and then that happened.

[ndnickerson]

so, despite the fact that betty often behaves like a spoiled petulant child, i do cheer for don/betty, because don very much wants to be with her. or he very much wants to be with his idea of her, and his idea of her may be limited to someone who is sexually responsive and available and a good mother, a good hostess, with absolutely no personality of her own. that is entirely possible. he raises good concerns about her disinterest when it comes to the kids (although honestly betty interacts with sally more than bobby; possibly parents just ignored boys and thought they'd come out okay, i don't know) and he has, maybe 75% of the time and that's being generous to him, been a total dick to betty, but when he wants to make it work, he makes it look good.

(it broke my heart during that kiss, at margaret's wedding reception. don may be this incredible jerk when he wants to be, but this is exactly what he was afraid of: he told betty the truth, and she rejected him. i'd argue that don is a more fully formed person than dick whitman ever was, and the fact of his name is a minor detail, but the betrayal still stands, despite his protest that there was no good time to tell her, and he would happily have gone to his grave without her knowing. he was so nakedly vulnerable last week. and she just went from not knowing how to respond, and just going along with what they always had, to pitching headlong into an affair with henry francis (who appears to have a daughter relatively close to her page) despite having maybe thirty minutes of conversation with him during their five meetings. is turnabout fair play? is it all right because betty already knows don has done this a hundred times in their marriage? not really, because she's the one who has to worry about the kids. not that she cares about that.)

i think peggy sees, in duck, a pretty stable individual (either she doesn't know about the alcoholism or doesn't care, given how rampant it is in their line of work), he's well-off, it's a bit dirty and risky because he works for the competition, but there aren't really strings attached. i also think he's a total douchebag and that she should get the fuck away from him, but he might be a good prospect until something better comes along, or she's hoping to angle something more out of him, i don't know. but peggy has always been totally naive when it comes to relationships, so this shouldn't really be any different.

i don't want peggy with duck (although i somehow have ended up in an even less sensical boat, peggy/father gill) and i don't want betty with henry (he'd have to be a total idiot to date her after SHE THREW A METAL BOX AT HIM. WTF.), because if a guy proposes marriage like that, he's either drunk or clearly a dangerous psychopath. (though not on mad men. we are only allowed to meet dangerous psychopaths when dick whitman is at the wheel of a car, probably with a drink in hand.)

i am seeing this horrible dystopia, where don runs into the arms of miss farrell for comfort, divorces betty, and shacks up with her. sally already loves her. and then maybe six months from now miss farrell shows up at sterling cooper with pete campbell's chip-and-dip-exchange rifle and starts taking out secretaries, positive that don is cheating on her with one of them. and he probably will be.

ALSO. WTF IS UP WITH THE BRITISH "WE'LL TAKE YOUR BEST OFFER" SALE OF STERLING COOPER. i kind of want don and roger and bertram and maybe mona and pete to all pool their funds and buy the company, and hire sal and joan back, and start kicking some advertising ass. ALSO i want peggy to confess her sordid affair to father gill in the finale.

there should be a list.
-betty: decide if you want don/dick in your life or not. tell henry you never want to see him again. actually act like a mother for once and stop being such a bitch to sally.
-don: don't go back to miss farrell. for once, suck it up and take it like a man. help buy sterling cooper back from the british. call anna for advice. buy another few cases of rye to get through the rest of the year.
-duck: die in a fire. hopefully one set by chauncey and/or the ghost of archie whitman.
-peggy: dump duck. go confess your dirty sins to father gill. hook up with ken cosgrove.
-roger: start having an affair with the soon-to-be-widowed mrs. joan harris. don't stop jane if she "accidentally" trips and falls out a twentieth-story window. reconcile more with mona, because i treasure your telephone conversations.
-pete: threaten to leave sterling cooper, stumble onto evidence of peggy and duck's affair, and go have a drink with don, during which the two of you realize that you are sociopaths stumbling through your careers. find peggy's baby and adopt it so trudy doesn't kill you in your sleep.
-lois: find another job, please. that, or find sal and let him hang out in your apartment while he's hiding from kitty, pretending he's working.

all right, let's get on it, people.