Mad Men - "The Better Half" - Review

Peggy is in a rock and a hard place, as she’s torn between two mentors. One she’s grown disillusioned with, and one who’s not interested in her. The opening scene telegraphs this conflict. Don calls in Peggy to settle an argument between him and Ted, but Peggy refuses to get involved. She’s fed up with Don. This is unfortunate for her current circumstances. She wants to have an affair with Ted, but Ted simply isn’t game for this. On the other hand, if she were to choose Don, he’d more likely be willing to give it a go (he does in fact have an affair this episode). This split between these two men (individuals said to be all but the same people) takes place in an episode filled with duality.

By episode’s end, Peggy finds herself shut out by both her mentors and her boyfriend Abe (though stabbing him might have had something to do with that). Though the episode ends on this excellent moment, all but bound to occur at some point, this isn’t really Peggy’s episode. The big storyline, and the one with the biggest, most memorable turn of events, is Don’s. Well, rather Don’s and Betty’s. Betty gets solicited for an affair by a strange man and while she denies his advance she seems to do it more out of fear of her husband’s wrath than because she’s not taken by the idea. Betty has grown discontent in her marriage to Henry Francis, but she’s too stuck in her old ways to leave the marriage (especially not now that Henry’s political ambitions are on the rise).

Don and Betty happen to coincidentally simultaneously visited little nonentity Bobby Draper. While spending an unexpectedly nice day together where they don’t snipe at eachother, the sexual tensions mount until it becomes clear they’re going to sleep together. And then, yep, they do, and it’s one of those very Mad Men-y twists that feels like it was inevitable even as it comes completely out of nowhere. I like this direction for the series moving forward; it feels like a fresh move for the series to get out of old habits, and an affair with Betty seems like the perfect type of affair to ultimately wreck Don’s marriage to Meghan. Although this affair may never be rekindled again, for all I know (In fact, it's more likely just wishful thinking that it will). 

It helps that the two of them are such different people at this point in their life.  They reminisce about the past, and ponder who Sally is more like. And in that moment, you can see why these two got married in the first place. There was definitely something there at some point, even if it’s all but disappeared by now.  

There’s some nice paralleling here between Meghan and Betty. Meghan is playing twins in the soap opera program she stars in. “I told him I didn’t want to be a cliché,” Meghan says, not realizing the massive irony behind that statement. Meghan is a cliché; she’s Betty 2.0. Alright, personalitywise she’s different, but she’s merely another marriage for Don to fill the hole inside himself that is ultimately unfillable. She’s a twin, a cliché, a repeat. And she’s starting to pick up on this. “I don’t know where you’ve gone. But I’m here,” she tells Don. Unlike Old Betty she admits to her unhappiness in marriage, and Don appears to have accepted the fact that he needs to change something about this arrangement as all he can muster up to say is “I know”. Does he want to try harder? In the moment the answer appears to be yes, but this is Don Draper and so I doubt we’ll see much change on his part. 

While the Don, Betty, and Peggy stories in this episode are great, Roger and Pete’s storylines feel like one plot too many. Pete is considering leaving the company, but it has less to bear on this episode than potentially episodes down the line (although social climber Bob Benson does get him a nurse for his mother, at the suggestion of Joan, no less, who he looks to be cozying up nicely to). Roger continues to be a terrible father figure, failing to babysit his grandson, taking him to the frightening of all frightfests: Planet of the Apes. 

There was moments in this episode that were Mad Men at its best, and especially for this season. But there was also a lot of story that just didn’t feel like it went anywhere. It just seems as though the show could have gotten so much more out of the Betty-Don storyline. Even when we go back to Peggy for the final scene, it takes a moment to snap back into that different mindset of Peggy being torn between Ted and Don. Peggy’s plot has little happen, other than watching her relationship with Abe further deteriorate and having her open up her feelings to Ted (which in part leads to the demise of her relationship with Abe). 

In the end, this episode is very much an episode about the titular "Better Half". It's about relationships and it's about the damage we inflict on those better parts of ourselves. This is most obvious in Don and Betty's stories, which find them cheating on their spouses, but it's also in nearly every storyline. Peggy is frustrated with Abe because she wants to be with Ted, who won't be with her because he himself is married. It's even in Roger's story as he visits Joan, the woman he formerly thought to be his better half and for whom he still occasionally pines for; there's been too much damage done there for him to fix that, and so Joan won't even let him see his son. It doesn't even have to be taken literally; it can be seen as referring to Don and Peggy's relationship, which is a big part of this episode and continues to break down. Don is unfulfilled in his home life and so he trying to get comfort in his work life and he can't get any of the acceptance he needs from the one person, Peggy, who has always seen things similarly to him.    

All and all, a very good episode of Mad Men. It could have been a little less messy, but it nailed things where it needed to and so I was fine with it.

Grade: A-