Episode Report Card Jacob: A | 4 USERS: A YOU GRADE IT Laika Was An Astronaut
By Jacob | Season 1 | Episode 10 | Aired on 2007.09.27
Heading toward the elevator, Cooper clears his throat. "Miss Holloway, I know it's none of my business. But you could do a lot better." She waves him off; Franklin's just a friend, if that even. "That's not what I'm talking about, my dear. Don't waste your youth on age." She doesn't register it on her face, or even in her back, but you can see it in her eyes: the fear. She stands before the doors of the elevator, and he asks her to press the button for the lobby. (A white elevator operator, and a girl, at that? I wanna work there. They passed that girl around like a tray of canapés; she tried to commit suicide.) When I said I wanted an episode all about Roger and Joan, it was because they're my favorite characters. I should have been more specific. I didn't think about how you never know if this show's going to be nice, or cruel. I love Roger because he desperately needs it. I love Joan because she's a pioneer, an astronaut, born at the wrong time. Too strong and too smart and too beautiful to be valuable, to be anything but dangerous. A little sex bomb, tossed over the transom. And as the doors close on her beautiful face, as she gets caged in by yet another secret, by another demand, as she realizes that as much as she hates it, it's within her to fear for this man, and maybe she loves Roger after all, you might wonder: Laika was an astronaut too.
Rachel lights a cigarette but tonight, after all he's seen, and lately, after all he's learned, he's not in the mood. Death becomes translucent. "You told me your mother died in childbirth. Mine did too. She was a prostitute. I don't know what my father paid her, but when she died they brought me to him, and his wife. And when I was ten years old he died. He was a drunk who got kicked in the face by a horse. She buried him and took up with some other man, and I was raised by...those two sorry people." She kisses his forehead. He nearly weeps. Those two sorry people.
Next week: The Indian Summer has Betty in its hot and treacherous grip, Cooper's still in charge, Rachel makes her move on Don's loooove territory, and Pete Campbell foments revolution.