Mad Men: The Night Don Fessed Up
What's in a name? Well, we certainly found out—whether it was Don Draper or dog food—that names really matter, especially for Betty, who finally got the truth and some emotion out of her husband. Wow, what a night!
The tension between Don and Betty when he finally let her know all about her past couldn't have been more taut if there was another woman hiding in his car in the driveway. Oh wait, there was! Yes, it was a wild evening for the Drapers, but also Roger, who connected with more than one old flame, and Joan who continues to be our hero. But what everything really came down to last night was names, what people are called and when, and how identity shapes their actions.
Don and Betty: Don comes home to pick up some clothes for a quick getaway with mistress Missy to find that Betty has returned home early from her jaunt to Philly to deal with the remnants of her father's estate. She is wearing a pair of stellar plaid pants, a high-necked blouse and a scowl that would make Don's face melt like he just opened the Arc of the Covenant in Raiders of the Lost Arc. Passive, avoiding Betty is passive no more.
"Come here, I want to show you something," she says, but she really wants Don to show her the truth. Don is reluctant to open the drawer and starts accusing Betty. He is really behaving like one of the drug abusers on Intervention, attacking those who called him out, coming up with any excuse not to deal with the issue at hand, and pleading through desperation and sweat for it all to stop. But Betty stares him down and demands to know the truth. After consulting her father's lawyer, she learns that she probably doesn't have enough money or gumption to actually leave Don, so she has to make this thing work.
When Don is trying to weasel his way out of opening the drawer that contains his secret, Betty asks Don about the pictures in the box and why they say "Dick"—spitting out the name like it's a bit of poison, and she would rather make him sick with it than ingest it herself. He tries to downplay that he changed his name, trying to only give her what he can get away with. "People change their names all the time. You did," he says. "I did. I took your name," she replies.
With that, Don knows that she is as much a part of him as the past he is so ashamed of, and he opens up—with the help of some booze and cigarettes of course. He asks her what she wants to know and she says, "Let's start with your name," because what you call something is the basest way of understanding what it is. He says his name is "Donald Draper," because he has so subsumed this identity that he doesn't know anything else.
But Don tells her everything: pretending to be the dead man, divorcing his old wife, his brother's suicide. And they sit on the bed together, and he gives everyone in the pictures their names, making them real for himself (which they haven't been in a long time) and for Betty, who has never known any of this before. Don is noticeably upset and displaying an enormous amount of emotion for such a stoic character, and all Betty can offer him is a tentative hand on his shoulder. Now that she has finally stood up to him and he has opened up to her, they are closer than they've ever been, but Betty still can't get past her chilly facade. But, considering how pissed she must be at her husband for keeping all this from her for all these years, even that cold hand is a huge gesture.
And we see their renewed commitment at the end of the episode, where the family all goes out trick or treating together. When at a neighbors, he tells the kids that he sees a gypsy and a hobo (costumes that never go out of style) and then looks at the parents, "And who are you supposed to be?" Well, Don isn't even sure anymore. He is Don Draper, and will continue to call himself that, even now that his secret has infiltrated his home. What will Betty do with the information? She's going to stay with Don of course, but there is trouble on the horizon—even more issues of trust and resentment between the two, and that can't be the best environment for either.
Her Name is Suzanne: It was a rough night for Don and his mistress, who we have been calling Missy, because heretofore she had been known only as Miss Farrell. When Betty leaves town, Don continues playing house with her, letting himself into her apartment and letting her cook for him. She tells him all about how well she is treated by the men in Little Italy, which is ironic because Don recently took his real wife to real Italy, and she was not only treated well by the Italian men, but also by Don.
The two of them decide to take a trip together, and Don seems to be falling for her really hard. She is hiding in the car in front of his house when Betty confronts Dick Whitman about his true identity. Before he knows what Betty wants, he tries to weasel his way out of her dreams and into his car, but once he knows the jig is up, he chooses Betty over Missy, and stays in the house with her, leaving Missy to do the walk of shame with her suitcase at dawn. Based on how light it was when she left the car, she sure waited a long time.
The next morning, Don calls her, and she is more concerned with his well-being than her own, only asking about herself and whether or not Betty would try to have her fired after talking to him. She starts to cry, but considering she said up front that she knew where this would end, she can't be too surprised that her prediction has come to pass. He says goodbye and does the sweetest thing he can, he finally gives her a name and calls her, "Suzanne." He makes her more than some girl who he was fooling around with, he makes her real.
She was a whole lot less of a psycho about the whole thing than we thought she would be, fatalistically resigning herself to the idea that it was over. Based on her previous stalkeresque behavior—showing up on the train, calling and hanging up—it seemed like she wouldn't go down without a fight. But the season is not over yet, so she still has time. Don left the door open that they might be able to continue once things with Betty had cooled down, but it seems as if he was closing the door for good. Let's see how she reacts once this has all had some time to sink in.
The Dog and the Dog Food: Roger and Don enter into Bert Cooper's office to find Roger's old flame Annabel standing there. She owns a dog food company that a movie called out for being made out of horse meat. Well, it is, and they're trying to find a way to rebound from the negative PR. Annabel is looking for an ad agency to turn the brand around, without changing the name or the recipe, and she has come to Sterling Cooper for help.
When Roger firsts sees her, he can't remember her married name, preferring to remember the name he knew and to think of her as he knew her, as a cliche bohemian heiress eating in graveyards in Paris before the war. We find this all out when the pair are at a "business" dinner that she insists Roger take her on, but the only business she really wants to talk about is the business in his pants. She confesses that she always thought that Roger was the one, even though she broke his heart and left him in the boxing ring (Roger the boxer, ha!) to go marry another man.
Annabel's problem is that she is stuck in the past. She has been lusting after no-good Roger Sterling for two decades, and she insists that her dog food keep the same name, even when Don and company tell her that to do so will be the end of her company. Her company is something she needs desperately, because it's the only thing that ties her to the memory of her father and her late husband, and it's the only thing she has left. When Roger suggests she just sell meat to another company so they can put their name on the can she spits back, "And do what?" She's a lonely old heiress who, though still gorgeous, has nothing else to do with her time. She defines herself by that label, and it's a label she's going to stick with, no matter how toxic it may be.
Annabel tries to have a future with Roger, but he has grown up, seemingly, turning down her advances to stay faithful to his child bride. He has moved on. Good for Roger.
Roger Has a Girl: Annabel wasn't the only old flame that Roger heard from last night. Our girl Joanie gave him a call and let him know that she was looking for work and asks if he can help her find a good position. After his meeting with lusty Annabel, he gets on the horn and calls a colleague. He makes the same maiden name mistake with Joan calling her "Joan Halloway, I mean Harris," preferring to remember her first as the hot secretary he was banging, but then respecting that she is a married woman.
But even then, he denies that anything is happening with her and that he isn't looking for a position for her because he has her in some positions of his own. He says she's special to him, and he really seems to mean it, that he wants to honor their connection by helping her out. And then in the next breath, when the mystery man on the other end of the phone answers back, he says, "Jane is fine." He has named his wife and made her real, signaling his commitment to her.
This was really an episode about Roger and all the women in his life: his first love, his mistress, and his mistress/wife. For a change, this old dog treats them all with kindness and respect. He takes a stroll through the Montmartre with Annabel but refuses to go any farther. He does a favor for Joan without asking for anything in return. And then he further cements his commitment to his wife. He may be a cad, but at least he's finally learning his lesson.
Saint Joan: The only thing that Joan's name had to do with her storyline is her continued frustration now that Doctor Rapist turned her name to Harris. Being Joan, she always has her act together. She helps DR rehearse his interview responses, so that he can land a job as a psychiatrist. Now that he can't be a surgeon, she is going to make sure that he does something to bring home the bacon—and lots of it, because Joan is hungry!
She exhibits the same control with DR that she does on the phone with Roger, knowing the precise time to call so that she will get him on the phone, displaying the power she still has at the office. And while Joan was too proud to ask for her job back before, she knows that Roger owes her, and doesn't mind asking a favor because she spins it into a positive for her. Her husband is going to be an even better doctor, so, until then, she needs something steady.
However, her crowning moment was when she hit DR over the crown of his head with a vase when he tells her that she doesn't know what it's like to plan on something her whole life and be disappointed by it. Say what, asshole? That is Joan's real problem. For a woman who always exerts so much cool control over a situation, her future is really in the hand of another, and they are very shaky hands that aren't good enough to be a surgeon.
But he is good enough to be a surgeon in the army, which he joins. Good job, Doctor Rapist, because you are about to get shipped off to Vietnam and killed sometime in season four. Maybe Joan will finally land a man that deserves her. Does this mean that she's not going to take the job that Roger arranged for her? We hope not, because Joan is a woman that needs to work. At home, she'll just be bored with no one to give advice to, boss around, or wield her control over. Even if it's just part time, Joan will never be happy with just Doctor Rapist and PTA meetings. She is nothing without her golden pen of victory.