Loaded Couch Potatoes

In the episode “The Arrangements,” Betty is confronted by Gene, who has worked out the details of his will and final arrangements, much to her discomfort.

Another fine episode, this one picks up the Gene-centric plot elements from the previous episode and builds on them.  The episode begins with Gene taking Sally and her brother out for a drive in his Lincoln … with Sally driving.

My first reaction to seeing this little girl seated on a stack of notebooks, piloting a car while an old man with senile dementia or some such ailment controls the gas pedal from the next seat over was the feel a little bit of a panic coming on.  I was convinced something bad was going to happen along the lines of Betty losing control of the car and crashing it way back in the first season.

That didn’t come to pass, but it was hardly the only instance of Gene behaving in that manner.  Throughout the episode, he seems determined to pass experiences on to his grandchildren.  With Sally, he obviously wants to urge her into what he feels is her potential: he teaches her to drive, and then later has a conversation with her in which he tells her that she can be something, that she is smart and talented, that she shouldn’t let her mother discourage her.  Gene obviously wants Sally to begin growing up, and by the end of the episode, she has started to do so in an unexpected way.

With Bobby, Gene wants to pass along his WWI experiences.  He shows the boy a Victory medal, and tries to give him a helmet formerly belonging to a Prussian soldier he killed; the helmet has a bullet hole and dried blood, and Don, angered, refuses to allow Bobby to keep it.

Gene’s plotline comes to an abrupt end when he drops dead (offscreen) in an A&P.  We get this news through Sally’s eyes; she is sitting on the front steps waiting on her grandpa to come home, and what she gets instead is a visit from a policeman with some bad news.  There had been hints that this might happen — “This tastes like chocolate,” Gene has said earlier while eating some illicit ice cream, “but it smells like oranges” — but it still shocked me.  I’d expected the element of Gene being in the Draper house to continue to play out over the course of the season; now, it appears, that will be replaced by the story of how Gene’s passing will affect Sally. 

And, possibly, Betty.  Apart from the one scene in which Gene tries to discuss his final arrangements with Betty, we don’t get much reaction from her about her father’s death.  You can feel it coming, though.

There are at least two other parent/child relationships at the forefront of this episode.  Peggy has determined that she wants to move to Manhattan, and her mother — deep in a funk over the death of the Pope — is bitterly upset by the decision.  She’d be even more upset if she’d ever seen any of the episodes of Californication that Carla Gallo, the actress playing her daughter’s new roommate, had co-starred in.

Also, Pete Campbell has brought in a major new account from a well-to-do college friend with more money than sense.  Pete’s friend — he’s called “Ho-Ho” rather than Horace Jr. — wants to give Sterling/Cooper $1 million to turn Jai Alai into the new American pastime.  Don knows that Horace Sr. is a friend of Bert Cooper’s, and alerts the man, who all but says to go ahead and fleece his son, figuring that the failure will do him good.

Apparently, nobody’s got nice parents on this show.

Elsewhere, Sal finds himself unexpectedly given the grand opportunity of directing the “Bye Bye Birdie” mashup commercial for Patio.  He does so, and while the Patio people reject it, everyone else seems to feel that Sal has given them exactly what they asked for.  Looks like he might have a burgeoning career as a commercial director, and you can practically see him preening with pride.

Not so happy about it…?  Sal’s wife, Kitty.  She tries to seduce her husband, who turns her down cold and then begins showing her what his actress will be doing in the commercial when it films the next day.  He reenacts Ann-Margert’s seductive, flirty movements, and you can practically see Kitty realizing that he husband must like dick.

It’s a great scene … par for the course on this show.