Episode Report Card Couch Baron: B+ | 10 USERS: A YOU GRADE IT Toeing The Line
By Couch Baron | Season 6 | Episode 9 | Aired on 05.26.2013
Pete comes in to see Joan and says he needs advice, and when he asks if she feels his attention to business has been "dilute," Joan reaches for her cigarettes in a "I'd better get comfortable" gesture. She gives him an appraising look and asks how personal the conversation is going to be, so he tells her he's being pulled in a million directions by his family, to which she crisply replies, "I can't solve those problems, Pete. I have those problems." Heh. He tells her that specifically, his mother has exhausted every nursing agency in the book, so now it's between his home and a home for her, neither of which is particularly appealing. She sincerely tells him she's sorry to hear it, but declines his offer to get dinner, saying she has plans. Before she leaves, though, he thanks her, but when she asks what for, he tells her he doesn't know. For being amazing in every way, Pete! Come on, now!
Arlene shows up to Megan's, bottle in hand, and marvels at the apartment as Megan tells her she shouldn't have walked from the West Side, not with the shootings in Central Park. I do wonder if a cast member is going to experience some significant street violence, with all the foreshadowing having gone on here this season. Then again, no one's fallen off the Draper balcony yet and that gun was introduced a lot more than two acts ago. Regardless of whatever may be in store in the future, Arlene dismisses Megan's concerns, so Megan suggests she get her script, but Arlene kiboshes that idea as well, saying that Megan's a good actress on her way to becoming a successful one and there's really nothing she can tell her about the script. She came over because she's worried about her, a sentiment that prompts Megan to wonder if that means she's going to get fired. By way of answering, Arlene tells Megan about her first job -- in radio, don't you know -- during which her agent told her that her voice was "childish," which made her question whether she was any good. Megan asks what the verdict was, and Arlene replies, "Honestly? I was wonderful." Megan giggles and trust me, that bottle Arlene brought is going to be open in a hot minute.
Unsurprisingly, Betty and Don are staying in the same set of cabins, and at twilight, he finds her sitting on the stoop. He tells her she should go inside what with all the mosquitoes, and when she reminds him that the things ignore her, he goes for some light flirtation: "In those shorts?" In his defense, her legs back up the question. She asks if he found anything to drink, and when he replies that he might have, she produces a glass and waves it invitingly in his direction. He pulls out a pocket bottle of something brown and pours her some, a smile on his face. He sits with her, and she sighs that she loved camp; he tells her he never went, but she demurs -- doesn't he remember the trip to Lake Champlain with her parents? He does, in fact, as after a typical-sounding fight with Gene, he and Betty "went in the woods and made Sally." Girl's got enough problems, so I hope she never gets wind of that origin story. On that subject, Betty says she doesn't understand Sally -- again, not the most revelatory of statements -- before adding that Henry thinks she's a lot like Don. Don bristles at Henry having an opinion about him at all, but softens as he expresses the thought that Sally's actually a lot like Betty. Betty then says that Bobby's a lot like her father -- "so bossy" -- and after Don sighs that all the teenagers in the world are in revolt, Betty wonders what she and Don were like at that age. Don doesn't really answer, but Betty goes on that when she first saw him earlier that day, she thought to herself, "'Who is that man?' And I forgot how mad I was at you."