Mad Men TV Club

I thoroughly enjoy the weekly exchanges over at Slate's TV Club discussing the latest Mad Men episode. And I especially love this recent passage from Julia Turner, considering how increasingly unlikable Betty is becoming:

I feel obliged to point out, though, that saying Betty is a bad mother is not the same thing as saying she's a bad person, an evil cipher whom we can't possibly hope to comprehend. Her selfishness is absolutely intended as a commentary on (and product of) the isolation of suburban housewives at the time. I'm struck by how many people who watch Mad Men tell me they hate Betty; they can't stand her; they wish Don would just up and leave. To the modern viewer, Betty's sins (being a bad mom) far outweigh Don's (being an absent dad, cheating on his wife, stealing a man's identity, driving his brother to suicide, lying to his wife and nearly everyone he knows about who he actually is). We let the charming man get away with murder, but we wish the cranky wife would just know her place? Sort of makes you wonder how far we've come.

Methinks Don has some classic viewer sympathy with the villain going (although: Why?). We dislike much of what he does, yet we root for him. Indeed, what intellectually honest male wouldn't like to possess a touch of Draper charm now and then? But he is, generally speaking, an awful, morally bankrupt person.

I find myself disliking Betty intensely but just wanting to see what Don does next.