Mad Men C to Z S3E11 Podcast Transcript for The Gypsy and The Hobo

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Mad Men S3E11: The Gypsy and the Hobo

Mad Men C to Z S3E11 The Gypsy and the Hobo Transcript
 
Jenna: Hi, I'm Jenna.

Steve: And I'm Steve. Welcome to All Things Mad Men, from Chip and Dip to Zou Bisou.
 
Jenna: There's so much to love about this amazing show, and we're happy to connect to fans like us, who discover new things with each re-watch.
 
Steve: Be advised, while we aren't gratuitous with spoilers, they can pop up as we discuss character arcs through the final season.
Let's get started with Mad Men C to Z.
 
Jenna: Hey everybody, this is Mad Men Season 3, Episode 11, The Gypsy and the Hobo.
This episode was written by Marti Noxon, Cathryn Humphris, and Matthew Weiner, and directed by Jennifer Getzinger.
 
The last episode ended with Betty applauding Don at the Sterling Cooper 40th anniversary dinner, having opened his box of secrets, but not yet confronting him.
 
Steve: This episode opens with Betty packing her suitcase, but what's notable is she's packing the suitcase with valuables, not just the routine clothing.
 
Jenna: Downstairs, the kids are talking about Halloween and Sally wants store-bought costumes. Bobby wants to be an astronaut, and Sally says she'll always love Minnie Mouse.
 
Disneyland opened in California in 1955 and and the astronaut costume idea is a nod to the moving forward premise that's so key to Don Draper.
Poor Don. Everybody wants the moon, right?
 
Did you have a time when you preferred a store-bought costume for Halloween? Or did you have any memorable or similar costumes when you were a kid?

Steve: I always wanted a store-bought costume, but we were poor, so I always had a crappy homemade costume. And I would have killed for the cheapest of store-bought costumes.
 
Jenna: I bet your homemade costumes were excellent though,
compared to those plastic monstrosities. Don's right, they are cheap and plastic and fake.
How funny that Don is complaining about fake.
 
Steve: Yeah, and they've got the socioeconomic status - there are no financial limitations for the Drapers.
 
Jenna: So Betty nudges Don to tell her about the box when she says I only have $40, meaning do you have any cash?
 
And she knows he's got a lot of money in that desk drawer, but he tells her to swing by the bank on her way out of town to see her father.
She's cold and distant, but he doesn't seem to notice.
 
Steve: Yeah, it's a clear trap question from Betty. She knows darn well that there are loads of cash sitting in that drawer.
Combined with her packing of valuables, it really seems like Betty's intention is leaving.
 
Jenna: While Don is probably just happy to have his family out of town so he can spend more time with Suzanne.
 
The next scene introduces us to an old flame of Roger’s, who's looking for a new ad campaign for her dog food business.
 
Annabelle is played by Mary Page Keller and she has a lot of credits from the 90s as well as a long stint on Another World in the 80s.
More recent projects include Pretty Little Liars, Beginners, 24, and Chasing Life.
And I love this storyline with Roger.
 
Steve: It is a fun opportunity to learn a bit more about Roger's life and not just his prior life in the firm, but prior to him joining the firm, because this is all pre World War II.
 
So we know that Roger served in the war and then after the war joined Sterling Cooper. But Annabelle's relationship with him takes place prior to World War II, so in the 1930s.
 
Jenna: I love that Annabelle can keep up with Roger's repartee.
He says, you divorce what's-his-name?
No, David died. 51 years old, Lung cancer.
That's too bad, Roger says.
 
And they're both just smiling at each other and he shakes her hand a little too long and they're staring at each other.
So she has a business reason for coming to see him, but there's obviously more to it than that.
 
Steve: Apparently she knows darn well that he's remarried.
As they sort of walk through the comments, it's not clear until she says,
I heard she's a teenager, that she knows darn well, and this is all leading up to a shot on her part you know, alluding to Roger's age, and that he would have no business being with someone so young.
 
Jenna: So her business reason for being there is that her father's will left the company to her, and she runs Caldecott Farms.
They're having a PR crisis followed by disastrous sales, she says.
 
There was an expose, and this movie that Bert brings up, The Misfits, which was a 1961 star-studded cowboy film written by Arthur Miller starring Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe, Eli Wallach, and Montgomery Clift about wrangling wild horses for dog food.
 
And this movie is part of why Annabelle's dog food company has a PR problem.
And another great reinforcement of how Mad Men's protagonist is also a man out of place - this Misfits connection, of course.
 
And as they talk, Annabelle is really smart about her business.
She says, people eat cow, but they call it beef. There's no other word for horse meat, so maybe you could invent one that would help with the perception problem.
 
And then she says people around the world eat horse meat, but she's eaten it. And Don offers, I've eaten it.
And Roger looks over at him, surprised.
Wealthy Roger, who can steal a housewife's steak right out from under her if he wants to, has not tried horse meat.
 
Steve: And just to circle back on The Misfits for a second, too.
Sort of a cultural totem in a way,
because it's the last film of Marilyn Monroe.
I believe it's the last film of Clark Gable.
And at this point in his career, Montgomery Clift was past his prime. He had been in the car accident and injured severely.
So you've got these huge A-list stars in their twilight.
 
So it just all ties in so perfectly to this deterioration,
the inevitability of decline.
And The Misfits really has come to symbolize that decline of, say, the golden age of Hollywood.
 
Jenna: And this detail about Don having tried horse meat, I think is such a great one in a sea of them, because there are all these ways that Don does not fit in as a wealthy ad guy.
As much as he is an asset to the company, he's not like them.
 
His background is light years away from Roger and Pete, and I love that the writers don't make it easy for Don.
Every day he's navigating a different cultural language than the one he was raised with, and he has to hide that it's new to him.
 
Steve: I do feel like the writing makes it a little too easy for Don to fit in.
I believe his socioeconomic background would be much more of an obstacle to him transitioning from Dick Whitman to Don Draper.
 
In this scene, when Don mentions he has eaten horse meat,
Roger noting it. As viewers, obviously, we would expect that through the Depression and the hard times and Don's, you know, very impoverished upbringing, he's probably eaten horse meat, you know, many, many times.
 
I do find it interesting that someone like Roger, who probably knows as much as anybody, and he has no real appreciation of exactly where Don Draper's coming from.
 
Jenna: Nor does Betty, his wife.
But we'll get to that.
 
Bert makes a comment about how people spend more on dog food than baby food.
I tried to find some figures about that. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, Americans spent $186 billion on their pets in 2023,
which is more than they spent on childcare.
But I couldn't find a dog food / baby food lineup.
 
Steve: I would just say that back in 1963,
there were a lot more children relative to the population than there are today.
 
So perhaps the numbers are skewed,
although with growing affluence and spending habits, who knows, you know, how that offsets the demographic decline of young people as a percentage of the population.
 
We see Annabelle here, you know,
it's very reminiscent to me of Rachel.
She's running this company now and playing a central role,
but she seems to have a lot of agency here, and she's very much knows what she wants.
 
She's laying out an objective for them, and she's shopping the business and makes it clear like, she's not just giving this to Sterling Cooper because Roger's an ex flame, she's giving them the opportunity to win her business if they can solve this pretty serious problem she has.
 
Jenna: Yeah. So as Roger and Annabelle are walking out of the meeting, I felt like this banter between Annabelle and Roger was like the shorthand between Joan and Roger, but flipped.
 
So Roger is defending his relationship with Jane to Annabelle the way that Joan defended hers with Greg to Roger.
 
And the defense is presented to a person with a lot of background knowledge and willingness to flirt.
So it was funny to me to see Roger flipped a little bit here.
 
She says, you're married, aren't you?
Yes.
Still, or again?
You know it's again.
Probably too jealous to let you have a business dinner with me.
 
These are all lines that we could imagine Roger saying to Joan, but instead, Annabelle is pressing him for it.
 
Steve: I like that observation of the flipping because that's so true. And it's also true in terms of Annabelle's flippant attitude towards it. It's not in a respectful way. It's in that flippant Roger way.
 
Exactly the way he would poke and prod at Joan, saying, hey, you know, indulge me, despite this other encumbrance you've acquired.
 
Yeah, the roles are totally flipped here, and it is amusing to see Roger on his back foot for a change.
 
 
Jenna: In our next scene, Don shows up at Suzanne's and she comes back with groceries. She wants to cook a recipe like she had in Little Italy. And then she gets sad that she can't take him out to a restaurant or go anywhere in public with him.
 
He wants her on the side in a useful box, and she's starting to want more than that.
So she speaks the truth to him.
She says, I look at your life, and even if I remove myself, I see a man who is not happy.
 
Shocker, he goes, I'm happy now.
And he moves toward her. Because that's going to solve everything.
 
Steve: And it's really the wrong thing to say to her because she immediately gets rather cold and distant.
Where do you think that frustration comes from in Suzanne? What's going through her mind?
 
Jenna: Well, she always knew that this was the case.
I don't know if it's real love - I don't know if they've really fallen in love with each other, but they certainly have enjoyed the romance of it.
 
Their relationship seems very cliche. Of course, they're always going to bump into this problem.
Their relationship can't grow beyond where it is, unless he blows up everything with Betty.
Let's put a pin in that for just a minute, though.
 
How do you see it? Why do you think she's suddenly coming to a point here where this is not enough for her?
 
Steve: Well, I think she's fallen for him.
So even if going into it, she was aware of the limitations,
I feel like it's switching now. And what she's hoping for or dreaming for out of this relationship has changed.
 
And when she floats that to him, I think it's a vulnerable moment for her.
And the fact that he doesn't reciprocate those sentiments and really, I think, tries to keep it locked down into this secret fling zone that's very off putting to her that she's shown a little piece of her heart.
 
He's not going there. And she starts to, rather mechanically, you know, unpack the grocery bag. And Don can read that the temperature in the room has gone down by several degrees.
 
Jenna: Yeah. So she starts cooking and he says he's going to lie down.
I mean, she just worked a full day and now she's cooking for two. But sure, Don, you go rest.
 
But this is the cost, right? This is where Betty's life is,
that Don goes and lies down and does whatever he wants while Betty continues on managing their life and making it work for them.
 
So now Suzanne is on this sort of darker, much less fun side that this conventional life with Don.
Even if she could have it, this is how he is with his partner.
He holds them at a distance. And it's not like he's going to stand in the kitchen and cook with her. Things are coming apart.
 
Steve: And I like the writing here because even if you did enter into this relationship knowing it was a fling, and it was limited by a number of other factors and things evolve or go into places you hadn't anticipated.
 
So to me, that feels very real, the messiness of things. You know, she's a modern woman. She has her eyes open, but that doesn't mean she can anticipate where her feelings are going to go here.
 
 
Jenna: The next scene puts the camera right on Greg in an interview scenario talking about why he left surgery.
As the camera pulls back, we see Joan is coaching him, feeding him interview questions about a new specialty in psychiatry.
 
And as they talk, you can see how good Joan is at this. I kind of wish she would start her own business as a career consultant.
But then Greg's responses to her make us understand why she couldn't.
 
She's very encouraging, and she says the most important thing in an interview is to express enthusiasm in a believable way.
And he replies, this isn't a beauty pageant.
 
So he doesn't trust what she's saying. And even though she's supportive, he's belittling.
 
Steve: Yeah, he really has no idea how well she knows what needs to happen and how well she's coaching him here.
But that seems to be par for the course with Greg, right?
 
He's more hung up with being in charge, and he's the man and the alpha, when really it's, why don't you stop thinking for a while?
It'll help the team and let Joan, you know, navigate here.
 
And if he would just listen to her, she's setting him up to win.
And the fact that he's so resistant to it, you know, it just leaves us thinking Greg is a little slower than the other kids on the bus.
 
Jenna: She doesn't even get offended, either. She just says, I've seen executives crash and burn, and it's not a show off and it's not a dig,
it's just the truth of her experience, which he is failing to appreciate.
 
But Joan really seems genuinely loving to him in this scene. You can see she is all in with Greg. She's really committed to his success and to them working as a couple.
 
Steve: Joan seems like a good partner. If only he would listen to the advice, he'd get further down the road.
 
 
Jenna: Back at Suzanne's, she joins Don in bed and they talk about being together.
I just wanted more than I thought I would want, she says, but it will pass.
 
And he says,
I don't want it to pass.
And it sounds like he wants her to love him, but also he wants to keep his family the way it is and there are no guarantees for her about when he decides things are over.
 
They come out of this conversation deciding they'll take a short getaway together.
He doesn't mention his family is already planning to be out of town for Halloween.
 
Steve: I'm not a big fan of Don's response here, because it reminds me very much of his earlier response of, oh, I'm happy now.
 
She says, I want something deeper. Again, I think she's conveying those feelings.
And his response is, hey, let's jet off to Rome for a weekend, you know, only this time it's Mystic, Connecticut, which, you know, you might prefer to Rome.
 
He's not addressing her deeper feelings. He's not revealing whether he shares them. He's just offering a getaway and a diversion here.
She doesn't get upset at that response, but it is in many ways more of the same.
 
And I'm left wondering here, does he feel any deeper feelings, or does he kind of like this set-up the way it is and this is optimal for him and, you know, he has no appetite for it to go further.
 
Jenna: I had that same comparison in my notes, too, that Betty and Don went to Italy to try to save their marriage, and Suzanne and Don are going to Norwich to save their affair, I guess.
 
And I agree, I think this works for Don.
But it's already so sad between them. The cycle burned through pretty quickly.
 
I think they first slept together in September or maybe late August, and Halloween is coming up this week,
so they've really quickly gone through the throes of first love and passion, and I'll do anything for you - I'll drive your brother to his job three and a half hours away, or whatever it is.
 
And now here they are, already looking at the end stretch because things can't continue like this. She's clearly unhappy.
 
Steve: I don't know for Suzanne, how many flings like this she's had, but it feels to me in some of her earlier comments, as they were sort of flirting and she was fending him off a bit, this is not her first go around either.
 
So I do get the sense that her sadness and lament here is really wishing this could go somewhere else. But also realistically, pragmatically speaking, she knows there are so many obstacles and blockers to that ever happening.
 
 
Jenna: The next day, Roger is in his office with his golf clubs when he gets a call from Joan. He's pleased to hear from her, but he says, oh, it's lucky he answered because Ginger isn't in.
 
Joan already knows that.
She goes, Ginger has a hair appointment the last Tuesday of every month, she tells him,
which Roger has never noticed, even though Ginger has been his secretary for at least three years.
 
So Joan manages him completely.
He's happy to chat.
And you can see throughout the call she's a little bit flirty,
she's polite, she's not too desperate, not too personal,
even though it must be very difficult for her to have to ask,
can you help me finding some work?
 
Steve: I think that's the hurdle she has to jump here. I don't think she wants to ask for help, but she's also pragmatic about it and realizes that she needs help,
and he would be a great potential source of it.
 
So she swallows her pride and does what needs to be done in order to get to destination. And I think this is a good example of Joan's dedication to getting whatever it is she needs to get to.
 
Oh, you know, Greg's pursuing his love, and we just want to sort of tidy up our finances while we're waiting for that ship to come in.
I don't get the sense that Roger sees through that at all.
But Joan is certainly wary in trying to put up a brave face here.
 
Jenna: So naturally, Roger invites Joan back to Sterling Cooper. He'd be happy to have her there.
 
And she says a secretary makes less money than if she were working in a department store, which she is, or has been anyway.
 
So even though I think she does miss Sterling Cooper, she wants to demand a higher salary for herself in her next position.
 
Pragmatic is a great word to describe her position because she's negotiating for something better for herself financially here.
 
Steve: And I love her little tease there where she says at the end of it, look at you figuring things out for yourself.
 
And Roger takes it with good humor. And you really feel the warmness between the two of them.
 
Jenna: He says, I'm so glad you called me.
And she says, I'm sorry it was for a favor.
And he says, you want to be on some people's minds, some people you don't.
I think he will always have feelings for Joan. I really do.
 
Steve: Yeah, I agree. And I think. I think she has feelings for him as well.
 
 
Jenna: Next we see Betty - she and William are at their father's house with the lawyer. They're getting ready to sell the house, and there's some friction over William wanting it but not having the cash to buy Betty's half from her.
 
After a bit, Betty arranges to speak with a lawyer in private.
She sits behind the desk in the power chair.
Her father's upper right hand drawer - that drawer that was always locked in Don's office - is open.
 
Betty tells her family lawyer what she knows about Don, that he's been married before, he bought his ex wife a house, and he's not using his real name.
He asks if she can prove adultery, and she considers.
Maybe.
 
Steve: This is one of those time capsules that I feel as a modern viewer,
it's hard to appreciate just how limited the options were for a woman seeking a divorce in 1963 in New York State,
 
in the absence of proving adultery, Betty really doesn't have a leg to stand on unless he agrees to the divorce.
And then in terms of the settlement,
there's not really an established case law to ensure that she would get her fair share of assets.
So because he's the breadwinner, he would have all the power.
 
Probably the lament we hear the most now is from the man claiming that he didn't get a fair shake and that too much was taken and all the rest of it back.
 
At this time, Betty's options are limited,
and this leads Milton to tell her that if there's any chance of reconciling or any chance of just putting up and tolerating this, that she should do so. And he sort of checks on, you know, are you afraid of him?
Is he still a good provider?
 
And when those boxes are ticked, you can really tell he's inclined to tell her to stay with him. And he even points out that this would be the advice he would give his own daughter in this circumstance.
 
Jenna: It feels like a callback to her family doctor when he said, go home and tell your friends about your pregnancy, and you'll get excited about it and you'll see it'll be fine.
 
And it's not that what he's saying is untrue,
and it is incredible that she has no financial security if she decides to leave him, given all the things about Don.
 
Yes, she won't get any money in the divorce. It won't be enough to buy William’s half of the house, and Don can take the children, the lawyer says.
 
And in a huge truth call out, Betty doesn't say, oh, that's so unfair.
But she does say, it's a lie so big, Milton, saying it out loud to you,
it's the first time I'm realizing it's true.
 
This is important. The lie matters to her. He stacked a house of cards, and she thought she had a solid foundation.
 
And we know she can't trust him because of the infidelity.
And you have to know she suspects a lot more than just Bobbie Barrett.
And now here is another gigantic reason not to trust him.
 
She has to know that a lot of men cheat. I think it's not that she wants to be the wife of somebody who cheats, but at least that's a known fear that this other lie,
it's not just a name change. It's not just a label on a can.
 
It's whether his actual identity is fixed, if. If who he is with her is who he really is, and she doesn't even know that, and she's married to him.
 
Steve: Yeah, I think it's the emotional betrayal here of that lie, which is interesting because we are so cognizant of his sexual infidelity.
 
Yet what seems to be the backbreaker is the emotional betrayal of this person that's supposed to be your partner in life. You're supposed to know everything about each other.
 
And not only does she not know about this prior life, but there's all these other aspects attached with it, like the divorce, like the purchase of the home.
You can really see that that is something that's insurmountable in a way that it feels like the sexual infidelity.
 
Throughout most of the three seasons we've watched them so far, they almost seem to have a working arrangement in it. And at times, she agrees not to look,
 
and he agrees to be discreet, and then they can pretend that it's not an issue and it doesn't intrude with her discovery of the box.
 
It feels like there's something lodged in her brain that she can't -
She can't look past it. She can't ignore it. And this is the immovable object.
 
Jenna: Well, and there was the emotional betrayal of the psychiatrist, too, that he was calling the psychiatrist, who was willingly telling him everything that she said in confidence.
So there's so much distrust between them.
 
It's very difficult to ever look at that man and be okay about whatever it was that he's telling you. For viewers, it's that way for a long time for Betty: how are you believing this, or how are you coming to this peace with this or this agreement, this piece of it?
 
She's right. It is a much bigger lie.
 
Steve: And circling back to the historical context again. So it's pretty clear that in New York State in 1963, Betty has very few rights and entitlements as a woman.
 
But I also think the larger piece there as well is you have a society and a legal system that is discouraging divorce.
And the way it's discouraging it is on the backs of the female partners who are beholden to their husbands as the provider.
 
You've got this moral,
ethical attempt to tell people how to live their lives that is being pushed by the state.
And then you can see it manifested within the legal system in a disempowering way to these people.
 
Why doesn't she just get out of there and end this? And she doesn't have to put up with this.
The answer might be, actually she does have to put up with this.
And if you don't want to put up with it,
well, have a look at what that entails.
 
Jenna: And in a great Mad Men detail,
we get William rattling the locked door saying, damn it, Betts, this isn't right, because he's been locked out of the room,
never guessing that she's actually talking about her very private,
very upsetting concern.
 
And I think it is so authentic because,
I don't know, it seems like a lot of people after the loss of their parents and estate questions, it can be very fractious.
 
So the fact that this is the backdrop of what Betty's dealing with, and normally that would be a huge thing of, you know, how do I deal with my brother and navigate this?
And in the shadow of Don's reveal, it's almost nothing.
 
Steve: Yeah, it's great comedic value here as William's focus is completely on the house and the distribution of assets from their father's estate and Betty's grappling with something much, much bigger than this.
 
 
Jenna: At dinner that evening between Roger and Annabelle,
Annabelle talks about her reasons for not staying with Roger.
She says, you were adrift, just spending money, walking around like a character in someone's novel, the boxing.
 
And later they mention Hemingway.
So all this would have been in Paris before the war.
The Sun Also Rises features a ridiculed character who was a wealthy former boxer and a romantic fool.
This character, Cohn, was based on Hemingway's real life friend, Harold Loeb.
 
And Roger says,
I'm not going to sit here and listen to your reasons.
Believe it or not, I still remember them.
 
And we can see this young love from Roger's past has informed who he is. He remembers the pain that this didn't work out.
And I think he continues to be a romantic and he wants to find this beautiful problem free, storybook romance.
 
And I think we can see all the reasons that Annabelle left him are issues for Mona. Certainly Mona - we didn't get to see this - but certainly she nagged and corrected Roger.
And he never wants to be tied down with obligations.
He wants to be the hero at every turn.
And isn't this a fun vision of yourself? To be the hero?
 
Steve: We can really see how Roger blames Annabelle for ending that relationship.
All the blame and responsibility is on her as far as Roger is concerned.
 
And here we are decades later and he's still got pent up anger and hurt related to this, we can feel his pain and we can see him lashing out at her.
 
And I don't think she's unsympathetic to it as well. I think she sees and appreciates the hurt she did to him back then, although now the shoe is on the other foot and it's her who's interested in perhaps getting closer to him.
 
And she's hitting a brick wall. You know, he's, he's found that,
that young love and, and he's not interested in revisiting the past.
 
Jenna: Well, I think she is romanticizing the past as well because she says,
I want to remember what I was like at that age.
Paris before the war.
Right? Like when you were young and in love and everything was beautiful and the future stretched out impossibly beautifully before you.
 
And she compares it to Casablanca.
And she says, you're trying to tell me when you saw Casablanca you didn't think about me?
 
He says, this is not Casablanca. The only similarity is that you left me for another man. And he has this great line:
That woman got on a plane with a man who was going to end World War II, not run her father's dog food company.
 
Steve: I also liked his line when she asked about,
you know, what was the, the window between Mona and Jane.
And Roger confesses there wasn't much of a window.
 
Jenna [Laughing]: In fact, it overlapped.
 
You can see Roger is tempted to go off with Annabelle, but he stays faithful to Jane.
He says, it's different with this girl, but I don't believe him.
 
I don't think Jane is different. She's just a do-over.
So Roger can believe in himself that he can be this good guy,
much in the way that Don wants Suzanne to see him.
 
Betty no longer can see Don this way, but Suzanne can. And that feels really good.
 
And to emphasize that Jane is just a placeholder, he doesn't use her name at all in the whole episode.
So, talk about a label on a can.
She could be any pretty young girl.
 
Steve: I think that's a really important observation, and I think it suggests that exactly. Jane is this symbol of his lost youth and his attempt to reclaim it.
 
He is legitimate and serious in his devotion to that myth or that lie that he's telling himself.
But I, I think you also have a great point that it is a lie.
Ultimately, he is every bit the hound he was prior to meeting Jane during, during this series.
 
Yeah, he's doing the right thing here, but the more he protests.
Yeah, you just start to think it's the same old Roger under there. And I think Annabelle knows him well enough to know that's true, which exacerbates her own frustration.
So her evening's not going to end the way she ideally hoped it would.
 
Jenna: And in terms of the business conversation,
Roger advises Annabelle to let somebody else buy her company and change the name.
And do what? Annabelle asks.
 
So her work and her legacy mean something to her.
And Roger and Don, who are reinventing themselves fairly often -
the one avoids work wherever possible, and the other one hides his family legacy -
they don't treat Annabelle as if she's foolish, but they also don't connect to those values.
 
So for her to sell the company, I mean, he says, you're rich.
But for her, it's purpose, it's part of her identity and it's part of her legacy, her father's name, they're just casting that aside.
 
Steve: Yeah. And that name on the can is not just a label on a can. To Annabelle, it represents something far bigger and more core to who she is and her own identity.
You'd think even if someone like Don or Bert is missing it, surely Roger should see it.
 
 
Jenna: Next we see Joan arriving home, seeing Greg watching TV.
He's upset that he screwed up his answers in his psychiatry interview.
In a truth call-out, Joan says, oh, I'm sure that's not true.
 
And he dismisses her again.
He says, stop acting like you know everything.
And he goes on to say he doesn't want to be a psychiatrist, that it's not even medicine and he might as well work at a bank.
 
I think we can agree Greg would make a terrible psychiatrist,
but also we can agree that psychiatry is medicine.
And further, he's being a whiny baby.
 
Steve: He does seem very entitled here and feeling sorry for himself that he didn't get the surgeon job. And now he's gonna have to work and claw to try and pull together something else.
And then it turns out perhaps it's not psychiatry.
 
The fact that he's so whiny and thin-skinned with Joan, you know, like his comment about her, you don't know everything is revealing.
And the pressure he feels around her, maybe he doesn't admit of doing to himself consciously, but his subconscious knows that he's got this high-powered woman and partner who's absolutely right and giving him sound advice.
 
Jenna: And she's sensitive.
She says, I'm sorry Greg, maybe it's time to move on.
And she says she doesn't care what job he does as long as he does something. They need money.
And that's true.
 
And Greg says he did everything they told him. He's wanted to be a surgeon since he was little.
 
I feel like Joan has sympathy, and viewers, maybe, if they can at all forgive him, you might have some sympathy here, too.
He's put in some work. He's not getting the reward he wants.
 
But just when you might start to feel a little something for Greg,
he turns on Joan and he says,
you don't know what it's like to want something your whole life,
to plan for it and count on it and not get it.
Yeah.
 
I'm not an advocate for violence, especially a vase to the back of the head, but it might be less painful than if she said what all of us know to be true about Joan:
He is not what she counted on her whole life, and she did everything they told her.
 
Steve: It's nice to have this little reminder of Pete Campbell popping up here at this conversation.
 
Jenna: It isn't easy for anybody, Pete.
 
And at the end of this scene, Greg,
who just had his psychiatry interview, yells, you're insane. You know that?
Which is not the most professional linguistic choice.
 
Steve: It's funny to me that she breaks the vase over his head and he takes it. But you can also see he's somewhat surprised and has no idea at what an awful thing he just said to his wife.
 
Jenna: And I don't mean to say I told you so, but I think back to Joan and the pilot and what she wanted: play your cards right and you'll be living - you'll be out of the city entirely with some rich husband.
That was her dream. That was what she wanted.
 
You look at where she is now,
and she is a woman who knows how to play cards.
And she's given advice to multiple people. We saw her trying to advise Peggy, we can assume she does that to other people she's worked with as well.
 
And yet, how can she possibly find herself in this situation?
And I think we can feel for her, even though simultaneously I think we want her to dream bigger than that.
 
Steve: And what are the implications? Let's say he had become a surgeon and now he is making big money and she is settled in the burbs, living her life.
 
Is she really going to be happy and fulfilled in that world? I tend to doubt that. There may not be the pressure and the crisis of, oh, Greg has to find another profession now.
But is Joan any happier in that, you know, sort of, everything went according to plan scenario? I don't think she would be.
 
Jenna: Is she just another Betty Draper going to the stables to pass the time, you think?
 
Steve: Yeah, I think she might be. And with frustrations about that, because unlike Betty, where I think we could make the argument that we're not really sure what it is she does want, and maybe Betty doesn't know what she wants.
 
I feel like Joan, with her demonstrated talents and inclinations,
is a lot closer to an answer to that question, you know, a substantive, real answer.
 
Jenna: I think Joan could go more toward Trudy, who does seem very fulfilled in her role, supporting her husband and hosting charity meetings. And she seems really bought into that lifestyle.
I could see Joan going that way.
 
Maybe she is fulfilled from her social connections and power dynamics and strategizing that are involved with having dinner with the right people.
 
Knowing what we know about her, I think we want some professional options for her instead.
And, of course, it's a modern take, so it's hard to get away from that.
 
 
Steve: The next scene takes us to the focus group on dog food.
Well, they've got the pet owners talking about their food with their dogs and then reveal that this is Caldecott Farms, at which there's this visceral reaction from the pet owners, who don't want their dogs eating horse meat.
 
Jenna: I really like that the guy who describes his dog as, oh, he's independent - he later says, when people are protesting, I'm on board.
[In the episode they discuss how people in the focus group ascribe traits to their pets that they feel are true about themselves.]
 
Steve: There's no clearer demonstration that the name has been poisoned. And Don expresses that and says, look, it's a label on the can. The product is good. Let's rebrand it.
 
Jenna: And as the people in the focus group get more and more upset, Don says, turn it off.
And I love when Peggy, confused, goes, I can't turn it off - it's actually happening.
 
Steve: Roger is not especially sympathetic to Annabelle.
He says, look, the name is done. It's unfair, but is over.
And we know this is a hot button for Annabelle.
 
Jenna: Yes. Annabelle asked Don for two things.
She said, don't change the recipe and don't change the name.
And he acted like that was fine.
 
And now he's advising her to change one of her key requests.
This whole performance of a focus group is for Annabel's benefit to show her the name won't work anymore.
But it isn't what she wanted. Her legacy matters.
 
Of course, Don Draper is the ultimate in rebranding, and the pain of changing his name exists. It isn't as easy as changing shirts.
But he isn't embedded into a tradition of family.
 
And Roger is always talking about how, that's my name on the building. And Pete's father said, we gave you everything. We gave you your name.
And for Annabelle to give up her legacy, and for Don to be casual about it,
it's not nothing.
 
Steve: And I would also point out that Don says,
look, you know, these other agencies will be happy to take your money by adhering to your two rules,
but the fact of the matter is the name is toxic. It's radioactive.
 
That's not what Annabelle wants to hear. But I do think from a professional standpoint, it's a legitimate stance for Don to take here.
 
Jenna: So Annabelle says she's going to find another agency, and Roger has that moment when he says, let it go.
The name is done. It's unfair, but it's over.
And of course, there's an extra layer between them as he says that.
 
Roger follows Annabelle to the break room, and clears all the people out.
I really love this scene. I really do. It's just not often that people are honest about important things on this show.
 
And we saw Peggy telling Pete the truth in the season two finale, which was painful and tense. And I feel like this has echoes of that.
 
And it's impressive, because we've just met this character and we feel like we know their story together.
And Roger could tell jokes, or he could get a hotel room with her or parade Jane in front of her.
 
But he says something that's so true that very few people say, even though many people have been in his shoes.
He says to her, you want to know if it was a great time?
It was.
You want to know if you broke my heart?
Obviously.
 
And she comes back with something honest and risk-taking when she says,
“When I was burying that man, all I thought was that I'd rather have my heart broken every day by you.
You were the one.”
 
And he says you weren't.
Do you think that's cruel or unnecessary when he says that?
 
Steve: I think it's a cruel way of stating this truth, that you can't go back and revisit this decision. You can't go home.
 
And I think there are gentler ways he could have expressed that or commiserated with her about that truth.
I think the fact that he chooses the harder way of expressing it is maybe just an example of his petty petulance here,
of the hurt he suffered in the past, and he can't stop himself.
 
So I don't think it's done with great forethought, but I think it's his pain slipping out there. What about you?
 
Jenna: I took it more the way that Peggy tells Pete, I had your baby and I gave it away, that being clear is kind here, that there's no future in opening this door.
 
She responds with much more dignity than Pete did to Peggy.
She says, well, you're lucky you found her, meaning The One.
Still, we don't get Jane's name anywhere.
 
But that's the less honest part of Roger. He wants Jane to be the one, but Jane's not the one because it's really him who's the issue.
 
He wants to be so many things and have everything without giving up anything else.
And I think Mona could have been the one if he had been ready.
 
I think it's possible Annabelle is just romanticizing their past, and all the reasons she left him would still be issues if Roger decided to be with her.
 
But I 100% don't believe that Roger's gonna find what he's looking for with Jane. So I don't think Roger stands up for Jane because of Jane.
I think Roger refuses to be with Annabelle, using Jane as an excuse, because Roger wants to see himself as the type of guy who's so happy with Jane.
And I think that's a self delusion.
 
Steve: No, no. And it's just the lie he's constructed that, that he's adhering to in the moment, personally in life.
 
To me, one of the great tragedies is this notion of you can't go home, you can't go back.
The pieces have moved. Things have changed.
 
To me, this whole interaction between Annabelle and Roger is so bittersweet.
Back in the day, she's the one who ended it with him.
 
And now, years later, you know, she wants to reignite the flame and he's not willing to indulge in that.
It almost is a parallel, I think, to the name on the can of dog food, right?
The name is done.
You can't bring it back, you can't resurrect it, you can't save it. It's gone now. It's been washed away.
 
 
Jenna: Suzanne and Don have parked down the street from his house and they're going four hours out of town together.
 
She reaches for his face and he glances around, conscious of the neighbors. And she slides down in the seat so she can't be seen while she waits. He'll be right out, he says.
 
I find it hard to believe that either one of them would be willing to park on his street.
I mean, a teacher cannot go anywhere without running into a student or a parent or a co worker.
 
And Don knows his neighbors know Betty.
The relationship itself is careless, but this specific act is extra careless.
 
Steve: It seems to me to be the most egregious example of this trying to be caught that, you know, Matt Weiner talks about in his commentary.
What are you doing? Like, this is a bad idea.
 
Jenna: So Don, who just said, I'll be right out,
goes into the house and it's dark,
and he's surprised to find his family has returned home from being out of town.
 
The kids hug him, and he sees Betty and he says, oh, I left my hat in the car.
Yeah, a hat named Suzanne.
But Betty says, get it later. I need to talk to you.
 
Given that his latest affair is waiting to go away with him in his car just down the street,
it is pretty nervy for him to say, what did William do now?
 
Because I think a piece of him has to be wondering if this conversation is about Betty finding out about Suzanne.
But we kind of don't have that on our mind, because we know what Betty wants to talk to Don about.
 
And he leans in to kiss her, and he tries to get away.
He says, oh, I have a client dinner in the city.
So again, he's just saying, oh, Betty, your needs can wait.
 
Steve: It's pretty clear that he's trying to assert control here, and push through whatever's going on with Betty so he can get on with his plans.
 
I think one of the unique aspects of this scene is how Betty takes charge and refuses to relinquish control.
And as Don attempts at various points to reassert his own control and bully or bluff her down, it all fails.
She's driving the car now, and he's stuck in the car, going wherever she takes him.
 
Jenna: Betty leads Don into the office.
We've never seen it this brightly lit, and we've never seen them in there together before.
 
This showdown is such a long time coming. Pete Campbell and Bert Cooper know this about Don, but Betty doesn't.
 
Steve: And Rachel knows it about Don as well, because he confessed it to her.
 
Jenna: So she tells him to open the locked drawer, shows him that she has the keys, and he maintains his denial and indignation for a shockingly long time in this exchange,
until she says,
you know I know what's in there.
And you see his hand fall to the desk.
 
Steve: That gesture of the hand to the desk, and I think it's holding the key. It really signifies his surrender.
 
And it makes me think of the Balzac quote from earlier in the series, that our greatest fears lie in anticipation.
And surely, at this moment,
all Don Draper's greatest fears of his Dick Whitman background lie in the anticipation of what's about to happen.
 
Jenna: You didn't have to look at my things, he says.
And that line shows he's really hurt.
 
But it also seems like the essence of the way he's been hurting Betty, that including her is an invasion of his privacy.
 
But Betty keeps the pressure going. She starts with a name change, and she quickly wants to know about this Anna woman, whoever she is.
I can explain, he says.
I know you can. You're a very gifted storyteller, she says.
 
It's startling to realize how much Don controls the narrative most of the time, especially when we see Betty finally having control of this conversation, and we've never seen that before.
 
Steve: And he also - he's still obfuscating. So she says, which things? The pictures with other people's names?
 
And he says, well, people change their names. You did.
As if there's any parallel here between someone getting married and changing their legal name.
 
You know, when you change your legal name, yeah, technically you've changed your name, but you're not changing your whole identity. It's just really, you're updating the label on the jar.
 
In Don Draper / Dick Whitman's case, this is the complete abandonment of a prior identity and taking on a completely new one. So there's no parallel here.
 
This really is more of this lying and denial and deceit, rather than coming clean. Even though he's trapped and she's able to pin him to the wall on the deceit, he's continuing with these pathetic efforts to obscure what's really occurred.
 
Jenna: And January Jones and Jon Hamm are doing an amazing job keeping up the tension and pressure in this scene.
 
In fact, it's so tense that until Don walks into the kitchen for a drink,
you would be forgiven for forgetting that Suzanne is still out in the car waiting for Don to go away with her.
 
And if you were feeling sorry for Suzanne about this at all,
I would think about it this way:
Don was at Suzanne's house the night that Betty found the box.
So Betty never got to have this confrontation then,
even though she was planning it.
 
So when she joins him in the kitchen and she says,
are you thinking of what to say, or are you just looking at that door?
I don't get the sense that Don has remembered. Suzanne is outside.
 
He's really nervous. He drops his cigarette.
But that's all about Betty knowing him. And it's so rare that she has his full attention, because he gives it to her so sparingly. But not here.
 
Steve: I think January Jones and Jon Hamm do a really nice job in this scene.
 
Even when Don was found out, you know, with Pete and the box and the sort of panic running to Rachel and saying to her, let's run away, we never saw him as shaken and vulnerable as he seems to be in this scene.
 
It almost seems like Betty takes a bit of pity on him.
So despite her anger, she can simultaneously see just how rocked he is and the passivity with which he's now speaking and behaving and sort of following her directions.
 
And she tells him she'll get him the drink.
It's not a side of Don Draper that we've seen in this series to any extent.
He's like a lost little boy.
 
Jenna: He is like a little boy. He goes into almost a childlike state with his short answers.
His explanation about his name change, and his other wife goes about as well as it could, I think. He's mostly factual.
He leaves some things out and it's a lie about what happened in Korea still.
 
And he tries to rally.
He says, when would be a good time to tell you about this? On our first date, on our wedding night.
 
But that's just an excuse. I mean, there's no way Don never had time between their first date and their engagement to have this conversation.
It was just fear. It was just the fear that kept him lying.
 
He starts to push back, asking, why did you need to know?
And again, like when he said she didn't have to look through his things,
him deciding she didn't need to know this - this is a huge part of the problem.
 
It's not only the lie and the other marriage, it's his insistence that she should be happy with a piece of himself he chooses to give her.
 
You know, at the awards banquet in the last episode, Roger said of Betty that he knew sometimes Sterling Cooper had gotten the lion's share of Don's time and attention.
 
And it's not that he shouldn't have anything outside of his relationship with Betty, but this is a primary relationship in his life, and she's been outside of most of what happens in it.
 
Steve: What does it say about Don Draper's view of himself?
I started with nothing. I was super poor. I built myself up into this high powered Madison Avenue advertising executive.
 
I've got, you know, a trophy wife, beautiful kids, lovely house.
I mean, he's arrived. He's achieved the American dream, you know, for 95% of the population, at least the external material perspective on it.
 
Yet he's simultaneously seems to have this shame and loathing of his prior self. It's this deep, dark secret. He doesn't share it with anybody. He hasn't shared it with this woman he's been married to for over a decade. He's had three children with her.
Still, he conceals it.
 
Yet simultaneously, he doesn't throw away the trappings of it, because there's really no need for him to keep those old pictures or whatever it is and certainly not keep them in a place that's so readily accessible when and if the keys fall into her hands, it speaks to the psychological damage that Don Draper brings with him to the table.
 
You know, for all his bad conduct and bad behavior,
I think he's got a very strained relationship with himself and his own - his own perception of himself that's at the heart of his inability to share with others.
 
Jenna: Yes, we were talking earlier with Roger and Annabel about how you can't go back, but also you can't leave home behind really, ever.
 
And I think this move forward philosophy, that's where it runs into trouble, because he's carrying things with him and trying to pretend like they don't exist, and it's not healthy.
 
Betty stays focused on getting answers, and she asks about the photos, and she says, you have a family.
All this time, I thought you were some football hero who hated his father.
 
And I love that this comes out, because she had to have speculated about his past, because he never talks about it. And she doesn't push on him. Until now, she hasn't pushed that very much. She's just accepted whatever he's offered.
 
And she says, I knew you were poor.
I knew you were ashamed of it.
I was very poor, he says.
 
And I think this is important, because Betty has been accused by some viewers of wanting to end this relationship because she sees Don so differently after finding this box because of his poverty,
a bit like Joan sees Greg, that he isn't the catch that she expected him to be.
 
But Betty could not know or imagine what Don's upbringing would have been like. She still has had a concept that Don came from a poor background and she married him.
 
And I think her bigger concern is she wants to know about Anna, if Don saw her in California, and he admits he did.
She is more concerned about the lie.
And I think the relationship with Anna really bothers her, too. I think that's at the heart of her biggest hurt.
 
Steve: From Betty's perspective, you've got to assume that the relationship with Anna is both romantic and sexual.
And in fact, he was married to her, so she has no reason to doubt that he loved this woman and committed to marrying her.
 
Now, we know as viewers that none of that's true, and that's not the nature of the relationship, which, again, is highly unusual for Don Draper.
 
But I think she sums it up here,
late in the scene in the kitchen when she says, you lied to me every day. I can't trust you. I don't know who you are.
 
To me, that's Betty's bottom line and problem, and I agree with you -
I don't think the problem is that he was poor or whatever.
 
Had she known about it and that been part of his identity, and she he had been open and honest with her, that would be water under the bridge.
 
Jenna: Yes, they built a life together,
but every day she believed it was one thing, while he knew it was something else.
 
But I think she's right to be upset about a decade of lies on top of the infidelity.
It would be very hard to ever trust him about anything.
 
And you can see from Don's point of view, he doesn't think it matters. He's of the Bert Cooper school of thought, that a man is whatever room he's in.
So why can't she just enjoy her house and him whenever he's around?
 
Because he believes his past does not inform his life with her.
 
Steve: Yeah, I think this is a real refutation of the Bert Cooper, you know, a man is the room he's in philosophy.
Clearly, for Betty Draper, a man is the room he's in, and every room he was in prior to this room. And that's a pretty big hurdle to overcome here.
 
 
Jenna: And they have this exchange when she says,
what would you do if you were me? Would you love you?
And he says,
I was surprised that you ever loved me.
 
And this might be the most honest thing Don has ever said to Betty,
but it's still not completely true, because really, Don doesn't think anybody can love him.
It's not just Betty. It's anybody.
 
Steve: And I don't think Don loves himself.
And I think the question then would be, if you don't love yourself,
how can you reciprocate love to another person? And I think it would be very difficult to do.
 
Jenna: So they start going through the photos, and Don tells her the truth, including the fact that his mother was a 23 year old prostitute and that his half brother killed himself after Don turned him away.
 
And Don starts to lie about Adam, and he catches himself and he corrects it. He says, he came to me for help,
and then he says, he didn't even want help.
He just wanted to be part of my life.
 
And that's what Betty has wanted, too.
Finally, Don cries.
 
Steve: After he corrects the fib where he says, you know, he wanted help and I turned him away. He didn't want help. He just wanted to be part of my life, he says, and I couldn't risk all of this.
 
And he's really on the edge of breaking down now. And you can see his shame and guilt.
And I think that self loathing isn't just for his past self.
It's with his present self, because he knows about his bad behavior and he knows how he failed Adam in this moment.
 
And regardless of his origins,
that failure to Adam is of our Don Draper, the Don Draper we've seen in the series. Not this poor Dick Whitman, you know, who's been abused and maltreated.
 
You can see, I think, Betty visibly softens, because she can see the pain and burden that this man is carrying around.
 
Jenna: Yes, in all her anger and outrage, Betty finds sympathy for him and she puts a hand on his shoulder. She says, I'm sorry,
and it's a lot of information to take in. I feel like I would have so many questions, even though it's not the right time to ask them, but she has to be wondering a thousand more things.
 
And I feel the tragedy of Adam all over again,
because in this moment,
I think Betty would make judgy comments about Adam's table manners,
but I think she would have accepted Don's brother.
 
There would have been room for him if Don had talked to Betty about it.
And so this tragedy appears again.
A different future was possible if he hadn't been afraid.
 
Steve: And let's just point out, we are less than an hour past Don's high point in the prior episode where he's the toast of the town getting an award.
Everybody's looking on at him enviously with admiration,
and now he's sobbing on the side of the bed.
It's an amazing journey in the course of less than one episode.
 
 
Jenna: In the next scene,
after Roger has just had a conversation with Annabelle about who is or isn't the one who got away late that evening, we see Roger on the phone calling on behalf of Joan.
 
She's expensive, he says, but she could whip your place into shape.
She's important to me, he tells the other person.
And he uses her name when he calls. He makes the effort for Joan.
 
Steve: Yeah, we can see how highly Roger thinks of her.
He's putting in an effort after hours to try and help her out I think this scene reflects well on Roger, given that we've seen a lot of bad behavior and childish behavior out of him.
At least he seems to be stepping up to help a friend.
 
 
Jenna: And this transitions into a scene with Joan setting the table that evening with some simple soup. When Greg comes in with flowers -
okay, that's probably pretty triggering for Joan, I would think, actually.
And he has some news.
 
Steve: I wouldn't put him in a vase. I would just have them in a box. Or just the bouquet.
 
Jenna: No, I meant before that.
 
He joined the army,
so now he can be a surgeon.
And he's really excited about this news. He says, you're going to be taken care of, and it will make me happy to give you everything you want.
And I know I should have asked you.
 
And I believe him that he believes that to earn her love, he needs to be in charge, and to know the most, and to order her around, and be able to buy her things.
 
And he doesn't understand that belittling her and failing to view her as a partner,
that lack of respect is much more of a problem for their relationship.
 
Steve: I think he's really quite blind to it. And I think he feels best about himself when he's large and in charge as the man of the house.
 
And his whole harebrained reveal here to her just shows how inept he is at being the man of the house. It's like, what, you ran off and joined the Army?
 
And as viewers, we know where Vietnam is headed. Even if people in 1963 weren't necessarily anticipating the morass that that would -
you know, we've seen Joan be so supportive and such a good partner.
 
And she is again here as she listens to this crazy decision he's taken and these actions that he absolutely should have checked in with her first before he embarked on them.
 
But she keeps a brave face up, looks very supportive, says it's wonderful.
And then it's only as she's walking away from him that you can see the look on her face.
And it's like, you know, what are you smoking, Greg?
 
 
Jenna: So it's much later that night, and the scene shifts to see,
finally, Suzanne gets out of the car with her suitcase and walks home in the dark.
 
She had to be in there for at least a couple of hours.
I don't know - how long do you wait for your married boyfriend to come out of his house for your getaway before you give up on him?
 
Steve: We should do a viewer survey on that to sort of see what the time is. Sitting - and also not sitting upright in the car. You're slouched down because you're parked somewhere you can't be seen in the vehicle.
 
 
Jenna: Because it cuts to Don from there, brushing his teeth in the bathroom right after that, and he looks in the mirror,
I imagine that that is the moment that Don remembers Suzanne was in the car.
I don't think he thought about her until that point.
 
Steve: No, I agree. And you know, Don is not cruel in that way.
So, you know, he's been so wrapped up with his own stuff.
 
But isn't this just another example of the limitations of that relationship, right? It's circumscribed by whatever the marriage is,
and the marriage eclipses it.
 
So that's how you end up being forgotten.
Until the next morning when he's brushing his teeth,
which again, I think just picks up where we started the episode, in terms of Suzanne's concerns and pain over the limitations of this relationship.
 
 
Jenna: It's very light out in the morning when Don wakes. His family pictures are in a stack on the dresser, and he starts to put them back in the box.
And then he leaves them.
Now it doesn't matter if they're out in the open.
 
And he could start having conversations with his kids about his family and values and what's important,
all those things that Gene wanted to share when he was going through his box, but we don't see Don doing that.
 
The kids are downstairs with Betty. It's not a normal morning.
Betty doesn't say anything, but she doesn't resist when he strokes her hair and kisses the kids.
 
Steve: It does seem to be a very normal domestic scene in the Draper kitchen. Betty doesn't extend any affection or warmth towards Don, but she's not hostile. She's just very neutral.
We're really, as viewers, left with this question, of where is Betty's head at this point?
 
Jenna: Allison is surprised to see Don at work, because he was scheduled to be out of town with Suzanne for a few days,
and he calls Suzanne first thing.
He stopped by to break up in person, but she was out running.
 
It's a reasonably gentle breakup, especially compared to Rachel and Bobbie. You can see that he doesn't want to hurt her,
and you can see it hurts anyway.
It was always going to.
 
Steve: I really love this scene, because the writing is right on point.
I think the acting is excellent and there's a sparsity to it as well.
Everything is being said, but in a very minimalist way.
And it's just all soaked with emotion. So to me, it's just so powerful.
 
Suzanne is totally unclear as to what happened, but she knows something major's happened. And as she ticks through, you know, did you get caught?
 
And then she's like, I guess we're not gonna see you anymore.
And she's dreading the answer.
And then, even then, she asks if he's okay, you know, which I think just emphasizes how she is, you know, a loving, considerate person.
If not to Don's spouse, well, to Don.
 
And it's just a heartbreaking scene. And then she's even worried about her own job. And she asks, you know, do I need to worry about that? And he says, no.
 
And then she needs to just get off the call because she's not going to burden him with her pain and sense of loss.
And it just makes it all the more heartbreaking.
 
Jenna: And I think that point about the job is so important, because we saw the scene with Betty, and the lawyer and how she didn't have economic power.
 
If this got out, Suzanne's career in this town and maybe elsewhere would be ruined.
She could not continue her employment.
 
So the risk for her is much more significant than Don probably thinks about on the day to day, because she's so quick to not inflict her pain on him, the fact that she does ask that question, you can see that this has been on her mind for the whole course of their relationship, and she entered into it anyway, even though that's a significant risk for her.
 
Steve: And what a tragic arc, because we start the episode with Suzanne getting sucked into her love for Don Draper, and starting to contemplate the possibilities and wanting more out of the relationship.
To now 180, the relationship is over.
 
Jenna: And their relationship had a lot with cars not going anywhere,
in the same way that they could picture going someplace with their relationship, but knowing there was never any real destination between them.
 
Because when he first picked her up in his car,
she was running. She didn't even want to drive. And he just drove her the last block home.
 
And then when he drove her brother to his new job, he let the brother out early.
And then when they left for their getaway people, they never arrived at their destination. They never went toward the destination.
There were possibilities for this to go someplace, but it never went anywhere.
 
Steve: The final scene of the episode has Don back at home after a day at work.
The kids are in their costumes, getting ready to go out for Halloween.
Sally's a gypsy, Bobby's a hobo.
 
Don is very cordial and pleasant to Betty. And again, it's a very normal interaction between the two of them,
even though we know that there's this undercurrent of information that hasn't been resolved yet.
 
Jenna: Instead of being an astronaut and Minnie Mouse, Bobby is a hobo, and Sally is a gypsy, which I think is a huge nod to Don's past instead of the future.
 
Betty extends a bit of an olive branch. She seems to be eating a sandwich, or maybe it's cake or something,
but she passes half of it to Don as he comes in.
 
Steve: The family goes trick or treating together and they're bringing baby Gene along.
They go to Carlton and Francine's house, and Carlton hands out candy to the kids and he notes, there's a gypsy and a hobo.
 
And then he looks up at Don and Betty and his eyes make contact with Don's and he says, and who are you supposed to be?
 
And we end the episode with the camera on Don's eyes. No, no reaction at all from him.
Yeah, we're all wondering with Betty, who are you supposed to be?
 
 
Jenna: The closing song is Where Is Love? from the 1960 West End musical Oliver! by Lionel Bart.
The show is based on Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist, and this song is performed when Oliver the orphan is thrown in jail after fighting.
 
Don's line to Betty, I was surprised you ever loved me, seems to have a special connection to this song and situation.
 
Along with the hobo reference,
the lyrics say:
must I travel far and wide
till I am beside the someone who
I can mean something to?
Where is love?
 
 
Our listener shout out goes to Leah R. From Minneapolis.
Thank you for your Spotify comment and for listening to our show.
We really appreciate the follows and shares and connections with listeners, so thank you so much!
 
Steve: That's it for this episode of All Things Mad Men, from Chip and Dip to Zou Bisou. Visit our website, Mad Men C to Z dot com to vote for your favorite Sterling Lines, and to share your opinions on our Double Dip questions for each episode.
 
Jenna: You can find us on Instagram and YouTube at Mad Men C to Z, and please listen, like, and subscribe. That's what the podcast's for!
 
Steve: Thanks for listening, everybody.