What I Saw: Mad Men Season 5, Episode 3
Betty: What has Happened to Me?
When Don/Dick referred to Lurch and Morticia
when he dropped his kids back with Betty, I thought that it was funny in itself. I really didn't see that much of the house that he dropped them off at, until this episode. Now that joke resonates even more with me.
As I've said before, I want Betty to become a militant feminist and take the boys and go and live in an All Woman Ashram and fight the Male Power and campaign for the Equal Rights Amendment. Because women really need that amendment these days when you consider the male creeps on the Supreme Court and the Uterus inspections that are being legislated right now. Every Uterus should be in the United States Uterus Army of Reproduction! Line Up Uteruses! Present Cervixes! Open Vaginas! And the long line of political and military men inspect the Uteruses of All Women and maybe even Transgenders when those Uterus Transplants become popular.
Those are rather odd looking Speculums that the boys have got there. Ah well, it just shows how much that they respect Women.
After watching this episode of Mad Men, I have my doubts about Betty's development into a Real Woman. That gothic mansion that she is living in with Henry looks like a Fairy Tale Castle. And Betty is beginning to look like Rapunzel to me. But instead of her Long Hair that is holding her back from self fulfillment as a Woman, Fat is holding Betty back. Rapunzel could let down her long hair and cut it and her ties to the Castle to escape. What has Betty got to help her escape? Her Mother-In-Law, aka The Wicked Witch, wants her to stay imprisoned. Henry, aka Lurch, wants her imprisoned. And her children also keep her there. Feminism allows a woman to chose her life, and Wife and Motherhood is a perfectly valid choice, but Betty is looking like That Duggar Woman. Sally is not the kind of girl to be the HandMaiden for that idiocy. Don/Dick doesn't want Sally to be, witness his quizzing of the Rolling Stones Fan Girl.
Betty has acquired some empathy with her avoirdupois as Megan would say. Henry's Mother is a Fat Lady who treats Betty as Betty treated Sally at the infamous Thanksgiving (or was it Christmas?) dinner at Henry's Mother's House with Henry's family. Betty upbraided Sally for eating or not eating at that dinner---what doesn't matter, Betty was controlling Sally's body and her self image. Betty got that behavior from her Mother and now her Mother-In-Law, aka The Wicked Witch, is continuing the tradition. The Wicked Witch is shaming Betty into doing her bidding and controlling her through Betty's Fat. When Betty throws the Fat back at the Wicked Witch, Henry's Mother slathers Betty with the Fat ("I'm old. I don't have to please Men anymore.") and sets her on Fire.
Betty had the Big Cancer Scare. She could have had Cancer of the Thyroid. And Cancer scared Betty silly but not into stopping smoking. As Betty moons about her new found mortality, she clutches her silver lighter and her pack of cigarettes. Betty found out what Cancer can do to a woman's self image. The Wicked Witch is good in her attacks on Betty's self image, but Cancer is better.
Betty does have interesting dreams. In her Death by Cancer dream, Betty regrets not eating the Pancakes or enjoying her life more. She regrets her relationship with Sally the most. At the end of the episode, Betty and Sally are eating Ice Cream Sundaes together and with no recriminations. There is not any girl talk or getting to know each other talk, but food is not the battlefield of their power struggle anymore. Indeed, Sally surrenders the field and the Ice Cream Sundae first, and Betty eats up after her. Betty is serving as a Red Cross Nurse on that battlefield.
Now that Betty has filled out (bodily and emotionally), I can see that Henry has married a woman just like his mother. Both women are controlling perfectionists. Henry does have a type.
The New Dawn
I liked the shot of Peggy and her new hire, Michael Ginsburg, The Jewish Copy Writer, in the hallway of SCDP. In the background, we could see the other new hire and testament to SCDP's commitment to Equal Opportunity and Fair Employment Practices in the background at Don/Dick's secretary's desk. And there is the pun on her name, Dawn, the dawning of racial consciousness at SCDP. It may take a while for us to get to know her, just as we did with Carla. And notice that Dawn is still serving Don/Dick as Carla did with the Draper Family.
Trophy Wives
Don/Dick does love his Trophy Wives. Betty was the First Trophy, but she has tarnished (or fatted up) and been put away. Now Megan is the New Trophy Wife---She is French! Canadian. Betty was Ice and Silver. Megan is Hot and Golden (for now). Don/Dick is rough on his Trophies.
Pete has his Trophy---the airplane model for Mohawk Airlines. It is as though Pete thinks that he is Howard Huges and Mohawk is his Spruce Goose.
You Just Jealous
Roger is jealous of Pete's prominence in the firm and his accounts. Megan is jealous of Betty when she dismisses Betty's Cancer Scare. Megan also says something about Sally. Sally will be the battleground between Betty and Megan in the future. Henry is jealous of Don/Dick and dismisses his phone call and inquiry about Betty's health. The conflicts have been set up.
I do think that Peggy's and Michael's relationship might prove to be interesting. I don't think that it will be sexual, but business wise, it might be the making of the New and Hip Age at SCDP. Peggy needs some competition to push her farther along.