I thought this was an excellent season opener. I have heard some complaints about the opening scene being too much like a play, but I think that was purposeful. Here was Don Draper warming milk for his pregnant wife. All very reminiscent of birth/infancy. He remembers it is Dick Whitman's birthday, and he is imagining a scene of the event - but detached, as an outsider, almost like an audience member. When the milk boils over, he scoops off the curdled skin - just as he has done with Dick Whitman's life. He is Don Draper watching Dick Whitman's birth - very schizoid, as was the entire episode. Everyone is showing two sides of themselves.
Betty is also two people - the good wife/mother that she wants to be, and the insecure and hateful person she is. She still mistrusts Don and wonders why he strayed, wonders what it was about HER that couldn't keep him from cheating on her.
She wants to be the center of Don's attention, and I think she resents her children drawing attention away. She brought up Sally's misbehavior and made the lesbian comment to drive a wedge between Don and Sally. The dynamic between mothers and daughters is often one of jealousy for the husband/father's attention.
Betty feels like she SHOULD care about being a good mother because that is expected of her, but I think she subconsciously resents that she is the one who has had to raise the children, change their diapers, feed them, potty train them, teach them and discipline them, yet they don't appreciate it. They idolize their father more. And when Don kissed Sally and said, "You're my girl," I could almost hear Betty screaming inside her head, "But I am supposed to be your girl!". And now she is going to have to go through it all again. I don't see Don handling a baby crying to be fed or changed in the middle of the night, and we've seen that he wants little to do with discipline.
Sal is also two people
(duh). He is the properly married man, but he knows he is gay. I thought it was a nice touch that he was back in Baltimore, where he grew up and no doubt first discovered during puberty that he was aroused by males. He probably had fantasies about other men, but in the fantasies he himself was someone else. Someone who could have sexual feelings for other men without feeling like it was wrong.
(I am not saying it is wrong, just that I am sure Sal was raised to believe it was wrong.) Then the stars align. He is someone else - Sam Fleischmann, thanks to the subterfuge that Don concocts. And he is back in the area where he first became the imaginary man who could have gay sex. Probably even in the manner he imagined, where his companion is the more aggressive person and initiates the encounter. He is allowed to be swept off his feet and finally give in to his desire.
I do feel sorry for his wife Kitty, and I realize cheating is wrong, wrong, wrong, but I was still thrilled for Sal to have this encounter. I fear that the fire alarm may strike him as a, "sign from God" that he was doing something wrong, and will only leave him more conflicted about his feelings. Having tasted the forbidden fruit, it will only be more enticing, but he will be more terrified of acting on his feeling, or being discovered.
I loved how Don handled the situation on the way back, by saying, "Limit your exposure" both as an ad campaign and sage advice.
Pete, trying to be the grownup Head of Accounts, then reverting to his child-like behavior with his dance, and his whiny child-like self when he discovers that Ken is also Head of Accounts. Then back to his grown-up self in Don's office with Roger and Bert Cooper.
Roger is trying to act like he is still in charge, but is wondering if things are changing and he will soon be seen as unnecessary. He wants to be the newlywed with a hot young wife who can travel the world, but still be the respected and purposeful head of his company.
Joan is now a married woman, but to a man who is not Prince Charming. She is still working in the office, and while she claims she can't wait to be gone, I suspect she wonders what she will do with herself and how she didn't get the fairy tale she dreamed of.
Peggy has gotten the position she yearned for, but not the respect.
So everyone in the episode was showing two sides of themselves, even the lighting and positioning of where the characters were placed
(in front of open or closed doors, standing in light or dark) was to show the split personality of the episode. The old guard changing to the new, the American company being taken over by the Brits
(foreshadowing the British invasion). This sets up the whole season for "change" as the characters must face their inner and outer selves and the changes that society will face.
I thought it was brilliant.
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