When Mad Men
started, who could have guessed that Pete Campbell, once dismissed by Lane as a
“grimy little pimp,” would be one of the characters to get a happy ending? He
walks around in perpetual high dudgeon, with a life full of disappointment
despite his privileges. Like many of the other people on the show, he engaged
in terrible behavior, such as pimping Joan out to Herb from Jaguar, cheating on
Trudy and forcing himself on an au pair.
It was surprising to see Pete jump ship from McCann
Erickson, given his comfort there in the last episode. He’s the third partner
of the old SC&P to defect. It took the machinations of incorrigible drunk
Duck Phillips (seeming desperate like Gil on The Simpsons) to get him a job with Lear Jet. I could have
predicted a reunion with Trudy, given their closeness over Tammy’s schooling.
He may have made that decision when asking his cheating brother why he was
always looking for something better and then realized that’s exactly what he
did with his ex-wife. When things were good with the Campbells, they were very
good, and Trudy is one of the few people to understand Pete. Plus, none of them
have anything better going on.
What surprised me there was that Pete, a New Yorker to the
core, was willing to go to Wichita. This could mean he has escaped the cycle of
repeating mistakes that plagues so many on this show. The always level-headed
Trudy tells him she never stopped loving him but will not allow him to hurt her
again, another character breaking a pattern. “Good morning,” he tells Trudy as
they make their new beginning.
The Francis family is not so lucky. Just last week, I noted
how nice it was seeing Betty happy as she started her psychology courses. Now
metastasized cancer gives her nine months to a year and she doesn’t want to get
treatment. She’s not the most sympathetic character but deserves better than
dying in barely-middle age. It was tough watching Sally and Henry crumble at
the news. The development is a little soap opera-esque but that’s true to
Betty’s arc.
“I’ve learned to believe people when they tell you it’s
over,” Betty says, invoking the weight of her history with Don. “I’ve fought
for plenty in my life. That’s how I know when it’s over.”
Henry’s comment about suing the hospital makes me think they
foreshadowed the cancer in season five with Betty’s thyroid scare and maybe the
doctor missed it then. There was also foreshadowing then with Betty’s nightmare
of the family eating breakfast without her on the morning of her funeral, with
a callback last night with Sally sitting down at the table with her brothers.
Betty’s actions in the face of the diagnosis might seem cold
but they’re in keeping with her personality. I understood why she wanted to
keep up her studies and it was devastating watching her trudge up the steps in
pain and fake a smile when someone saw her. She watched both her parents die
and wants to go with dignity and save her children from that agony; another
instance of a character breaking a pattern. Years ago she resisted discussing
funeral arrangements with her father so now she spares her daughter that pain
and gives her a letter detailing the plans.
“I always worried about you because you marched to the beat
of your own drum,” Betty writes to Sally. “But now I know that’s good. Your
life will be an adventure.” That’s beautiful and heartbreaking but it’s also
something Betty didn’t want her daughter to know until after her death.
The question now is what will happen to Sally. She was
scarred by Grandpa Gene’s death when nobody explained it to her or comforted
her. Will the same thing happen after her mother dies? Will this force Don to
come home?
Somewhere in the Midwest, Don escapes his past again.
However, a few little things from his old life are haunting him: He lingers at
a vending machine selling his erstwhile account Coke, he corrects the bellhop’s
grammar like a writer would, and he fixes a typewriter that he doesn’t need to
use anymore. He is free to adopt any cover story he wants and assume any
identity but he is still calling himself Don Draper, even if he looks and acts
more like Dick Whitman.
At the VFW, Don is reluctant to admit he is a Korean War
veteran, afraid a fellow veteran will recognize him as Dick Whitman. After
hearing a horrible story from a World War II vet who “did what he had to,” he
tells a story that is more bumbling than heroic: “I killed my CO. I blew him
apart and I got to go home.”
It was stunning hearing this for the first time. The
veterans give Don his absolution but then falsely convict him of something
else: stealing donation money. Stripped of his money and career but forgiven
for his sins during the war, he helps the bellhop escape and assume a new
identity, ending up alone on a park bench.
Don is now truly free, but his daughter needs him more than
ever back home.
Like his dying ex-wife says, it’s almost over.
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