Don tells stories
It started in the Inheritance Six Month Leave. Don wants to come home, Betty says ‘what will we tell the kids?’ he creates a plausible lie, and suddenly, she sees it. She sees how easily he lies. Even though she kind of asked for a good lie, she cannot appreciate that it’s a helpful thing to tell the kids (if indeed it is) because she’s seeing her whole married life. What’s her line then (I don’t have it in front of me)? ‘You just came up with that just now?’ She says “Jesus, did you just think that up?” (Thanks, Burt.) For her it’s a holy crap moment.
Indeed, all along this has been Betty’s quandry. Way back in episode 1.02, Ladies Room, she looked at the sleeping Don and said “Who’s in there?” Perhaps she imagined marriage would be an adventure of discovery; perhaps her mother even told her that about marriage. It’s not an uncommon thing to say, and it’s very true, even when you marry someone you know well. She might easily have thought that the thing to do was to marry someone and then get to know him; that marriage deepened through the process of learning more and more about each other. But it didn’t turn out that way. Don wasn’t knowable. He didn’t want her to learn more.
(I don’t think Betty was particularly knowable either, but it’s pretty clear that Don shut out the experience of deeper knowing from both ends, else he would not have shut out her mourning. It’s also pretty clear that in the earlier years of their marriage they talked. A lot. I love Betty telling the story of her first kiss with a Jewish boy. In Season 1 there was enjoyable chit-chat and interplay between Don and Betty that made us feel they loved each other.)
By the time of a Night to Remember, Betty had had enough unknowability. Don left no evidence, Don’s facade never cracked. Facing an uncrackable wall is enough to make anyone crack themselves. Yet Betty found an inner truth; he may remain smooth and she may crack, but she knows what she knows.
What happened in the Inheritance Six Month Leave was kind of the next phase of that. She saw the lies. She saw that what Don did, and what he kept doing, was lie. And lie and lie and lie.
At the point where he wrote her the beautiful letter in Meditations in an Emergency, isn’t a part of her saying to herself, “It could be a lie”? And when she sensually cuddles with him in Out of Town and says, “You’re good at this,” as he talks her to sleep, isn’t a part of her aware that him being good at that is exactly the problem?
In the Gypsy and the Hobo, Betty says “You’re a very, very gifted storyteller.” And that’s it. That’s the sum total.
She can’t trust anything. How do you stay married to that?
Betty recognizes Don’s gift. She probably admired that gift many times (as she did in Out of Town), but now the gift is all she sees, and it has killed her ability to love this man. Everything he says and does must be questioned, and none of the questions can ever be settled. Once she knows that, what can he possibly say or do that will fix it for her?
In Out of Town, Betty was literally hypnotized by Don’s storytelling. If you know that about yourself, that you can be so carried away by that, how can you ever let your guard down?
I know what it feels like to have loved someone, and then look inside yourself and see only the steel wall that prevents you from letting him in again. I know what that feeling is. You need the steel. People will see it as bitchy, but what else have you got? You know he can get in if you let it down; after all, this is someone you fell in love with. So up it stays, hard and closed, and if the wall is there, it locks away the love. Previously I posted about how Betty’s locked heart is rooted in an internal dishonesty. She won’t open to Don because of the dishonesty, and also because of her anger, and indeed, I think because of her disdain, her snobbishness, and her self-righteousness. Don’s right: She likes being the one who’s good so she can lord it over those who are bad; that’s what she did to Sarah Beth after all.
But it’s also true that she won’t open to Don because she’ll never know if it’s safe. She can never trust someone that “gifted.” In the end, there can never, ever be a marriage between them because he has so broken that trust, and she is right to end it. It’s not that she can’t forgive the massive lie of his identity (although she can’t), it’s that she is fully aware that she’ll never see the next lie coming until it’s too late.
November 11th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
So right on! And if you cannot trust someone, you cannot count on them in the least. That is what she said during childbirth with Gene, you never know where he is. She meant both literally and figuratively. Henry may be boring, but she feels she can count on him.
November 11th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
In the end, there can never, ever be a marriage between them because he has so broken that trust, and she is right to end it. It’s not that she can’t forgive the massive lie of his identity (although she can’t), it’s that she is fully aware that she’ll never see the next lie coming until it’s too late.
So very well-said! It would have been difficult enough to deal with if he had come to her and opened up about his lies, but he only told her the truth after she had the proof that he couldn’t storytell (or bully) his way out of.
November 11th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
Don was absolutely right when he said Betty didn’t think he was good enough for her. No matter the fact that she had her own back room bar fling, she still had a mighty high opinion of herself and her place in life — the “virgin goddess” of The Philadelphia Story. But she couldn’t, or wouldn’t leave Don, because she first was pregnant, and second, she’d lose everything in the divorce.
Henry, an aide to a Rockefeller (not just an ordinary politician, but a ROCKEFELLER), came along to offer her an out. She believes that her standing will return to where it should be when she marries Henry. This way, she can shed herself of Don and his NOKD upbringing. I see this as much less an emotional decision as a rational one.
November 11th, 2009 at 12:42 pm
It was “Sixth Month Leave” rather than “The Inheritance” and her line was “Jesus, did you just think that up?” fyi.
November 11th, 2009 at 12:52 pm
I thought about that a lot during Don’s “good boy” phase this season, in between the stewardess and Suzanne. WE knew he wasn’t cheating any more, but why would Betty know that?
I don’t like Betty as a person, and maybe (but only maybe) a better person could have broken through the wall of Don’s need to lie, but I don’t blame her one bit for not trusting him anymore.
That’s why I was glad to see the marriage over. Maybe, possibly, there was something there once, but not any longer. If ever there were “irreconcilable differences” as the basis for a divorce, the Drapers had it in spades.
I wrote a while back (after Rome I think) that I could see Betty being happy and fulfilled as the wife of a politico, playing hostess at fundraising dinners and other events where her skill as a hostess and socialite would be useful to her husband.
November 11th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
So true. But I think Betty will bear the brunt of the blame of the breakup from the kids point of view. They will see their mom instantly w a replacement for daddy, while their dad will (presumably) be living alone. She may not deserve it, but Betty will be seen as the one who kicked Don out.
November 11th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
To what extent do you think Don is completely aware of his lying/story-creating? So much of his background is kept under wraps, and he obviously sees his survival in the world he joined as depending on keeping that unknown. Defensive strategies like that have a way of seeping unconsciously into parts of your life where you may not think you need them. The silence he kept about his own background also worked very well with the strong, silent, husband/father figure, something still so common nowadays. It makes holiday dinners with my husband’s family, full of strong, silent brothers kind of a burden, because it’s up to the women to keep the conversation going.
November 11th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
I agree with this thesis as the reason for Betty finally leaving Don, far more than I believe it has to do with Main Line, ice princess, self-absorbed snobbery. Some of both, to be sure, but far more the former than the latter. For me, at least.
November 11th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
Emi, it won’t help her case that she’s always been so cold and distant with her children, while Don is much more caring and loving with them. But Sally seems pretty angry with both of them right now – Daddy made some promises to her that he can’t keep, at least in the way she sees it.
November 11th, 2009 at 1:17 pm
Even though it was his identity that made her stop loving him, I’ll bet Betty caught on to his cheating this season. His story about coming home to “feed the dog and change shirt”? She probably sensed from experience that he made that up.
Don’s cheating is fairly predictable, as is Pete’s. Don has 2 mistresses per season and Pete has 1.
S1 – Don: Midge and Rachel. Pete: Peggy.
S2 – Don: Bobbie and Joy. Pete: the rejected Playtex model.
S3 – Don: Shelley the stewardess and Miss Farrell. Pete: Gudren.
November 11th, 2009 at 1:22 pm
I disagree that Betty left Don because she could never tell when he was lying. I think that after she confronted him about the Box o’ Secrets, she knew with absolute certainty that he was telling her the truth — the last thing Don would do to manipulate someone is break down and cry. And she didn’t seem to doubt his sincerity in the weeks that followed, either. She told him in “The Grown-Ups” that she knew he was trying to fix things; she said that it was pointless not because she no longer trusted him, but because she no longer loved him.
The one thing she thinks he’s lying about is when he tells her that everything will be okay — not so much because she doubts his overall sincerity but because she can’t imagine that it ever will be. To put it another way, she doesn’t so much doubt his ability to be truthful going forward as she wonders whether everything he told her in the past was untrue. She’s finally seen the truth, seen who Don really is, and she realizes that she was only in love with the person he was pretending to be.
November 11th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
“Henry, an aide to a Rockefeller (not just an ordinary politician, but a ROCKEFELLER), came along to offer her an out. She believes that her standing will return to where it should be when she marries Henry. This way, she can shed herself of Don and his NOKD upbringing. I see this as much less an emotional decision as a rational one.”
But didn’t Betty find out that Henry came from a working-class background, when they met again in “Seven Twenty-Three”?
November 11th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
To put it another way, she doesn’t so much doubt his ability to be truthful going forward as she wonders whether everything he told her in the past was untrue. She’s finally seen the truth, seen who Don really is, and she realizes that she was only in love with the person he was pretending to be.
I think that Betty realized that all of those years of Don’s lies, adultery, intimidation and emotionally distancing himself from her was a result of his act of identity theft during the Korean War. She had spent all those years trying to love a man, who was deliberately maintaining a distance from her because of a massive lie. She had spent all of those years lying to herself that it didn’t really bother her. I guess she couldn’t live with her own lie anymore. And I guess she couldn’t live with a man that she has finally admitted to herself that she would never trust again.
I don’t know about you, but I would have divorced him if I were her.
November 11th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
In the last episode, Betty says to Henry something to the effect, “He’s (or My husband) lied to me for years.”
Say what you will about Betty’s reasons for leaving Don, that is the reason she gave Henry.
Not that Don has been revealed as Dick, not that he squirreled money away ($5,000 not earning interest, but in a desk drawer! Yes, indeedy, Don sure doesn’t understand money, the way a woman from a mainline background would.)
The cheating is, of course, part of the lying. All those nights he spent in another woman’s bed with the excuse that he was “working.”
Don’s lies gaslighting Betty into the office of a psychiatrist in season one, the reveal of his lies prompting her to react physically — vomiting on the ride home after Jimmy reveals Don’s affair with Bobby.
Don’s lies increased her suffering during labor — she connects her pain with his lies.
Betty knows on a subconscious level that Don is cheating again in the third season, the Don/Dick reveal is the manifestation of those lies, too.
November 11th, 2009 at 1:45 pm
Excellent analysis, Deborah, and how I saw it as well. But my question is, how do we know Don isn’t still telling stories? Wasn’t his sales pitch to Peggy almost verbatim his sales pitch to Betty in “Meditations” last year?
“You’ll move on to someone new, but without you, I”ll spend the rest of my life alone”
“If you don’t come with me now, I”ll spend the rest of my life trying to hire you”
Which is the truth? We know the first one didn’t last up through the first episode of Season 3.
November 11th, 2009 at 2:00 pm
Which is the truth? We know the first one didn’t last up through the first episode of Season 3.
Surely Don didn’t mean that if Betty left him he would be celibate for the rest of his life. He meant that he would never find someone else to make him happy, not that he would never sleep with another woman. I think he truly believed that.
Which is one of the things that makes this season’s finale so moving — because Betty does leave him, but he realizes that contrary to what he always expected, he isn’t completely lost without her. He still has his job and his coworkers, and he’s surprised to discover that they are enough to keep him going.
November 11th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
Not celibate, Freelancewoman, but committed to his marriage and family. And yes, since his infidelity has been a huge problem for them from the beginning of the show, Betty would have been allowed to take his return as a promise to not cheat on her. But other than going through the motions with each other, neither character was written to have really tried to move forward with the marriage. Betty was still whining. Don was still cheating, halfheartedly maybe, but not by the end of the season.
Betty acknowledging that Don must have wanted to get caught, and that she was never enough for him are two of the most astute observations she’s ever made. But she didn’t want to know why, and he didn’t want to tell her.
November 11th, 2009 at 2:40 pm
I know MW says Don’s low origins were too much for Betty, but I see so much more than that. It’s just the last illusion being stripped away.
The Roman holiday episode was a play-within-a-play where each acted out a character. Their whole marriage was a play where Betty and Don (the perfect bride a groom atop the wedding cake, as Roger remembered them) acted their roles to perfection for the outside world to see, while being someone else entirely in their inner lives. They both worked hard to stay in character with Don suppressing his D-ick/ hick-ness and plying layer after layer of veneer on his corporate executive persona while Betty plays the “perfect” housewife and executive spouse as she numbs her depression, suspicions, doubts and imperfections with wine and withdrawal.
So the parts they played before the world and for each other in the marriage are as unreal as the characters they played on the trip to Rome.
Inevitably they had to split as a couple to become reintegrated and functional as individuals.
I’d love to have a thread about Henry, because I see him so differently from the views expressed by most everyone here.
If I remember, the “working-class background” assumption comes from his statement that he once moved furniture as a job. It was quite common that young adults in well-to-do families were expected to work either at entry levels of a family business to learn the business from the bottom up, or just to have a job generally, in the widely-held belief that work builds character and nobody is entitled to anything, they must work for it.
Even if Henry comes from humble means and worked his way up, I believe that by now he has status, a personal fortune and that he is highly regarded professionally and is not in the least dependent on any state salary from his service to the Governor. And I think he is a gentleman, until proven otherwise. This will not shield either of them from social disapproval of divorce and remarriage, however.
November 11th, 2009 at 2:49 pm
Now that Don has been revealed as Dick, not that he squirreled money away ($5,000 not earning interest, but in a desk drawer! Yes, indeedy, Don sure doesn’t understand money, the way a woman from a mainline background would.)
My recollection of the $5k in a shoebox was that’s how it was delivered to Adam as hush money, and that’s how Adam mailed it back to his brother before committing suicide.
When Don first assembled Adam’s goodbye care package, did he pull that $5k out of his desk drawer at home or was the desk just a temporary location after he made an off-screen withdrawal from one of those private bank accounts for which he was designing ad campaigns?
I think D. felt so guilty about Adam’s death that he couldn’t bear to make a decision about what to do with that money, so he just left it in the desk. With the salary, bonuses, new cars, and stock options we’ve heard about during the course of the show, the shoebox contents are just a small part of D’s net worth.
BTW, hu$h money or blackmail delivered in a shoebox is a classic touch — I recall it being used in A Perfect Murder, the 1998 remake of Dial M for Murder (1954).
November 11th, 2009 at 3:18 pm
Adam didn’t send the money back. I believe the desk clerk at the hotel he lived at made a comment to Don about the city or state getting all that money. I think Don has probably always kept some ready cash on hand. He lived through the Depression after all. A lot of people from that generation don’t trust banks.
November 11th, 2009 at 3:42 pm
There was other cash in the desk drawer, but the last batch of it was the $5,000 bonus Don got for finally signing the contract on 7/23. He was stashing it in there when baby Gene cried, and Don absentmindedly put the desk drawer keys into his robe. knitgirl’s right – the 5G from 5G ended up going to the state.
I think every time Don got a little extra cash or bonus, he stashed it in the drawer. And I bet the half million from the sale of SC to PPL is sitting in his Private Executive Account.
One thing you can say about him is that for all his growing up in poverty, he really doesn’t care that much about money. (In that sense, Betty is right) Remember when he signed over his first $2500 bonus check to Midge? And then he gave Adam the 5G. Money doesn’t mean that much to him, except as a means of escape.
That’s why I believe Betty will end up with a nice fat settlement anyway, and the kids will get hefty child support payments. I don’t think he gives a shit about money for money’s sake.
November 11th, 2009 at 4:01 pm
It’s really hard to understand Don and Betty on any level, I mean no matter who he is with…he would probably cheat and go back to that double life thing where he goes home and yet still sleeps around looking for more. Don was enough for Betty, but he got too arrogant about that and didn’t think she would leave or cheat herself. I think he broke her in a lot of ways.
November 11th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
#18 Bornin50, exactly. Everyone jumped to the assumption that Henry was working class because he moved furniture. I didn’t read anything more into it than that he had a job moving furniture — after all, he mentioned that he knew Ossining well.
I really can’t stress how important the Rockefellers were in New York political and social circles back then. In 1963, Nelson Rockefeller was only a year into his term as governor. He would be elected twice more, and he became Gerald Ford’s vice president after Ford succeeded Nixon. And in late 1963, Rocky is gearing up for his second try as president. Unless Henry were to resign, he could have a job in Albany for another decade.
November 11th, 2009 at 4:45 pm
Here is the thing, everyone on MAD MEN lies, it is just about what and to whom.
Betty lies primarily to herself as evidenced by her chaste affair with Henry Francis. She does not believe herself to be cheating on her husband, despite actively working to dismantle her marriage. As we saw in Rome, Betty is just as deft at slipping into other roles as her soon to be former husband when the mood strikes her.
The simple truth is the suburban life was just as big a lie for Betty as it was for Don. She wants to be a pampered “little girl”, which leaves precious little room for an actual little girl in the form of Sally. Betty pretends to be her mother, while she is nothing of the sort.
Betty is no more worthy of trust than Don, it is just that her lies are not as easily exposed as someone finding a shoebox.
November 11th, 2009 at 4:52 pm
Henry is a top aide to Gov. Nelson Rockefeller and evidently a very close personal friend of the Governor and/or Happy (formerly a Rockefeller staffer), since Henry came to the derby party from their wedding which was attended only by the innermost family circle (about a dozen people, all relatives, according to TIME magazine that week).
Governors generally, and this one in particular, do not admit lightweights to their inner circles. One of the wealthiest men in America, Gov. Rockefeller had prominent people on his gubernatorial staff, and he used his own funds to retain highly respected public policy and legal experts (Henry Kissinger, for just one example) as advisors. While serving as Governor for 3 3/4 terms he also constantly was involved in both foreign policy and private philanthropy.
Mere ward heelers and operatives do not have private Capitol offices nor a secretary such as Henry has. Henry is a serious important person. In fact, the ‘campaign’ end of the Rockefeller staff were officed in NYC and the Governor himself mostly worked from there, when the Legislature was not in session.
After his divorce but before remarriage, Rockfeller was the leading contender for the Republican nomination for President in 1964. It is impossible to overstate the negative impact of the second marriage on Rockefeller’s political fortunes and indeed, on modern history, for as his popularity plunged the conservatives ascended.
From TIME Magazine, “Republicans, The President Thing,” June 14, 1963, “The Plunge. From state after state last week came reports of Goldwater’s surging strength. Yet that strength can only be explained in terms of the plunging political fortunes of Goldwater’s chief rival for the 1964 G.O.P. nomination — New York’s Governor Nelson Rockefeller.
The political reaction to Rocky’s recent remarriage has been disastrous. … And from Rocky’s own Northeastern neighborhood came one of the most wrathful public lashings in memory. In Connecticut, once regarded as a hands-down Rockefeller state, onetime U.S. Senator Prescott Bush, a moderate Republican, delivered the commencement address at Greenwich’s Rosemary Hall, a school for girls from upper-income families. Said Bush: ‘Have we come to the point in our life as a nation where the Governor of a great state — one who perhaps aspires to the nomination for President of the United States — can desert a good wife, mother of his grown children, divorce her, then persuade a young mother of four youngsters to abandon her husband and their four children and marry the Governor? … Have our standards shifted so much that the American people will approve such a chain of events? I venture to hope not … It will depend on whether our people are ready to say ‘phooey’ to the sanctity of the American home and the American family. Are we ready to say goodbye to the solemn pledge ‘To have and to hold until death do us part’? Young ladies, I hope not, for your sake.’”
Betty’s disapproving exclamation at the Derby party about the nuptials and Happy’s children is right in line with public sentiment.
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,874809-3,00.html#ixzz0WDbG7CUz
This is the political and social landscape Henry has been negotiating in the months between the Rockefeller wedding/ Derby party and his own proposal to the married mother of 3. We can infer that he is aware of Happy’s private agony over having given up custody of her children. So while his proposal must have taken Betty completely unawares, including the children made it possible for her to consider it.
November 11th, 2009 at 5:02 pm
Hmmmm… so…. Betty WILL be lording it over her Ossining neighbors, even as she waves “BuhBye Suckas!” on her way to Chappaqua! Francine is going to spit, she’ll be so jealous.
November 11th, 2009 at 6:22 pm
A logistical question – might have been addressed elsewhere, I just can’t keep up! The SCDP revolt took place over the weekend of 12/13-12/16/63; before the episode is over, we see Betty, Gene and Henry heading to Reno to establish her six week residence, and the kids at home with Carla. Does that mean she isn’t home to give the kids Christmas #1?
November 11th, 2009 at 7:25 pm
Deborah, great post. I agree completely that the reason Betty finally decides on divorce is the lack of trust. I also agree that when she says she doesn’t love Don anymore it’s more that she’s locked it away behind a wall as you say.
The supposition that one of the reasons Betty ultimately left Don was because he wasn’t from a good enough background for this mainline girl doesn’t hold water. She’s known Don grew up humbly, on a farm, with an outhouse since at least Season 2. When she confronts him about Pandora’s box she says “I knew you were poor. That you were ashamed of it. I’ve seen the way you are with money, you don’t understand it.” She knew he didn’t have a pedigree long before making the decision to leave him. It didn’t matter. When he grabs her out of bed and challenges her she admits she is “too good” for him only as a defense. As a way to hurt him. I don’t believe it’s how she really feels.
It’s the infidelity, the secrecy, the lack of emotional connection and support, and finally the HUGE lies that drove her away.
November 11th, 2009 at 7:26 pm
#27 I would hate to think that with everything going on neither parent would be there to give their kids Christmas 1 & 2. Don and Betty are extremely selfish but I agree with Deborah that Betty put up a wall for self preservation.
Don has an attachment disorder therefore incapable of love. I’m sure that stems from his childhood, so essentially he is the one needing a doctor, ” a good one this time”. I think Don would have behaved exactly the same had he married the department store heiress, the free spirit from Season 1, or Ms. Farrell.
That’s why I think it is such a cop out that the writers ended the marriage the way they did. I said this in another post but they made it easy for Betty to walk away with the arrival of Henry, which is soooo unrealistic, and gave Don an effortless escape.
Now what, Don has this big secret from his co-workers. And? Will they really care as long as he is making the firm money?! In his future rendevous, will he have a new approach? Will he introduce himself as Don formerly Dick? In fact, is he really that interesting without the secret and the wife to cheat on? Now he is simply your run of the mill executive man whore.
November 11th, 2009 at 8:00 pm
Deborah – this is a wonderful post. There is so much Betty bashing on this blog, and it was nice to simply read a perspective of their doomed marriage built on a lie. #10 Empress Rouge. I agree that Betty probably caught on to his cheating this season. She told her psychiatrist in Season 1 that she knows when he is unfaithful, he is different in bed or something like that.. Could she have sensed his unfaithfulness with Suzanne? How could she not? She asked at one point this season: “Will you be sleeping at home?” It seemed contrived. She is an intelligent, left-handed, Bryn-Mawr graduate. She must know when he is unfaithful. #11 Dev. I think she stopped loving him because she could no longer trust him (and a little bit of who he really is, which Matt Weiner has confirmed in interviews by saying at the “truth moment” she must have looked at this man and definitely didn’t see herself ending up with someone like that in her future). She showed Don compassion right after he told her his true identity as well as she could for someone who was raised to be distant and detached, but the ten years of lies from the “gifted story teller” just became too much.
November 11th, 2009 at 9:37 pm
I have to agree with the writers who state that Betty left because of the 10 years of lies and infidelity. I have to say, the last episode portrayal of their ugly split felt like a sucker punch to my stomach.
I so wanted Don to fight for Betty and tell her he loved her. Instead, he was hateful, and presumed she was cheating as he was- calling her a whore was so awful- when he is the real whore.
He was portrayed fighting for his business and seducing his co-workers to work for him, while failing to fight to keep his family intact. I think when he called Betty from his office- she seemed to want to hear him try to reconcile- but he let her go. And then his smile after that- I was so sick seeing that.
I wonder how he will feel when baby Gene starts calling Henry “Daddy”?
November 11th, 2009 at 9:39 pm
First Person Plural
By Paul Bloom for The Atlantic, November 2008
An evolving approach to the science of pleasure suggests that each of us contains multiple selves — all with different desires, and all fighting for control. If this is right, the pursuit of happiness becomes even trickier. Can one self “bind” another self if the two want different things? Are you always better off when a Good Self wins? And should outsiders, such as employers and policy makers, get into the fray?
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200811/multiple-personalities
November 11th, 2009 at 10:17 pm
Don is not a liar.
He usually “changes the conversation” and he definitely knows how to keep silent, but he rarely speaks words that he knows to be untrue. He probably lied to Betty regarding his affairs, but I think even there he mostly changes the subject.
I thought about this because I wondered if his speeches to Peggy, Pete, and Roger were lies. No. When Don speaks, it is usually the truth. At least as far as he goes with it.
Now I need to go rewatch S3 and see if I’m right
November 11th, 2009 at 11:25 pm
dr mom, I didn’t read it as Betty wanting to reconcile. I saw more of “oh my God, this is really happening. This is really it.” I think Don decided to stop fighting for lost causes and is throwing himself into a cause that has a future. That’s the new company, not his failed marriage.
November 11th, 2009 at 11:38 pm
Thanks for the post, Deb. Despite all the flashbacks to the hardscrabble childhood that is apparently meant to excuse his behavior, Don is certainly not deserving of loyalty of any kind. Not even from Peggy or Roger, because he completely turned on both of them this year as well. Roger & Peggy have their own reasons to want SCDP to succeed, and hence to accept Don’s flattery and make up. But Betty no longer needs Don at all. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
November 12th, 2009 at 1:33 am
Great post. Agree with all of it.
Maybe it’s irrational, but as long as I’m a Mad Men fan, I can’t help but sympathize with Don. But for me, sympathy isn’t really the point.
If I were reading a novel with these people in it, it wouldn’t be my first (or second, or third) instinct to judge them morally, but to savor how well-rounded they are as characters. It’s not about what Don or Betty or whoever SHOULD do, IMO. And I realize that seeing characters on TV is rather different experientially than reading about them (i.e., it makes it easier to judge an obviously flesh-and-blood person), but Mad Men is novelistic enough that I am far less interested in moral judgment than in character development.
So in general, the Bad Don or Bad Betty stuff – or the “what do they deserve?” questions – are, for me personally, beside the point. I can’t get behind the disgust-or-animosity train. I want to view these characters and see them develop precisely because they’re flawed, in some cases rather horrifyingly so. Don is so human – sometimes damaged, ugly, disloyal, hypocritical, capable of kindness, dishonest, genuine, a liar, etc. – and so full a character, that I’m totally seduced by him. Which isn’t, of course, the same thing as approval. But it doesn’t have to be.
November 12th, 2009 at 1:42 am
But Betty no longer needs Don at all. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
Yes, she’s going off to star in Political Wives of Albany. I’m glad to see her go, too!
But I’ll be tuning in to Mad Men next year.
November 12th, 2009 at 6:45 am
Excellent post, Deborah. I agree–it *was* all about the death of trust. When someone tells big lies–and no, they don’t have to be literal, disprovable verbal lies to still be lies, as they can simply be lies of omission, for example saying “I was at the office” when you were at the office and then at your mistress’s loft–and you eventually find out the truth, your trust in that person becomes shredded, if not to the point of no return, certainly to the point where more lies (especially really huge ones like, say, your husband’s identity is not what he’s told you all these years, and oh, he committed both identity theft and desertion) will deliver the final death blow to your trust and thus, your relationship.
Moreover, when someone tells you an enormous lie–the kind of deception that, when you find out the truth, breaks your heart–it calls into question every single other thing he or she has ever said or done. This is what I mean by the shredding of trust. What remains of your relationship, if indeed anything remains, is the shredded bits–some of which may be able to hold things together and allow the relationship to heal, but not always, or even often. When only a few shreds remain, they are so very vulnerable to any further assault. At which point, it all gives. It all falls away. Working to repair broken trust is so difficult (nearly impossible, really) for that reason: the stakes are sky-high. One more big lie, and what fibers there are left will snap.
He was portrayed fighting for his business and seducing his co-workers to work for him, while failing to fight to keep his family intact. I think when he called Betty from his office- she seemed to want to hear him try to reconcile- but he let her go. And then his smile after that- I was so sick seeing that.
Dr. Mom, YES. I loved that (being sarcastic here). How very bloody typical of Don, and so many men. The career, the job, the business–those are all worth fighting for, all worth the emotional effort, all worth doing whatever it takes. It comes first, as it always did, because it represented Don himself–he *is* advertising itself. He is the slick, seductive lie that tells you everything is fine, you are just fine, just buy my lies.
So it’s no surprise that he puts himself first, before Betty, before his children. There was absolutely ZERO effort on his part to fight for her, or them. All he did was console himself with a few drinks (how original!) and then go home and verbally abuse her, projecting (“You’re a whore!”) and spewing bile and generally acting like the sociopath he is.
Don is The Lie made flesh, everyone. That he is presented in such a gorgeous, slick package is consistent with that metaphor.
God, I loved this show, and now I’ll need to watch Season I, 2 and 3 over and over until next summer!
November 12th, 2009 at 6:58 am
“I know what it feels like to have loved someone, and then look inside yourself and see only the steel wall that prevents you from letting him in again. I know what that feeling is.”
Did you already have children with that person and go ahead and divorce him? Not to say Betty is necessarily making the wrong decision here, or that you did if that was the case, but there’s a difference in what a person does when the context is a romantic relationship versus when it is a marriage with children. Or at least I hope there is. Even in 2009!
November 12th, 2009 at 9:06 am
He was portrayed fighting for his business and seducing his co-workers to work for him, while failing to fight to keep his family intact. I think when he called Betty from his office- she seemed to want to hear him try to reconcile- but he let her go. And then his smile after that- I was so sick seeing that.
See, here I disagree. He should have been fighting for Betty all along; being honest, being loving, being a lot of things he hasn’t shown the capacity to be. And I agree that he has an attachment disorder.
But in The Grown-Ups, Betty was quite clear: Don’t fight for this. Don’t try to fix it. It’s too late. And she was right; no amount of his working to fix or improve their marriage could reach her; her trust was irrevocably broken. And in truth, he was probably relieved, as he said in S2 when he briefly moved out.
I don’t blame Don for taking delight in what he could build.
Did you already have children with that person and go ahead and divorce him?
Dude. Kind of a personal question, isn’t it?
November 12th, 2009 at 9:21 am
See, here I disagree. He should have been fighting for Betty all along; being honest, being loving, being a lot of things he hasn’t shown the capacity to be. And I agree that he has an attachment disorder.
See, Deb, that’s my one gripe with this season. WHY did we waste so much time in Ossining, after the end of last season, when the marriage was also effectively over, only to show that Don is incapable of growth on the personal front? And to have the plot device of an unwanted baby, who will never be a developed character, and will never really know his father as anything but someone who drops by occasionally, seems such a waste.
I’m pretty well done with Don’s personal life. Keep him at work because clearly it’s the only place he thrives.
November 12th, 2009 at 9:21 am
I don’t think keeping the family intact overrides everything else in a relationship, including your relationship with your children. Some destructive marriages inflict much more damage on the kids than an amicable divorce.
There’s lots of blame to go around between Don & Betty, but regardless of how and why and who bore the most fault, their marriage had reached (I’d say gone far beyond) the point of being unable to save it. Betty was right to want that divorce, regardless of what her ultimate breaking point was, and Don was right to finally let the marriage go. I wouldn’t be surprised if he willingly provides a very big settlement for her & the kids to ensure that their lives will be as little disruptive as possible. (Of course, I’d love for Don to get custody of Bobby & Sally, but I’m not sure how realistic that is especially given that he’s going to be totally immersed in starting up his new business — although that could provide some really great conflicts for the show, couldn’t it?)
They both have the opportunity to be much happier now (whether they will or not remains to be seen, I guess) and happier parents will assuredly mean happier, better-adjusted children. I just hope it’s not too late for Bobby & Sally – they’ve witnessed and have been subjected to a LOT of emotional damage.
November 12th, 2009 at 9:32 am
To me one of the major points of the season is to show that Don IS capable of growing emotionally, and does have the capacity for love. That’s an important part of his trajectory. He didn’t succeed completely this season (by a long shot), especially with Betty, but I think we see a real depth of feeling for his children, and an amazing breakthrough in his relationships with the people who are important to him at work. He VALUES them. His relationship with Suzanne (much as I wasn’t a huge fan of their affair) shows that he was searching for warmth and tenderness and caring, albeit in inappropriate circumstances.
I think he’s starting to understand and commit to Anna’s advice “The only thing keeping you from being happy is the belief that you are alone.”
November 12th, 2009 at 9:50 am
Re: personal question
Yes it was, but it was a rhetorical one that pretty much asks itself when you bring up your example, and which you certainly have no obligation to answer.
November 12th, 2009 at 9:52 am
What is “The Lie”?
November 12th, 2009 at 10:39 am
#25 Thank you for all the information on the effect Rockefeller’s divorce and remarriage had on his campaign.
“It is impossible to overstate the negative impact of the second marriage on Rockefeller’s political fortunes and indeed, on modern history, for as his popularity plunged the conservatives ascended.”
This makes me think where the Betty/Henry story line is really going. It does seem too perfect for Betty to land so softly on her “life raft” as Don put it in the last episode. Politics is a tricky business and Henry has not married Betty yet…I wouldn’t be surprised if Henry is advised to ditch the marriage plans for the sake of the election. Then where will Betty be? A single mother of three on her brother’s doorstep?
Considering the times and the options women had then, I doubt the writers will let Betty have a story book ending.
November 12th, 2009 at 10:56 am
#41 Aran…..I agree that it was wrong to suck us in to this marriage just to have it dissolve anyway. I don’t know what point the writers were trying to make. It was implied that in order to succeed at work he had to be destructive at home. When he tried to be faithful and do the right things by his wife he fell apart at work. So now that his family is completely ripped to shreds he should be the biggest the Ad man in N.Y.
I must admit I am disappointed. I get that Don and Betty needed to be apart. I get that. I even looked forward to it. Not just Don hanging out in a hotel for a few weeks. I just hoped that eventually there would be some growth. It seems that now the separation is more about Henry and less about Don. I am a romantic so I always want the happy ending but I think I could’ve dealt with a permanent separation if it was done more honestly and true to life by the writers.
November 12th, 2009 at 12:42 pm
Gypsy, I’m not talking about general society implications of divorce as either good or bad. Each situation is so totally unique that would be impossible.
I’m speaking to my opinion that the writers sacraficed a whole lot of PPL/Sterling Cooper storyline (as well as Joan, Sal, Roger, etc.) to focus on The Drapers, for what ended up to be no reason. We’ve always known that Betty wasn’t enough for Don – Midge, Rachel, Bobbie, half the women in Manhatten who talked about Don’s sexual prowess, and Suzanne drove that point home. He was ready to leave her in Season 1. Season 2 the marriage was over. MW said clearly that the marriage was over when she kicked him out. He could have returned from California and they could have remained separated and the Draper story would have continued pretty much from where we are now.
MW threw a plot pregnancy/baby in, to force Betty’s hand. But then what? It didn’t solidify the commitment anymore than ignored Sally and Bobby did. Don’s epiphany in Mountain King was irrelevant. He’s back cheating as he always has. Grandpa Gene made for some fun scenes, but only served to make Betty alone in the world and teach Sally a sad lesson on grief. Don didn’t hesitate to throw his children over for Suzanne, abandoning his evenings at home with them for her bed and potentially subjecting his wife and kids to scandal and ridicule had the affair been exposed.
If either Suzanne or Henry appeared to have the charisma or attraction of anything other than turnips, it was lost on me. I can’t believe either Don or Betty would have thrown what they had in each other, bad as it may have been, for the likes of Henry or Suzanne and what they offered.
And as for the reveal of Dick Whitman, other than providing great Emmy submission work for JH and JJ, it came to nothing. Betty really didn’t need it to have reason to end her marriage, and it didn’t open her eyes to something deeper in Don. Ultimately it ended up having the long term story implications of Al Capone’s vault.
November 12th, 2009 at 1:06 pm
aran, I was responding to mike @39, not your comment @41 which ended up just above mine by the time I posted it. Sorry for the confusion! I should have made more clear who/what I was responding to.
I tend to agree with you. At some point late in the season, maybe around ep 9 or so, I said I felt like MW had a 5 or 6-episode storyline that he was stretching into a 13-episode season. SO much time spent on the Draper Vortex of Doom. SO much reiteration of how completely soul-crushing their marriage was. OK I GET IT ALREADY! Honestly, there are whole episodes I’m not sure I’ll ever want to watch again, unless I have the fast-forward button in hand.
Not to say I wasn’t completely mesmerized, but so much of it felt like I just couldn’t turn my head away from a trainwreck.
Maybe we all had to go through the emotional wringer to feel the elation and hope on the other side. I dunno.
November 12th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
I will add one thing though – the let-down you felt about the Whitman Sampler reveal might have been intentional. Don’s greatest fear turned out to be…. nothing to be afraid of (or nothing that changed the outcome of things). Maybe that was the point.
November 12th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
Gypsy,
It’s wonderful that that’s your view, but you explaining it to me like it is the plain-and-simple truth doesn’t get the episodes in which we find out if you’re actually right written any faster.
November 12th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
Mike, I thought you were making a generalization about whether staying together for the sake of the kids is always better than getting a divorce. Maybe I misunderstood your point?
Not that MW couldn’t take a radically different turn with things next season, but based on what we have seen up to now, I’m going to stick with my initial judgment that it’s much better for all concerned, including Sally & Bobby, that Don & Betty divorce.
November 12th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
It seems the writers may be underestimated. Now that Betty knows the truth about Don/Dick, who knows what can happen. Don didn’t just lie to her… what he did was illegal. Everything he has done in the name of Don Draper (marriage licenses, contracts, $, etc…) are in jeopardy.
As for baby Gene…maybe next season will be a jump years into the future, and the the purpose of the storyline will be revealed. I wouldn’t be surprised if he is raised as Henry’s son.
Have faith! There is method to the “mad”ness!
November 12th, 2009 at 2:50 pm
I wouldn’t be surprised if he is raised as Henry’s son.
The Henry character is going nowhere, you can count on that (or Matt Weiner can count on losing me as a viewer).
November 12th, 2009 at 3:05 pm
It seems the writers may be underestimated. Now that Betty knows the truth about Don/Dick, who knows what can happen. Don didn’t just lie to her… what he did was illegal. Everything he has done in the name of Don Draper (marriage licenses, contracts, $, etc…) are in jeopardy.
I’ve done considerable checking on the Internet. Lying on your marriage certificate is against the law; you may be subject to fines. Stating that you are not already married–when you are–is bigamy; the marriage is invalid. Stating that you are of legal age when you are not could also invalidate the marriage.
I haven’t found any legal precedent for an incorrect name validating a marriage. We heard a lawyer explain that New York State doesn’t want people to divorce. Generally, the law doesn’t want marriage to be so easy to dissolve.
Besides, if Betty got an annullment, she would have no chance of support from Don. I’m still hoping she will realize that it is a bad idea for Henry to set the terms for her divorce.
I’m hoping we see less of Betty next season. A happy Betty would be fine! And even less of Henry, please….
November 12th, 2009 at 3:05 pm
Mike, I thought you were making a generalization about whether staying together for the sake of the kids is always better than getting a divorce. Maybe I misunderstood your point?
Not that MW couldn’t take a radically different turn with things next season, but based on what we have seen up to now, I’m going to stick with my initial judgment that it’s much better for all concerned, including Sally & Bobby, that Don & Betty divorce.
You address both the general and specific in you comment. I was responding to you explanation of why divorce is right for Don & Betty.
By no means do I think all marriages must stay together for the kids. I just think that the challenges faced by Don & Betty are not insurmountable, and in fact I find them rather trivial. Betty has accepted Don’s infidelity to this point, and I think most marriages would survive the revelation of a secret identity. that doesn’t mean that divorce isn’t right in this instance (and certainly I’m not arguing Betty isn’t entitled if it’s what she wants), but I believe these two have not ever allowed the other to see them for who they are. They could easily do that (with Don internalizing the damage done by his infidelities, though for that Betty would have to tell him she knows about them), and find that they still love each other. And that would be good for the kids. But maybe they won’t.
I think they will, though not immediately. that’s the main thing I’m arguing. That Matt Weiner is completely full of sh*t and a reconciliation is in store somewhere down the line. We’ll see. What I find funny is the notion that a potential divorce that still isn’t even on solid legal ground, which depends on Betty living for six weeks in Reno, Nevada, either with this person she barely knows but intends to marry, or alone, and which will relegate her to a status she had previously disdained, is either a sure thing in itself or the final word on the Draper marriage. That’s ridiculous. Maybe Weiner will skip ahead to where the divorce is final and all is said and done, or maybe he’ll pick up at the airport in Reno. We don’t know. But everyone acting like the divorce is done, final, overdue, and right to my mind are way ahead of themselves.
November 12th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
I’m going to stick with my initial judgment that it’s much better for all concerned, including Sally & Bobby, that Don & Betty divorce.
I’d love to hear how Sally and Bobby stand to benefit from this divorce — that is ALWAYS the claim. Sometimes it’s true, like when there is physical or verbal abuse (and no, mutual coldness is not abuse), though not only then of course, and sometimes it’s not. Just what is it about living together with Betty and Don Draper that is harming them? That their mother is unhappy? Better that she (and they) be in constant flight from unhappiness, or do we think that Betty is moving confidently on to a life in which she will be happy, thus providing a better life for her children? Uh, yeah.
Isn’t it possible that this is about what Betty wants? If so, good! She should go after what she wants (even if it is, at this moment, simply not-the-nightmare-that-is-my-current-life). But the question of what is best for the kids is at best very hard to answer, and if we’re honest pretty obviously a secondary concern.
November 12th, 2009 at 3:38 pm
#55 regarding legality, Don/Dick did more than put the wrong name on a marriage certificate. He faked his own death to the government and assumed a dead man’s identity. The real Don Draper is buried under Dick’s name in a cemetary somewhere. I would think a polically connected man like Henry may find those facts interesting and know just how to use them. This house of cards still has a long way to fall.
November 12th, 2009 at 3:41 pm
#58 What would be the point of putting Don in jail? So Henry could have even more power over Poor Betty? (Bless her heart.)
November 12th, 2009 at 4:44 pm
Great insight as always. I’ve noticed some people seem to be arguing over whether or not it was the years of lies vs. finding out the extent of Don’s childhood poverty and lowly origins, but to me it just seems like that was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back, not an either/or thing.
November 12th, 2009 at 5:07 pm
@ Mike: I just think that the challenges faced by Don & Betty are not insurmountable
We disagree, I guess. I think they are insurmountable when one party has come to the realization that love between them has been extinguished, and has told the other party so in very unequivocal terms. One what basis are they going to give it the old college try? Listen, I’m no Betty fan. I find her cold and distant and childish. But I don’t blame her one bit for making the decision that she made — she’s had enough, she doesn’t love him, and she’s beyond even trying to patch this up.
Regarding Don in jail – I doubt very much the storyline would go that way. If Don made the divorce a living hell for Betty MAYBE she would has a reason to pursue some legal action, but he’s not going to fight her. What would be the point of dragging her children’s father through the mud like that?
Here’s a plot twist I could kinda see happening (not saying it will) – Henry turns out to be pretty much exactly what he seems — a nice, well-off, man who wants nothing more than to make Betty happy. They have a nice solid albeit slightly boring marriage, maybe with none of the sexual fireworks that Don provided, but stable, friendly, respectful and supportive. Betty in fact finds happiness in this relationship. She and Don cross paths sometime. Don, seeing the happy, smiling, beautiful Betty he fell in love with, falls hard for her again. Except this time it’s too late.
November 12th, 2009 at 8:14 pm
@60 Dark Peggy, That’s how I see it, exactly.
@61 Gypsy, “Here’s a plot twist I could kinda see happening (not saying it will) …”. I like that one, too.
November 13th, 2009 at 1:56 am
While reading other MAD MEN blogs and message boards, I have read the following:
*Henry will turn out to be another Don who wants a trophy wife
*Betty and Don should have maintain the marriage for the sake of the kids
*Betty is an elitist and broke up the marriage, because of Don’s social background
*Many have expressed hope that the Draper divorce will mean that Betty will have a small or recurring role in Season 4, eventually easing her out of the series.
What I have basically surmised from many of these blogs is a great deal of hostility toward Betty, accusing her of being cold not only to her children, but also to Don. Many of these fans do not like the idea of Betty dumping Don for Henry and many have pretty much demonize Henry, just as they have done any male character who seemed to be a rival of Don’s – professionally or otherwise. Or . . . they want Betty’s role to resume as it had been back in Season 1. Or they simply want her gone, thinking it would mean an improvement on Don’s character. I read that latest MAD MEN article on the JEZEBEL site and came across this interesting comment someone named tired fairy had to say about Betty’s character:
“11/10/09
I doubt this is the last we’ll see of Betty. Too much of how the show deals with a certain aspect of womanhood/class and sexism in that era rests on her experiences and viewpoint.
The thing about Betty is…you’re supposed to find her all the things people find her. Pampered. Hollow. Superficial. Cold. She is those things, because she’s been made those things. Because no one has ever expected more from her, so she doesn’t even know she could be more…although I think she has glimpses of it. And there are clearly embers of a need to be something…to get out…to figure out some other life than this. Women at that time were supposed to be happy little extensions of their husbands, content with a life where they were basically indentured servants. Even with all the privileges in Betty’s life, she’s still trapped and caged. A pretty prison is still a prison.
To me, Betty’s character is all about restriction. Restricted emotions, restricted choices, restricted ideas, a restricted life. She’s a woman on the brink, stuck in a world that limits her, stuck with her own limitations…stuck with a life she should want but doesn’t.
The people who don’t understand why she’s with Henry seem to have missed the whole scene about divorce then. Even if Don doesn’t fight her, he hasn’t exactly proven himself to be trustworthy. She has no career, and though she’s clearly educated, the only job she had was modeling. She’s not really in a position to effectively navigate the world. And Henry is, in every way, a far more transparent man than Don. He lives his life in the public eye, working for a politician. He’s not in a position to lie and mislead her the way Don was.
Betty is, in many ways, what the stereotypical “childish” woman comes from. Because women were treated like children. By partners, by the law, by society. It shouldn’t be shocking to anyone that some people can’t just snap out of that. And the whole point of her character is exploring where a person like that comes from, and what they do. I find it fascinating because it’s so unlike me.
I think hating her is convenient. Because admitting that women are, in a lot of ways, still expected to be like her is scary. And we resent it. And we resent women like her because they didn’t just get out of it. Because we want more agency than that. And identifying with Betty, even in a small way, must feel like admitting that there’s still something compelling in that version of womanhood. Otherwise I don’t see how anyone could go around defending or forgiving Don as a character while condemning her.”
November 13th, 2009 at 3:30 am
DRush76, I saw that comment over there–thank you so much for bringing it to everyone’s attention. It is perfect: enlightened, smart, and extremely insightful.
@ Mike (45)–”The Lie” I was referring to is, broadly speaking, advertising itself (advertising was my major, and I’ve worked in the field, at the word processor, the drafting table, and on both sides of the camera, since college). In the very first episode, Don lays it all out (going from memory here): advertising is the billboard that tells you the shirt you’re wearing, the deodorant you’re using, makes everything okay–you are okay.
The lie of it all is the notion that a box of this, a can of that, a brand on the back of your jeans, a label on a beer bottle–things like that–have the power to confer on living humans a sense of belonging or even superiority; it is a profit-driven counterattack against the self doubt–the existential angst–to which all of us fall victim from the time we become aware of life’s essential cruelties and man’s essential alienation. It is the notion, built from clouds and moored by air currents, that happiness can be yours if you just buy the right stuff.
Advertising floats these image before our eyes and whispers this lie in our ears, every moment we’re alive. Buy my lies. You have everything you’ve ever wanted. Buy my lies.
November 13th, 2009 at 11:49 am
Listen, I’m no Betty fan. I find her cold and distant and childish. But I don’t blame her one bit for making the decision that she made — she’s had enough, she doesn’t love him, and she’s beyond even trying to patch this up.
I actually am a Betty fan. I also don’t blame her for feeling how she feels or making the decision she seems to have made. I just happen to think it isn’t final and will change.
November 13th, 2009 at 11:53 am
Here’s a plot twist I could kinda see happening (not saying it will) – Henry turns out to be pretty much exactly what he seems — a nice, well-off, man who wants nothing more than to make Betty happy. They have a nice solid albeit slightly boring marriage, maybe with none of the sexual fireworks that Don provided, but stable, friendly, respectful and supportive. Betty in fact finds happiness in this relationship. She and Don cross paths sometime. Don, seeing the happy, smiling, beautiful Betty he fell in love with, falls hard for her again. Except this time it’s too late.
Are you sure you can see that happening as a plot twist, and not as what you think might happen if this were the real world? I guess I have a pretty hard time seeing that happening, because it would make for really, really boring television.
November 16th, 2009 at 10:35 am
[...] father like son? Basketcase Vandi wisely observed that Don has an attachment disorder. He has failed to love in any mature way. He did [...]