Mad Men - Recap: A Stab in the Dark
Recap video and review of Mad Men - Season 6 Episode 9 - The Better Half:
"The Better Half" is a much more straightforward episode than last week's Mad Men. It's all there in the title: the episode is about relationships. However, it's about much more than that, underneath it all. At its heart, "The Better Half" serves as an examination into the past, and our ceaseless attempts to try and recapture it, whether the past involves the honeymoon period of a relationship that, in the present, has gone terribly sour, or if it's simply a matter of attempting to get back to a version of oneself that isn't hampered by present insecurities and doubts. There's a lot of meat on this bone, and it makes for one of the best episodes of the season so far, primarily because it works at a subtextual level, as well as simply telling an interesting series of stories. I'd even say it's the most accessible episode in this sixth season, since the show has lately been kind of impenetrable at a basic, surface level, so stuffed with heavy-handed metaphors and occasionally tepid plotting. However, this is very much part of the fabric of the series, as the slower episodes build to episodes like this, and the payoff is usually worth the wait. Here, we get tons of developments that the purposefully vague "Next Week On..." previews were actually smart to conceal. Don sleeps with Betty! Peggy stabs Abe! Roger tries to win back Joan (sort of)! There's a lot to hold interest here, and that's just in the broader sense. As in the best episodes of the series, "The Better Half" gets far more interesting once you peel back the layers.
Credit: AMC
So Betty (January Jones) gets ogled at a fundraiser while Henry (Christopher Stanley) is in the bathroom, an eerie parallel to Henry's similar flirting with Betty while she was married to Don. And while Don played the jealous husband, Henry's jealousy is of a sexual nature, as he's turned on by the idea of other men wanting her. And it's no real shock that men are all over her: she's shed all her excess weight, essentially shedding her own reservoirs of self-doubt in such a way that her own natural confidence shines through. It isn't simply that she's more attractive, on the surface. She exudes the kind of inner confidence that attracts others. This becomes important later in the episode when she meets up with Don (Jon Hamm) to visit Bobby at his camp. They get to reminiscing about their marriage, and what initially seems like an innocuous rehashing of memories eventually turns into a serious analysis of how they've changed since their divorce.
However, while they share a mutual attraction in this moment, they both see entirely different things in one another, though they might not necessarily know, in the moment, what it is that's different. For Betty, I think the change she recognizes in Don is a certain vulnerability that wasn't there during their marriage. Don Draper is a man so accustomed to having his way, to being in the power position, that it's kind of jarring to see him in such a defeated, weathered state. Betty is attracted to the prospect of finally being able to control Don, as she's grown to such an extent that she now is capable of handling him, even dismissing him as he dismissed so many of his conquests. However, where Betty is reaching for the new man in Don, Don is reaching for the Betty he once had. He tells her that she's as beautiful as the day he met her, and his attempt to reach back into that past, not simply to the Betty of old, but to the Don that won her, is what compels his chase. Betty leaves her cabin door open, Don enters, and as he pulls her hair back before kissing her, she asks what he's doing. "Waiting for you to tell me to stop." She smiles and wraps her arms around him, and it's just like old times.
Yet it's after sex where we get a better read on these characters. Mirroring his affair with Sylvia, Don asks Betty if she feels guilty about what they've just done, and she states that she doesn't, rationalizing that "this happened a long time ago," essentially excusing it as an instance of two people finding comfort in a shared past. "I'm happy in my life. Let's just enjoy this," she says. When Don asks what she's thinking, she responds, "I'm thinking about how different you are, before and after. I love the way you look at me when you're like this. But then I watch it decay. I can only hold your attention so long." Lying in bed together, Don muses about how sex shouldn't be "the definition of being close to someone," claiming that he'd have felt just as close to Betty by simply holding her. (Whatever you say, Don) A tide of pity washes over Betty: not really for Don, but for Megan. "That poor girl," Betty says, stroking Don's face. "She doesn't know that loving you is the worst way to get to you." It's remarkably poignant stuff, made all the more resonant by the fact that the next morning, it's as if nothing happened. Henry has driven up to meet Betty, and the married couple mostly ignores Don completely at the diner where they're eating breakfast (seated at opposite ends of the restaurant). Betty is a person who drifts into the past, but she has enough control over her emotions that she can come and go into the past as she pleases. Don doesn't have that kind of control. In venturing back into the past with Betty, he's only made himself more vulnerable.
Credit: AMC
And he's not the only one. Ted Chaough (Kevin Rahm) declares himself for Peggy (Elisabeth Moss). He still hasn't forgotten their kiss, and he gives her the third degree over what he perceives to be unprofessional conduct: touching his hand at a meeting, smiling at him in front of everyone. These are things Peggy doesn't even realize she's doing, yet they are things that are torturing Ted. Though Peggy reluctantly admits that she might feel the sliver of something for him too, Ted is adamant that he doesn't want to have these feelings. She offers to find employment elsewhere, but Ted insists that won't be necessary. They part on awkward terms, and things only get more absurd for Peggy as the episode continues. Abe is mugged and refuses to identify his attackers, so as not to give the "fascist pigs" a reason to stop every kid on the block. This prompts Peggy to grow fearful of living in their neighborhood, the crime rate of which is growing (police sirens are a constant aural presence in their scenes, although the sirens also carry over, most significantly, into Don's scenes with Megan, as if a warning signal against the continuation of a marriage that's more or less devolved into a sham).
Peggy fashions a makeshift bayonet and arms herself with it while prowling the apartment, having heard noises. She cautiously looks out the window, parting the blinds slowly, as if afraid of what she'll find, when Abe sneaks up behind her to ask what she's doing. In a panic, Peggy swings around and accidentally plunges the bayonet into Abe's abdomen. It's such a wonderfully melodramatic, absurd moment that's reminiscent of the lawnmower accident in season 3. Peggy rides in the ambulance with Abe, the point of the bayonet protruding from his abdomen. In a fevered sweat, Abe breaks up with Peggy, angrily deriding her by saying he shouldn't have expected better from someone who works in advertising, adding, "You'll never not be the enemy." Peggy insists that now probably isn't the right time to be doing this, but Abe persists. "Your activities are an offense to my every waking moment," he says, and that's pretty much the end of their relationship. Of course, Peggy doesn't necessarily feel any lighter for having been freed of the burden. She approaches Ted in his office, looking like hell, and tells him about her breakup with Abe. She expects he'll be thrilled at the news, yet he tells Peggy he's sorry to hear about the breakup. He then tries to encourage her by reminding her that it's Monday, meaning it's a whole new week. Possibilities! But Peggy doesn't seem to have any energy left in her to wonder what the hell happened to her personal life. She can only stare out absently into the office in front of her. Hey, you presumably could still have Stan!
Credit: AMC
As Peggy lets go of any future with Abe, Joan (Christina Hendricks) lets go of any similar ideas with Roger (John Slattery). Ol' Roger is desperate to be in his son's life, after having been banned from seeing his grandson after taking him to see "Planet of the Apes" (his rationale, that Don took Bobby to see the movie, doesn't exactly truck with his daughter). Feeling increasingly shut-out of the lives of those he cares about, Roger reaches out to Joan, who's always represented a certain good in his past -- an idealized Roger that, perhaps, could be a better man. Yet Joan can't abide having Roger visiting their son. The little boy needs to grow up believing that his father is a war hero. Besides, she can't depend on Roger. His past speaks for itself. And so Roger is left alone to watch Joan cavort with Bob Benson, as solitary as ever. Bob Benson, for his part, continues to play the nice guy, but it's so hard not to be suspicious of him. When Pete (Vincent Kartheiser) confides in Joan about his mother, Joan lets it slip to Bob, who then tries to get into Pete's good graces by recommending him a certified male nurse for her. No idea what's going on there, but there's just something about Bob Benson that drives me nuts. I just can't bring myself to trust the guy. As it is now, Pete is plagued by a past he can't shake, as represented by his mother. "It's either my home or a home," Pete tells Joan, sadly. Pete may have a warped honor code, or a questionable set of principles, but he still feels a certain familial loyalty that's immediately identifiable and relatable, in a rare way (when it comes to Pete, since he's so frequently awful that he proves hard to relate to, in most cases).
Credit: AMC
This leads to the end of the episode, as Don returns home to find Megan (Jessica Pare) wondering why he's always gone. Megan is lonely, in her own right. Arlene, the co-star who, along with her husband, had propositioned the Drapers, makes another move on Megan. She believes that Megan is throwing out all these signals, the private invitation, the two bottles of wine, proclamations of loneliness, etc. Yet Megan feels she's being taken advantage of, and in a vulnerable state, no less. It's a painfully awkward scene, mostly because Arlene won't stop trying to kiss Megan. She does get the first kiss, but Megan resists every other attempt, preferring to be thought a tease than an adulteress. Thankfully, much of the tension is cut when Arlene decides to just blow the whole thing off, joking about it as she excuses herself for the evening. Megan can't help but laugh about it, privately; however, she's all frowns when Don gets home. Don admits that he's been away, and allows that simple statement to stand as his apology, if it can be called an apology at all. He kisses Megan and holds her close, and the sound of sirens seems to signal that this entire marriage is on borrowed time, though one might argue it was on borrowed time from day one. As well as the marriage might have been going in the honeymoon phase, there's no reclaiming those days.
Credit: AMC
"The Better Half" is a terrific examination of the past, and its effect on relationships in the present. In every respect, here, the specter of the past served as a buzzkill to potential romance, whether from memories and preconceptions that were insurmountable, or from the sense that the moment has passed, and whatever chance was there has been lost. Peggy seems to have missed her chance with Ted, at least for now, while Roger's shot at Joan is years in the rearview. And Don is far past the point where he can even pretend that this marriage is any different from his last, as steeped in infidelity as he is. He's the Don Draper of old, yet he isn't functioning at nearly the level that the past Don Draper did. He's a shell of that man. A still-functioning shell, sure. But nowhere near as effective. Yet he continues to play the role because, at some level, it's doubtful that he actually knows how to be anybody else.
