Here’s a quick bit of parallel in the show that I hadn’t thought of before. Don grabs Betty. Betty reacts with a little fire in her eyes, but basically with passivity. Later, Betty slaps Helen.
So can we conclude that Betty was “really” slapping Don when she slapped Helen? A bit of deflected anger?
And then later the conversation with Francine, in which Francine lets off a litany of absolutely deranged reasons to hate Helen Bishop. De. Ranged. Add these two incidents together and it seems like this is who Helen is; a place for the married women to project all their fears, anxieties, and rage.
March 7, 2008 at 10:14 am
Yup, I have no problem with that theory. You know, they didn’t have to cast Helen so ferociously sexy. She really is designed to represent divorcee.
I have always seen the slap, and even Betty’s attempts at provoking Don, as signs that her therapy, lame as Dr. Wayne is, is effective. Anger is bubbling up to the surface, albeit sometimes misdirected. She is willing to confront.
And not for nothing, but I don’t think the slap was inappropriate. Its lack of bite was odd, but I was okay with it.
Here’s one more thought though, that is not quite related. How weird is Glen? Maybe he’s just a regular kid, pushing boundaries. But I don’t know; what he pulled with Betty, both in the bathroom and then with the hair, is some strange stuff. And he has these two parents who form a strong alliance over this apparent perpetration against their son. I wonder if we’ll find out more about that family.
March 7, 2008 at 10:24 am
I must’ve not been paying close attention to Red in the Face bc I can remember the slap but I can’t remember Francine’s vicious monologue. Which is the upcoming episode? I may have to download this one. I do wish AMC would re-air Mad Men during the week, maybe even on Friday night. Sunday at midnight is such an odd time…
March 7, 2008 at 10:28 am
So funny that you mention therapy, Roberta. I had a post all typed up from yesterday about it but I didn’t post it and I mentioned the ONE time in which Betty gets openly angry is when her shrink observes that Betty is angry at her mother. She then accuses him of deliberately provoking him. The other thing is that it’s one of the few lines the shrink gets to say while in session. He’s mostly silent and only talks when communicating with Don.
March 7, 2008 at 10:45 am
I kind of regard the slap as an extension of Betty’s juvenile behavior, which is a theme in several episodes.
The connection with Glen, first of all, particularly the very touching parking lot scene in Wheel, identifies her as a little girl. And a grown up giving an 8 year old boy a lock of hair is downright creepy – as if she could be talked into anything.
Don calls her a child in RITF.
Betty’s ability to hide from the truth is probably her most striking characteristic. So the slap, to me, seems like a continuation of avoiding unpleasant news, and acting out when she cannot control what’s going on, such as Helen’s confronting her.
Also, January Jones’ very subtle mannerisms make Betty seem very doll-like, they way a child would act. Her acting is very subtle and at times brilliant.
March 7, 2008 at 10:50 am
Eme, I don’t know how anyone watches this show without a DVR. Frankly, I don’t know how people watch TV at all without a DVR. It’s the best invention since the Internet.
The monologue was something like, ‘I hate her, she’s so selfish, with her walks and her pathetic job at that pathetic jewelry store’
Betty: ‘And I hate John Kennedy, too’
Francine: ‘I hate when Carlton brought me a gift from the jewelry store and I knew she had touched it and seen him and I hate her selfish life and we don’t have to be friends with her and we don’t have to invite her and the whole neighborhood will just not speak to her.’
All this without even asking what it was about.
March 7, 2008 at 10:54 am
I think Glen is peculiar. I interpret his weird behavior as being (and I know this is totally off the wall here) a combination of his father’s flagrant womanizing and his mother’s emotional dependence on him.
I think the slap is a definite sign of repressed rage coming out. She is repressing a lot of anger at her husband, the women he’s cuckolding her with and, yes, at her own mother.
Maybe this is why she’s so tolerant of Francine; Francine voices all the nastiness that Betty feels but disowns. We’ve all seen this dynamic in both friendships and marriages, right? The weird pairing of the Good Girl and the Bitch or the Angel and the Devil; two people who are inseparable but who seem polar opposites.
Also also, let’s not forget Shoot. There’s one instance in which she takes matters into her own hands.
March 7, 2008 at 10:55 am
There’s another thing, of course, which is that the slap proves that Betty knew her behavior was inappropriate. If it had all been so innocent, she would have had no need to lash out at the accusation.
March 7, 2008 at 10:59 am
Thanks for writing out the interchange, Deb. Now I remember it. I haven’t seen Red in the Face since the summer.
I can’t tell you how excited I am about the DVR. I just bought a flat-screen TV too.
Funny how Betty pipes up about John Kennedy. Okay, I’m downloading this one tonight.
March 7, 2008 at 11:02 am
There’s something about being slapped that communicates this intense sense of shame, ya know?
March 7, 2008 at 11:13 am
Eme, next episode is Hobo Code. And the Francine speech is when she comes to Betty’s because she heard about the supermarket scene and she was checking up on Betty.
March 7, 2008 at 11:43 am
I’m three behind. I don’t like The Hobo Code all that much either. Mostly bc I hate that bowl cut on the kid who plays Don. Man.
March 7, 2008 at 11:55 am
Which is a perfectly respectable reason to write off an entire episode, IMHO.
March 7, 2008 at 11:58 am
I rank Hobo Code as top 1/2/3 with Babylon and 5G … it all depends on which one I just watched.
Try to take another look … simply brilliant.
March 7, 2008 at 12:00 pm
Ya know what I’m sayin’? That haircut alone explains Don’s need to PROVE his attractiveness to women. It’s the notorious Samson syndrome (which I just made up).
I had a friend years ago who said that his mother used to give him the same haircut and she did actually use a bowl to cut it.
March 7, 2008 at 12:02 pm
Oh, I’m going to watch them all, Dan. I only downloaded some bc I’d missed them the first time around.
My favorites are Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, Nixon vs. Kennedy, and The Wheel. Try watching Smoke and The Wheel one after the other.
March 7, 2008 at 12:02 pm
I myself am looking forward to re-watching. I remember that as these episodes were unfolding so much information about Don, I was knocked out. But I also think I didn’t love this one as much on its own merit. I also recall (Deb will probably know this answer) that this episode is generally high-ranking; perhaps got some nomination? So I too am interested in a re-assess.
March 7, 2008 at 12:16 pm
I think I remember reading somewhere that the network had pressured Weiner to reveal more about Don and he wrote flashback sequences when his original intention had been to hold out longer. I don’t recall the source, though.
March 7, 2008 at 12:49 pm
When it aired I remember thinking that the concept of hobo code as a device to reveal Don’s childhood and as a source of explanation for his adult behavior was mind-blowing … taking a relatively esoteric slice of American history and fitting it into the plot is inherently brilliant.
Nixon/Kennedy also is in my top 3 … oh, and Wheel. That’s in my top 3 also.
March 7, 2008 at 12:57 pm
That’s interesting, Eme … hadn’t heard that.
I wonder how the uncertainty of not being renewed until the latter half of the season must have played on the structure … how much had to be resolved and how much could be filled in later.
March 7, 2008 at 1:11 pm
I think around ten of the episodes are in my top 3.
March 7, 2008 at 1:37 pm
I’ll be in the minority by stating the Long Weekend is my fave eppy! Reason? Rachel stroking Don’s hair after they finally slept together.
Don and Little Don’s hair has become make or break for favorite eppys….LOL!
Anyway, I never understood the irrational nastiness Betty and Francine showed towards Helen, who seemed like an open and aware woman. Maybe her, Helen, seeing things clearly (her divorcing her cheating hubby) was the reason so many other women disliked her. Yeah, they could think of Helen as some interloper, chasing after their creepy husbands (all of ‘em creeped me out except Don). But Helen also represented courage enough to not stay in what was a “secure” but unhappy life as a homemaker with a philandering spouse.
March 7, 2008 at 1:42 pm
Helen also has no shame about who she is.
Francine and Betty are taking it on themselves… feeling guilty and foolish about their husbands; feeling that to have a cheating husband is shameful and a reflection on them.
Helen is like, the bastard was cheating so I left him. End of story. Betty was shocked that Helen was so open about it, because she doesn’t understand someone who wouldn’t cover that up.
March 7, 2008 at 1:55 pm
Totally, Roberta.
I think we’re still under the thrall of these images of women; witness the passion and condemnation in articles about working mothers and the controversies surrounding Caitlin Flanagan. When a woman writes anything even remotely honest about her conflicting feelings about motherhood, the backlash is huge. A lot of the criticism comes from other women, too.
I watch the show as a commentary on current events. We’re just coming out of an era that looks back fondly on the 50s and 60s and Weiner is portraying the darker side of the era. It’s very necessary bc even though we live in a different world, that idealized era still casts a huge shadow on our ideas about the American dream.
March 7, 2008 at 1:58 pm
When reading the above post, you’re supposed to take a shot of creme de menthe every time I write the word “era.”
March 7, 2008 at 2:01 pm
Helen’s self-confidence, well, more self-awareness made her such a cool character. Her child, Glenn, was beyond weird to me. His staring at Betty on the toilet and wanting a lock of her hair was just, ewww, freaky!
March 7, 2008 at 2:12 pm
As long as we don’t start doing shots for every time Kay says “eppy”.
March 7, 2008 at 2:43 pm
The Hobo Code was nominated as best single episode by the WGA (one of three nominations, but it didn’t win this one). I was surprised that this was the one nominated as best single episode, I’d have thought Babylon, or Shoot, or Indian Summer were more “writerly.” I, too, look forward to seeing it again (I’ll also be doing the episode recap).
Weiner said (I think in the NY Times A&L interview that we live-blogged), that he originally planned a season’s worth of slow flashbacks like the one in Babylon, but that he felt it was going too slowly and ditched the concept. He has consistently said that he is NOT being pressured by AMC to make changes and he is very happy with them (unlike us).
March 7, 2008 at 2:54 pm
Ah! So I’m wrong about the flashbacks. I wonder where I got that from…
I think the show works better without the flashbacks, actually.
March 7, 2008 at 2:58 pm
Think I read somewhere that Glen is Matt Weiner’s son.
March 7, 2008 at 3:04 pm
Dan, you read right.
March 7, 2008 at 3:31 pm
I love The Hobo Code — I want to hug it, and squeeze it, and love it, and watch it pee, and ask for a lock of its hair, and talk about it in great detail. What?!
I have two theories on the slap. They rather contradict each other.
I see the slap as a very old school thing to do. A very Joan Crawford/Lana Turner thing to do. To me, it was a way of saying, “How dare you?” It also was as good as a confession.
For some reason, it reminds me of the scene in Working Girl where Catherine was told off and insulted about her bony ass and questionable business practices, and responded with a weak, “I simply can’t allow you to speak to me that way.”
Add the slap to a list of things that MM shows that you can’t try at home — or in your grocery store.
When I was a kid, I went over to a friend’s house and went to get a drink in the kitchen. I hear his parents start to argue in the next room. Being the product of a single mom, I had no frame of reference and was serious contemplating slipping out the back door. The mother ends of walking into the kitchen, and after she gives me an awkward smile, I say, “Please don’t fight.”
She was surprised, but not as surprised as I was. There was no censorship process, which I think most human beings have, and so I had no idea I was going to say that until the words were hanging awkwardly in the air.
Part of me wonders if the slap caught her by surprise — if her self-censorship process short circuited.
But, the dramatic imitation of diva actresses from her childhood and the concept that even she didn’t know she was going to slap Helen can’t really live in the same space.
Maybe the words stung more because they came from the neighborhood pariah.
I’m on the fence about Glenn. The babysitting scene alone would have me judging him creepy, but the car scene makes me feel for the kid. I mean, wasn’t it standard back them to tell boys that if the father wasn’t around that they were the “man of the house”? My heart breaks for Betty, but when she approached Glenn she was putting him in a role he was too young to carry out. He was also being asked to act in direct opposition of his mother’s wishes when he could be discovered at any time.
I look at Helen and see her as putting up a false front, largely due to necessity. We don’t know what Glenn has witnessed or how much pressure he feels to be The Man of The House. While his behavior has been odd, he has been through a lot.
I swear there was an episode of Leave It To Beaver where Ward and June were concerned that Beav was playing with a kid whose parent’s were divorced. Somehow I don’t think Glenn is feeling much more welcome than Helen.
March 7, 2008 at 3:44 pm
That parking lot scene where Betty insisted on speaking to Glenn even though he explain that he’d get in trouble for talking to her made me see Betty as quite selfish. This was a child, who may face punishment (I’m NOT talking about physical abuse or anything that outrageous) and Betty doesn’t care because her grown-ass was “soooo sad!” Oh, puh-leeze!
(Yeah, I’m no fan of Betty as a character….)
March 7, 2008 at 4:07 pm
Hey, Glass! Brilliant comments as usual.
I must confess that I can’t quite be as sympathetic about Betty, though. I LIKE her character but as sympathetic as I am to her situation, I have mixed feelings about her child-like passivity and her narcissism.
Kay, I agree with you about the selfish aspect of Betty. It’s directly tied to her neediness, imo. Of course she’s going to run to Glenn, though. She is smart enough to know that she can’t confide in her best friend Francine about Don’s affairs. It’s not just that she’s ashamed, she must know that Francine would use that info against her in some way. She knows she can’t quite run to her psychiatrist. And, in a weird way, she and Glenn have a bond.
People lay on a lot of weird stuff on kids who come across as grown-up. It’s a huge burden. I bet Glenn gets this kind of intrusive confession from his mother as well, although Helen is portrayed as so open and unashamed that I wonder how Glenn is so messed up. Ya know?
March 7, 2008 at 4:07 pm
Kay,
I can understand your dislike of Betty, but — for me — she’s the character that I tend to care about the most. It just seems to me that she was sold a false bill of goods.
I likened it on another board to going to a cooking class, everybody getting the same recipe, and the whole class ends up with light and fluffy biscuits. Except for you. Would you blame the recipe or blame yourself?
Betty is at a point where she can’t yet accept that people have lied to her about how to be happy. She’s done everything right, followed the recipe exactly, and things haven’t worked out. I honestly don’t think she knows what’s wrong or how to fix it.
She was very wrong in the car scene, but was desperate for a confidante that she could trust and who wouldn’t share her “secrets” with Don.
However, I can see why she could drive a viewer nuts.
March 7, 2008 at 4:26 pm
Glass, that was a beautiful story about your reaction to the overheard fight.
I think everybody in this show was sold a false bill of goods, though. Everybody is following the recipe, nobody’s biscuits are coming out light and fluffy–they just assume the recipe is working out for everyone but them. It never occurs to anybody that maybe it’s the recipe that’s off; you know, the whole idea that happiness equals a, b, and c. Hell, we’re all still deluded about that.
March 7, 2008 at 4:37 pm
Don and Betty have one “effed” up marriage! Whatever feelings Betty has, deep ones, not that shallow bullsh!t about Joan Crawford’s brows, she can’t/won’t tell Don.
And Don, well, he reveals his “low-rent” past to Rachel after hot sofa sex! But refuses to divulge to Betty, his wife of 7, 8 years, how he was forced to wear that horrendous Moe-cut as a child.
March 7, 2008 at 4:43 pm
Eme, so true, it’s like the old saying, The biscuit is always fluffier on… each of these characters is finding themselves unhappy, and feeling alone in that. It isn’t until later in the decade that, at least for the women, (thank you Betty Friedan), there was a discovery of unhappiness and dissatisfaction as a commonality.
(I guess the men don’t figure it out until thirtysomething airs in the late 80’s
)
I do think that Betty is narcissistic, but she was bred to be. I love Betty, but as a TV character… I don’t think I’d be her friend in real life.
But I also saw her ‘I don’t care’ to Glen as, like the slap, a sign that she is somehow getting better even while she is sinking. Betty is the perfect wifemotherdaughterneighbor. She rarely just does something for her, from her gut. ‘I don’t care’ was raw. ‘I don’t care’ was real. And Glass, (you’re right, the slap could fall into either of those two categories), ‘I don’t care’ came out of her mouth without her knowing it. Only for whatever reasons, she has this (inappropriate) trust in Glen. And so she didn’t regret saying it. Which is cool.
March 7, 2008 at 4:55 pm
“a sign that she is somehow getting better even while she is sinking.”
This is so brilliant. The therapy was working until her doctor broke her trust. But on some level, she must’ve also known that she couldn’t completely trust him. We pick up that kind of stuff, don’t you think? I do.
I think Betty is going to be better off than a lot of the characters here, once she stops acting like the dependent child she was forced to be. Her mother certainly didn’t do her any favors in this regard, what with her criticisms about Betty’s weight and her attempt to control Betty’s modeling career. When Betty acts organically, she naturally takes the reins of a situation: ie, shooting the asshole neighbor’s pigeons; letting Don know she knows he’s unfaitfhful through her shrink; etc. She WANTS to work but she keeps getting these messages that she is this fragile little doll. Man, no wonder she’s pissed.
March 7, 2008 at 4:56 pm
I’m sure Don has made a vow that his son will never endures the bad haircuts he was forced to endure.
I don’t think Betty’s Joan Crawford comment was shallow. Well, it WAS, but it was also telling. Betty tried to keep it light, but she’s terrified of losing her looks.
Actresses are mirrors and when Betty was younger, JC was considered a great beauty. Someone somewhere once said that there was a time when everybody wanted to look like Elizabeth Taylor and now, unfortunately, some of us do.
The aging process blown up on the big screen has to be a hard thing for Betty to see when she believes her worth is her looks. It was no coincidence that she moved on to how her own mother kept her looks — this thought was a lifeline. Betty was looking for reassurance, if only from herself.
And every single episode I wish I could tell Betty that smoking is going to do her looks no favors.
Betty’s focus is appearances. She would rather her daughter be dead than scarred. On the surface this is horrible, but it also tells you what matters to her most. It’s not that she doesn’t love her children, but rather than she wants them to have advatages, and for a female that’s beauty. Also, she wouldn’t be the first woman to view her daughter as a mini-version of herself. Betty very well might prefer death to disfigurement.
In some ways, because of Betty’s nature, I think that Don running out on the party was more horrible than the infidelity. It was public humiliation for a woman who wants her life to seem flawless.
March 7, 2008 at 6:59 pm
And being told that all you are is your looks is also cause for anger.
March 9, 2008 at 1:24 am
Glenn’s very simplistic view of Betty as a princess with lovely golden hair is not all that different from Don’s view of her as the beautiful blonde mother who cares for his two children. They both see her as some sort of ideal/idol, but not as a flesh and bone human being. Betty relishes these notions, but is then frustrated because she’s trapped, constricted. Her whole sense of self is based on what other people think about her. It’s what she’s been told all her life, but it’s also what she herself truly believes.
March 9, 2008 at 2:10 am
I’m trying to think how best to express myself. I think Don knows objectively that Betty is a beautiful woman and an asset, but there’s a coldness to it. I suppose I mean that he knows this all intellectually or after a few drinks have made him amorous, but Betty doesn’t warm him.
Glenn, in his first crush, puts her up on a pedestal, which is probably how she once imagined her spouse would see her. It matters that Glenn thinks she’s a princess because Don barely seems to see her.
Betty is starved for love. In Babylon, she and Don made love. Mother’s day eve, I believe. She really seemed to soak it all up, eager to show herself … eager. A little shy about the lights, if I recall. There seemed to be a real skin thirst. The next scene we see with them in the bedroom, Don pretty much rebuffs her.
I think of Peggy giving directions to Annie. Telling her to think of being the beloved prize of her husband. (At least that’s how I recall the quote.) That was important to a lot of women at that time.
The point is, I don’t think that Betty has felt like a beloved prize, or whatever the term was, for a very long time. So when Glenn comes along, as icky and line-crossing as it might have been, he gave her something she needed.
March 9, 2008 at 2:24 am
BTW, if Betty had an (anachronistic) theme song, it would be this:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Z2v-Cgk-rm4
For those of you that don’t know, the title of the song — He Thinks He’ll Keep Her — refers to the old Geritol commercials where a husband lists all of his wife’s housewifely qualities that she is able to maintain due to the product in question. The commercials ended with: My Wife, I Think I’ll Keep Her.
March 9, 2008 at 7:30 am
I grant permission for Betty to have an anachronistic theme song. ‘Cause of how the Amy Winehouse song was used so brilliantly in all the promos for the show.
I am very powerful, you know.
March 9, 2008 at 4:18 pm
I like the anachronistic theme song idea as well. I think people make too big a deal about it. Remember Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid–Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head? That was perfect. We’ve seen that sort of things a million times. I don’t know why people have so many problems with it.
March 9, 2008 at 6:54 pm
Loo, I love that it’s anachronistic, and yet has an old–fashioned feeling.
It is another tribute to what the show really is; a look at 1960 from the 21st century. It’s a subtle nod to the fourth wall again.
The opening credits… they are styled like those old movie credits, but they are also modern in their execution. Those opening credits feel Then and Now.
Look, I watch Project Runway. Sometimes the challenge is, take a look that doesn’t work and make it relevant for today. And if you look at fashion today, somehow they pulled off leggings coming back without looking 80’s. (I am not sure who authorized that.) But same idea.