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This could be a first.  Just weeks after winning an Emmy Award for her work on AMC's "Mad Men", writer Kater Gordon has been fired from the series.  Gordon shared her award with "Mad Men" creator Matthew Weiner for season two's finale "Meditations in an Emergency", one of the four episodes from the series that were nominated this year.  More after the jump.

Nikki Finke quoted a "Mad Men" insider who said that Gordon, who rose to the rank of staff writer after first serving as Matthew Weiner's personal assistant, was "fired" from the "Mad Men" staff because "Matt has decided that their relationship has reached its full potential."

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"We think [Kater's] done a great job, particularly for someone whose career has progressed so quickly... She'll be missed, but the series has consistently benefited from the influx of new writer talent, and there's absolutely no doubt that Kater will continue to have unprecedented success in her career as she spreads her wings. She leaves 'Mad Men' with our love and respect and a well-deserved Emmy."

So how, exactly, did Kater manage to rise so quickly?  Weiner promoted the young woman to be his personal writer's assistant and then gave her the plum job of co-writing that award-winning season finale - apparently before Gordon had turned in even one spec script of her own.  Gordon then became a permanent member of the writing staff for the current third season.  This could be, as the insider says, a simple parting of the ways but - in the wake of the David Letterman scandal - my mind jumped to a more sordid conclusion.

I'm not the only person out there who now sees a connection between the supposed favoritism shown to Letterman's personal assistant Stephanie Birkitt and the rise of Kater Gordon on "Mad Men".  Of course, it could also be that Gordon contributed very little to the episode she won for and that Weiner and the other nominated writers are only now realizing the mistake of attaching her name to Emmy-winning script.

Once again, you have to give Matthew Weiner credit for giving his audience lots to ponder - both on AND off the set.