Roman Holiday

When Betty and Don go to Rome it’s like opposites day in Mad Men land. Betty, it must be remembered, is from a much classier background, so she’s much more at ease on their Roman Holiday, particularly since she lived in Italy as a model and speaks Italian fluently. She’s also confident and flirty (and has an enormous hilarious hair sculpture), and it’s awesome.

She and Don play a love game where he picks her up at the bar as if they’re strangers and then they go back to his room and fuck. It’s amazing. The next morning Don says: “I like sleeping on this side of the bed.”

Oh Don, with feminism you can “sleep on that side of the bed” (have a confident wife who spends her days actually doing something and feeling fulfilled) every day! But nothing comes without its cost obviously. At the beginning of the episode Betty is all “I can’t leave our two month old!” But… she can, because she has Carla. In a very real way, Betty’s empowerment comes at the price of pushing off her maternal duties onto a black woman, a not uncommon critique of that other famous feminist Betty.

Provisionally awesome– the return of Joan. It was nice to see her, but I’m still anxious for her to actually return to the office.

Also!! Betty kissed the governor’s aide! I was spraying pizza out of my mouth hissing “Have SSSSSEX with him!!!!! Get what you want!” At this point I am still 100% behind Betty having an affair, although I really don’t want her to just turn into Lady Don even though, as Sally might point out, he started it. And then she would pummel you with her “little lesbian” fists after playing the saddest, most on point game of mom and dad ever.

I actually didn’t hate Betty’s “Cool it with the kissing” speech. I mean, I wasn’t crazy about “you don’t kiss boys, boys kiss you,” but I really liked “You’re going to have a lot of first kisses.” At least Betty’s not pressing an unrealistic expectation that Sally should wait until true love for her first kiss.

People who should no longer be having sex… Pete the rapist. I was incredibly disturbed by his coercion of the au pair and by her employer who was like, “When looking for a girl to rape, try the next building.” Also, Pete pulls into the lead ahead of Duck for the line: “You’re German, I could get us some beer… or Riesling… or schnapps!”

Tags: Mad Men