Mad Men: Season 6 – Episode 9 “The Better Half”
"Father Abraham had seven recast sons, recast sons"
Season 6 – Episode 9
“The Better Half”
Written by Erin Levy & Matthew Weiner
Directed by Phil Abraham
Setting: July 1968
Don Draper is a liar... we’re six seasons into the show, this should not come as a surprise. The lies are effortless and make the accusers ashamed to have even asked.
People lie for the same reasons: selfishness and cowardice. The difference is in how people lie. “The Better Half” examines the harsh truths hidden in blatant lies.
Don’s lies do nothing but buy him time until the truth is discovered. He is an excellent liar, but only in convincing the other person. He is never able to convince himself. Shame and fear follow him as the lies grow deeper.
Much to Don’s surprise, his ex-wife Betty is not like that.
Reconnecting during a visit to their son’s summer camp, Don and Betty spend the night together. Both know what they are doing, but Don has to put on a face the following morning. He yearns for the previous night, and that carries into how he observes Betty with Henry.
Betty feels none of that. She lies to herself that the night with Don is just some extension of the past. In her mind, she never actually cheated on her husband because she was spending the night with her previous husband. This is something she did in the past, not the present.
It is a ridiculous delusion that Betty has not only convinced herself to believe, but also moves on from immediately.
While it does not stop him from destroying the lives of those he loves, Don Draper feels shame. A deep and heavy shame that drives him to liquor and other vices.
Betty does not. She lied to herself that life as a housewife with Don in the suburbs was perfect. Now her lies infect life with Henry.
Both Don and Betty have convinced themselves that a lie is not a lie if no one finds out. They are faced with the immediate hypocrisy of this by having the lie together, and Don is shocked to find out Betty does it better than he ever did.
It takes more than one person to lie. Betty knew more than three years before their divorce that Don was seeing other women. She convinced herself that it was okay to save their marriage, and only decided to leave after she met Henry Francis. She lived this lie until she could be comfortable again and began to lie in that life as well.
Lying came naturally to her now.
Few are shocked by serial liars. Their actions may shock people, but the lies become expected. A slow descent that becomes an avalanche. Everyone knows the truth about Don Draper. His shame only grows under that weight.
The lies become so powerful and ingrained into who these people are that they wonder if life is easier accepting lies as truth.
It takes a push to realize that is not the case... or in some cases, a stab in the stomach.
Peggy fell for her boyfriend Abe because he was not a phony. There was nothing fake about him. She’d ask how his day was and, instead of hearing what he thought she wanted to hear, Abe would go on a rant against the oppressive capitalist system.
Was this what she wanted to hear? No... absolutely not. This honesty was attractive to her and, no matter how difficult their relationship became, she knew Abe would be honest.
Honest Abe… no, no, I don’t think that one was intentional.
Anyway this changed when they became, at his insistence, the only white people to move into a bad neighborhood. Abe prioritized his politics and dreams for society over his girlfriend.
His lies were to himself. A better world is possible but it doesn’t happen just by saying it can be so. Abe’s better future was never built around Peggy. There was never a balance of what they both wanted. To realize this, it took Peggy accidentally stabbing him with a contraption she built to protect herself from their bad neighborhood.
So what do these characters want? How does a better half help them?
Don wants freedom, someone who lets him forget his troubles in life. This becomes impossible when that person eventually becomes part of his life.
Betty wants stability. She can have that stability to lean on, but only when she wants to.
Megan wants support. Someone who will celebrate her in her victories and comfort her in her let-downs. What she does not want is to feel used.
Henry Francis wants a beautiful wife on his arm, someone he can take to political fundraisers and make other men jealous.
Peggy wants collaboration. Someone who will reach goals with her.
Joan wants to be loved truly by someone who has nothing to gain.
Bob wants something to gain, a partner who secures him power.
What each character wants reaches a conflict with what their “better half” needs. Betty wants stability and then has an affair with Don, something that she convinces herself is completely normal.
Truth can be strange and almost overwhelming in its frankness. We have lived with lies so much that experiencing something genuine becomes an attack on the senses.
Life can always be better, but only if it moves beyond the comfort of lies. There can be no pretending.
There is no more pretending in 1968.
There's no lying about how the year isn’t a bad one.
The year may get worse, but that decline is certain if you choose to pretend it is getting better.