The ##

I tried not to read anything about the upcoming 4th season of Mad Men. I really did. When BZC wanted to talk to NRF about the temporal setting of the first episode airing this Sunday—which they had both read in The New York Times piece, which I am not going to link—BZ told me “ear muffs” so that nothing would be spoiled. I didn’t care how I looked walking up 1st Avenue with my hands smashing against the flesh of my ears. For the 3rd-season premiere, we didn’t just make strong gin and tonics. We dressed up in suits for the occasion.

Try as I might, however, I eventually stumbled on an article that revealed the timing of Season 4, Episode 1. I won’t link it here, just in case any of you are still, purposefully or not, in the dark, but I will say that the particular article that ruined me labeled Betty Draper as “Don’s cold wife.” 

Ever since the end of Season 2, writers have been aligning the audience against Betty. One pivotal scene in Season 3 comes when Don puts Sally’s doll back in her room after she throws it out the window. Sally screams, waking up baby Eugene. While Don is comforting Sally, Betsy holds the baby, telling Don, “I don’t even know what to say.” Don gives a “WTF?” look and we, as the audience, see Don as the rational center of the situation. All of a sudden, we sympathize with him as the domestic glue of the family. Improbably, he is a man locked in to a life with a crazy bitch, rather than the smooth, lucky bastard we would only actually condemn in front of a worried wife. But the more writers of the show pull this trick, the farther we’re pulled away from the Don we fell in love with in the first place.

One fine afternoon in the hot early days of my senior year in college, I spent upwards of an hour piecing together a rasterbation of the cover of GQ, while polishing off a case of PBR. It was something like 9 feet by 6 feet of computer paper sheets, and when I finally put it all together and hoisted it up on my wall, I made myself a Tanqueray and tonic—beer before liquor, get drunk quicker—and stared back into January’s eyes, admiring my part-sex-object, part-watchdog that would greet all visitors to my then-new apartment. 

This is the Betts I know. Sure, she’s a little fucked-up and would probably be chomping on a cocktail of pills if she lived in these fine times. But just look at her! With every affair Don committed in the first three seasons, I’d say to myself, All right man, that’s cool, you can do that, but really: Look at your wife. Either way, he’s the wrongdoer. We sympathize with Betty for being stuck at home while the boys have all the fun. But we can’t hate Don—he’s too much of a man. And we can’t hate Betts, because she hasn’t done anything wrong.

OK, fine. That doesn’t count.