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
Afterward, Betty lights a cigarette in the darkness. With her turned toward the nightstand, he tells her he missed her. She faces him, whereupon he asks if she feels guilty, but she says no. "This happened a long time ago." Not sure if she means this is unfinished business or if the fact that she loved him first gives her a pass with her own conscience when it comes to Henry -- both could certainly be true -- but he asks if this is what it would have been like for them had they stayed together. It's probably not a question worth answering -- you'd have to go to the "If I were your wife, you'd be cheating on me" place -- so I'm with Betty when she tells him she doesn't think about that anymore; she's happy in her life. "Let's just enjoy this." He asks what she's thinking, so she tells him it's occurring to her how different he is Before and After. "I love the way you look at me when you're like this." She'd probably be gratified to know that he doesn't look at all his women with such affection afterwards, I don't think, but she goes on that his attentions decay, and she could only hold them so long. Don wonders why sex is the definition of being close to someone, and Betty obviously thinks she knows where he's going with this -- it's basically the adulterer's cry of "It didn't mean anything" -- as she tells him she doesn't know, but it is for her and for most people.
Don, however, takes it further than expected, saying that if she'd merely laid in his arms, he would have felt just as close, "but the rest of it, I don't know. It doesn't mean that much to me." The reason this admission is so important -- especially in the context of all the whorehouse flashbacks we've endured -- is not that sex means nothing to Don, but the revelation that intimacy does. It's the second time this season Don has credibly expressed that he feels things rather than, as it always seems, merely going through the motions. The show has a fine line to walk when it comes to this character, who is never going to be likable in a strict sense, but these check-ins with him are necessary to keep him interesting, and while they haven't come often enough for my taste to make up for all the bullshit of this season, I do appreciate this one regardless. It's not an uncommon pattern for a strong-seeming man to fuck his way through life in search of a closeness that's either nonexistent or too fleeting; it's another thing for him to admit it. But Don may not be aware of the side of the coin that truly keeps him from happiness that Betty brings up when the subject turns to Megan: "That poor girl. She doesn't know that loving you is the worst way to get to you." It's hard to completely tell in the poor light, but I think that one hurts; as if to make up for it, Betty not only kisses Don but takes his head in her hand for a moment. He gets back on top of her and with only mild sarcasm, she asks if he doesn't want just to hold her, but whether he's giving her what she wants or he's seeing physical intimacy with her in a different light, the answer is a hard no.