I will admit she wasnt bad in the RearWindow sketch. Honestly, I thought when she asked "where's the camera ?" I thought she was actually in character since she was playing a "regular person" being interviewed on The Today Show. I didn't even think that she was really asking that as herself.

I watched it on Hulu. Yeah, live TV is a whole different medium. It looked like she could barely read the cue cards. The "Rear Window" sketch was the best one, as all her best lines were actually sound effects.
Heavily ironic though, that one of the last sketches emphasized her character as being a pretty girl with absolutely nothing going on upstairs. I wonder if the SNL writers threw that one in after working with her for a week?

It looks to me that JJ needs a ton of direction to get anywhere near a good performance.  So I imagine the cast and crew of MM are getting a little tired of her slowing the production

But Don is not just going to forget his children, so Betts will have to be there at least during those interchanges.  But will have a lesser role.

However Henry Francis intrigues me somewhat.  Remember at Margaret's wedding where Henry's daughter asked him in an angry way why he was staring at "that woman" (Betty)?  Has Henry gotten in trouble before with being impulsive towards women?  Nothing has been said about his first wife; whether he is divorced or a widower.  Something doesn't add up with him.

Sask Berry,

Who's into name calling?  Anyway, real world: nobody is rolling on Don.  Not especially Bert Cooper.  The affairs were hidden from Betty.  They didn't have to stay hidden to everyone.  Cooper is really sharp.    He really just picked up a vibe.  Peggy is gonna roll on Don? Rachel Mankin wouldn't say shit, and neither would any of them.  What's there gonna be, some hearsay?

As far as some other stuff, are we playing semantics with frigid and icy?  And are we really saying she's cold to the kids because they weren't breast fed?  We have only seen her for 2.5 seasons with the older kids, and she hasn't exactly been kind to them.

Betts has the mind of a child.  Don's not too attracted to that sexually.  That's why he strays.  He likes smart bitzes.  She could like their sex life, but that's really irrelevant if Don doesn't.

I think that's the one constant in Don's affairs (besides the fact they were all brunettes.)
All those women were, for different reasons, intellectually stimulating.  Simple Betty is not.

Madwoman,

I can't agree.  @ least Betts bought the girl the riding boots.  She never has a nice word for the boy.  And she was actively lobbying in season 1 for Don to beat Bobby.

Just b/c you were nurtured a certain way doesn't mean you should automatically make it your parenting philosophy.  There are plenty of people with a brain who say 'I'm not gonna do what my parents did.'

That's the whole thing.  Betts is dumb.  She's immature.   She is not on Don's level.  That's why he cheats.  And that's partly why she's a bad parent.  We haven't seen Don with the right woman so we don't know how he'd behave.  Betts is not the right woman.

Now you may not think it matters who is the better parent, but Don is evolved enough to know that hitting a child is wrong.  Betty does not know that.  She actually roots for it.

Don never gets to be his whole person?  Listen, Don is Don.  He's an opportunist.  He's a survivor.  He saw a chance to get out of war, he took it.  He's a successful business man.  What?  That's an act?  Dick Whitman is Don Draper, the man you are in the room with, as Cooper put it.  Only he married the really pretty one who turned out to be a crazy pain in the ass that he's worried about leaving his kids with.  Let's not forget that Betty obviously had to okay field trips with Gene where the girl is driving the car.

In response to the semantics comment . . . There is a difference between the words 'icy' and 'frigid'.  One refers to a person's general demeanor and the other is most often used in sexual terms.  To use them interchangably is misleading.  I agree completely that Betty has an icy air about her and that she behaves coldly toward her children. However, I completely disagree that she is frigid.  I also disagree with the idea that Don doesn't like their sex life.  He is in love with (at the very least) the idea of Betty - the beautiful, icy, blonde princess.  There have been scenes in shows where he's looking at Betty or where he has come across Betty look-alikes and the scene takes on a dream-like feel. Of course, he is attracted to smart, dynamic women.  I just find it interesting that they are all brunettes.  I wonder who decided to make the blonde a dimbulb and all the smart women brunettes?  A little stuck-in-a-stereotype thinking to say the least.  Also, I don't really care if Betty is the ice queen bitch of all time, that in no way absolves Don of responsibility for his behavior.  He is a smart guy and he is making choices.  Betty isn't making him cheat - he is choosing to do so.   Perhaps this gets into the whole Venus and Mars gender miscommunication bullshit but, if one partner is cheating on the other, it affects the entire family.  No matter how justified you feel, you don't win parent of the year when you disrespect the mother/father of your children.  I think it's safe to say that neither Betty nor Don are behaving very grown-up within the confines of their familial relationships.

p.s. For you armchair psychologists lurking about, I've never been cheated on by boyfriend or spouse. So, please don't assume I'm an embittered, dumped wife/girlfriend with an axe to grind. 

In the end, I feel Betty & Don seperating would be the most realistic way to write the relationship.  They are both sort of lost souls and two lost people in a relationship can't possibly end well.

Sask B.,

Hi.  So if Betts is icy and cold to the children, as it is, imagine if she were also frigid?

I get you on a few things.  When Don was in Cali after she kicked him out, a woman at the poolside bar looked like Betts, and Don was getting all dreamy.  But that was @ a point, well before divorce, where Don was thinking about how to get home.

Now, as Don said, he'll be returning to a "new home" each night.  They may have had a few moments in the show sexually, Don and Betty, like in Rome.  But  the Rome sex was like vacation sex or special occassion sex--not the norm.

The norm was more along the lines of that time when Don couldn't get it up and Betty was like 'just tell me what to do.'

He couldn't very well tell her to go and read Chaucer.  I agree that Don was in love with Betty's image, but in reality, it's smart women that do it for him.  You marry an image and there's a good chance it won't work...it doesn't matter who you marry, there is that chance.

But I do think it realistic that couples back then stayed together who were in worse shape than Don and Betty.  If Betty didn't have that 'liferaft' she would have been stuck with Don.  She wasn't gonna divorce Don and end up like Glen's mom...Henry Francis was telling her what moves to make.

As far as the cheating and who was at fault...sure, nobody put a gun to Don's head.  To say there were causal factors or mitigating circumstances is also going too far. 

But cheating is a part of our culture, and an enormous part in past generations.  I read Cheever all the time.  You show me a Cheever story w/o some cheating or where the issue isn't at least raised...and John Cheever was excellent at telling American stories, NY stories, country clubs, vacation homes...upper class shit like this here with Don and Betty.

I don't know if it's madmen unless the guys act like swine, to a degree.  Weiner wasn't looking to make Don's character, all work, all about supporting his family, head down, despite how bad his wife was. 

I don't even think Don thinks Betts is that bad.  He clearly would have stayed.  But, Don is a smart, smart man.  He got a third lease on life and he is not gonna look a gift horse in the mouth.  As I posted somewhere on here, he called Betts the next day before lunch and told her he wasn't going to be fighting her.

Don's already seeing the future, and there will probably be a fair share of brunettes on his mind...LOL.

One of the things that seems to have been a little overlooked when considering the Don/Betty dynamic is Dick Whitman's POV on his relationship with Betty.  The world sees the persona Dick has created, but inside, I suspect that there's still a lot of Dick Whitman.  And to a dirt poor bastard kid from the sticks, Betty would have looked like Venus incarnate.  He would have been elated beyond belief to think he had a chance with a woman like her.

It may also be that Don's desire for business success is driven by Dick Whitman's humble beginnings as well - as a model here I'm thinking of someone like a Rockefeller (John D., the patriarch) who as a child bought candy and sold it to his brothers and sisters at a profit.

A lot of people are getting caught up in this Dick vs Don thing.  That's a lot of hype, Jack.  Dick is now a guy named Don Draper who is a great creative adman.

If Dick never took Don's name would he not still be a creative talent?  Don/Dick is doing what he is meant to do, what the fates have in store...LOL...not trying to take on a fate debate or anything.

As far as Betty looking good...yeah, she'd have looked good to any straight guy, pretty much.  I won't go so far as to say that Don is an ethical businessman, considering they robbed all that stuff from SC.  Won't say he is unethical either.  It was business.  Remember, Don was not looking to pump that guy Ho Ho on the Jai Alai thing...he even brought his dad in to try to warn the family off of it.

Don also chided Pete and Kinsey for salivating over the guy.  Don would blow off work for a week or more and has, if the right skirt caught his attention.  Doubt John D. Rockefeller would have done that.

Wasn't the rumor that Nelson Rockefeller died en flagrante, as is said?  In the saddle?

By the way, did anyone catch Love Actually on TV the other night?  In the scene in Milwaukee where the young Englishman is trying to get laid, the three bimbos sitting there include January Jones.  OMG, I kept saying to my friends who had no idea who she was.  She was smilier than she is on MM, but seemed a good choice for the airhead role.

Have to agree with crack on the cheating part of our culture thing.  Some study I read recently said that 60% of American men and 40% women admit to an extramarital experience in their lifetime.  Adultery has always been present.