Mad Men: The Inheritance

March 8th, 2009

Season 2, Episode 10

Synopsis

Pete and Paul are planning a trip to California to learn about potential, new clients in the aerospace industry. Don reminds them the trip is for business, not pleasure. That evening, Trudy tells Pete she wants to adopt a baby.

Betty calls Don saying her father, Gene, has had a stroke. Despite their separation, Don and Betty pay him a visit. They find him mentally confused.

At the office, Sheila learns about Paul’s trip, and mentions they were planning to visit Mississippi and help register the black vote.

Pete and his brother Bud look over their father’s papers and learn he squandered all the family money. They wonder how their mother will survive.

Betty complains to her brother William about their stepmother, who Betty isn’t fond of. Gene labels Don as unappreciative, mentioning Don’s lack of family as a reason for distrust.

Pete’s mother advises him against adopting a child, threatening to exclude him from any inheritance. Pete retorts that the family money no longer exists.

That evening, Betty sleeps in the bed while Don makes do with the floor. In the middle of the night, they have sex. The next morning, Don awakens on the floor to find Betty already gone. The rest of the visit goes awkwardly, and Betty confides in the family housekeeper. Betty and Don return home and she asks him to leave, saying last night they were “just pretending.”

The office throws a baby shower for Harry, featuring gag gifts like diapers, Clearasil, cigarettes, and Playboy magazines. Don learns he’ll travel to California with Pete instead of Paul. Now free, Paul calls Sheila to plan their Mississippi trip.

Pete confides in Peggy his maternal difficulties, believing everything is so easy for Peggy. She denies this is true.

Betty finds Glen Bishop hiding in the backyard playhouse. He has run away from home, thinking his mother doesn’t care about him. He wants to run away with Betty, saying he has money. He seems inspired by a comic book super hero. Betty calls his mother, Helen, who immediately arrives to take Glen home. As he leaves, he tells Betty he hates her.

On a bus to Mississippi, Paul proposes that advertising applies equally to all.

Helen blames Betty for Glen’s behavior. Betty believes Glen is just lonely. Helen admits she hasn’t been the best mother. Betty divulges Don has been staying in a hotel. Helen confides that divorce can be hard, because you are finally in complete control of your own life.

Don and Pete are aboard an airplane going to Los Angeles, California.

Thoughts

Style

Hitchcock’s Rope is mentioned when Paul and his brother joke about having no family money. Registering the black vote was part of the civil rights movement in the sixties.

Then and Now

Interracial relationships: Some in the office look a bit surprised to see Paul with an African-American woman.
Smoking: In the last scene, Don and others are smoking on an airplane, which has noticeably larger seats than today’s standards.

Developments

Hildy hugs Harry after the baby shower, which is awkward since they once slept together.

I wonder if Glen’s appearance symbolizes Don’s immaturity. Glen wants to run away, saying he has money, which Don tried to do with Midge – flashing that bonus check and offering a trip to Paris. He then tried to run away with Rachel Menken.

Then again, most of the men on the show are immature. Roger is doing something similar, leaving his wife for a much younger woman, and Pete doesn’t want to have kids.

The episode’s title refers to everything we inherit from our families, above and beyond the monetary. Betty struggles with her father’s illness, Harry with the prospect of being a new father, and Glen with his mother trying to make a new life for herself. At episode’s end, Helen says being in complete control of one’s own life is a burden. But in direct contrast is Don, who relishes complete freedom and control. He’s on a jet plane, leaving for that part of the country where so many will journey in the late sixties, searching for a break from the past.

Next Episode: The Jet Set
Previous Episode: Six Month Leave

TV Shows: Mad Men

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