Episode Report Card Couch Baron: B+ | 10 USERS: A YOU GRADE IT Where Have You Gone, Dick Whitman?
By Couch Baron | Season 1 | Episode 6 | Aired on 2007.08.23
That night, I guess? Don and Betty enter the darkened house, each holding a sleeping kid; they've been having a little family Mother's Day celebration, if the balloons attached to the kids are any indication. They head up the stairs and disappear into one of the bedrooms, with a red balloon lagging behind for a few seconds. It would be cool if that signaled a smash cut to the streets of Paris, but somehow I can't really see where the story would go from there. The door closes…
…and then later Don, in those really sweet blue striped pajamas he has, is reading The Best Of Everything. Heh. Betty comes to bed as Don comments that the book is fascinating, and Betty snarks that it's better than the Hollywood version. "Joan Crawford is not what she was." And this way before Mommie Dearest. Betty goes on that Crawford's eyebrows are completely unnerving, "like a couple of caterpillars just pasted there." I hate to make fun of crazy dead actresses, but Betty's not exactly wrong here. Don, however, says that men like Joan Crawford. "Salvatore couldn't stop talking about her." Ha! I originally thought they weren't going to push Salvatore's swishiness any further than they already have, but now I see he's heading for Far From Heaven territory. Maybe he'll get lucky and bag Dennis Quaid. Don and Betty lie in each other's arms as Betty remarks, basically, that when she gets old and her physical beauty diminishes, she just wants to disappear. Don, I don't know if they had this term in 1960, so I'm going to tell you that what she just said qualifies as a RED FLAG. Seriously, though, this show is so great at letting us see beneath the veneer of marital happiness to the ugliness and paralyzing fear below while not letting the characters in on the secret. In an age when therapy was still taboo, it's not surprising that people played their roles while escaping into rampant adultery and alcoholism. And pursuant to that, the conceit that people's desire to be told that they're okay is at the root of successful advertising is both neat and brilliant; I think it still applies today despite society's changes, which makes the show a lot more relevant than just a simple period piece. I could go on and on, and probably will, but I'm at like, minute three here and I do have a deadline.