The Best Thing happened.
I could watch this forever. DTMFA, Joan.
Last Week:
Last week, Betty found The Secret (Don’s) and read The Group (which I’ll blog about later). Don tried to make up for the past with his mistress’ brother and was feted for his general excellence. Peggy owned Kinsey and Kinsey accepted his ownedness. Everybody drank as if it was the Dark Ages and safe, reliable water sources were scarce. And nobody ate a damn thing except, and I quote: “soup.”
So we went with an alcohol theme (hat tip to Olivia) and, I think, we acquitted ourselves quite well.
My Brother-In-Law The Hero The Chef lit alcohol on fire and it BURNED.
This is what it looks like when a chef lights Irish Coffee on fire.
This is what it looks like when a chef, making a riff on Steak Diane, flambees Niman Ranch rib-eye pieces.
This is what the steak looks like plated:
We also had sauteed mixed peppers, red rice, and my version of Bloody Mary Shrimp, ie with crab and blue cheese crackers. Instead of Absolut Peppar, I marinated a sliced serrano pepper and some cracked black peppercorns in Skyy Vodka (If you want to see a grown man cry, badger him into drinking a single sip. It is fun.).
Finally, I invented Lambrusco Sorbet.
Lambrusco Thyme Sorbet
(based on the generic Wine Sorbet recipe at FoodNetwork.com)
6 ounces water
4 ounces (dry weight) turbinado sugar
10 ounces Lambrusco
juice of 1/2 lime
a few branches of fresh thyme
Heat the water and sugar on low heat just until the sugar dissolves. Add the Lambrusco and remove from heat. Add lime juice and thyme fronds. Cool. Fish out thyme. Freeze in ice cream maker. Eat. Eat! You want I should die from worry?
We finished it up this morning and, yes, my offspring refused to stop eating the sorbet so I could take a picture. Which, frankly, was a compliment.
This Week
Quote of the week, as expressed by Mr. Greg Harris, right before getting beat down by the former Miss Holloway: “You don’t know what it’s like to want something your whole life, and to plan for it, and to count on it, and not get it.”
In this week’s episode, three women who were taught that that “something” should be marriage — and then married the wrong man — take center stage in three separate romantic relationships, and we learn what happens when you are finally confronted with the thing you wanted your whole life, and don’t get it.
Roger’s one-that-got-away, Annabelle Mathis, returns to try to rekindle their failed romance, under the pretext of offering Sterling Cooper a dog food account. Apparently, long ago in Paris, Annabelle threw over Roger, who was a gadabout, for a man who was more settled. Apparently, she’s been pining for Roger ever since.
There are shadows of the Sal-Lee Garner interaction here — widowed Annabelle tries to seduce Roger — but Roger doesn’t see the need to take one for the team. “It’s different with this girl,” he explains — meaning Jane — but it’s really not, is it? Annabelle is nothing if not a grown-up Jane. Roger has finally gotten over their affair by simply marrying a stand-in for Annabelle. And, suddenly, Roger’s completely baffling obsession with Jane makes perfect sense.
In a way, neither Roger nor Annabelle get what they want. Annabelle married someone else, and will never be able to rectify the mistake; Roger thinks he’s happy with Jane (though Jane hasn’t looked happy for a single second this season), but he can never really have young Annabelle again. One day, it’s clear, Jane will realize Roger’s reasons for marrying her have absolutely nothing to do with her — if she hasn’t already.
Meanwhile, Joan is stuck in a bad marriage, herself. Greg, the rapist/failed surgeon, tanks an interview and has the nerve to imply Joan has no idea how he feels, causing him to get a vase cracked over his head. Though the beatdown is richly deserved, the exchange simply underscores how ill-suited Joan and Greg are to one another. Even after leaving Sterling Cooper, Joan has immediately found a job; Greg can’t — or won’t — find a position outside the operating room. Joan has gone from a working girl waiting for Mr. Right to a working woman supporting Mr. Right.
And then Greg goes and joins the Army, because it’s more important, to him, to be a surgeon than it is to make Joan happy. It’s a decision that would have had a devastating effect on Joan’s life — if she had been the stay-at-home wife she wanted to be. Luckily, Joan is in a surprisingly independent position.
Joan doesn't really see herself in fatigues.
Joan wanted, more than anything, to be “saved” from a fate as a working spinster secretary. She effectively transferred her ambition to her husband. But, in reality, she’s far from getting the life she wanted as a well-to-do housewife in the suburbs. Worse, it’s not even clear she would have liked that life in the first place.
Betty has that life, or, at least, she thought she did, until she uncovered Don’s Dick Whitman box. For the first time, Betty confronts what Don really is: not a strong-jawed Cary Grant type, not a dashing lover with a mysterious past, but Dick Whitman, son of Archie Whitman, sitting on the edge of their double bed, crying like a lost child. Underneath the Don Draper facade, Dick Whitman is emotional, wracked with survivor’s guilt, and scared to death the life he built is going to explode.
The truth about Don seems to deflate Betty. I don’t think she expected Don to be stammering “I can explain” or shaking so hard that he can’t light a cigarette. This is honest emotion, and the man she thought she was marrying doesn’t do emotion. When Betty reaches out her hand, so tentatively, to pat Don’s shoulder when he’s crying, it’s as if she’s trying to console a stranger in distress.
All three women — four, if you count absent Jane — married men who appeared to be good providers. They assumed that was all they needed to be happy. No one taught them to look for anything else in a man. But this way of choosing ensured that they had no real role outside their husbands’ identities. This especially holds true for Joan and Betty. If Joan is a doctor’s wife, what does that mean if her husband isn’t a doctor? How can Betty be Mrs. Draper if her husband wasn’t Don Draper in the first place? And Roger has projected an identity onto Jane that is no less dependent on how her husband defines himself.
The episode’s Halloween ending underscores this idea. Though society defines gypsies and hoboes as worthless outcasts, they embrace their exclusion, creating their own societies with their own norms and rules. Will Joan or Betty finally break from their rigid roles?
For this episode, at least, Joan shows real anger, and Betty demands — and receives — real, truthful answers. By the end, each woman appears to submit, for the moment, to the fate she’s married, but clearly the masks are starting to slip.
“Who are you supposed to be?” a neighbor asks Mr. and Mrs. Draper. For the moment, no one has any idea.
Next week:
Lordy, did somebody eat something that wasn’t horsemeat or candy, or drink something that wasn’t alcoholic? Why don’t these people eat anymore? I’m going to get cirrhosis and the sugar diabeetus.
Post a Comment