Mad Men: "The Color Blue" -- HuffPost Review

Last night's "The Color Blue" was a cracking good episode that, after last week's rushed and rather arbitrary plot developments, returned Mad Men to its strongest ground. That's the advertising business and the mystery of Don Draper.

As always in these reviews, there be spoilers ahead, so you've been warned.

Don Draper is at the top of the world, or perhaps a plateau before making a further ascent, as he's about to be feted as the face of Sterling Cooper at a highly publicized banquet celebrating the firm's 40th anniversary. But are the walls about to close in? (Betty has at last discovered the contents of the locked drawer she kept trying to open and knows what she's always known on some level, i.e., Don isn't at all who he said he was.) Or are they battlements from which he will make his assault as a coming star of American business?

Don Draper's amigo and uber-client, Connie Hilton, was disappointed in Episode 9 when surrogate son Don didn't give him the Moon. But he's still a big fan, hosting the 40th anniversary party for Sterling Cooper at the Waldorf Astoria.

They might actually be both.

The Color Blue, probably not to be confused with a Code Blue, the medical term for a dire emergency, is about perception and reality. Don is in post-coital loll with Sally's former school teacher, Suzanne Farrell (played by Abigail Spencer), when the sprightly would-be wood sprite we first glimpsed winsomely leading her class in a dance about the May Pole early this season repeats something one of her new students asked. Why is blue "blue?" How do we know that what is blue to you is blue to me?

Don Draper, our rather cynical anti-hero protagonist, is delighted by the question. Truth is, he's delighted by Suzanne, his latest outspoken brunette inamorata. In fact, I think he's falling in love with her, which we'll get to in a few moments. But his delight in her is not so great as to overcome his professional detachment -- his personality really is right for advertising -- so he gives her a warmer version of consensus reality, then comes out with a classic Don Draper-ism:

"The truth is, people may see things differently, but they don't really want to."

Which kind of sums up his marriage to Betty Draper, come to think of it.

Here's a quick recap of Episode 8.

I didn't like the Suzanne character at first, but now I do. She wasn't coming into focus for me. Now she is, now that I recognize her as akin to some women I've known. She doesn't really know what she wants to do in the world, though she knows she wants to do good. She wants to hold onto her innocence and encourage it in others. She wants to have fun and she's drawn to a powerful male, so long as he's not too crass.

She's playing a record by The Singing Nun when Don arrives at her apartment! What a perfect touch. She's not really a Bob Dylanesque rebel. But ... Don tells her that he loves her long, curly hair (actually, it's more wavy). Nobody has that anymore, he says. Yet.

It's apparently getting later in October, as young Bobby Draper is asking when Halloween is. Don has gotten quite cozy with Susanne, riskily so, as she lives only two miles from his family home. He's taking bigger risks still, having his calls transferred from the office service to her apartment, including a message from Connie Hilton. (Who presumably would approve, come to think of it, but the information is there to be found by others.)

Hilton, incidentally, was disappointed last episode that Don didn't give him the Moon in his advertising, but thinks his work is excellent, and will be on hand for the big Sterling Cooper fete.

A quick recap of Episode 7.

After putting in a dinnertime appearance at the homestand, Don's popping over to Suzanne's pretty much every night, telling Betty that he's perpetually summoned by Hilton. He wears a hat as he arrives, but that's not the greatest disguise, especially since he's driving his big blue Cadillac.

But he is trying to control the flow of communication when he's not with her, keeping it one way, discouraging her from calling him at the office.

"Guy Walks Into An Advertising Agency" is a consequential episode.

Where he is seemingly back on top of the world again. The storms have passed from the British acquisition of Sterling Cooper. Putnam, Powell, and Lowe's aggressive new CEO for Sterling Coo, Guy MacKendrick, had the shortest career at the top since that Pope who got poisoned, thanks to the inimitable Lois's skill at driving a lawn mower. He has a good modus vivendi with the finely etched Brit overseer Lane Pryce. And the agency's old alpha males, Bert Cooper and Roger Sterling are ceding the spotlight to Don at the agency's 40th anniversary party.

Not Cooper and Sterling are happy. They're unhappy, though for different reasons. Bert is unhappy because he thinks he's getting old. Roger is unhappy because he has to introduce his erstwhile pal Don at the banquet and say "what a great humanitarian" he is. "Screw him," says Roger.

Incidentally, so much for Roger putting Don "on notice" in last week's messy episode. Roger no longer had the power to do that following the Brit takeover. And suddenly Don is not only not in danger of being on notice, he's the face of Sterling Cooper. But since Roger, who's mad at Don because Don is mad at him for marrying his 20-year old secretary, causing the Brit takeover in the first place due to the cost of the Sterling divorce, actually discovered Don working for a furrier, he can grin and take the credit.

The essential milieu of Mad Men is not all that admirable.

Cooper has less in the way of options, though he is more flexible and wise than his old partner's aging son. He is thinking more of his own mortality, staring at a picture of the agency's ad men from 40 years ago.

As Roger brightly notes to his old mentor: "All these guys are dead. Except you, of course." But Bert still has his eye on the future of Sterling Cooper. And, as he tells Roger, that future is named Don Draper.

But the shape of that future, if not its name, is changing.

For Putnam, Powell, and Lowe, having cut the agency by a third and raised revenues by nearly a quarter, thanks to the efficient and increasingly America-loving Lane Pryce, is planning to sell Sterling Cooper.

Here's a quick recap of Episode 5.

Are they into flipping businesses? Or did their plans change once their young London star, Guy MacKendrick, could no longer play golf? The latter seems most likely. And is certainly not a vote of high regard for Pryce.

Who is once again reminded that he is regarded merely as a high-level functionary by PPL chairman St. John Powell as he unceremoniously informs Pryce of this new plan as he's prepping his own speech for the big party.

After ending a speech rehearsal -- before his odious executive assisant "Moneypenny" -- with a grandiloquent flourish about Sterling Cooper leading the way into the future for American business, Pryce asks for reaction. "Rousing," says his male secretary, with just a hint of irony.

Price asks for more specificity: "Churchill rousing or Hitler rousing?" These are great scenes.

A quick recap of Episode 4.

Lane, who is a great and very well-acted character (played by Jared Harris, son of the legendary Richard Harris), is depressed about the coming move. His rather tedious wife hates New York. "It's not London," she complains. "It's not even England." Yes, he replies, "in 10 months here no one has ever asked me where I've gone to school." Although my observation would be that on the East Coast it's pretty important where you went to school. Perhaps Pryce is an exception because they all assume he's an Oxbridge type, which we know from how he's treated by the lordly Powell he is not.

PPL's secret plan for selling the firm is definitely not to Layne's liking. He's a probable Draper ally down the line, as we saw intimated at the end of "Guy Walks Into An Advertising Agency."

In addition to the biggest intrigue of the episode, which I'm holding for a reason, we get a lot of advertising work in this episode. Peggy Olsen and Paul Kinsey are in a duel for advancement. Well, at least in Paul's mind they are. She doesn't see it that way.

Here's a quick recap of Episode 3.

I like Peggy, though at times she is tedious because we see her acting more the careerist than the advertising person. In this episode we see her working on campaigns. And she's very good. Because she works at it. She has a process. She doesn't wait around for inspiration to strike, she puts her mind in motion.

She understands, like Don, that an ad is not a play. It's about grasping the desire and the emotion of a product and crafting a brief, catchy message around that.

Paul, in contrast, comes up with very wordy, lengthy scenarios that aren't likely to catch the attention of the average viewer, who's barely paying attention. Paul is someone who is well-educated, which is not the same as being very smart, as he lets his acorns of information substitute for ideas.

A quick recap of Episode 2.

After Peggy smoothly betters Paul's silly scenario for an Aqua Net ad, they each work separately on an ad for Western Union. Peggy doesn't leave the page blank, she starts filling it with ideas, trying to create the context from which she can extract the central idea for the ad. (Actually, she uses a dictaphone, but that's because she apparently no longer likes to type.)

Paul, in contrast, drinks lots of whiskey, listens to jazz, and masturbates to the image for his one really clever idea so far, the supposed Jackie Kennedy/Marilyn Monroe female dichotomy. More relaxed, but sans ideas, he happens upon a night janitor with the preciously literary name of Achilles, who inadvertently spurs what Paul is sure is a brilliant idea. Which he drunkenly forgets to write down!

Awakened the next morning on his office sofa by secretary Lois -- yes, she's still there, perhaps because her lawn mower maiming of Guy MacKendrick served the purposes of everyone at Sterling Cooper -- he finds to his horror that he's made a huge mistake. He neglected to write down his great idea.

Mad Men's third season opener set a strong stage for things to come.

Incidentally, since he was very drunk, the only reason we have to believe that it really was a great idea is that Paul thought it was. And he's not the most reliable source.

Very abashed, he admits to Peggy that he has nothing. Peggy doesn't have much, either, as she reassures Paul. But she does have something.

All Paul has is a barely remembered aphorism from his Princeton days. "The faintest ink is better than the best memory." Which is not really true, at all.

Rather than capitalize on Paul's screw-up in their meeting with Don, she defends him, telling him to explain to Don why he has nothing. When he does, Don is immediately sympathetic, having had the same experience of forgetting what he'd come up with.

Peggy again helps Paul, dragging out his Chinese proverb and noting its similarity to the difference between an ephemeral phone call and a memorable telegram. Paul watches, realization dawning at last that Peggy really is much better at advertising than he, as Peggy and Don intuitively work this saying into a useable concept for an ad. "You can't frame a phone call." And since Don recognizes Paul's contribution of the proverb, it's a win-win for everyone.

Which will about wrap up most of the positive, team play moments in this episode.

Will Don Draper need "Help?" The Beatles won't record this song for another 18 months.

Through the plot contrivance of Don absent-mindedly leaving the key to his secret drawer in his bathrobe, which Betty -- who's pointedly been reading "The Group," Mary McCarthy's telling satire of unhappy New York women throughout the episode -- discovers when she does the laundry, the second Mrs. Draper gains access to Don's trove of secrets.

It's a Hitchcock moment when Betty at last opens Don's locked drawer, with Bernard Herrmann-style music playing throughout.

Whereupon she discovers the existence of the first Mrs. Draper, a California divorce decree from said Anna, a deed to a house in California, pictures of Don as Dick Whitman with his real father and family, discharge papers from the Army, and two sets of dog tags in the names of Don Draper and Dick Whitman.

Betty's been on edge all episode, assuming that a hang-up call one evening was from Rockefeller senior advisor Henry Francis (which it was not, and he tells her when she calls in faintly accusatory fashion that he's not playing a game with her), tiptoeing around the increasingly non-credible idea that Don is spending all his nights now hanging out with Conrad Hilton. Now she's hurt, stunned, and angry as her carefully tended facade of a marriage is exposed as a house of cards.

Betty is ready at last to confront Don. But he's not home. He's "working." Working on his relationship with Suzanne Farrell, that is. So as she waits, with the hours dragging on, she goes through different stages of silent emotion, with attending wardrobe and hairstyle changes, finally giving up after 2 AM as alcohol and exhaustion set in.

Don's been having his own emotional adventure. Early in the episode, he met, and not at his choice, Suzanne's epileptic brother, who's arrived unannounced as he's lost his latest job after a seizure. Suzanne obviously dotes on him, and is very protective, and very desirous of introducing him to Don. (He's played, incidentally, by Marshall Allman, the actor who played Linc's doofy son L.J. in Prison Break, one of the great guilty pleasure TV shows of all time.)

Danny's a good guy, a little wild and cynical from harsh experience of people being frightened by his epilepsy, and smart. Don quickly flees, and doesn't follow through on his promise to call Suzanne the next night. Only on the following morning to find Suzanne slipping into the seat beside him on his morning commute train. She wants to talk.

Not in a scary way. She just needs to communicate with him. They hold hands as they talk, and she gets off at the next stop. Which does not mean this ends at all well.

When Don comes round the following evening, Suzanne's brother is still there. She's found a janitorial job at a Veterans Administration hospital in Massachusetts and gives him a lot of money.

In a giving mode, Don volunteers to drive him up to his new job. Which he does. But midway, Danny makes it clear he has no intention of taking that shitty job. But if he knows what he's going to do, he doesn't let on. Regretfully, Don agrees to let him out of the car and gives him a lot more money than Suzanne gave him. Along with his business card, urging him to call if he's in trouble.

Don is clearly seeing his own late, abandoned brother in Suzanne's brother. He wants to do it right this time. He also doesn't want Suzanne hurt.

Of course, Don has now set in motion some dynamics that can upset the carefully ordered perception of him that he's constructed for others. And he's done that on his own. We're not even talking about what Betty now knows.

Needless to say, Betty is in a crabby mood when Don finally gets around to calling her the next day. Actually, she's momentarily furious, and seems on the verge of confronting Don. But retreats into passive aggressive mode when Don reminds her it's the night of big banquet, saying she's not going because she doesn't feel well. This lasts for about 10 seconds, as Don tells her he needs her to be "the glamorous, elegant, stunning Betty Draper" whom everyone is very much expecting.

And so she is, though she doesn't look at all happy about it.

There's another great Roger Sterling moment as he, new wife (and old Draper secretary) Jane, and Roger's elderly mother are driven to the banquet. After establishing that she had forgotten that the Waldorf Astoria -- Connie Hilton's flagship hotel, site of the fete for Don -- had moved, she lets slip that she thinks Jane is actually Roger's daughter.

Informed again by Roger, that Jane (the actress playing her, Peyton List, is now a regular on the new ABC hit Flash Forward, which is a reason we're not seeing her much this season) is his wife, the senior Mrs. Draper gets off a great line. "Does Mona know?," she inquires, referring to the former Mrs. Sterling whose divorce caused the sale of Sterling Cooper. Jane replies that she in fact does.

And so we close as Roger delivers his lengthy introduction of the great Don Draper, citing his decorated service in the Korean War, his many advertising awards, and his great qualities ... "And now the man you've been waiting for. God knows he's made us wait for him."

Cue Don, who is very happy, as you might suppose.

And what color is the spotlight enveloping the very movie star-ish Don in his big moment? Is it white, as it appears to be and as everyone there is agreeing that it is? Or something else?

You can check things during the day on my site, New West Notes ... www.newwestnotes.com.

 

 

Comments

[Baki]

Also why hasn't Lois been fired? Lol. I guess she's become a sort of running gag.

[Baki]

Lane Pryce is an interesting juxtaposition to the Don Draper character.

[Baki]

A few thoughts,

Don is trying to redeem himself for what happened with his brother, and this happened ironically in the episode where Betty reveals "the secret."

Also has anyone else picked up on Don's affairs almost always being with women completely different from Betty. They are much more independent and excessively so. They even look different (brunettes almost always), and his comment about his lovers long dark curly hair was revealing of this.

This season has reminded me very much of the first season. The pacing, a lot of the plot emphasis.

Is Paul becoming the office drunk?

[bokiluis]

If you are playing a game of art direction "gotcha", doesn't that take away from your enjoying the series?

[stevemarvin]

part 10
She can not love Don. Only his attention. And only when his satisfied eyes reflects her perfection. His own needs don't look good in the picture. He can come around if he's happy but he better not want anything for himself. In fact whenever they meet will always find her empty of anything he has given. Without the emotional means to reciprocate she'll dare not recognize her debt. He'll get nothing and she'll feel no remorse in asking for still more. If Don presses the issue she may float an empty promise but he won't get satisfaction. He'll feel depleted. He may even give more to get back something. The balance of trade will get worse and worse. Emotional accounts will be impossible to reconcile. Stories will change. Nothing will mean anything. We're fast approaching hell.

Prediction: We will learn Suzanne has a past. Possibly a child she has forsaken somehow. She will become pregnant with Don's baby which she may well abort. She will also try to destroy Don's life. She will end up revising history. She might even claim rape of the ingenue. Lacking a witness Don will rue that “you can't frame a phone call”. Not even a hang up. He will be defenseless against her. But Betty Draper, to protect her family, will somehow engineer Miss Farrell's annihilation. Suicide may come into play. ( The real life singing nun committed suicide, btw, and her album was titled “I'm Not A Star in Heaven”.

[stevemarvin]

part 9
But the problem is the way she loves. She's a deeply wounded narcissist and while she can mimic any human emotion perfectly she can feel nothing deeply. She has no heartfelt sense of herself with which to connect with others. She has the depth of a picture. So even as she picks the pocket of Don's heart, she opens no pockets of her own. There's no accessible holding place to safe keep emotional treasure. Nothing can be saved. Nothing can accrue or be appreciated. Both the meaning of value and the value of meaning are lost to her. Sentiments of love and compassion (from others) are treated as perishables that should be consumed or thrown out before they spoil. She craves but doesn't cherish. Nothing is precious. Even what she covets, she'll devalue and discard.
(cont'd)

[stevemarvin]

part 8
What Don does for a living Suzanne has been doing her whole life. NPD's learn that “telling is not selling” before they can even talk.
Not only does she brand herself to meet needs Don already has, but by systematically diminishing him, she instills in him a sense of need and doubt where none existed. Her sleight of heart creates a growing demand for her presence and approval. But her “market value” is based on the void she creates. She dares not fulfill even if she could. Don is “Toasted”

Don might offer her a job at Sterling Cooper if he recognized what's happening but he doesn't want to know. Like every man, he's complicit in his own seduction. Suzanne even purports to be on the verge of being real when, in bed, she claims “I could scream”. He tells her, “Don't”. He loves the way she is,
(cont'd)

[stevemarvin]

part 7
She is having her way with him. Remember the day before on the train when she says, ”I don't care anything about your job, or your family, as long as I know you're with me,” she manages to make her blatant disregard of what he values sound like a caring sacrifice on her part. She is essentially telling him straight out , “I don't want you to care about your family or your job, just me.” But he's buying it like at the eight year old. We can't imagine him swallowing that crappy spin from Rachel Mencken, or his artist friend from season one, or the comedian's manager / wife. Those women each had some authentic substance he understood. Something he could grasp. None of them exuded innocence of Miss Farrell.

She has packaged herself to be in demand and instinctively (mis)represents herself as the one thing Don is looking for, (whether he knows it or not). Innocence. This is his “Achilles”. This is his long forgotten virtue. The one he denied himself as a child. With his own innocence hidden from himself, the only way he can honor it is to see it in others. He longs for someone to embody what he's missing so he can take better care of it. So he's very much in the market for what Suzanne is selling. And sell it she does. Unfortunately, for Don, a Narcissist's long forgotten virtue is Truth.

[stevemarvin]

Part 6
Granted, he's also mindful of his own past failures as an older sibling and no doubt wants to redeem himself. Not only in his own eyes but in the eyes of Miss Farrell, the giver of gold stars. ( And she is indeed a giver. She makes sure that Don sees her give her brother money. No good deed by an NPD will go unrecognized (or untallied exactly-$375), even though it's unnecessary display further humiliates her brother . (Another double win)

When he returns from his errand he's denied satisfaction. She doesn't want him. At least not now. She's down. Ostensibly because of her brother's situation. (Note this exact situation was cause for Suzanne's happiness that morning). Don says it's okay and comforts her. He no longer “knows how to leave a room like (her) mother.” Will he get a gold star? Can't see her parting with one. More likely he'll get what Suzanne owes her mother.

She has thoroughly manipulated the man she once desired. Having exploited his emotions he is now viewed as vulnerable and therefore beneath her; devalued, at least for the moment. (cont'd)

[stevemarvin]

part 6
She later needs him so much she tracks him down on the train, happily reporting that she found her brother a job. She beckons Don's return promising him her brother will be gone. He asks, “Are you sure? ” Like Don, she doesn't like contracts. Rather than give the direct assurance that he seeks, she admonishes him, “Stop it”, making him feel overly needy and slightly diminished by insecurity. This is the very same insecurity she boarded the train with and has now transferred to him. She gets off feeling better. She has gone to the emotional toilet. Plus they have date for more.

Turns out Don's desire for an assurance was not at all unreasonable. The brother is , indeed, still there and it's clear from the travel distance that there's no way Suzanne did not know she would be still be engaged with either her brother's continued presence or her own absence giving him a ride. Don is surprised yet again. She offers to let Don wait there for her. (Narcy's love it when people wait for them. It's even better than being waited on). Rather than be miffed, the disappointed Don chooses not to leave. Unconsciously (though sufficiently) devalued by Suzanne's treatment, Don seeks to reclaim his value by volunteering his services to the maiden in distress. To avoid playing the waiting Fool, the King unwittingly demotes himself to Knight.
(cont'd)

[stevemarvin]

part4
Suzanne's Emotional Swindle and Switchery:
She asks him to at long last spend the whole night but she is barely surprised when her brother shows up. Don who hates surprises is thrown off. Disadvantaged. He's also disappointed.

(Narcissists, btw, thrive on engineering disappointment for others. Leaving others at a loss is like a secret victory that elevates them above the victim and nourishes the fragile illusion of superiority on which they desperately depend. To be equal is to be ordinary. To be unrecognized. Worthless. Non-existent). (cont'd)

Then comes her sense of wonderment about perception. She wishes aloud that she knew Don as an innocent eight year old. Yikes. Look out! She already has his attention and ardor. Now she seizes on a tender moment and manages to convert his admiration of her to feelings of envy. She asks if he feels bad about what he does. He replies, “Nobody's as happy doing what they do as you are.” It's a double win. She is more and he is lesss. She feels good and he feels bad. I daresay she has switched emotions with him. (Projective Identification) She's very pleased. Narcissistic heaven. If I recall, she even thanks him for the envy.

[stevemarvin]

Note that when Suzanne's brother arrives, no more than 4 seconds pass before we can hear his voice in the other room. "I phoned from the bus station at New Haven at 4:30 and you never answered." Apparently, based on prior communication, he was expecting to be expected. Don was not the only one disappointed. She orchestrated their meeting of each other.

[stevemarvin]

part 3
Back to the episode ... The business with the stars is very telling and a perfect metaphor for the self referenced Narcissist's need for it all. My guess is that she spent a good half hour in front of the mirror perfecting the position of that gold star “accidentally” stuck on her cheek. Strike a pose. The very presence of the star Suzanne manages to highlight herself as an abundant source of approval. But that she appears oblivious to it being on her her face suggests she's innocently unaware of herself. Though she be modest and demure, fate, has nonetheless, seemingly awarded her a gold star by placing it magically on her cheek. Best of all, she has positioned herself, the star, and Don to make it almost inevitable that he remove the star and re-award it to her, presumably approving of her charming lack of guile.
She is not abundant but empty. So much so such that whatever approval or love she may have to offer must necessarily be conferred back upon herself. There is no sense of Other. And her feigned ignorance of her own agency reflects her grandiose sense of her entitlement.
(cont'd)

[stevemarvin]

Note: NPD's harbor irrepressible feelings of worthlessness which they seek to Un-know by other means. They long ago set aside their vulnerable hearts and relinquished their identity and volition to a favored and fantasized image of self, ... (which due to it's unreality, will never feel hurt, even if punished. And the hidden feeling self remains vulnerable, but lacking all agency, is incapable of wrongdoing and thus exempt from punishment. The survival strategy depends completely on this disconnect. Sentiment and will can not operate in concert. Compassion or conscience govern nothing). But an image without depth needs a steady stream of recognition to sustain it's illusory sense of being. Hence, it must be a perfectly appealing picture to warrant the approving attention of others. Flaws or faults in the image threaten it's viability. Without seeing itself reflected in the eyes of others the N's image begins to flicker and identity becomes unstable. Attention and significance must be monopolized. They dare not be shared. Grandiosity becomes essential to keep the terror at bay and allows for effortless repairs to the pretty picture through god-like revisions of history. Such maneuvers trick the Narcissist but fresh audiences are routinely required. (cont'd)

[stevemarvin]

The conundrum Suzanne Farrell poses - “How do we know we see blue the same way?” - seems downright diabolical once you recognize that it's a very shady chameleon doing the posing.

Thanks for another very fine review Mr. Bradley.I'm glad you like Suzanne Farrell but what is blue to you is a muddied yellow to me. I don't think she's “true blue” at all. Not even nice. I think she is perfectly written and exquisitely portrayed as a malevolent predator with a Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

From the outset we see that everything she does is for effect. She can be best understood by what she accomplishes. She makes a pass at Don and has him half believing he was the initiator (and she therefore, the innocent). She seems to runs away from him but first makes sure that he knows exactly where her door is should he ever come knocking. In both cases she implies that her prey might be stalking her. Everything is spin. The truth stood on it's head.

Now in this episode her every interaction with Don is laced with fraud and works to her advantage; either by eliciting the behavior she wants or by leaving Don psychologically short changed through her emotional switchery. (see below) But first .... (cont')

[bokiluis]

As beautiful, soft and demure as Suzanne appears, I have to agree with you on her nefarious intentions. In fact, she all but told him so during one of their earlier interactions.

Great compelling episode w/great new characters!

[CubanVoice]

I agree with some of the comments here about Don's newest flame. All seems to be leading toward this being the real deal for him - love. But somehow they seem so mismatched. Betty is very child-like in ways but Suzanne purposefully wants to stay naive, in a sense. Curious how we saw Betty's rarely seen sophistication in episode "Souvenir" and then Suzanne is sooo down to earth, in complete contrast to sophistication. Don't know - not crazy about this story line with their relationship but the risks he's taking now are pointing toward juicier things.

Just my two cents...

[William Bradley - Huffpost Blogger]

She's a hippie a few years early.

Also, they can't show the sex scenes on basic cable ...