Episode Report Card Couch Baron: A+ | 1054 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT Float Like a Butterfly…
By Couch Baron | Season 4 | Episode 7 | Aired on 2010.09.05
When we return, it's early morning, and Don awakens again and this time gets up from Peggy's lap, seeming to recall everything that happened as he does. He sits at his desk, contemplating his next action for a moment...
...and then we cut to a ringing phone, which Stephanie, in her bathrobe, answers. When Don indentifies himself, Stephanie doesn't waste any time -- Anna's gone. Don whispers that he knows, and raspily manages to ask if Anna wanted to talk to him, but Stephanie mercifully tells him she wasn't lucid at the end. Don takes a few more moments and then says he's coming out to make arrangements, but Stephanie tells him there's no need -- Anna left her body to science. "She said that she wanted to go to UCLA medical school, tuition-free." Don smiles at this last example of her devil-may-care attitude, and then repeats his intention to come out, saying he'll take care of the house, but Stephanie says she was thinking of staying there for a bit and taking some time off from school, if that's okay with him. Just about ready to break down, he says that's fine, and when she, whose eyes by the way betray that she is not doing so great on her end of the phone even though she's holding it together for him, says Anna's in a better place, he does that thing where you screw up your face in about eighteen different ways as you try not to cry before choking out, "That's what they say." You guys, this isn't as funny as the part about Miss Blankenship being a dominatrix. Stephanie finally says she has to go, as it's been a long day, and after they disconnect, Don looks over and sees that Peggy is now awake. He then proceeds to completely lose it, much to her understandable shock, but after a few moments he stops completely sobbing, so she takes the opening to ask what happened, and he tells her someone very important to him died. She closes her eyes in sympathy for a moment before asking who it was, and he cries as he replies, "The only person in the world who really knew me." He may be too distraught to realize that he's asking for something here, but Peggy is all too aware of it, and she comes close and rubs his back: "That's not true." I don't know what to do -- I'm supposed to make jokes here? Sometimes I think "without pity" needs a few footnotes. Don tells her to go home, and that he'll be fine, and she does oblige him but not without first saying how sorry she is...
...and then, we see her by the elevator, but once again, she can't get on it. Instead, she goes back into her office and lies down on the couch, and I guess she thinks that if Don can get by without a shower, it'll be no problem at all for her. The office light shows it understands irony by automatically flipping on for the day at that moment, and Peggy puts her head down...