Episode Report Card Couch Baron: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Here's a Question For You
By Couch Baron | Season 1 | Episode 4 | Aired on 08.09.2007
Some non-speaking extras exit the boardroom, followed closely by Don, Ken, and Harry. Just then, Paul and Rachel round the corner and spot them. Don mans up and approaches, but Rachel greets him as "Mr. Draper," before saying she wasn't expecting to see him back there. Oh, Rachel. You could take lessons from Hildy about being cold, and lessons from Peggy about keeping affairs secret. Don explains that they were screening a TV commercial. "It'll probably look better when it's breaking up Bonanza." Rachel doesn't react to that; instead, indicating Paul, she says that his work is wonderful, and he's perfect for Menken's. Paul, reading the hallway, says that he'll let Don see Rachel out and skedaddles, no doubt to run into Pete's office and whisper, "Check out the scene I just witnessed!" Those boys are bigger hens than any typing pool. Don asks how she is, and Rachel tells him fine. "My family's fine, the weather's been spectacular." Don tells her he doesn't want things between them to be like this, but Rachel doesn't see any other way, and turns down his invitation to have lunch together sometime flat.
While it's still light out, Betty wraps up reading a fairy tale (Snow White?) to Sally and tells her her dad will be in in the morning. Then, Betty is walking Polly when she comes to Helen Bishop's house and sees her ostensible ex-husband agitatedly begging her to open the door. Whether Helen is home or not, she doesn't comply, so the guy, alerted by Polly's barking, asks Betty if he can use her phone, as he's supposed to see his kids. Betty tells him no, though, as she doesn't let strange men into her home, unless they're cute enough to be the stuff of washing-machine-related fantasies. The guy looks stunned at her refusal, and Betty goes trotting off back toward her home...
...and later, she's in her nightgown when she answers the doorbell. It's Helen, who's mortified about the earlier incident. Betty tries to play dumb, as any good WASP would, but Helen clarifies that she was at the window. Betty asks if Helen ended up letting her ex in, and the answer is a reluctant yes, with the obligatory addition that "He's not a bad man." Her worry is understandable -- if word got out that she married a bad man, the other women on the block would totally not respect her. Betty asks if Helen would like some coffee...
...and then they're both lighting up as Helen is telling Betty that "Dan" hardly saw the kids when they were married (he works in Manhattan in life insurance) and now that they're split up, he can't live without them. Hey, did you guys notice that "Dan" and "Don" are pretty similar? And their names are pretty close, too! Helen tries some gallows humor that goes nowhere, and then Betty uncomfortably asks what happened. Helen tells her that Dan had a lot of friends in the city -- "poker, tennis, drinks at the River Club" -- but none of them turned out to be men. Betty looks down and clarifies that she really just wanted to know what happened that night, but Helen figured she'd come out with the truth, as all the women on the block have probably been guessing it anyway. Betty denies that, but Helen resumes her story, saying that her dad got a lawyer who took Dan apart in court, and now he's angrier with her than she is with him. Betty, ever the expert on changing the subject, says she's always loved Helen's house, and then she's spared further discussion of subjects with unconscious resonance by Don's arrival home. Don gives Helen a curt and unfriendly hello and heads upstairs, but Betty is unfazed, explaining that when he gets home from work he has to have complete quiet for a while. Helen, reasonably enough, takes this as her cue to leave.