By Michelle Lerner

I think I have a hard time writing passionate reviews of MAD MEN, because like the characters on the show, my feelings about it are buried beneath the surface. I can’t rail against it passionately like LOST, or taunt it mercilessly like FOOTBALLERS WIVES. All I can do, is let it wash over me, and at the end, examine what’s left, like so much gold at the bottom of a sandy pan. (Oh if only this were DEADWOOD!)

This week some interesting things happened, arcanely, as is the way with this show. People are always either surprisingly blunt, or politely mysterious. The parsing of motives is what makes the show some thing to chew over long after the episode is finished.

This week the writers do something very interesting. Don is being lured away from Sterling Cooper by two big firms; McCann Erickson, and BBDO. They both over him various enticements, but he’s not sure. His boss and pal, Roger Sterling, catches a set of golf clubs meant for Don, and tell him he takes it personally. Roger (John Slattery) and Don (Jon Hamm) have great chemistry; I always find myself hoping they’ll stay together, no matter what.


The low blow comes in the form of an offer made to Betty, to be the model for a new Coke ad, being handled by McCann. Betty, a ringer for Grace Kelly, modelled for a short time, before marrying Don. In fact, she was a model when she met him. Which explains how this refined beauty ended up with the very manly strong Don. One gets the feeling they never could have met any other way. They seem from two different planets.

Betty is thrilled with her new opportunity. Don is suspicious; and he doesn’t like the idea of having a working wife. But Betty is obsessed with her looks. Don mentions that she used to hate modeling, and Betty is such a strange duck, that even when she denies this, you get the feeling it’s true. Betty is one of the strangest creatures on television. The writers have done a very interesting job with her, and January Jones plays her well. You have to get used to her performance, which is so dry as to be unsettling. But Betty is the physical embodiment of all of the paradoxes of the early 60’s. That’s a lot to pull off! But they do it. She at once wants to break free, and work, and yet she yearns to be the perfect homemaker. She believes in appearances and decorum, but she is also very sexual. Betty also has a child like earnestness that masks a wretched interior. The pressure of being all these things, and not knowing who she is is too much for her.


I get the feeling that Betty and Don only communicate well through sex, and that this is fine with both of them. Don has no idea about who his wife is, even though he pays for her therapy. Betty doesn’t know herself who she is, and adamantly doesn’t want to. And Don shuts her out of his life. It is an interesting dynamic, because you can see they believe they truly have a perfect marriage, even though they constantly lie to each other. Betty smoothes over being let go from her modeling job by explaing that she doesn’t want it anymore, she cares too much about Don and good meals and the children. Don knows the truth- that there was no ad, and won’t be because he won’t  be going to McCann. The look of anguish in his face as he understands is heartbreaking. But he doesn’t say anything. He tells her she is the best mother in the world; an angel. But we, the audience know better, and Don soon will too. The episode ends with the indelible image of angelic Betty, in her lovely pink nightgown, outside shooting an air rifle at her neighbors homing pigeons, cigarette dangling like Dirty Harry.