Shut Up It's On

[Just as a warning, this and all future rewinds, Mad Men or not, will contain spoilers throughout for not only this episode, but others as well.]

Family values, folks. These families have them. Face values, not morals, lets not get them confused with good people. While Betty’s is a treasure chest of ugly planters, Pete’s is a empty hole. I guess I just gave a little spoiler to whose inheritance is what.

The boys are in Don’s office discussing a trip Pete and Kinsey are going on. Los Angeles to some space convention to rally up some possible new clients and get their name out to important people. Apparently, with her new promotion, Peggy didn’t gain any respect. The boys didn’t read anything she wrote up for them.

For am instant at home, Pete and Trudy talk about her going on a business trip with him one day. The conversation turns sour when talk of children come up. Its been a long time since they found out Trudy’s baby oven is broken and apparently her parents have suggested adoption. Pete doesn’t seem all too turned off by the idea, but he wants a kid of his own. Little does he know…

That same night, over at The Roosevelt, Don gets a call late in the night from Betty. Her brother has called and her father had a stroke. Days ago. Betty is distraught she’s only finding out now and Don suggests he comes home and they go now, but they wait til morning. Have to be prepared when you’re faking a perfect life, eh?

Betty and Don arrive at her father’s to the not so warm welcome of Gloria. Gene comes in and not soon after calls Betty, Ruth, her mother’s name. We also find out this isn’t the first time he has had a stroke, Betty is livid. Cut to Don, William’s wife Judy and Gene doing a puzzle. Weird set up, how’d this even happen? Leave the senile old man with his in-laws? What?

Betty is in what looks like a study looking at a painting of her mother. William comes in through a window, just hanging out in his old tree house like normal. Betty is upset that she had not been informed of her father’s dwindling health and takes it out on family heirlooms. Where’s everything she wanted? Apparently you have to put your name on things of you want them once dad kicks the bucket. Gloria comes in to gather the crowd for supper and while passing through the living room, Don can tell Betty is upset. She pushes him away and doesn’t even want to sit at a table with these people.

That night Betty and Don sleep in her old bedroom, but Don on the floor. Later in the night Betty joins him. Family issues are such an aphrodisiac, am I right?

Don wakes up to find he’s a lone, gets dressed and heads downstairs. He finds Betty at breakfast with Gene and Gloria. William comes in with Judy who is apologetic to Betty about taking something of her mother’s that she wanted. Betty is a little embarrassed that this was brought up but moves on. she starts cleaning up and her father confuses her again for her mother, making inappropriate conversation and feeling her up. Betty comes back from the kitchen pulled together, everyone just ignores this like every good rich, white family does.

Betty and Don are in her bedroom, him writing notes, her making the bed. Viola, her old maid(I guess?) comes in and gets a warm welcome. Don leaves so they can talk and Viola tells Betty just what she needs to hear, the truth. Gloria and William have both been very light on the details of her father’s health and Viola informs her that she heard the doctor say it is just going to get worse.

Don and Betty are back home that night, Don thinks he should stay, Betty thinks otherwise. So of course, he leaves.

While all of this is going on, Pete is having issues with his family as well. Bud stops by SC to get him to sign off on the liquidation of basically every fund their parents ever had so their mother can stay afloat. Bud and Pete talk of children and Pete brings up that Trudy is thinking of adopting. Bud seems to like the idea, nonjudgmental. Later when Pete is over his mother’s to sign papers, turns out Bud let it slip about the adoption. His mother is not happy with the idea and Pete is angry that she thinks she even has a say. And just to throw it in her face that he doesn’t even have to be nice to her, there’s no money he would be getting anyway when she dies, he says. Covering his own problems with someone else’s: the Peter Campbell way.

Kinsey is having issues as well, but not so much family. His girlfriend, you all remember Sheila, has come to the office for a lunch date and the boys talk up LA in front of her. Turns out she didn’t know and this disrupts the plans they had to go down to Mississippi to help register voters. Sheila is put out by the fact that he remarks he can’t lose his job quite like she can, there’s always another supermarket to work at. After a remark like that, she doesn’t care that he won’t be going. Not going to stop her.

When Don returns to the office he finds it nearly empty. Everyone is in the conference room for Harry’s baby shower, or as Burt thinks, his birthday. Don stays for a little, grabs a piece of cake and pulls Joan aside for a little talk. She updates him on his day/week and he tells her to scratch it all, he’s going to California. Roger comes in and asks about his visit and Don is quite short with him. Joan is clearly unhappy to be around Roger as well. The air is thick. Why not just throw Jane in there as well just to add a whole new level of awkward.

Back in the conference room we see that most of the people are drunk, Harry can’t speak correctly, Hilde is a little too happy for him. Joan comes in and spoils the fun for Kinsey, he won’t be going to LA after all. Well, this actually works out for him, he gets to call Sheila and pretend as though he made this change just for her, back in her good graces and heading to Mississippi.

At home, Betty is alone in the middle of the day. Polly is barking outside and scratching at the play house, Betty goes to investigate. Turns out Glenn has been living in there for a few days. Betty brings him inside, feeds him, washes his clothes. Turns out Glenn was not only running away from a mother he thinks doesn’t love him, but to help save a sad Betty. Once Carla returns with Bobby and Sally and they are all shooed upstairs, Betty calls Helen to come pick him up. He tells her he hates her, but come on Glenn. Betty will always hold a special place in you’re little heart.

Helen stops over later on that day and tells Betty that this needs to stop. Betty tells Helen how bad of a mother she has been and Helen agrees. In a moment where Helen is so vulnerable with a woman she doesn’t like to much, Betty reveals her secret about Don to her. They seem to bond over their common lives and problems.

While Kinsey and Sheila are on a bus to the South, Pete and Don are flying first class to California. The sun washes over Don’s face, as if he will see things differently while on this trip. And oh boy, he will.

A few notes and quotes:

• Sheila and Kinsey’s bus ride is sponsored by one Billy Kaplan. Billy Kaplan doesn’t seem to be a real person, be he could have been based on Kivie Kaplan, a famous leader of the civil rights movement. He was a Jewish African American philanthropist that in 1966 became the president of the NAACP.
• “Nobody has what you have. You act like it’s nothing.” Because Gene, to Don, his life is a facade, he can leave it and it would mean nothing. “He has no people. You can’t trust a person like that.” The crazies are sometimes right, you know. We’ll see just how untrustworthy Don is and how many “people” he does have soon.
• “Pulling from the discards” is what Pete’s mother so kindly refers to adopting. Maybe she is fond of the work of Margaret Sanger?
• The few scenes that Peggy and Pete interact really show where Pete would rather be in his life. It’s almost as if when something goes wrong in his life he turns to her but she is so not going for it. No such thing as men and women being friends back then right?