Episode Report Card Couch Baron: A- | 329 USERS: A YOU GRADE IT California, Here I Come…
By Couch Baron | Season 2 | Episode 10 | Aired on 2008.10.05
There's some progress on the puzzle, but mostly at Judy's end, which is all Gene needs to perform a character assassination on Don. "Who knows what he does or why he does it. I know more about the kid who fixes my damn car." Don casts a wary side-eye as he realizes that people who are crazy and/or dying often hit the truth without even knowing it, and Gene turns up the volume: "Nobody has what you have. You act like it's nothing. My daughter's a princess, you know that?" The rest of the family pops in for dinner, but Gene isn't done as Betty asks him what's going on: "He has no people! You can't trust a person like that!" I'm assuming he's using "people" to mean "family," as was common in this region at the time (and may still be), and if that's the case, I can only imagine what he'd think if he knew how Don treated poor Adam. Betty warningly calls Gene off, but even though he gets up to go to the dinner table, the look on Judy's face suggests that he merely said what they all think. Everyone heads in, leaving Don and Betty alone for a moment. She says she has no appetite, and when he tries to tell her she should eat (because: drunk) she replies, "Stop it, Don. Nobody's watching." He looks unnerved by the fact that she still won't let him hide in plain sight, and takes off away from the dinner table.
Bud and Dot are already elbow-deep in papers when Pete shows up, and Dot immediately lights into him for missing dinner and letting Bud do all the work, sarcastically thanking him for at least showing up to sign his name. Pete: "Yes, well. Anything I can do." Hee. Pete's blasé reaction to her hostility, and also the fact that we've met her before, suggest this is par for the course, but today there's a specific reason she's being absolutely horrible: Bud blabbed about the adoption idea, a betrayal for which Pete stares daggers at him, and she wants to warn him that going through with it could result in the loss of his inheritance. While Pete knows that the last laugh on that topic, mirthless as it may be, is his, he holds that back for the moment, instead trying to cut off further discussion. Dot, however, blithely goes on that while adoption may be good for some, "you're pulling from the discards," and that's how his father felt as well. While it may be a logical impossibility to prove that that's the most ill-advised thing she could have said, I'd at least be willing to advance it as a postulate. Pete looks her right in the eye and tells her that her husband spent all their money. "Spent it with strangers. All of it." This looks like a genuine surprise to Dot, who, despite Bud suggesting Pete take off and Pete agreeing, asks Bud what her "fiduciary state" is. Bud informs her that they had to liquidate some holdings to ensure her future comfort, which elicits rich-person panic the likes of which I haven't seen since roughly yesterday. Pete leaves with a satisfied smile.