Episode Report Card Couch Baron: A | 491 USERS: A- YOU GRADE IT A Change Is Gonna Come
By Couch Baron | Season 3 | Episode 12 | Aired on 2009.11.01
Cross-fade to later, where the subject on TV has turned to flowers for the funeral. Don's asleep on the couch (that's more like it!) when Betty comes in, wakes him, and tells him she's going out for a drive. He's like, great idea, I'll get the kids, but she tells him she needs to clear her head and leaves without another word...
...and then she's waiting in the Cadillac in some warehouse's parking lot when Francis pulls in. He joins her in her car and asks where Don thinks she is, but she tells him she doesn't care -- he's been lying to her for years. She says she didn't know Francis was going to be there, like that wasn't obvious from her reaction, and wistfully muses that Derby Day feels like a hundred years ago. Honey, try recapping the season and then we'll talk. She goes on that seeing Oswald shot was so upsetting, and when Francis parrots Don's assertion that things will be okay, she tells him she wishes she could believe that, but it's hard for her to believe anything at the moment. This is what indicates to me that Don's promise that everything would be okay was such an unknowing misstep for him, but Francis, unencumbered by years of lies, tells her that there are other ways to live, and while he's not in love with their whole situation, he wants the two of them to happen. She reminds him she has three children, but he ignores that, saying that he'll know more about his future when the campaign shakes out in the spring, but he'll leave it right now for her. She says he doesn't need to do that, but he puts it out there -- while she doesn't need to answer right away, he wants to marry her. And whether you think this is in character for him given what we've seen up to this point (and I kind of do), I think, in keeping with the theme of the season, the assassination is the explosion that's accelerating everyone's actions -- some people are going to change hard, and some are going to steadfastly resist it. I used the word "shattering" in the recaplet in more than one sense -- the episode is emotionally shattering, to be sure, but it's also shattering in the sense that a lot of the developments seem irrecoverable to me. I don't think the Draper marriage will be saved. I don't think Pete will come back to SC. And I really don't know if Don will recover from this -- he only opened up to Betty under duress, and now that that's going bad I wonder if he'll ever be able to be anything other than a guarded shell of a man. Anyway, Betty is clearly thrown by the proposal and stammers that she doesn't know what to say, but he tells her that as he said, she doesn't have to answer now, but if she searches her heart, she'll know that he can make her happy. They kiss, fairly passionately, and after she gives him a fond smile, she says she should go. With an answering smile, he says he wishes he could take her to the movies right then, to some theater that was playing her favorite movie, and she offers, "Singin' In The Rain. That's a much more darling choice than I would have expected from her. I mean, if she'd said Mildred Pierce I wouldn't have been at all surprised. Anyway, after he exits the car, she starts to drive away, and the scene cuts out before we get to see if he does a dance at his apparent victory. Which is just fine with me, especially since we're up to the last commercial break.