Episode Report Card Couch Baron: A | 491 USERS: A- YOU GRADE IT A Change Is Gonna Come
By Couch Baron | Season 3 | Episode 12 | Aired on 2009.11.01
...while Don shakily enters the bedroom and sits down in the chair, hands clasped almost in prayer, unsuccessfully trying to fight off the creeping sense of dread that his marriage really is over. The camera pulls back to make him look smaller and smaller. Which is convenient, given that I'm betting he's sleeping on the couch tonight.
The next day, even though it's a national day of mourning and the office is closed, Don is dressed for work. Coming into view of the kitchen, he pauses and watches Betty in that awful housecoat serving breakfast to the kids, probably wondering if this is really the end. Finally, he steps forward and offers a reasonably bright "Morning!" but when the kids are the only ones to respond, he looks askance at his wife. After he tells the kids he has to go to work, they notice Betty's resolute ignoring of Don, which Don chooses to accentuate by giving a long look in her direction before leaving. Even at their ages, they have to wonder how many times this can happen before they end up at a custody hearing.
In the darkened SC offices, Don hears a lone typewriter going, and is surprised to find Peggy working away in her office. After he understandably startles her, he asks what she's doing there, and she tells him, "Aqua Net." Any momentary confusion is dispelled when he looks at the storyboards, which, given the presence of a convertible in the pitch we saw, you won't be surprised to hear are reminiscent of the tragic Presidential motorcade. She somewhat glumly tells him it's okay, as they're not supposed to shoot until after Thanksgiving, and after a pause, he asks what she has. Instead of answering, though, she wonders what he's doing there, and his response is a terse, "Bars are closed." And talk about some lost revenue. Peggy offers her own story, saying Karen invited over half the building "so they could watch TV and write condolence letters to Jackie. Then I went to my sister's, and my mother was crying and praying so hard there wasn't room for anyone else to feel anything." Don nods and starts to walk out, but Peggy gets to her feet, saying the funeral's already started before asking permission to watch it in Bertram's office. He says that's fine, but when she asks if he's coming, he can only shake his head, and despite everything that's happened this season she's still the closest thing he's got to a kindred spirit on the show besides possibly Joan, so I think it's just illustrative of the fact that he now truly believes he should be alone, and it's a reversion in that it's a fate I think he always feared he deserved. ("I was surprised you ever loved me.") As if to agree, even the camera refuses to follow him in to his office, so we watch from outside as he pours himself a drink. Skeeter Davis's beautifully appropriate "The End Of The World" plays, and we go to credits.