Here’s my prediction: Betty goes back to Henry. They have the affair.
Look, Betty is still a spoiled child, and she “wants what she wants when she wants it” (as she said of baby Gene). She lives in a fantasy. Last week, it was the Rome fantasy. This week, it’s the “swept off her feet by a new man” fantasy. And there’s the new man, and he’s handsome and he rescues her (by proxy) and he’s successful and he desires her and he’s a great kisser.
So when the romantic fantasy started, she deflected by having the Rome fantasy instead, but that didn’t last. And she, like her husband, is having her dreams disturbed by this fantasy person.
She’s deeply engaged now, in the Henry fantasy. But the thing is, when you have the romantic fantasy and you’re single, it can be fantastical. The rules of dating, especially at that time, are pretty romantic and oriented towards a woman being swept off her feet, which is what Betty wants.
Now, all along, Betty has played by the rules, and been the proper wife and mother, and humiliated Sarah Beth for being otherwise, and her only fling was one-time, anonymous, while she was separated, and during the end of the world. But now she’s increasingly clear that “proper wife and mother” is never going to make her happy no matter what (“I hate our life”), so she wants something else. Now, she’s willing to cheat in order to have it.
And that’s when she discovers that even cheating won’t do it. Because her romance with Henry will still be a romance as a married woman. The rules will be different. She will be less swept off her feet, more engaged; less a princess, more an active participant. It will be tawdry and dirty and full of details. Naturally, she recoils upon this realization.
Thing is, everyone does. Everyone who cheats has that moment of realizing it solves nothing, it’s not an escape, and it isn’t a return to the glory days of being single. They realize, they recoil, and then they cheat anyway. Because they really want to. They recoil because their choices are more limited than they realized, but they still want to choose.
“Tawdry” is one of the themes of Wee Small Hours. What we want and what we can have are so different. Betty realizing it’s tawdry with Henry is not very different from Sal in The Rambles or Washington Square Park or wherever with the leather boys. It’s not great, but it’s the best he can get.
If Betty was recoiling out of loyalty to Don or her marriage, she wouldn’t have driven to Albany. If Betty had decided she didn’t want an affair she wouldn’t have been angry. Betty is angry that the rules are different for a cheat than for a romance, but she still wants Henry. She’ll go back.
59 Responses to “Tawdry”
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Meowser, I don't think Don was ever freaked out by Midge. He's got the ownership thing over Betty and he didn't have it over Midge. I think he enjoyed and appreciated her Boho lifestyle, and was done with her when she realized she wouldn't put her money where her mouth & his money were. Turned out, HE was the "hobo," HE was the one able to drop everything and go to Paris. Even though she always said "no plans," she couldn't just leave like he could, and he was disgusted.
GWTV, welcome. Nice first foray.
Betty has already done tawdry (at the bar S2)
She's not through with Henry (I want the Belle of the Hudson River Valley) Francis.
Does anybody else think this Henry character is a poor man's version of Richard Gere?
"But Henry .. He doesn’t even have someone to open and filter his mail. That tells me that he is not as high on the Rockefeller food chain as some might think. He certainly cannot support her in the style to which she’s accustomed."
Henry answered in his letter, "not anymore." So, he removed his mail from his secretary. That being said, we don't know how much money he makes.
On the Betty front, it's now been established that Betty has invited the neihborhood into her home for the fundraiser, so any potential humiliation is set up. Sally's at school worrying about the pencil case (will she steal one and get covered by Miss Farrell?). The big ass blue Caddie is just too obvious. Will rumors fly that Carlton is having an affair with her? I think Betty will maneuver something so that Don is blackmailed, clearing the way for her to go with Henry. Roger also can have his sayso, as he wasn't a hypocrite. We'll see!
THAT'S why he looks so bloody familiar! Poor man's Richard Gere!
That being said, I cannot see Betty Draper trying to commit suicide. She's far too self-centered and shallow to contemplate her own destruction seriously. I can see her faking an attempt for dramatic effect, if the Don/Teacher affair explodes into an Ossining Chappaquidick, but not seriously meaning to kill herself.
I don't see suicide happening. They have already done that with Adam in S1. Plus January Jones is very valuable to this show. I think it would be better for the show overall to have Don and Betty call it quits on their marriage. Don't get me wrong — I love this show with all my heart and think Matt Weiner is a brilliant man, but we seem to be stuck in a bit of a rut this season as far the Draper marriage goes. Simmering anger and repeated affairs will only go so far. It would be very interesting to see these two in a different setting. Betty, the divorced mother of 3, who spent so many years living in the bubble and being the envy of Ossining — does she become the much maligned Helen Bishop? Or does she strike out in a different direction — for example, move with the kids back to NYC and get a job? Does she remarry? What's it like for her back on the dating scene? As for Don, once he is given his freedom to prowl, what does he do with it? Is his life filled with regret? Does he marry again? What is his relationship with the kids? The possibilities seem limitless.
"I know we’re just prognosticating, but is it even remotely possible that Don pulls off this affair with Suzanne undetected? Hard to imagine."
I'm guessing this affair will end badly and Betty could very well just explode and go crazy with her gun again.
Still, they could get divorced and with a time jump next season, get back together. It all has a way of working out since you never know how far Matt will jump.
Don's affair with Suzanne can't help but end badly. Sally is the one who will be most hurt by it, and that Don isn't able to even consider that is just another sign of his problem. He's actually putting his needs ahead of his child's, which makes him a worse father than Archie. It's especially sad to see him go down this destructive route after seeing how much his children meant to him last season when he and Betty were living apart.
Yep, I think it will be Sally who sets the merry-go-round in motion here. Don wants to get caught — he's not even bothering to cover his tracks — but he doesn't think of kids as having minds of their own. so he imagines it will be an adult (Betty? one of her friends?) who catches them and that the final showdown will take place strictly among adults. He doesn't know, or has forgotten, that kids see and kids talk and kids spread rumors, and there are more kids in this town than in the one he grew up in. There's no way Sally won't find out, and no way she won't be devastated. And Don is so narcissistic he just doesn't give a shit.
A few episodes ago in the Barbie episode Sally says to Don "Daddy what will happen when you turn the light out?"
Don is crazy to strike up with Miss Farrell and she questions him like Ms Menken did about his crazy ideas and attitude. Miss Farrell knows exactly where this will end up. Disaster. In these kind of affairs the husband usually ends up staying with the wife.
When Betty was talking to Gene about his will, Gene said he didn't want to watch her commit suicide (her smoking) but here is another mention of suicide regarding Betty.
Maybe we will see shades of "the Slender Thread" 1965 Movie with Anne Bancroft about a housewife who takes an overdose of barbiturates because her marriage is on rocky ground.