AMC
(Season 2, Episode 13 – Season Finale)
“Congratulations?” – Francine, about Betty’s pregnancy
Wow, they really packed everything into this season finale, eh? You can’t say that fans were cheated out of drama. Not only do they increase the cliffhanger tension (I bet fans are already craving for Season 3, Episode 1), but they also made several secrets known to the people those secrets were being kept from, progressing those plots in a way I bet fans aren’t expecting.
And a few questions were answered for loyal viewers too…
Besides babies old and new, this episode is all about the possible destruction of two worlds, the U.S. (via the Cuban Missle Crisis) and Sterling Cooper. I wonder if a lot of the secrets and revelations revealed in this episode are because the characters are worried about a possible war and want to get things off of their chests or they would have done it anyway. Betty has sex with a random guy in a bar after Don tells her he did indeed have an affair (oh well, at least she can’t get double pregnant!), Peggy tells Pete about their baby after he declares his love for her (funny how you really like Pete even though he’s kind of a jerk), and Don finds out that Betty is pregnant after returning home. That’s a lot of plot development to chew on until 2009.
Some more observations about this season finale:
– Father Downer is all judgmental and crass with Peggy this episode, suddenly turning into Kirk Cameron and warning Peggy about HELL. And right after she brings pastries for the church too.
– Why is Don’s jacket all wet when he returns to Sterling Cooper? Yeah, I know, it was raining out (as we see in Don’s office as he looks out the window), but I just think it was an interesting bit of detail that wasn’t really important.
– Love, love, love Duck being deflated when he finds out Don doesn’t even have a contract. And Don is the one who hired Duck! I hope the Putnam, Powell, and Low guys dump Duck. That backstabbing dog abandoner has it coming to him.
– The Sterling Cooper guys are great comic relief in this episode, trying to figure out why Don was on the West Coast for so long, why the Clearasil account is gone from the file, what’s happening with the company and with Cuba. Lois has one of the great lines of the ep when she tells the guys “Whichever one of you guys is still around has to get me off of that switchboard.” Forget the world ending, she just doesn’t want to answer so many phone calls all day long.
– I called Pete a jerk above, but he’s actually a rather complex guy. He truly loves Peggy, and you can tell he wants to be a good person. He wants to be Don Draper, regardless of the Dick Whitman thing. He looks up to Don and even tells him about his new job, even though Duck asks him not to. Did Pete actually leave Trudy? He did say “you’re right” to her when she said “if you loved me you’d go with me [to D.C.].” At first I thought he was going with her but then he shows up at Sterling Cooper. He does say “If I’m going to die I want to die in Manhattan.” I bet a lot of people feel that way.
– Most shocking moment: Peggy telling Pete about the baby (and I think we have the answer to whether or not Peggy gave the baby away or her mom/sister were raising the kid – it’s the former). I thought they’d drag that secret out for several seasons. Most shocking moment #2: is Pete holding his gun in his office when we last see him?
– Betty’s pregnancy mirrors Peggy’s predicament, only Peggy didn’t contemplate an abortion (though he didn’t have any time to think about it). Though Francine tells her that she could just wait and see what happens. Betty smokes and drinks and goes horseback riding and hooks up with a guy at a bar and then comes home late and eats cold chicken out of the fridge – oh God, she’s turning into a college student! I’m hoping that her little bar fling was just something she had to get out of her system. She seems to mature when she reads Don’s letter. I think that the ending of this episode, Betty telling Don about the baby and the two of them holding hands in the kitchen of their home, was actually a very positive ending for the season.
More great quotes:
“Do I work for you now?” – Don to Peggy
“Other than her office and hairdo, is there anything else I should know about?” – Don to Joan about Peggy
“He doesn’t have a wife.” – Roger about why Duck was in a bar
“Kennedy’s daring him to bomb us. Right when I got a second chance.” – Roger
“Well, now I know I’m not crazy. That helps.” – Betty, after Don admits the affair
“That’s why God put non-compete clauses in contracts.” – Duck, to Pete, about Don (little does he know…)
Clacked by Bob Sassone 
on Oct 26, 2008 @ 23:59 EST5EDT
I don’t think I’ve said this yet in two seasons, but this episode was a disappointment. Aside from the merger scene where Duck lost it, I was let down big-time.
I’m really not freaked over the episode. It has some interesting revelations, but I can definitely wait for Season 3. Not to say I won’t miss them every week.
Pete still aggravates me. He’s a very lost soul. I’m not sure that his “love” for Peggy is sincere any more than I am sure about other thinge he “believes”. And, while Peggy did say she gave the baby away, it doesn’t rule out that she gave it to her sister. Once the choice is made, you have to be firm in the process, even when it’s your own sister to whom you gave the baby.
Betty had to get that sex thing out of the way in order to welcome Don back. It’s much easier to forgive someone when you have packed that secret into your back pocket. If he strays again, she will have an ace in the hole – something that would rip him apart. She knew what she had to do to move forward, have the baby and keep her family.
It should be intresting to see how it all plays out, but I doubt we’ll get the chance. I’m sure the’ll push few another year or so, and the beginning of the series will be all about us trying to imagine what happened.
I do agree with Modwild about Betty having the ace in her pocket, but I sort of imagined her being trapped in her relationship with Don, this new baby being an albatross rather than her being genuinely happy. As she realized that she was never going to escape her doldrums, she just told him she was pregnant. She said it with lamentation, rather than excitement.
Don has the secret of his other life; Betty has this affair secret. I just want these two to move on because they are bad for each other. The more they try to “make it work,” the more they damage each other further.
I am looking forward to the next season, however, I was a little confounded by this episode, as it seemed to end with things left unsaid. Not a cliffhanger, so to speak, just incomplete.
I liked Pete’s vote of confidence in Don. He knew Don would come out on top and went ahead and took a risk and picked a side when he was told it’s better to stay neutral. He knows he can go further with Don than Duck. I would have liked to see more of a meltdown with Duck and him being dragged out of the room and thrown out of the building like he did to Chauncey. Maybe Duck can go sell some insurance now. And is Berts sisters name Alice Cooper?