It's Never Over: Mad Men, Season 3 Episode 12, The Grown-Ups

The Kennedy assassination has hung over Mad Men like a spectre this season. As soon as we saw the date November 23, 1963 (the day after the assassination) on Margaret's wedding invitation we knew there would be an episode dealing with this huge event in history. Matthew Weiner had actually said at one point during the second season that he didn't feel like he had anything to add to the story of the Kennedy Assassination, but a man is entitled to change his mind, right?! And change his mind he did. The entire season was building to this moment, and even though I feel it was a slow (and oh my god so depressing) episode, it was a major game changer plot wise for many characters.

The Don and Betty storyline just broke my heart in so many ways. When Betty looked at Don and told him "And then you tried to fix it. But there's no point anymore...", it just killed me. The Don of this episode was almost an entirely different person than the man we had come to know, and honestly he seemed entirely better. His face looked open, hungry and full of love for his wife. When he tells her 'everything is going to be okay', it's because he believes it. He believes that she loves him for who he really is, something he never though possible. He is stretching out and getting comfortable in this new life, this life without lies, just trying to gloss over all of the damage he has done to Betty. He is a master at forgetting, and he is ready to forget all the pain he has caused with his lies and his cheating and start a newer, more honest life with his family. And even though that is ridiculous, selfish, and even a little crazy, I just couldn't help wanting it for him as well.

What made Betty realize that she was done? Was she done already, and just letting the whole Dick Whitman thing blow over before she left? Was it the death of the president, seeing the Oswald shot or feeling the despair that came over the nation after these events? Or was it simply seeing someone she wanted more, and having Henry Francis tell her he just wants to take her to see her favorite movie (and MARRY her?!! speaking of crazy...). Even though it is hard not be sympathetic to a woman who has been cheated on and lied to throughout most of her marriage, there is still a part of me that feels like Betty is a petulant child, not making any kind of measured decisions but just deciding on a whim that she doesn't love Don, that even with him trying, she can't make it work.

It doesn't help Betty that Jon Hamm has been playing Don with an openness we have only rarely seen from this character. That look of fear on his face when Betty tells him she is going out for a drive, and the look of love he gives her at the wedding just had me melting. You know a guy is good when he can make you feel bad for a lying womanizer like Don.

This episode also brought big changes for Pete. He is ready to move on from Sterling-Cooper it seems. Oh Pete. Hated him, wanted to like him, kind of started to like him, hated him again and now...kinda had some affection for him again. That is a long winded way of saying that he is an incredibly complex character, and I think Weiner and Co. as well as Vincent Karthheiser do a great job bringing him to life. I really love that Pete's downfall is being too attentive to his clients, because he is such a weird robot human that of course that's what it would be! As we see when he is fixing the secretary's heater, Ken is just a naturally, genuinely nice guy, whereas it is just so hard for Pete to figure out how to be nice, how to be likeable, and he just reeks of trying to hard. I thought the scenes of he and Trudy were interesting because they showed their relationship as it is (she's poor little Petey's Mummy most of the time) but how on some level that works for them. Pete does need someone to take care of him and Trudy doesn't seem to mind doing it. At least for now. He might want to leave Sterling Cooper for Gray, but he won't do it until she suggests it. Maybe that is how Trudy can abide by his cheating (what she knows of it), because she holds the true power in their relationship.

And then there was Roger. The Roger story got me on a lot of levels. Roger was in it, for one, so I was pretty happy about that. I just loved the speech he made his daughter's wedding. Roger Sterling is a man who knows how to make toasts, you have got to say that for him. I like that he made going on with the wedding feel like a triumph instead of an act of stubbornness, or apathy towards the national tragedy. That guy is such a charming rogue! I can't help but love him. And of course, his call to Joan, his need to talk to her and his acknowledgement that "No one else is saying the right thing about this." Call me a romantic, or a fool, but I still love the idea of Joan and Roger together. She had his number right away. She knew he had found something that he just didn't know how to deal with by himself. "Because there's nothing funny about this." It is interesting that when talking to Annabel about Jane Roger said "I finally found a girl who doesn't care about the future." He loves Jane because she's not a grown up and doesn't expect him to be one. He can't have that with Mona or with Joan, but maybe now that he's carrying his drunken child bride out of his daughter's wedding, he realizes that he doesn't want it as much as he thought?

Stray thoughts:

-Loved Margaret's temper tantrums, and the fact that she was crying "It's all ruined" after the assassination.

-I think I'm in love with Mona, and I cannot believe Roger would leave her for Jane. Joan, sure.

-I hope Harry Crane does die unnoticed in that office! This season has certainly shown us what a complete dolt that guy is.

-Sometimes this episode was a little slow, having us watch people watch people watch TV and react to a situation. There were a few great moments pulled from that though, I especially liked Carla sitting down next to a sobbing Betty, taking out a cigarette and crying. A little of the facade she keeps up at work went away there.

-Henry Francis- Is he going to be as disappointed as Don when Betty can't live up to her "perfect woman" image?

-This was definitely an episode about the end of an era. The world is passing "The Grown-Ups" by, Roger, Don, etc. and they don't even know it yet.

-It was really sweet when Sally comforted her crying mother after the President was declared dead. Another instance of the children taking care of the grown-ups.

-There is always a lot of talk about how Betty and Pete are parallel characters, both overgrown children. I'll be interested to see if either of them keeps to the decision they made in this episode.

-I'm pretty sure that Peggy was just as disturbed as I was at the fact that Duck kept the news of the president's assassination from her until after they had sex. That's real class.

Next week: Season finale! I'm ready.