I had remembered ‘a shell,’ too. But I haven’t seen the episode in quite a while.
Anyway: I’m with those who are finding Betty’s plotline to be rather mechanical. It’s easy to imagine Weiner and his writers sitting around the office saying “well, SOMEONE on the show has got to get cancer, what with all this smoking–how about Betty?”
So now Betty gets to be Redeemed by her Nobility in the face of horrible disease and death. And everyone else is oddly healthy and pretty–no yellow teeth or stained fingers or labored breathing or bad coughs. That’s television!
As for this episode: I was struck by the emphasis on Don’s own efforts as the factor that took him from a deprived background to “the top.” He mentioned having gone to night school (with reference to fixing the typewriter), and he corrected the con-kid’s English more than once–reminding us of the trouble Dick/Don must have taken over the years, to stop using the sub-standard speech he grew up hearing.
Often in this show we’re shown his talent; this episode was a useful reminder that what he has didn’t just fall in his lap as the result of natural gifts alone. Dick/Don took that one piece of good luck–the chance to step into a better life–and worked hard to make it count. (His advice to con-kid at the end of the episode certainly brought home the theme.)
Well, starting Wednesday (I think at 6:PM EST) AMC will begin the uber-marathon of every Mad Men Episode, so we’ll be able to see those first season scenes again.
I hope the ratings are good during that marathon; even if this show is ending, it would be nice to have AMC thinking along the lines of supporting other good dramatic fare.
I’m hoping Don goes back for the kids, and then starts a new life out West. I just don’t think Don would knowing pull this disappearing craft he if knew his kids were about to lose their mother.
Which is what made it so sad. I don’t even find it self-centred; Betty’s spent her entire life being judged & valued by her appearance, of course in the end she wants to look like her self and not a painted dead clown. If she’s lucky Betty is going to get once last Christmas with her kids, and if she’s very lucky she’ll still be in decent enough shape that Bobby & Gene don’t realize it’s her last Christmas until after the fact.
Poor Sally, not she not only has to spend the next few months knowing that her mother is going to die she has too keep up the charade that everything is normal for her brothers. And she has to be the one to tell Don too, unless he’s still bothering to check in with his answering service.
He appears to just be carrying a bag of cash with him; though there are other options. Traveller’s checks are a possibility, Don could also just have his accountant send him wire transfers via Western Union; though both require some advance planning.
I got the impression that Betty herself just shut down and got extremely passive during that scene, and that was why the doctor was talking to Henry instead of her.
Don had a fairly decent sized fold of money when he peeled off the twenties at the VFW. Even if it was “just” a couple hundred, that would keep him going for some time at $6 a night for a hotel room.
Don is definitely still heading west. He knows that their Step father will be a better provider than he will. He’s either going to disappear into someone else (a mechanic it looks like) or reclaim Dick Whitman.
Yes, except I didn’t see it as a shutting down as much as a stoic acceptance. When the doctor delivered the news, she immediately knew it was the end for her. Henry was the one who wouldn’t accept the diagnosis and that’s why the doctor was speaking to him so callously.
Though, honestly, many oncologists are “calloused.” Perhaps it’s because they simply can’t go to an emotional place because it’ll render them incapable of doing their jobs.
As I followed that sequence of events, she fell on the steps at college, and went to the infirmary. The doctor there said that the x-rays revealed something more serious than a broken rib but wouldn’t tell her anything. “Call your husband,” he said. Henry came but seemed to disbelieve the doctor, so they went to another doctor, who gave the diagnosis to Henry, never even speaking to Betty.
Yes, but the second doctor was picked out by Henry. Who, after all, is Someone Important in the state. It’s no surprise the second doctor was speaking to Henry.
It’s the first doctor who was the ass, not telling Betty anything until she called her husband.
Although I was surprised that Betty both got the “Mrs. Robinson” joke, and didn’t let it bother her. In years gone by she would’ve been irritated, even realizing that it brought her some attention.
I don’t understand what happened at the end. It looked like to me that Don took the blame for the theft and returned the money and then said he wasn’t paying for the room.
Don told them that the kid took the money and that he would get it back. He gave them back their money and didn’t pay for the room because they were so shitty to him.
I’m not sure the first doctor was being an ass. We don’t know that he gave the news only to Henry. He may simply have thought that, since he was basically giving Betty a death sentence, it would be best if she had emotional support available.
Quite possible. Notice how Don is stripping himself of all the things that made Don Draper. His wife. Much of his money. His apartment. His job. His clothes. And now his car. Maybe he didn’t start doing this intentionally, but that is how it seems to be playing. Becoming Dick Whitman again makes sense for his arc.
Don didn’t tell them that the kid took the money. One of his points to the kid was that if he did take the money, he’d never be able to come back, and while home seemed bad now, it’d be worse if he could never go home again (as Don can’t). For Don to have revealed that the kid took the money would have done the same thing for that as the kid having kept the money.
So Don basically took the blame. But both he and they knew that they’d tried to hustle him first with the surprise donation, probably swindled him on the car repairs, and that he could still cause problems for them because of the beating.
And, really, they probably suspected the kid too once they sobered up. It didn’t make any sense for Don to have staged a thrown rod and thrown money around in anticipation of a $500 donation pot that he didn’t know about until they surprised him to wheedle a donation out of him.
Then why didn’t Don just give them $500 of his own and why did the hotel owner not say a thing when Don didn’t pay for the room? Then the kid just left with him right after that. They knew the kid took the money. The kid couldn’t go back if he stole it and never returned, not if he gave it back.
