"Firefighters battled the flames that ripped through Valparaiso, located 75 miles northwest of the Chilean capital of Santiago. But their efforts were hampered by strong winds that blew hot ashes onto many wooden homes.

"President Bachelet traveled to Valparaiso to oversee the emergency response. Authorities have evacuated residents of the surrounding areas, including 200 female inmates from a prison. But the historic section of the city, which is home to the country's Congress, was undamaged."

As part of a series called "My Big Break," All Things Considered is collecting stories of triumph, big and small. These are the moments when everything seems to click, and people leap forward into their careers.

Ever since Autumn Erhard was a kid, she spent her evenings on the couch solving word puzzles on Wheel of Fortune.

"I was always told growing up, 'You should try out,' " Erhard says. "For some reason, I just decided, 'I'm going to do it.' "

Erhard, a sales representative in Orange County, Calif., couldn't have timed it better. Last year, the show was celebrating its 30th anniversary — around the same time she turned 30. Erhard says that's why they chose her to be a contestant.

Solving puzzles on the show, it turned out, was a lot different than playing on her couch. With the audience, lights and cameras, she says she was shaking and sweating.

"You just try to do your best and get in the zone and pretend like you're playing at home," she says.

Erhard made it all the way to the bonus round and took one final spin. The wheel stopped, host Pat Sajak took the sealed envelope, and Erhard looked at the board for her next word puzzle.

"My category was a 'thing,' " she says.

It was a two-word phrase, with 12 letters. She picked her letters, but only two T's, an R and one G appeared on the board.

The puzzle seemed impossible to solve, but Erhard had an idea.

"With the T and the G in the first word, I pretty much figured out it was 'tough.' And me being the workout-junky that I am, somehow 'workout' popped in my head," she says.

The timer started, and Erhard immediately called out her answer: "tough workout."

"All of a sudden, streamers come down and [Pat Sajak] opened the envelope," she says.

It was the $1 million prize.

"I was just completely shocked," Erhard says. "I couldn't even speak anymore, I could barely breathe. I thought I would cry but I think I had so many emotions going on that I was almost frozen."

She became the show's second million-dollar winner.

"Not in a million years would I have thought that I would've been on the show," she says. "Let alone win a million."

President Obama says his administration is fighting to close the gender wage gap, the gulf between what working men and women earn for the same job.

Last week, Obama moved to circumvent a divided Congress on the issue. He announced two executive actions promoting the idea of "equal pay for equal work," both directed at creating more transparency in the workplace.

For one, the president directed the Department of Labor to collect more information on what federal contractors pay their employees, "so pay discrimination can be spotted more easily."

Obama also signed an executive order prohibiting federal contractors from retaliating against employees who talk about their salaries or other compensation information.

"Pay secrecy fosters discrimination and we should not tolerate it," the president said, "not in federal contracting or anywhere else."

The intention is that if women find out their male co-workers are earning more, they can do something about it.

But here's the thing: Under a nearly 80-year-old federal labor law, employees already can talk about their salaries at work, and employers are generally prohibited from imposing "pay secrecy" policies, whether or not they do business with the federal government.

So why is the president signing an executive order? It's a matter of visibility for labor law and this particular right, says Cynthia Estlund, a law professor at New York University. The law, she says, "is not really well understood." And many don't even know this right exists.

To better understand this complicated topic, here is a breakdown of the basics:

What Is 'Pay Secrecy'?

Pay secrecy is a workplace policy that prohibits employees from discussing how much money they make. These policies are sometimes written down in employee handbooks. In some cases, those policies are implied, and managers simply urge employees not to talk about their salaries.

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