PhDork: First of all: fuck yeah, Betty. Whenever she acts like an adult, I think she’s amazing. Unfortunately, that’s not been often this season. Last night, though, she was really mature. She demanded long-deserved answers. She listened but wasn’t a push-over. And she let didn’t fly off the handle once she confronted Don. (I totally ID with that. I can handle just about anything you have to tell me. I can’t handle evasion and lying and hiding.)
BeckySharper: Don’t you think that Betty experienced at least a little satisfaction–and maybe relief–that it turned out Don was desperate and playacting as she was? All those years of being treated like the Little Woman who was so lucky to be married to the big, important executive, and BOOM, turns out out the big important executive is just a white-trash con man named Dick. The power dynamic’s got to change now.
Good Oscar–well, Emmy–performance by Jon Hamm, too. I thought Don’s breakdown was totally convincing and agonized (That dropped cigarette? Perfect!)
PhDork: I’m sure Betty did had some quiet “hells yeah” moments. It was definitely good for her to see that Don is really just a man–and a deeply troubled one, at that–not some demigod. Her comment about money was pretty sharp, too: “You don’t understand it. (Peon.)” And seconding Hamm’s performance. He looked positively stricken.
PilgrimSoul: I thought the episode was anchored by some sharp performances – though January Jones is too fond of the ol’ nose wrinkle/eyebrow twitch for my taste.
PhDork: I can’t tell if that’s less-than-great-acting, or Betty’s patrician repression. Second of all: fuck yeah, Joan. Although the vase-smashing seemed a little soapy, I was glad that Dr. Rapist got his. His smarmy “you don’t know what it is to want something your whole life” speech was infuriating. The very picture of entitlement. And now I’m just waiting, rubbing my hands together, for him to be sent off to Vietnam, where he’ll further maim wounded soldiers w/ his “brainless fingers” before getting blown up and my Joanie will be rid of him.
BeckySharper: Rapist Ken Doll can not go to ‘Nam soon enough, IMO. Buh-bye!
PhDork: Third of all: The last line was a little on-the-nose-y for me. I liked that Sally and Bobby, who were talking about going as Minnie Mouse and an astronaut, instead went as a gypsy and a hobo–homeless, marginalized, etc.. Nice images for Don’s (and Betty’s, I guess) displacement, but even more so of the coming cultural shift–we’re only weeks away from Dealey Plaza. And although there was no Peggy, Roger was back in fine, venomous form (his quick “you weren’t” response to his old flame’s “you were The One” was as merciless a thing as ever I’d heard.
BeckySharper: I thought the “you weren’t” was BRUTAL. But excellent. She was totally manipulating him and it was nice to see Roger show some gumption–he’s been looking awfully foolish and even pathetic recently. As for Suzanne…that’s it? She just says “kthxbai” after sitting in the car all that time? The writers must have some kind of major dramatic trick up their sleeves, or that whole plotline will seem superfluous.
PhDork: Yeah, we haven’t seen the last of Suzanne. Whether Don returns to her (possible, now that Betty has Dick Whitman’s number and he needs to disappear anew) or she–or, my guess, her brother–pops up at an inopportune moment, we’ll have to pick up that story. Weiner doesn’t leave loose ends for too long.
PilgrimSoul: I found it, like much of this season, too abrupt in its development. You guys seem to have picked up on this too – the soapy shattering of the vase, which I found frankly rather unlike Joan (too messy), the weird acquiescence of Ms. Farrell, that just-too-much last line. There were an awful lot of blanks in the script, it seemed to me, that the actors were doing a very good job of filling of course, but which make me have less faith in Weiner than you do, PhDork. This season has been such a weird assemblage of tangents, and so suddenly throwing us into the main story again was a bit disconcerting.
PhDork: I agree the pacing of this season has been a hot mess (I wouldn’t stand for it in a film or play): feast and famine. Opening a lot of doors, then leaving them open for weeks, and finally stepping over the threshhold. That said, I do think Weiner and his team have all this stuff blocked out over the season and there will be some kind of payoff (beyond what we got Sunday), with another cliffhanger/open door before Season 3 is over.
Readers, what did you think of the show? Two episodes left…
That last line hit my ear a little wrong as well. It was too over the top, which I feel like the show has a tendency toward. It wouldn’t be so noticeable if the majority of the writing wasn’t so subtle but because it is, clunky lines like that just jump way out. Am I alone in thinking that Joan would simply get a divorce? I know she’s about image and all that, but she is also a fairly independent woman (given the times) and her husband has been such a failure in all regards and she doesn’t strike me as someone who tolerates failure very well. Plus it would illustrate that women in the 60s DID get divorces.
I know that Dr. Rapist deserved the vase to his head, but is anybody worried that Joan’s marriage is even more violent and effed up than we previously thought?
I think Suzanne went away quietly because she figured they had been caught and was preparing to be run out of town (she asks Don, “Do I have to worry about my job?”). I’m hoping that’s not the end of the storyline though.
Don’s confession was devastating. It seems to have introduced a new intimacy to their marriage… we’ll see how long that lasts.
Does anyone else think Roger believes Joan is/was “the one”?
I was on the verge of submitting a creepy/stalkerish lurker’s email demanding that one of you respond to this episode – I am now appeased.
Soapy or not, I loved the Joan-vase moment. She never loses it like that, and to explode over his little speech about lost dreams speaks to her character. Later, fer face when he told her that he’d joined the army was so nuanced (I just don’t know how to interpret it).
And speaking of dropped tangents – whatever happened to Peggy’s kind of crazy new roommate?
I totally concur that this episode was a big breath of fresh air. I remember reading an interview with Elizabeth Moss where she pointed out that the first season was about the girls, the second one was about the boys, and this one is all about couples and relationships – The Drapers, Roger and Don, Joan and Rapist Ken, Pete and Trudie etc. So there are a lot of those scenes where when they finish I’m like “Did nothing just happen or was that Really Important?”
To me Joan’s outburst was based on everything that happened from the moment he pinned her on the floor – I think she kept telling herself that at least she’d have the position in life she’d wanted, and not only did that fall apart, he was going to whine at her about it.
I also loved that this was probably the first Honest, Significant conversation Don and Betty have EVER had. Or at least on the show. Don’s breakdown was magnificent. So full of fear and humiliation and some more fear. Betty came home from her lawyer thinking “Ok, if I’m not going to leave him, I am at least done living this stupid lie.”
I definitely don’t think we’re done with Suzanne Farrell.
@Mild: Whatever happened to Peggy, period??! I want to know how her ill-advised whatever with whathisface turned out!
@pedimd: Nah, I don’t think that indicated anything other than frustration. I think there are major power issues in that marriage, but so far they’re not expressed through physical violence (except for, y’know, the occasional rape).
Yeah, I need some Peggy before this is all said and done. If I had an awesome Halloween party to go to, I would dress up as her–I even have a dowdy-ish plaid vintage dress that would work.
I TOTALLY want to see what Peggy’s life with her Swedish roommate is like these days – it’s killing me not to know if she’s still sleeping with Duck too, or if that was a one..well, two-time deal.
Do you guys all know about the viewing party the Lipp Sisters (over at Basket of Kisses) are having at some bar on Madison ave for the finale? I’m going!
http://www.lippsisters.com/2009/10/27/hey-did-you-know-were-having-a-mad-men-party/
About the costumes… I asked my mom about this and she said that back in the day, part of the fun of Halloween was making a costume. Don protested about Sally wanting to buy a “cheap, plastic” Minnie Mouse costumer because it was a waste of money (some things still haven’t changed).
The choices of a Hobo and Gypsy would have been easy to put together with common household clothing and items.
True, ceejee, but the title of the ep was “The Gypsy and the Hobo,” and masquerade and role-playing were central ideas.
@Becky – Yeah, I cannot wait for Rapist Ken to get killed in Vietnam. I’m interested to see how Joan will/would react to what we normally think of as “the sixties”.
I still think that Suzanne is just not very well written. She doesn’t make a lot of sense to me — I can’t get my head around her motivations for anything. This is in contrast to Betty, whose inner life I have a clearer and clearer picture of every episode (the most of any of the characters, for me). When she was talking to the lawyer, it occurred to me that this was the first time she was saying the stuff about Don out loud a moment before she said it — personally, I’m finding January Jones’ performance to be very subtle and impressive (but maybe it’s just more to my taste than to PS’).
On the Feministing recap they were really, really harsh about Roger’s storyline, saying that the only reason he would ever turn down a drunk woman is to be cruel and deliberately humiliate her. That wasn’t my reading of the situation at all, actually. The “you weren’t” line was definitely brutal, but I don’t think he would have gone there if she hadn’t pursued the issue. Maybe I’m being too easy on him, given that he is in fact a racist and sexist jerk…
Also, even though Peggy wasn’t in this ep for very long, I think she had one of the best lines. “I can’t turn it off, it’s really happening!” That is the reaction of someone who is far more used to watching television than any of the older execs in the room.
Roger ain’t a nice guy, but I don’t think he was being gratuitously cruel to Annabelle. It seemed to be coming from a place of deep hurt (which is, after all, where most cruelty comes from).
I thought that Roger’s response was perfect considering the lady in question–can’t remember her name–basically showed up solely to exploit her old connection to him and jerk him around. Maybe she was lonely because she’d lost her husband, etc. etc. but her attitude towards Roger was downright predatory, narcissistic and manipulative and I though his harshness was justified (and necessary, since he kept telling her to back off and she wouldn’t).