On forgot versus didn’t forget (Suzanne in the car).
I think he was amazed in the root sense of that word. Everything changed in that second. And, yes, corkboard Betty became able to exert a kind of control she almost never has (“You don’t get to ask the questions!”).
His reflex–to give her the reckoning he knows she deserves rather than walk out the door (“I’m not going anywhere”)–showed him something that maybe he himself never fully realized: that he really doesn’t want to lose her and his children.
And so I think he didn’t forget that Suzanne was in the car: but a) there wasn’t much that he could do (persuade Betty that in the middle of this major life crisis he was really worried about his hat?) and, more important, b) the whole escapist fantasy of sex and romance with Suzanne, (yet another secret identity within his secret identity) had evaporated and he needed to focus on what he absolutely could not bear to lose.
The fantasy may well come back to haunt him (as in that brother with his business card). But for now (at any rate the now of this episode since who knows how far into the future we’ll spring next week) he is Betty’s unmasked husband. Knowing that Suzanne would end up walking home alone was just the inevitable complement to that–not absent-mindedness but karma catching up with him.
OTOH, the reemergence of Dick Whitman seems like a good thing; like a weight of guilt and repression lost and the ability to reflect on and accept the past.
I personally do not believe that this character can change or be happy. But Don looks more at peace with himself talking about and acknowledging the existence of Dick than he ever did working so hard to forget him.
