"I'm a grown up."
Well, I guess Henry Francis finally says the words we've wanted him to say to Betty since their creepy affair started. And rightly so as Betty has spent most of this season (and I guess most of the previous 3 seasons) acting about as mature as her daughter Sally, throwing tantrums whenever anything didn't go her way. When she see's Don, the ex-husband who she never really knew or knew too well (you decide) in a restaurant, during what could be an important meeting for her new husband, she throws a fit and locks herself away in the women's room. "I'm a grown up" Henry scolds her on the way home.
I know there are plenty of people who see Betty as an immature child, someone who possibly got the fate that she deserved, even if Henry didn't deserve to get stuck with her, but I wonder how can we expect Betty to be anything more. Her father doted on her and protected her, giving her no reason to grow up on her own. Don Draper lied to her, used her as part of his suburban family man disguise. Did Don ever really care for her or was she just another part of the persona that Dick Whitman adopted. Her friends, like Francine who makes a wonderful reappearance this episode, coddle her, absolving her of any and all blame in everything she does. Betty Draper has never been held responsible for anything so is it any wonder that she has no idea how to take responsibility for anything?
Of course, it's not like Don Draper is any better. "Don Draper" was Dick Whitman's own way of avoiding responsibility and growing up. This latest episode shows him finally realizing that a bit. He's spent so much of this season drunk, lost and just wandering through life, refusing to accept that he had a hand in losing everything. He's built a successful business; isn't that what grown ups do? He drinks all day; isn't that what grown ups do? He gets blowjobs in the back of taxi cabs from young women; isn't that what grownups do? Don Draper should have everything yet Dick Whitman has nothing, a lost and scared little boy, back on the farm and intimidated by anyone bigger than him.
Then there's Peggy and Joan, just as lost in their own ways as Don and Betty. What's their role in this new company and, more importantly, what's their role in this world? Joan has to watch as her husband prepares for basic training, leaving to get sucked into a bigger war than anyone really knows. A strict mother figure at work (at least to those men-child that Sterling Cooper Draper Price have had to hire,) she continues to show us that that is almost as big a disguise as Don Draper is. It's an act because she's just as scared and lonely outside of work as well. And Peggy just tries to help, to stand up for herself and her fellow woman. Is that ambition? Did she really just reinforce what the remaining men-children think of her, that she's a "humorless bitch?"
More and more, Mad Men is about the masks we wear and who we are when we take them off. With the loss of nearly everyone who knows him, Don has been forced to look at his own mask and as ask "why?" Why does he wear the mask if everyone eventually leaves him? Why does he wear the mask if no one really knows who Dick Whitman is? With the 1960s quickly moving along, that question spreads to everyone as they have to evaluate who they are and why do they do the things that they do? Mad Men can never fully lose those masks; that would be taking away the heart and soul of the show. But it can explore how do we wear and use those masks.