Mad Men on AMC • Fifth Season Thread

I mean yes Sally will get over it but that doesn't mean that manipulating your 12-year-old daughter in order to disrupt your ex-husband's new relationship and in the process undermining your daughter's relationship with her father and stepmother isn't fucked up!

I mean at least Betty didn't stab Sally, right! She's got that going for her!

i mean, yeah, it was total shit-stirring, but, at what age is it appropriate for her to be told about it?

why doesn't Betty just tell Sally about Don's real identity! No big deal!

not that I really believe in comparative evil but do you seriously think that manipulating a child is run-of-the-mill bad parenting whereas flirting with an adult is evil?

betty's behavior was worse, no question. but i think don's treatment of betty over the course of their marriage was just as bad, and way more sustained.

i don't think Betty gets to decide when Sally learns about it. you're being super obtuse.

The stuff that happens to you when you are a kid can leave scars. It doesn't have to be a crime to fuck you up.

comparative evil 101

12 is an appropriate age, but Betty knew the story and could've told her right then without leaving her hanging and having all sorts of misdirected anger.

everyone ends up scarred - that's life!

yeah it's totally obtuse to suggest that Betty's goal was to have a mature conversation with Sally about Don's family history

i don't think Betty gets to decide when Sally learns about it. you're being super obtuse.

well, i think she has just as much right to make that decision as don, frankly. my objection is to the way she went about it and her motivations for doing so. i wouldn't quibble with her "right" to tell anyone she pleases the truth about don and dick whitman.

if Betty had been motivated simply by a desire for Sally to know the truth, she could have just told her herself. instead she deliberately manufactured a situation that would disrupt Don's home/family

what's shitty is that Betty used her own jealousy over Megan and Don's life/apartment/Megan's semi naked body/whatever as the fuel to put her daughter in the middle of an issue that doesn't even INVOLVE Don's first wife.

it's not even Sally knowing. it's the motivations and the way she did it and WHY she did that's just so...Betty

Yay it's Strawman time! Whee! Nobody said "Betty's goal was to have a mature conversation with Sally about Don's family history"! Strawman time!

that's life!

(well Betty may have been involved inasmuch as Don may have technically been a bigamist I forget how that all worked)

The only shitty thing about Betty's behaviour was telling Sally to ask Megan about it, imo

it's not like she was making it up though!

― sarahell, Tuesday, May 15, 2012 4:42 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

at what age is it appropriate for her to be told about it?

― sarahell, Tuesday, May 15, 2012 4:43 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

a Strawball's chance in hell ...

and yeah, Don had to divorce Anna in order to marry Betty.

anyway clearly the depravity of this situation is up for grabs for some of you I know longer care

Except Don didn't actually tell Sally the story. Is Sally going to be more or less fucked up thinking Don 'had to marry Anna' vs if BEtty had told her he switched dog tags to run from his family etc

My parents lobbed shit through me alll the time when I was a child. Fuck, they still do. I am 29 years old and I still have to tell my family not to insult the absent person to me. This is a thing.

That was about 30 xposts but y'all are typing too quickly today

The only shitty thing about Betty's behaviour was telling Sally to ask Megan about it, imo

well, exactly. she was trying to engineer a situation that would fuck with megan and don, and didn't seem too worried about the fact that sally might get hurt in the process.

know no

My parents lobbed shit through me alll the time when I was a child. Fuck, they still do. I am 29 years old and I still have to tell my family not to insult the absent person to me. This is a thing.

^^ exactly. I'd even say it's more normal than any "Oh you simply MUST thank Megan for helping you on that project, sweetie!" like a kid doesn't understand that doublespeak (i.e. they do)

if BEtty had told her he switched dog tags to run from his family

tbh I have never really understood what Don explicitly gained from switching identities. I mean, surely he could have just run off from his family and changed his name, etc. This was not uncommon. Did he get Don's bank account and house and shit? I guess that would be a big deal.

xp

Wasn't the real Don about to end his tour? He got to go home early?

For a while now I've found it to be kind of implicit that Betty doesn't like Sally. (not sure about the other kids.)

I just feel bad for Sally.

Huh! That's interesting. (That Betty might not like Sally)

Don gained a body that would get sent back to Shitckick, Wherever and get buried in the ground for one thing

xp That was what I thought - go home early, whereas Dick had just got there, more or less?

Betty is probably jealous of Sally w/r/t her & Megan's relationship too. My Mom has been mad at me and said some damned cruel things, intending it to hurt -me.- But she also lobbed some slow pitches to explode once I got to my Dad's house. But she also loves me, or at least she's lead me to believe so and let's not debate that part. ;)

Sally isn't as easy to deal with as the other two

Betty is totally jealous/resentful of Sally this has been obvious for a long time

of her relationship with Don, of her relationship with grandpa Gene, etc

Betty even tried to horn in on Sally's therapist

hahaha

Betty is totally jealous/resentful of Sally this has been obvious for a long time

agree with this, but i don't know that it's so extreme as "totally jealous/resentful"

She also made Sally stop hanging out with Glenn, although that one might not be such a bad idear.

Sally robbed Betty of her potential cougar action

sorry

This Megan vs. Betty fight seems so ridiculous to me. Having watched Betty over the first four seasons I mostly remember

lots of self-served moping
manipulating people
more moping
pettiness

Maybe my memory is false or something. But I just remember thinking there's nothing at all to this woman other than her looks and a vague, childish, suffocating melancholia.

I remember Betty being much more dependent on everyone around her. The lack of attention she got from Don is the main reason for their breakup. Whereas Megan might be a bit too enthusiastic for some people, at least she seems to know what she wants and is capable of constructing her own identity. Betty seems to wallow in victimization.

I honestly don't know how fully formed the arc was when the show began, but at some point they realized that Betty and Megan had to be in stark contrast to one another.

Betty wasn't allowed to work, and Don didn't want to spend any time with her at night.. Most of what makes Megan so foreign to her is that she can work (then mother on weekends.)

Betty did those print ads though (1st season? maybe 2nd) and decided she didn't really want to work. Except there was something else to that (somebody wanted to sleep with her? they were only using her as a favor to Don?), and I can't remember what exactly - something where she got huffy.

The Betty/Megan thing is playing out so much like my own mother/step-mom, it's a bit too real at times.

The print ad (for Coke) was a ruse that Don cottoned to.

When Betty and Don went to Italy...The Betty we found in Italy was very similar (at least superficially) to the Megan we see today. She was stylish, hip, in the know with her Italian, if only for a moment and it seemed that Don was really into her at that moment. Once they returned home, back to the children and daily life, Betty threw a childish tantrum. The life she had was not the life she wanted, she wanted to live the way Megan is living with Don now.

I think Betty is a lot of women at the time. As times began to change there was a bit of jealousy and resentment towards the new generation of women who had more opportunity and choices and social freedoms. Plenty of women made that happen for themselves like Peggy.

"Betty did those print ads though (1st season? maybe 2nd) and decided she didn't really want to work."

Rewatch this episode. This isn't what happened.

is the whole bobby draper thing like a conscious brechtian device? i swear they pointedly get a new actor to play that kid every damn episode.