Episode Report Card Couch Baron: B | 407 USERS: B+ YOU GRADE IT That's Some Great Business Sense!
By Couch Baron | Season 3 | Episode 2 | Aired on 2009.08.23
...if not why Joan and the secretary are hovering over her. No, they're employing some old wives' tricks to figure out the baby's gender, but they disperse when Roger and Don appear, with the former greeting Betty thusly: "Oh, look, Princess Grace just swallowed a basketball." Betty returns the greeting coldly, probably out of disapproval of Roger throwing over Mona as he did, although the basketball comment can't have helped, and then she and Don leave Roger and Joan to exchange awkward (Roger's) and fake (Joan's) smiles. Joan walks away first, and Roger calls after her, "Good night, Mrs. Harris." Elsewhere, as they walk out, Betty informs Don, "I'm in a foul mood." Probably less dangerous now that she's learned to express such feelings.
At dinner, Mrs. Pryce, the toity to Pryce's hoity, compliments the wine and their "furnished flat" on Sutton Place, adding that it's near the U.N., "so there are plenty of Africans." Might as well joke about the few colonies you have left. After a canned toast from Pryce about improving with age, he tells them "Rebecca" was wondering if they had any recommendations for schools, but Betty confesses she's a bit out of touch when it comes to the city. Maybe she could ask Captain Retro Awesome. Preferably while naked. Rebecca asks how long they've been together, and Betty responds that it's been nine years while Don answers ten. One wonders if it's because to Don, it seems like longer, or if instead Betty's marking off the time they were separated. Maybe both. Pryce then mentions that "J. Walter Thompson" is opening an office in Caracas, but Don sharply opines that the ladies don't want to talk about that, in a "we'll discuss this later" tone that throws the relationships at the table into confusion, at least for me. Dinner is then served...
In the car, Don "apologizes" by way of grousing that he didn't want to be at the dinner any more than Betty did, and she somewhat resignedly replies, "It was just the cherry on top of my sundae." I congratulate her on correctly employing a reference that's so obviously foreign to her. Don snaps that she should just tell him what's bothering her now instead of "three seconds after [he's] dozed off," and he's being awfully brusque but I have to grant that that habit would wear thin in a hurry. Betty tells Don that she's been trying to get her father Gene on the phone for a while, and she just found out from her brother William that Gloria, the second wife, left him. Don, in a more conciliatory tone at least, asks Betty if she can blame her, but of course Betty can: "She came into his life, he suddenly takes ill and she abandons him." Don replies that maybe she realized he's a "son of a bitch," and the particular way Betty chooses not to argue the point suggests to me that she doesn't exactly disagree, but she does say she's worried about him, and since she can't take a long car trip in her condition, she's going to have William and his wife Judy bring Gene up to them that weekend. Don grumps that William and Judy's girls are a nightmare, and wonders why Betty even bothered asking him. Well...she didn't, so much. That was kind of the point. There's definitely a new dynamic in their relationship -- she certainly seems to have forgiven him, but she no longer perceives herself as inferior to him in the relationship, it seems to me. Betty notes that the baby is really kicking, and Don wisely does not suggest it's because the child is just as unpsyched about the in-laws coming to visit as he is. He was thinking it, though.