"She's raising Don's kids. And I also feel that she was always in her own show." Godwin also gets Weiner to talk about Betty's relationship with Henry Francis. Godwin posits, "My theory about Betty is that she's a sloth — she doesn't like to leave one tree without already having found her next tree. She doesn't like touching the ground." Weiner answers:

What confirms your suspicion of this, because I agree with you, is that Henry Francis (Christopher Stanley) did not sleep with her. He knew he was not getting anything. He was not getting anything until it was legal… He's a handsome guy who says, "You'll never have to work again." A lot of women like that. Lots of people don't know the people that they're marrying. She didn't know Don that well. But Henry has been good to her, and I think she knows what he's about, and he's a very exciting person for her. I think he's the anti-Don in the sense that he seems very grounded. All I can tell you is that, as a pregnant woman, when he treated her sexually at a party, something happened in her brain chemistry.

The other woman we may seem more of is Carla; Weiner says that he and the writers have "talked about" a Carla-centric episode:

Deborah Lacey is a great actress, and Carla's relationship with the family has so much integrity. That's a real relationship between employer and employee, and that's something that we're very proud of.

In addition, since she is one of the only African-Americans on the show, her thoughts of, feelings about and place in the changing American landscape of the 1960s —compared to that of the Drapers — could make for extremely rich storylines. And if the show makes it to 1968 and Martin Luther King's assassination, well, she's just got to have a bigger part.

Lastly, the bad news. It's about Joan.

Godwin: It's a tragedy. It hurts me. She bet on the wrong horse when she married her husband, and now all we can do is hope that he dies in Vietnam.
Weiner: Guys like him, apparently, don't really die in Vietnam. Only good people die.
Godwin: And he's not good?
Weiner: No, he's not good for her.

Ugh. Sadness.

Mastermind Matt Weiner Tells the Future of Mad Men [E!]

Golden is 79 — "I say 80 because it's more impressive" — and worked as a copywriter on Madison Avenue until the eighties, when she started her own radio advertising company, Joy Radio. It was exclusively focused on humorous radio, "because I'm funny." Here she is doing an AMC promo for Mad Men, part of a series of Madison Avenue legends. She admits to "hanking and panking — but it was always elegant."

What was it like to be among the first generation of women in advertising? "At the time I didn't think about it. I really didn't," she said. "I was just happy to get a job right out of college. I didn't think about the social aspects of it." As she rose through the ranks, Golden learned how to assert herself. "By the time you go to be a copywriter you were no longer in the secretarial pool. I learned not to be a pushover, just like Peggy in the series."

In Selling The Sixties, in a segment originally taped for Mad Men DVD extras (above), Golden talks more about on what life was like for a woman in advertising back then. "You just had to kind of keep away from the guys, at least I did. I was cute in those days so they used to knock on my cubicle, so to speak. 'You wanna have lunch?' 'No.'" (Bonus: legendary journalist Gay Talese says there were no attractive women at The New York Timesat the time because they were all in advertising.) Overall, she was thrilled by the work itself and the excitement around it.

But it didn't last. "Things changed," Golden told me. "What happened is, it became technological creative rather than creative creative… so we all kind of lost our hearts."

Right around them, George Lois came by to chat. Earlier, he had explained that he had been getting dozens of emails telling him he was right about Vogue. Golden complained that he and Gay Talese had been cut off from their Esquire reminiscences in the panel earlier that night.

"I was kind of getting to a punchline, wherever I was," Lois said. "I'm always about to get to a punchline."

"That's the story of life," said Golden. As Lois left, she said coquettishly, "Do you kiss old ladies?"

"Of course I do," he said, leaning in affectionately. "I kiss old ladies who are eighty but look like they're sixty." He left, promising to do a Jezebel interview.

A few minutes later, Golden turned to me. By way of goodbye, she said, "You have my permission to make me famous again."

According to a piece by Anna Stewart for Variety:

Brooks Brothers carries the Mad Men Edition suit, with costume designer Janie Bryant clearly credited.

But Bryant's fellow costume designers usually do not share in her good fortune. You will not find their names on those trendsetting dresses, those must-have leather jackets, those sought-after dolls — all those commercial goodies that came out of such films as Hannah Montana, The Matrix, Spider-Man, and Wall Street. Those creative minds didn't see a dime of your expenditure. And it's the same story for just about every costume designer in Hollywood.

In ye olde Hollywood, costume designers like Adrian (The Wizard Of Oz, Grand Hotel, The Philadelphia Story) and Edith Head (All About Eve, Roman Holiday, To Catch A Thief) were household names; and this list of iconic fashion statements in movies includes the designers — and costume designers' names. But you've probably never heard of Deena Appel. She designed the costumes for all three Austin Powers films, and tells Variety:

"When Austin Powers became dolls, Halloween costumes and board games, and it went on for years, not only am I not compensated for that in any way, shape or form, I am not even credited for it."

While Mad Men is on its way to making Janie Bryant a household name, what about the other costume designers working in film and TV? If we know the name Rachel Zoe, why not know Eric Daman and Meredith Markworth-Pollack — costume designers for Gossip Girl? As Hollywood style guru Cameron Silver says: "Because Janie Bryant is getting personal acclaim right now, other studios might see the opportunity to make money. Studios have forgotten that they could be developing household names for their costume designers."

Designers Push Recognizable Retail, Fashionistas Weigh In On Decades Of Style [Variety]

It was obvious early on that Jones was going to be a shaky host; in her monologue, she came across as terrified and stiff, stumbling over her lines, and the Mad Men jokes provided by the cast (including Fred Armisen, who gives a rather sweet little shout out to his wife, Elisabeth Moss, who plays Peggy Olson on the show) didn't help her out much. My boyfriend, who watches Mad Men every week, said, "Who's January Jones?" when I told him who was hosting. "Betty Draper," I said. He knew Betty, but he didn't know January, which, I suspect, is a position many viewers were in last night. This episode could have been a chance for Jones to step outside of the Draper character; she didn't.
Of course, it doesn't help that the writers put her in period sketches several times, including this atrocious Rear Window sketch, where she stars as Grace Kelly and is subjected to about 8 million fart jokes. I'm only putting this sketch up to demonstrate that while Jones wasn't a great host, the real issue last night was the writing. Fart jokes, poop jokes, and gay jokes galore. I'm not sure if this was because the writers didn't know what to do with Jones or not, or if Jones just wasn't able to keep up with stronger skits, but the writing was rough last night, and it didn't help her at all. This is seriously one of the worst skits I've ever seen on SNL:

This retro party planning video was the best sketch of the evening, starring Jones as a slightly demented housewife offering tips on how to throw a great party. Still, it relied on poop jokes and gay jokes and putting Jones in familiar Betty Draper-esque territory.

I have to admit that I laughed at this Kim Kardashian impression, if only because the voice, as annoying as it is, is pretty perfect.

And Darrell Hammond does do a pretty spot-on Lou Dobbs impression:

But the majority of the show was quite a bit like the 4th hour of the Today show that it loves to skewer so much: nearly unwatchable.

It's fair to say that Jones a pretty terrible host; the format didn't suit her, and comedy doesn't appear to be her strength (it was also hard to see her as anything but Betty Draper, which I'm sure is not what she was going for). But the biggest failure of the evening was the writing. It seems that the writers had no idea what to do with her; as with the Megan Fox episode, Jones was relegated to the background while the cast fumbled around her. Last week's Taylor Swift episode was quite strong by comparison, but it seemed that the writers were having fun going after Swift's connection to the world of tweens and teens, which made for some great skits. Last night, however, Jones seemed to wander across the stage terrified, clinging to fart and poop jokes as best she could, and overall, it was just painful. Of course, this could also be tied to the hosting skills of Jones and Fox, and what the writers had to work with, but it seems that when the show can't rally around its host, it opts to go for the easy joke instead: last season it was gay jokes and violence, and this season it's gay jokes and poop. It's enough to make you feel like this:

This is a modern problem. In the days before all this technology, everyone watched the same things, at the same time. If you missed a TV show, you were SOL - but you didn't miss it. And should you, you didn't risk running into anything more hazardous to the enjoyment of a plot twist than a mouthy coworker. Of course, there were still twists: Psycho's publicists went to famous lengths to keep the plot secret, and a recent trailer I saw for Spencer Tracy's 1941 Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde requested that the audience not "tell their friends" about the actor's dramatic transformation.

But clearly, it's become an issue, especially with must-see series like Mad Men, that people are as apt to watch a few days or even months after airing as not. It's something we run across a lot on this site: how much to give away? What's fair game? How much is universally known? January Jones has gone on record in her belief that, once aired, the term "spoiler" isn't applicable. And this increasingly rigid definition is gaining ground amongst those who are sick of tiptoeing around the viewing habits of others.

Point: In a recent essay on the blog Televiosinary, Jace Lacob asserted his argument thusly:

I firmly believe that, once an episode has aired across the country, all bets are off. It's a free-for-all, as far as I am concerned. Writers, critics, bloggers, whoever, should be free to discuss the episode's intricacies and plot developments with abandon. There's no need to label a post, an interview, or anything as a "spoiler" because it's not spoiling anything.

Sums up one of his commenters, "The simple rule should be: Before the fact, spoiler. After the fact, public. Those of us who write/blog/talk about TV on a regular basis can't be expected to know the viewing habits of all our readers."

And another, "Asking that writers, editors and sites label something that's already aired as a "spoiler" is essentially asking them to tailor their coverage to the individual reader who has not seen it. I know people time delay their viewing. The simple solution, as stated above, avoid the sites."

Counterpoint: The retort of Slashfilm's David Chin, however, is equally straightforward. "Really, how difficult is it to just throw up a sentence at the beginning of the post explaining what exactly you'll cover/spoil?" Furthermore, he argues, the notion of "airing" is arbitrary nowadays.

The world of broadcast and cable television is rapidly moving away from the idea of fixed schedules for television shows. Very few of my friends and colleagues watch shows on TV when the air, and if they do, they also use things like DVD, DVR, and Hulu to supplement the episodes they don't see. On the one hand, I question how realistic and reasonable it is to expect people to know exactly where a show is in its timeline. If you're catching up with a show on DVD/DVR/Hulu, it's entirely possible that you will have no idea what episodes have recently aired. And while you would be a good, well-behaved TV watcher if you kept informed, it's a lot easier for me to take five seconds to write a one-sentence spoiler warning than for you to find out where exactly a show is in its release schedule.

Weighing in, NPR's Linda Holmes takes a middle ground, but feels the silent treatment is, ultimately, unrealistic. "At some point, we have just entirely lost the quality of the discussion, because I am leading you through a series of security doors that 95 percent of people won't care about and will find cumbersome and frustrating, just so that you can avoid knowing that Pam has a sister who will be on an upcoming episode." A wild-card view comes from the Guardian's Peter Robins, who argues that sometimes - as in the case of a highly sexual movie one sees with one's elderly mother - a spoiler is not just appreciated but necessary.

Of course, a lot of the argument boils down to common sense. Robins is talking about content, not plot. No matter when it runs, a story should try not to reveal a major spoiler in the title, especially if as in the case of our layout, one can stumble upon it in the course of a casual scan. A year later is not the same as a day. By the same token, don't read a post about a show you're saving because you had a dinner with your boyfriend's family. Understand that some things are common knowledge. And also know that (with the exception of various horror films) the pleasure does not all lie in the twists. For instance, I was still able to enjoy Hamlet.

Why Talking About An Episode That's Already Aired Isn't A "Spoiler" [Televiosionary]
Spoiler Alert: The Responsibility Of Online Writers In A Hulu/DVR World [Slashfilm]
Film Spoilers Can Be Good For You [Guardian]
The Spoiler Problem (Contains Spoilers) [NPR]

Related: January Jones Doesn't Believe In Mad Men Spoilers

• In her book Still Standing Carrie Prejean says, "I believed then and I believe now that marriage should be a legally recognized sacrament between a man and a woman. If that makes me a bigot, so is Barack Obama."

• She continues, "I was not then, nor am I now, aspiring to be the next Anita Bryant. I am comfortable with all God's children. Civil unions between gay people, at least as a matter of law, have always been fine with me. If asked, I would have told you that I believed that gay couples should have visiting rights in the hospital, just like everybody else." [Radar Online]
• In the book Carrie Prejean also accuses Donald Trump of dividing up Miss USA contestants based on their looks. "Carrie should be ashamed of herself," says Trump. "Certainly I would never do a thing like that, because it would be too hurtful. I don't stand the ones that are less attractive to one side, and the beautiful ones on the other side. It was total nonsense — it was fiction in her imagination... I don't even know how she came up with an idea like that." [Extra]
• Shanna Moakler has apologized for calling Khloe Kardashian a "donkey" on The Wendy Williams Show. "I feel really bad. I shouldn't have said it," she says. "It was just an off-the-cuff statement." [Us]
• Joel and Benji Madden walked out of an Australian radio interview because the hosts tried a stupid stunt to test whether one twin can sense what the other is feeling. Benji was blindfolded and Joel was handed a the picture of Britney Spears getting out of a car sans underwear. Joel said, "I think I'm pretty laid back dude, but you guys are getting on my nerves," and they left. [Perez Hilton]
• Britney Spears addressed the Australian lip-synching incident — sort of. "I hear there is a lot of controversy in the media about my show," said Brit in a statement. "Some reporters have said they love it and some don't. I came to Australia for my fans!" [People]
• Dina Lohan has spoken out about Michael Lohan's near-daily release of private phone conversations saying, "The tapes were from a long time ago, and for a father to stoop this low is unforgivable... My ex-husband has been in and out of jail for 10 years. My children and I gave him a chance to get to know them again, and he clearly blew that chance!" [E!]
• Joe and Katherine Jackson were fighting in court today. Joe is objecting to the two men named as executors of Michael Jackson's will, but Katherine's lawyer says he has no right to object since he was cut out of the will. Joe claims the will is a forgery. [TMZ, TMZ]
• At the Glamour women of the year awards Rihanna said she feels she has a responsibility to speak out for other victims of domestic violence. "I'm really a woman, a human being," she said. "I go through real situations that women all over the world go through every day. It's great to have the opportunity to be a voice for those women." [People]
• Rihanna says her new album helped her deal with her feelings about Chris Brown. "I got to vent because I didn't really talk a lot. I didn't talk to a lot of people about anything I was feeling. I just did it on the record." [USA Today]
• David Letterman's accused extortionist Robert Halderman asked a judge to dismiss the charges against him because he says he was trying to sell a screenplay to Letterman and the so-called extortion was just "a pure commercial transaction." [TMZ]
• While David Letterman made it sound like his affair with Stephanie Birkitt was long over, according to papers filed by Robert Halderman it continued "unabated" into this past summer. [TMZ]
• Ozzy and Jack Osbourne donated $4,500 to the Muncie, Indiana police department where Jack filmed the reality show Armed & Famous so they could buy a new police dog. [CBS News]
• Kelly Osbourne has lost 25 pounds on DWTS but it wasn't easy. "I'm fucking starving right now!" she says. [Us]
• Katy Perry introduced Russell Brand to her parents. "I've had the privilege of meeting Katy's family. I always get along with spiritual people," he says. "For me the things that happen on a higher level are more important than transient things." [Ok]
• Katy Perry wore a bustier and hot pants made from West Ham jerseys while hosting the MTV European Music Awards to impress Russell Brand. He Tweeted: "MY GIRLFRIEND has worn a West Ham basque while hosting the EMA's. What a day!" [People]
• Toni Braxton and Keri Lewis, her husband of eight years, have separated. [E!]
• Shaquille O'Neal's wife Shaunie has filed for a legal separation "with intent to divorce" citing irreconcilable differences. They have four minor children. [TMZ]
• Joss Stone has enraged anti-drug activists by saying, "Weed has been given this evil stamp, but how is it dangerous? It's going to make you laugh your arse off? You might go to sleep? I think alcohol is much more harmful. People beat the fuck out of each other on alcohol. But I don't smoke weed all day long. I live in Devon and hardly ever go to clubs. When I do, I'll drink three or four beers then move on to a vodka. I don't want to take all those horrible drugs. Although some sound fun, so I might dabble now and then!" [Daily Mail]
• Simon Cowell is the top-earning man on prime-time U.S. television with an estimated yearly income of $75 million. [Reuters]
• Levi Johnston says Sarah Palin "doesn't bother me ... Just because she ran for vice president and was governor of Alaska doesn't intimidate me... I wouldn't want her running my country." [ET]
• A judge has ruled that TLC can depose Kate Major in their lawsuit against Jon Gosselin. [Radar Online]
• Jon Gosselin is counter suing TLC for $5 million. [Radar Online]
• On last night's episode of Jon and Kate Plus 8, Kate Gosselin looked back at a clip of a past show in which Jon Gosselin said to her, "When are you going to pull the stick out." Kate says: "Perhaps [that] was a sign of things to come." [Us]
• A judge has granted Jennifer Lopez a temporary restraining order barring her ex-husband Ojani Noa from releasing 11 hours of video taken during their honeymoon. [AP]
• Oprah Winfrey will air a rare interview with Stephenie Meyer on Friday. "Since I'm only doing one interview, better make it really, really big," wrote Meyer on her blog. [People]
• "These jeans are a few days old, but the top is probably fresh because it gets to the point where even I can't stand the air around me. I don't know, my personal hygiene – it's so disgusting!" — Robert Pattinson [Us]
• Katie Price is returning to the British version of I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here, making her the only celebrity to go to the jungle twice. [Daily Mail]
• First Kristin Cavallari dating Audrina Patridge's ex Justin Bobby and now she's dating Audrina's other ex, Tal Cooperman. "It's not for the show. They hit it off and have been hanging out off-camera," said a source. [People]
• Dave Grohl says he always knew Kurt Cobain would die young. "There are some people that you meet in life that you just know that they are not going to live to be a hundred years old. In some ways, you kind of prepare yourself emotionally for that to be a reality." [Daily Express]
• John Cusack says he agreed to star in 2012 because, "I just liked the script... I got offered it and it was definitely the A-plus version of these movies, as far as the kind of movie it was and the budget and the script. Usually these movies go to whoever the biggest box-office star in the world was, but Roland wanted me to do it and he's a very powerful director. It's not easy to get these roles. It would go to Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt, anybody who's the biggest box-office star." [N.Y. Magazine]
• Chiwetel Ejiefor says the paparazzi were ruthless with Angelina Jolie while they were filming Salt. "More so than other people, they were sort of everywhere, and there were a lot of paparazzi and stuff. But I think she handles it incredibly well. I don't really know how she does it, but definitely she is able to do the work but also be very gracious with them, and it's really quite interesting to watch," he said. [BlackBook Magazine]
• When asked if she ever craves meat now that she's vegan Alicia Silverstone said, "Craving is a complicated word... what craving actually is versus what you think you want. There are times that, if there is nothing else around...suddenly a cheese plate goes by, then sometimes I'll think 'Oh, I want some cheese.' But over the years, I've scratched that itch at different times, and I've come to realize that it's not better than anything else I'm eating." [WSJ]
• Jake Gyllenhaal says in his new film Prince of Persia, "There's a whole scene with ostriches in the movie and ... They're all real ostriches, highly paid, and we were all briefed on them for weeks before like 'They're these massive destructive creatures that can tear your heart out with their claws.' I swear to God I never thought of an ostrich this way! ... I walked up to it and one of my stuntmen was in the ring with them, and finally, I was like, "When am I going to be in a fucking cage with ostriches again in my life? I gotta get in here!" So I got in there and they were the sweetest things." [ONTD]
• In an interview about the season finale of Mad Men Matthew Weiner said there's no chance Betty and Don will reconcile. "It's so unambiguous to me that this marriage is over, but the audience seems to cling to the idea that they should be together because we want to believe in those things," he said. "The marriage was not good. It was built on a lie and the lie was exposed. In the end, Don coming clean really damaged his relationship with her, more than the lying, her seeing who he actually was." [Daily Beast]

This isn't going to be a big "I hate Betty Draper" screed. I agree with my co-blogger Tami, who, in September, wrote in a piece called "Sexism Makes Me Hate Betty Draper:"

The character of Betty Draper, who was fresh and hopeful in season one, is now nervous with periodically shaking hands. She is withdrawn, bitter and cold. She is alternately dismissive and cruel to her children (particularly her daughter), her friends and other family members. She is unhappy and the world knows it. Personal misery can make for an unpleasant personality.

I understand why Betty is the way she is. She was molded by her family and a society that viewed women like her as dolls not living, breathing women with needs and desires. In Sunday's episode, Betty's father Gene hints several times that he, too, didn't know what kind of person he was raising. He mentions that Betty is nothing like her independent mother, his wife, who was working when he first met her. He frets that he shielded Betty from too many things, raised her to be a princess—"Scarlett O'Hara" he calls her. After he tries to discuss his final wishes with his daughter, she huffs: (paraphrasing) I know it must be hard for you to face whatever it is your facing, but can't you keep it to yourself? It's selfish and morbid for you to talk to me about it. I'm your little girl! Later, Gene tells his grandaughter, Betty's child, that she can be whatever she wants to be..."no matter what your mother says." It is likely a message he never gave his "little girl" Betty. Nor does it seem he encouraged his wife's independent streak, as there is no mention of her working after they married. [...]

A commenter named Lgreer28 on Television Without Pity asked just this question to the Betty haters:

I find it amazing that people are always pointing out Betty's immaturity, while ignoring the immaturity of the other characters. Why do they expect her to be the perfect parent? Why is it that her flaws are not tolerated, yet the flaws of the other characters are? Why do they constantly complain about Betty's flaws and ignore Don's? Why do they ignore the fact that Don is no more a perfect parent than Betty? Why do they ignore his own immaturity or his tendencies to indulge in his own illusions?

Indeed. Betty is a bad mother, but "Mad Men" is riddled with bad fathers. Betty is selfish, but not nearly as selfish as her errant husband. As for my beef, Betty hardly created the hierarchy of race and femininity that strangles her and all of the other women on the show—black ones, included. There is scarcely a man on the show who hasn't committed Betty's "crimes" and much more and who isn't 10 times more responsible for perpetuating the inequities of the time. Yet, she is the person that gets all of our hate, which maybe proves that when it comes to sexism, we aren't so much more enlightened than folks were in Betty's day. We tut and gasp over the biased treatment of women on "Mad Men." "My God, I'm so glad things are different today!" But as we analyze the show and its characters with our 21st century eyes, a woman is still judged more harshly than a man for similar infractions. We've laid aside the mid-day gin at the office, the skinny ties and girdles. But it seems that, in some ways, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

In addition to Tami's take, Amanda Marcotte writes about the ire of some conservatives that so much focus is given to Betty's unhappiness:

Oh, I can't imagine what it must be like to be a social conservative invested in that show. You must flinch every time Betty walks onscreen, looking pained, bored, and miserable. That she herself is a petulant brat doesn't make up for that, because the show is making the point that oppression isn't suddenly right because the oppressed aren't perfect people. And the show implies that certain ugly character traits are the result of oppressive systems, that Betty Draper is a miserable person because she's been turned into one. How dare the show suggest that bitchy women might be more pleasant if they weren't treated like second class citizens? And so [Benjamin Schwartz, writing for the Atlantic] gave you an out: Betty's character makes you uncomfortable because it's not realistic, and January Jones is a bad actress, and women in the 50s were never bored because being someone's sex-and-domestic appliance is what every woman really wants! It's not you, it's January Jones and the evils of feminism. [...]

And really, Schwartz's contempt for the character and his scapegoating of the actress—-and especially the applause he got from social conservatives for it—-shows the underlying contempt for women in the paternalistic platitudes about how women were happier when being a housewife was mandatory. Dreher's being upfront about it. Asking us to spend time on the feelings and thoughts and fantasies of Betty Draper is boring, because the whole point of wives is that they're in the background, making it possible for the real actors—-mostly men—-to make things happen.

The conservative reaction to the Draper marriage shows exactly how effective that storyline is in making its point. A lot of liberals, I've found, are bored with Betty for another reason entirely. They can't understand why she doesn't just pick up and leave already, if she's so unhappy. We're on the other side of it—-so feminist that it's hard to wrap our minds around the psychology of someone who isn't. But conservatives flip the fuck out, get defensive and start scapegoating January Jones, going so far as to argue that her dull affect is evidence that she can't act, when in fact it's evidence that the actress is being fearless in her portrayal of someone whose entire personality has been flattened out by boredom.

I have to admit that part of the Betty hatred comes from the fact that I can empathize with Carla. Betty is, as Tami explains, "the embodiment of pre-Feminine Mystique, upper-middle class, white womanhood." It's part of the same reason I also hate Pete Campbell.

But more than that, there is another element at play. More than just Betty's character flaws, what makes her unwatchable is the painful lack of an inner life.

As I wrote about the fate of minorities on the series in season one, the third season has been categorized by stripping away at the inner lives of all the women on the show, Betty most markedly. Betty, from seasons one and two, had a strong inner life outside of Don. Even while she was confused as to the general reason for her shakes and malaise, she was curious and introspective. She maintained arm's length relationships with other women, but still revealed much of herself. On occasion, she acted out of character, expressing her protective streak by shooting the neighbor's birds, or when she decided to take out her aggression sexually, using a sexy stranger.

For most of season three, Betty's been pouty and insolent. The shades of insight into her motivations and personality have generally vanished, as Betty is mainly used to help advance the plot, at the expense of her own development. (Weiner, in an interview with the Daily Beast today, appears to view her childlike nature as key to her character.) Now, again, this isn't unique to Betty - Peggy and Joan also lost their inner lives this season, appearing mostly in the context of the men they were involved with (romantically or professionally).

But watching Betty go through the motions of finding out Don's secret and falling for another man while stripped of her inner life was something like watching her die a slow, painful death. Gone are the casual conversations with Francine, just hurried discussions about the reservoir. The look into the inner workings of Betty Draper achieved with the psychiatrist are a memory. Without her inner life providing insights to her behavior, we are left with a direct reading of Betty: spoiled, selfish, cruel. The only time a glimpse of the season one and two Betty surfaces is during her finale fight with Don, his careful facade smashed to pieces. They attack each other, brutally, Don focusing in on their class differences and Betty dredging up the scorn, confusion, and anger that's plagued her for the last three years:

In the end, Betty flies off to Reno, leaving behind the suburbs, the failed marriage, and the lingering doubts of her own sanity. She's moving forward with a man she doesn't know, in order to escape another man she doesn't know. Fitting, really.

So while I hate Betty, I kind of can't help to see her for who she is - a flawed, miserable person stuck in an increasingly desperate gilded cage. The marriage was already poisoning the two children - having it end will probably be for the best. Perhaps Betty's story line could have been salvaged. Perhaps Matthew Weiner could have humanized her more, given her more space to experience grief and rage before she got the upper hand by finding Dick Whitman's box of secrets. Perhaps then, instead of being a tangle of privilege and petulance, Betty Draper would have been seen as a woman in an impossible position, seeking a savior, instead of looking like an opportunist.

But either way, it's over. The Draper family is dead. Long live the Drapers.

Related: Sexism Makes Me Hate Betty Draper [What Tami Said]
Why Does Betty Draper Have To Make Wingnuts Feel Guilty? [Pandagon]
"Fuck Pete Campbell!": Mediations On Mad Men And Whiteness [Racialicious]
Why "Mad Men" Is Afraid Of Race [Double X]
On Mad Men And Race [Racialicious]
"Shoot" Wins ADG, Matt Weiner's Visions, Birds [Basket of Kisses]