A woman’s guess is much more accurate than a man’s certainty.
- Rudyard Kipling
When Betty accuses Don of cheating, he denies it. When he denies it, she looks for evidence by ripping the house apart. She finds none. Her response? It doesn’t matter – he’s still guilty.
Think about how much of a reversal this is since S1. That season started with her blind ignorance of Don’s infidelity, transitioning into her passive acceptance and communicating through her psychiatrist.
By the middle of S2 she has shed all illusions of Don’s honesty, ignores the lack of evidence and, listening only to her gut and Jimmy Barrett, is putting all her chips on the table behind her conviction.
Every time Don protests (notice he stopped denying it after the first accusation in AN2R), her resolve is strong, never wavering. Considering this was the woman who waited with baited breath to see Don, couldn’t wait until he came up the driveway, yada yada in S1, she’s now reading him like a cheap novel.
It’s as if her ransacking of the house wasn’t an attempt to prove or disprove anything … but it was her own need to bring evidence to Don so he would stop lying about it.
Like a prosecutor who knows the defendant is guilty, but needs to find the smoking gun in order to have a stronger position in the plea bargain. If she could only find the love note, the cocktail napkin with lipstick and a phone number, then maybe Don would stop feeling like he could hide, and they could try to move on. It was the only way to show Don that she was serious.
But through the depression, the separation, the difficulty with Sally, the nonsense with Arthur … she never once doubted herself about Don. Not once.
Despite her mixed feelings about the pregnancy, she now has a foundation upon which to build a sense of self that will be good for her marriage and her family.
16 Responses to “Betty's accusation”
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One of my fave Betty moments is when she shows utter contempt for him for making her ransack the house, because he wouldn't confess. Just her anger that he would try to make her doubt herself.
It reminds me of Emma and Flap in Terms of Endearment:
If you are doing something and you're trying to make me feel crazy because I'm pregnant, then you may have sunk so low that you'll never recover. You may have just panicked, Flap, and trying to save yourself, you've thrown out your character and principles. The only way to redeem yourself, and be the man God intended you to be, is to admit anything you might have been doing last night. Cos if you don't do that, if you don't do that right now, you are a lost man.
"Despite her mixed feelings about the pregnancy, she now has a foundation upon which to build a sense of self that will be good for her marriage and her family."
Are you saying that the pregnancy will help Betty build a sense of self? Or forcing Don to admit to his infidelity?
I'm really interested in seeing the state of their marriage when we get back. We've already seen Don trying to be good husband in the first part of season 2 and that didn't really go all that well, did it?
Comments 2 & 3 above I think are related to the same point …
Rosie – I say "despite" her uncertainty about pregnancy, she has a foundation … meaning even though her and Don's reconciliation may be taking place under duress, she's gone through the painful process of realizing her own will and begun to develop her identity to where she can be more of Don's equal in the relationship. That's a good thing.
Dark – Precisely. Don was the good husband probably because he got the message from Dr. Wayne that Betty was getting wise. However that didn't make her his equal. Calling Don on his cheating, throwing him out of the house, risking "floating away" without him around … THAT will stiffen a spine. A relationship is stronger when both parties realize they can exist without one another, and that being together is a choice, not just an obligation.
Ms. Darkly,
Great quote from Terms of Endearment. I loved that scene and Emma's own strength of character in saying those particular things. I think most women would hold off on such strong words until they had evidence, but she knew her intuition so well that that was all the evidence she needed. Also, I have always felt bad for Jeff Daniels, because Flap was such a sad character to become known for.
If Betty were smart, she should've gone through the whole house and tried to open that drawer and THEN accused Don with the smoking gun. By yelling first, he had some time to hide any evidence!
Betty may not have had physical evidence, but the sheer amount of circumstantial evidence was pretty persuasive.
@Melissa – Actually, she had evidence, as we learned in Season 1, but it was only her impression. I can't remember the exact line, but she describes how there were times it was clear that, when they were making love, Don was clearly doing what some other woman liked, not Betty.
Of course, that evidence was only her impression, which doesn't help the "I could just be going crazy" feeling. However, we know that Don definitely did try to change, or at least resist the urge to cheat, initially in Season 2, so she must have realized her words had some effect.
CPT_DOOM your correct about the making love part, I also remember her telling the therapist that she smelled the perfume on his jacket and ties, but she just ignored them, and also the late night stay ins in the city. So basically she knew in season 1 and in season 2 she had to call him out on it, because Don was making her go crazy.
I kind of interpret their relationship in season 2 like the oscar winning film GASLIGHT starring Ingrid Bergman, as a young naive wife who marries a dark, mysterious handsome man, whom only uses her for her money and tries to make her go insane. While Don probably didnt marry Betty for her money, as it was established in season 2 that he was clearly and madly inlove with her, I think he started to make feel crazy so she wouldnt catch on to his double life.
I don't think he was deliberately gaslighting her, but rather it became something he was willing to have happen rather when the alternative was confessing.
In season 1, it was Betty who was willing to accept her hand issues were psychological and Don who reluctantly went along out concern for her. He found Dr. Guttman's psychological approach to selling cigarettes high-larious.
When you deceive someone, you do so with a hope that they will distrust their instincts if it comes down to it, but inspiring that doubt is not the first goal, but rather a panicked hope when all else has failed.
The above was badly composed.
The thing that blew me away about Betty ransacking the house was that she didn't clean up afterward; she didn't hide the evidence of ransacking from Don, she was okay with him seeing she'd gone all medieval on the house.
Absolutely. We got to see her reach that moment in this very natural way. We start out (in Season 1) with her in denial or at least pretending not to understand Francine's implication. Next, we see her sneaking around with the phone bill, calling the numbers secretly. Then, she takes the bold leap of telling Dr. Wayne that she knows — but not all she knows — in order for it to get back to Don.
In season 2, we have a bolder Better. (Heh!) She doesn't hide her ransacking, because she is clear that she's not in the wrong — that he's the one who should feel ashamed. He's the one in the shadows now.
In fact, it's an interesting role reversal. Don was keeping hidden from Betty that he was talking her doctor, but he wasn't ashamed of it, making the call from his desk in this very paternalistic way. Betty, when calling the numbers, looked for all the world like the one doing something wrong, and in this pose not unlike a teen girl/babysitter. Now, Don is the one feeling uncomfortable, feeling ashamed, and Betty is the one owning her actions with no sense that she needs to apologize or hide.
Great observation on the not cleaning up – not just that she wasn’t trying to hide the search from Don, but that the mess didn’t matter. All the masks were off – not just Betty’s personal appearance, but the appearance of her house as well.
commenting on the implication that Francine threw Betty's way:
when watching that episode, Betty was already dissappointed that Don would miss Thanksgiving and basically put the family on the backburner. By the time that Francine came over with her story of Carlton's infidelity, Betty was already receptive to the idea that Don was less than the ideal she had made him out to be. Shedding her naivete, she used Francine's trick and called the number that appeared often on their phone bill. I felt that her heartbreak and initial loss of trust was that Don was checking up on her via the therapist. And in realizing that he was getting the scoop from the therapist, used that as a platform to talk to Don. everthing she told the therapist was a warning to Don – "i know what youre up to, im seeing these red flags".
I think with the birth of their third child, she will have to give up any suspicion – or she’ll be to busy to think about it anyway!