Get Your Own Damn Coffee
by MOLLY LAMBERT
If there's anything we learned this week from media, it's that everybody's got a backburner, but nobody wants to be somebody else's fallback option. Betty is tired of being Don's fallback, and we can't blame her any more than we can blame Don for wanting to keep that fine shorty on layaway. Everybody wants a wife.
Conrad Hilton is a prick. Even Don thinks so, and Don has been putting up with it a lot this season. This season has been all about the importance of paternal affirmation, and how the pursuit of it can lead to putting the wrong bitches on the backburner.
all of those who are white males over the age of 35, raise your hand and say aye
In order to make it work, Don has to go on a hero's quest of apologies to Roger Sterling, Pete Campbell, and Peggy. Roger wants to see Don with his tail between his legs (who doesn't?) I still hate the flashbacks to Dick Whitman's childhood, informative as they are about Don's backstory, maybe because it strains credibility in a show that is already getting a pass on a lot of things for being a period piece.
Don's father Archie Whitman (Artist's Rendering)
Like I am willing to pretend things were somehow more theatrical and dramatic because it is "the sixties" but when they go back to "the depression" to show Don's dad Archie Whitman chugging moonshine and arguing with Dick's ma about bank notices and crops I'm like "come on now, this is ridiculous."
Flashbacks are the lowest form of narrative storytelling devices! sorry Lost fans!
These are quibbles of course. I didn't much like it at first when Tony Soprano flashed back to his childhood, nor did I like it later when they abruptly stopped doing flashbacks. I learned to care for the dream sequences in The Sopranos, which is why I give Betty the benefit of the doubt on her Medgar Evers nightmare.
Betty is a tough bitch and drops the big D for dee-vorce on Don. Now that she knows Don was born poor, all his handsomeness no longer pleases her. She would rather go with some less attractive landed gentry because he promises to take care of her and means it. Henry Francis knows the life Betty is accustomed to, like which is the salad fork and how to eat cucumber sandwiches and drink a lot and ignore your children.
That things went as well as they did was the big shock of this Mad Men finale. From the tone of the rest of the season I assumed the characters were going to end up in a horrible random tragedy to underline the timeliness of last week's JFK shooting.
Last week I said that every character in Mad Men was at least a little bit sympathetic, I meant to say that the exception is the British guy from The Nanny. I honestly thought they were going to give him one redeeming quirk or vulnerability in this episode, but he stayed straight evil. I guess it was meant to throw our feelings completely over to Lane Pryce, since we are now accepting him as part of the newly formed supergroup that is Sterling-Cooper-Draper-Campbell-Pryce-Olson-Crane-Holloway-Harris.
"Beg me, you didn't even ask me?"/"Everyone thinks you do all my work, even you."
The old boys' club reconvenes to shoot their own legs off. Don, high on the fumes of his own testosterone, calls in Peggy for a quick domination session. Peggy, high on the estrogen generated by her nooners with Duck, tells Don to fuck off. Don, unable to swallow his pride, accepts Peggy's first neg and claims he's going to make a pass at Smitty and the homo. Hey Don, if you're gonna hire a homo why not call up Salvatore?
Pete, as always, provides inadvertent comic relief pretending to be sick and pulling out the chip and dip for Don and Roger. Pete looks really good and "Dead Poets Society" in his plaid bathrobe. Don, fresh from his Peggy neg, straight up tells Pete that he wants his expertise (meaning accounts). Pete's extended hand "I'm not really sick" was the second best line of the episode. Trudy is so turned on by Pete's exceptionalism that she fully forgives him for his earlier dalliance with the kraut nanny.
Roger drops the "Henry Francis" info bomb on Don. Despite the fact that everyone is coming clean about their secrets, Don still failed to tell anyone about schtupping the teacher. Hard to teach an old dog new tricks I guess. When Don pulled Betty out of the bed and gave her that hot "because you're good and everyone else in the world is bad" spiel I really thought the other shoe might drop. Will Suzanne show up again or will Don's wandering hobo dick push the reset button as per usual.
Don and Betty Draper in happier (?) days, can't remember which season this is from
Instead Don gives Betty crazy eyes and and a lot of nightgown tugging, without a patented Don Draper vag-grab although there is a decidedly sexual undertone to their fight. How dare you cuckold Don Draper! His cock is the hammer of the gods! What will happen now to the John Updike/Cheever story that was "Life In Ossining"?
yes Don, the best way to get back your estranged wife is to call her a whore
Endless slash-fic possibilities when Pete says "I'll admit it, I'm a little scared" to Harry Crane in the elevator at the empty Sterling-Coop office. Bert Cooper welcomes them to the fold like the bohemian Gandalf he is. Don is late to the office because he has to have the traumatizing divorce discussion with his children about having two Christmases and why daddy had to sleep in Gene the baby's scary room. When Don says it's temporary and Betty starts shaking her head "no" I straight LOL'd.
Don, finally ready to be emasculated, goes over to Peggy's place and gives her a weird sort of condescending lecture about how he wants her to come because he views her as part of himself? Basically it's still all about Don. Then he claims they both understand personal trauma because la la la secret baby/identity. Don tells Peggy that even if she negs him a third time, he will spend the rest of his life trying to get back in her work-pants. Notice how the women were wearing pants this episode? Subtle.
Joan made a list, and remained fabulous while doing so. When they said the art department was locked I dreamt for a moment they'd call Sal. That guy knows how to keep a secret! Joan and Roger are already flirting, and when Rog asks Peggy to get him some coffee she gets the episode's best line; "NO." Don and Roger take a long minute to survey the big room at Sterling Cooper for the last time, and I got sad thinking about on The Wire when they finish a case and take all the index cards down.
Don calls the Draper residence for the last time ever to tell Betty where he is (as if she gives a fuck). He calls her Betts, as if that's going to soften her any. Betty, ever the icy cunt tells Don "well, you'll always be their father," sounding resigned that she fucked up her life by procreating with this handsome loser/happy that she's ditching it to hit the casinos of Reno with her new daddy. Meanwhile, the Draper children get a way better mom in Carla, so maybe good deal? Unless you are Carla's children?
Don takes his suitcases down a rainy New York city street set to the heartbreak hometel. But don't worry Don, these streets will make you feel brand new, these lights will inspire you, cause you're in NEW YORK! NEW YORK! God I hate that fucking song (more to come about that). Sadly no more to come about Mad Men until summer.
So many questions remain. Did Peggy dump Duck? What sort of a bachelor will Don Draper be? What will happen to tragic nobleman Paul Kinsey? Charmed gladstone wonderboy Ken Cosgrove? And what about Sal? We're all pulling for you, Sal.
Molly Lambert is the managing editor of This Recording. She also tumbls and twitters.
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