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| Photo Credit: AMC |
Goodness. First Joan walks away from
the agency, presumably never to be seen again, and now Betty is
dying? And of lung cancer? Not that that's a completely
shocking development—like almost every other character on Mad
Men, Betty's been sucking on
cancer sticks from the moment we met her. Common medical sense aside,
the reveal of her impending death just before the series finale is
the emotional equivalent of being tackled on the one yard line: it
hits hard and comes out of nowhere.
“The Milk and
Honey Route,” focuses on Betty, as well as Don and Pete, following
each character on a journey in which the common denominator is an
exit. While Betty's is the most dramatic and literal, Don and Pete's
arcs also deal with leaving what is familiar behind with the belief
that what's on the other side is better.
Betty's story opens with her at school,
tripping while trying to go up the stairs. She plays it off like
she's fine, but goes to a doctor who insinuates her fall might be
something more serious. It turns out Betty has an aggressive,
advanced form of cancer, with the doctor giving her nine months to a
year to live. Of course, Betty had a health scare back in season
five's “Tea Leaves,” but it turned out to be nothing. Sadly, it's
not the case this time and it's heartbreaking, not only because Betty
really seems the happiest and most at peace that we've ever seen her,
but because of the devastation the news will cause her family.
Henry takes it particularly hard,
yelling at Betty for refusing to undergo treatment. He ignores her
request to let her tell the kids, and goes to Sally's school to break
the news to her. Henry wants Sally to talk some sense into her, and
tells her it's okay to cry, before breaking down himself. Later,
Sally shows up at the house, and Betty gives her a glare that says “I
know you I know,” before coldly pushing past her. Henry goes after
her, and Sally immediately snaps into older sister/mother mode,
tending to Bobby and Gene.
Later, Sally and
Betty have a very grown up talk about cancer and death. Sally says
Henry doesn't know Betty's in love with tragedy of it all, and there
may be some truth to that. It was definitely a sense of dark
romanticism in Betty's first cancer scare. She told an old
acquaintance she was “leaving behind a mess,” in reference to her
family, and dreamt of Henry and her children mourning her. Betty
often remarked her mother was vivacious and beautiful right up until
the end; whether that was true or another example of Betty's
superhuman ability to live in denial we'll likely never know. Either
way, Betty's intent on following her example, leaving Sally detailed
instructions on the dress she wants to wear and how her makeup and
hair should be done for her funeral.
But Betty also
reminds Sally she saw her own mother die in inches, and doesn't want
to put her children through the same thing. She also tells her she
doesn't want her to think of her as a quitter, and says her ability
to know when to move on has been a strength in her life. In terms of
her marriage to Don, that was certainly the case. Betty gives Sally a
letter, instructing her to open it only after she's gone. Sally opens
it earlier of course, and it both gives the aforementioned
instructions for her funeral and parting words for her eldest.
“I
always worried about you because you marched to the beat your own
drummer,” she writes, before going on to say she's learned to
appreciate this quality in her daughter, because it means her life
“will be an adventure.” Her words come via voice over, as we
watch both Sally's reaction (and if you weren't tearing up already,
the sight of Kiernan Shipka bursting into an ugly cry will finish you
off) and Betty as she walks up the stairs at school, her inner
resolve to push past the pain and live her dream for as long as
possible is palpable. A decade ago, Betty referred to herself as an
ostrich with its head in the sand. Now she's as clear-eyed as ever.
The only person, aside from Bobby and
Gene, who doesn't know the shocking news is Betty's ex-husband. Don
has turned playing hooky from McCann into a full-on cross-country
road trip—according to his call with Sally, he's currently in
Kansas—but this is still Mad Men
after all, so it can't be all aviator shades and stops at quaint
hotels.
Don gets stuck in Kansas when he has
car trouble, and given the small-town settings (church revivals and
football are the big attractions), has to resort to paying a young
guy to go score him some liquor, which he does, tacking on an extra
ten bucks for his services. It sounds like a scam a young Dick
Whitman would've run back when he was a valet peeing in rich people's
cars. The kid, dark-haired, skinny, possessing an eager-to-please
personality and a tendency to use double negatives in conversation,
certainly could've been Don at that age.
The motel owners push Don to stick
around for a meeting where local veterans come together for
conversation and beer. The meeting actually turns out to a fundraiser
for a vet who recently burned his own home down. Don is apprehensive,
and it's understandable why; the whole scene would once again make
him confront the gigantic lie much of his life has been built on. The
knife gets twisted further when the guys introduce him to Jerry, who
also served in Korea, but said temporary relief comes when Jerry says
he arrived in Christmas 1953, after Don had already gone home.
Later, a veteran tells a story about
when he and a few other soldiers killed some German soldiers in order
to survive the brutal winter, despite the fact they wanted to
surrender. Don then tells most (though not all) of his own ugly
truth, of accidentally killing his own commanding officer, and
getting to go home because of it. Everything seems good, until the
guys bust into his room later that night and beat him up, claiming he
stole their money. For a moment I thought it was another dream, like
the opening sequence where he gets pulled over by an officer who says
“you knew we'd catch up with you eventually,” though it quickly
becomes clear this is is very real.
Don puts two and two together and
confronts his young liquor supplier the next day (“You have shitty
instincts for a con man,” Don snaps at him), who says he stole the
money so he could get out of town. Don lectures him that starting
his life this way will cast a shadow over the rest of it, and he'll
have to become someone else, which, given the hell we've seen Don go
through all this time, is not nearly as glamorous as the kid may
imagine it to be. In the end, he gives the kid a ride out of town,
and in a surprise move, gives him his car, telling him not to waste
the opportunity. He drives off, and Don takes a seat at the bus stop,
smiling broadly, either because he may have spared someone from
making the same grave mistake he did, or because he's lifted some of
the gargantuan weight of his past off his shoulders. There will
likely always be some part of Don that's paranoid about his past
catching up with him, but at this moment, that part appears smaller
than it has ever been.
Pete's story was the quirkiest of the
three, bringing back Duck Phillips to create professional havoc that
turns into a personal breakthrough. Duck, who's been called in to
replace Don at McCann, runs into Pete in the elevator, and goes
straight into his office, asking him to meet with an exec from Lear
Jet, as a way to both pump up McCann and pump up Duck's services as a
headhunter. Turns out, Duck lied to Pete and the Lear Jet exec, with
the latter thinking Pete was meeting to join their company.
Undeterred, Duck pushes another dinner date with the wives—despite
the fact Pete is sans one and despite his ironclad contract with
McCann. Nevertheless, Pete, intrigued by the offer, a senior position
in Kansas, and asks Trudy to be his date, to which she declines.
“You know what, I'm jealous of your
ability to be sentimental about the past. I'm not. I remember things
as they were,” she says,
with a hint of steel in her delivery.
Pete skips out on
the dinner for a meal with his brother Bud, and Duck shows up
stinking drunk at his room, babbling about getting him out of McCann
and going to Lear Jet with stock options. And oh yeah, he called Jim
Hobart. Pete tells him he's going to ruin everything, before Duck
stumbles off. Pete comes over to Trudy's house at four in the morning
and asks if she and Tammy will join him in Kansas. Trudy rightfully
eyes him like a crazy person and tells him some things can't be
undone, but Pete promises to be a different man, one not arrogant
enough to think he can do whatever he wants and not lose her. She
says she never stopped loving him, and well, now they're reunited and
it feels so good.
After watching these characters for so
long, pushing towards maturity in fits and starts, evolving and
regressing at various points, it's satisfying to see them doing the
latter, in ways that feel honest and hard earned.
See you next week for the finale.
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