Are we sure? Sounds like he’s not a very good surgeon.
Contracts can be broken. And Bert Cooper (& Pete Cambell) are the only ones at Sterling-Cooper that know about Don’s past. IANAL, but what if the Brits can’t find a buyer and just decide to “close up” Sterling-Cooper and sell the assets? Does that void Don’s contract? Who would be able to sue him for breaching it? The London guys who no longer even have an office in NYC? Why would they care?
Still it’s a great way to get Greg out of the show while keeping Joan in and letting her “save face”. She can just tell people she’s working because it’s so boring at home with Greg overseas. This all falls appart if she get’s pregnant though. Or Greg could end up stuck at the local MEPS doing draft physicals.
What assets, though? An advertising agency is mostly intangibles. And actually, Don himself is probably one of the most valuable assets.
How so? He’s a shiftless bum who has “fits” who found Don’s card. Any real trouble that comes out of it will be a stretch.
If he has a seizure and is hospitalized (or dies), someone will look for next of kin. Unless he carries Suzanne’s name and address around with him, Don’s a possible choice to get the phone call. That story line has to go somewhere. It’s too odd to be meaningless.
The Brits are under no pressure to sell. They see an opportunity to profit on their investment, something will only happen if the company is sold as a going concern.
I’m not sure Roger turned her down for his wife’s sake, even if that’s what he said. The way that story was juxtaposed with his interaction with Joan, I think that when he told Dog Food Lady that she wasn’t the one the woman he really had in mind was Joan.
Edit: Looks like somebody beat me to it.
If nothing else, it demonstrated Don’s continued guilt over his treatment of his own brother.
Gee, and I thought I was special since I was about his age at the time and “hobo” was the default costume. I must’ve been a hobo 3 or 4 times growing up. I loved that part of the show.
I also thought the parents going along was odd. I don’t ever recall my parents tagging along for trick or treat-- that was what made it so much fun.
Good episode. I won’t repeat all the stuff everyone has already said.
Excellent episode.
There’s also a good article about Mad Men in this month’s Atlantic Monthly. I’m a subscriber, so i’m logged in to their website, but i think the whole article might be free for everyone.
Despite all this Don is still an unfaithful poon hound ever at heart so that door will be opened again, but I kind of think Don is out of second chances with Betty and divorce or at least divorce proceedings are (IMO) inevitable at some point unless he has an unlikely Roger like 180. Like a baseball manager relying on his sluggers for runs the show’s creator keeps comes back to Don’s magic penis and it’s hypnotizing effect on virtually all women to move the show along.
Not really sure what the point of Dog food lady arc was other than reinforcing Roger’s in love with new wife, so naturally she’s going to cheat on him or he’s going to have to die.
The show is at a balance point. The whole “I’ve got a secret” scenario that furnished a lot of structure for the show’s dynamic is exposed and that tension point is winding down.
Two small elements in this was (as commented) Betty’s response that he doesn’t know how to handle money, and she’s right re Mr. Sophisticated having thousands in his desk drawer. That’s depression farm boy nonsense. The other is the brother-house issue where she’s got him over a barrel as he doesn’t want her to sell the house but he (probably) can’t come close to affording the market price. Betty has a lot on her plate right now.
I wonder if in Don’s spirit of confession he’ll own up to his philandering, and if so, if Betty will admit hers, and if so, if she’ll inform him that Gene might not even be his child. Although, Betty might not want to push him to admit it so she won’t feel compelled to admit her own.
In what sense could Gene not be his child corkboard? I wasn’t posting on the Straight Dope at the time but IIRC Betty’s one night stand took place after her doctor told her she was pregnant–the point of that timing seemed in part precisely to assure us that Gene is indeed Don’s, no?
astro Depression farm-boy nonsense? Maybe, but Don’s issues with money don’t seem like distrust of the banking system. Rather,seems more like a likely thing for anyone who’s got lots of secrets and secret needs to do. Even Tony Soprano kept some cash around the house 
But I do agree that Betty’s remark about Don and money was really interesting (from a woman who read her phone bill for the first time two years ago no less). He is in a way impractical and romantic about spending money and perhaps managing it as well–though pretty good at earning it, of course.
The last episode of Season 2 began with Betty in the doctor’s office–discovering she was pregnant. Earlier in the season, after Betty had kicked Don out, she called him because of her father’s failing health; he immediately volunteered to accompany her to Philadelphia. She made Don sleep on the floor but joined him there overnight–without her diaphragm. Oops. On returning to Ossining, she closed the door on his face again.
Toward the end of that last episode, Betty picked up a handsome stranger in a bar for a quick screw in the back room. She was already pregnant with Don’s kid.
(Oh–and Peggy gave up her baby for adoption. He is* not* with her Mom in Brooklyn, waiting for Pete to “rescue” him.)
Returning to the current plot line: I hope Betty turns her new-found adult analytical ability on her own life. She hates Ossining; did Don chloroform her & leave her to awaken in that dreary Colonial Revival? Nope, it was probably her own idea they move out of Manhattan. If she finds her environment so stultifying, she needs to get off her privileged, over-educated ass & do something about it. Not lie on the dreadful fainting couch, dreaming of a phantom lover.
“Mommy, didn’t you say that only boring people get bored?”
“Upstairs, Bobby!”
You are correct, I just watched those episodes over the weekend. I noticed that they made sure to let us know she was pregnant prior to her bathroom tryst and I assumed it was specifically so we wouldn’t question the paternity of her baby.
Bridget, I don’t think we can disentangle Betty’s frustrations with her life and environment from her marriage and the social conditions in which we find it. Betty is far from an idealized character; she is cold and narcissistic and repressed and not very self-reflective. But by the same token it seems anachronistic to expect her to “get a life” as though in some post-1970s notion of self-help.
Don in the past has been very possessive of her. He deliberately put the kabosh on her return to modelling in season 2 partly because he liked the idea of her being home with the kids.
Although I’m not sure how far into the future season 4 will go and what that might portend, I don’t expect Don to fundamentally change. It seems likely that if Betty’s story were carried through that at some point she would want to do something with her life: like maybe get a job or going back to school. But that seems like something she would do, if at all, in her later 30s. Now she is the mother of three, including an infant.
The fainting couch seems the right kind of fantasy for her for now though if the Republican dude doesn’t stay in the show perhaps it will end up in the garage
So here is my question about this season? Does it end with the JFK assassination (note Roger’s daughter’s wedding scheduled for the day after it IIRC) or maybe with…the Beatles on Ed Sullivan in Feb 1964?
The lighting of the scenes in this episode was fantastic. Especially at the start of every scene, the dark and light spots reminded me of some classical paintings. Think of the scene in the Draper’s bedroom. Don is sitting on the bed, dark, the door on the left is open, brightly lit, but none of the light makes it to Don’s side of the room. Reminded me of Velazquez use of light and shadow.
Have I mentioned that I love this show?
There are only two episodes left this season and last week was Halloween, so I think the season will end somewhere around Nov 22. But I’ve heard rumors that Matt Weiner didn’t want to directly address the assassination, so I have a feeling it may be more of a background event.
One thing’s for sure though: the season finale will totally blow your mind away!
Thanks for clarifying; I didn’t remember it that way. I could have sworn the affair occurred before the news of the pregnancy. I thought it was significant that in this season, Don seemed to have trouble connecting with Gene The Baby, and that he hated the name b/c he hated Gene The Elder.