“Sure. Everything’s perfect.” – Betty
“The Inheritance” is the tenth episode of Mad Men Season 2. What’s new and what’s happening?
- The big plot point drops when Betty calls Don – still living at a hotel at this point – and tells him that her father has had a stroke. He insists on heading home immediately but settles for stopping by in the morning to gather the family to head over to see how Eugene Hofstadt (played wonderfully by Ryan Cutrona) is doing.
- At the Hofstadt residence, Gene’s “friend” Gloria (Darcy Shean) greets them. She tries mightily to make it seem as though things are all hunky dory with Betty’s father but it quickly becomes apparent that that’s not the case (Gene mistakes his daughter for his deceased wife… more than once). Other family members William (played by Eric Ladin, who I always think about with relation to The Killing) and Judy Hofstadt (Miranda Lilley) also join.
- Don and Betty stay in the same room as they haven’t told the family that they are separated. Don sleeps on the floor, but Betty joins him there in the middle of the night. It’s a sweet moment… but fleeting, as she remains determined to maintain their semi-secret estrangement when they arrive back at home.
- Pete and Bud Campbell continue to mourn the loss of their inheritance (turns out poppa was broke when he went down with the rest of the passengers of “Flight 1”), this time over drinks in Pete’s office. And in other Pete doings, Trudy tries to convince him to adopt a child because “nothing’s happening” with regard to their trying to get pregnant. Pete remains resistant at this stage. Later in the episode, Pete and Bud reluctantly let their mother (Dorothy, played by Channing Chase) know that her financial situation isn’t what she assumed it to be.
- Propelled by Betty’s refusal to let Don back in the house, Don makes an ultimate Executive Decision back at Sterling Cooper, deciding to send himself to the convention in California instead of Paul Kinsey. Joan takes some cruel pleasure in delivering the news to Paul in front of a crowd of colleagues.
- Back in Ossining, we get the return of Glen Bishop (played by Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner’s son, Marten Holden Weiner). Glen has run away from home, if briefly, and is camped out in the massive playhouse in the Draper’s backyard that Don (drunkenly) constructed back in Season 1’s “Marriage of Figaro.” Betty is kind to him, takes him into the house, washes his clothes, and lets him watch TV with Sally, but eventually returns him home to his mother, Helen. Glen is furious that Betty “betrayed” him, but of course he had to return home eventually. But it speaks to the unusual nature of their relationship – dating back to Season 1 – where at times they act almost as peers (Glen more mature than his age, and Betty much less), where at other times the reality of Betty as adult and Glen as the child of an acquaintance reasserts itself.
- The closing shot of “The Inheritance” is of Pete and Don on a flight to LA, set to slightly psychedelic surf rock music. It’s the perfect set-up for what’s going to be quite a turn of events for Don coming up in “The Jet Set.”
Mad Men, “The Inheritance”: the advertising side of the show
- Pete rattles off a long list of “everyone who’s building a rocket” at the upcoming convention in Los Angeles that Pete Campbell and Paul Kinsey are slated to attend: General Motors, General Electric, Ion Physics Corporation, Bell Telephone Laboratories, Cosmic Inc, Electro-Optical Systems Incorporated, Texas Instruments Inc, General Dynamics Corporation, Hughes Aircraft, Martin Marietta, Westinghouse, Aerojet, Radio Corporation of America (semi-conductors and materials division).
- Don instructs Pete to do the talking and Paul the listening at the convention, all in an attempt to figure out how to get all of these companies to spend advertising dollars in an attempt to “put a man on the moon or blue up Moscow, whichever one costs more.”
- It turns out that Paul neglected to tell his girlfriend from New Jersey, Sheila, about his upcoming business trip to LA, and when she accidentally finds out from Pete when she drops by Sterling Cooper, it causes a rift… which he manages to mend only because Don took his place on the business trip. Paul conveniently forgets to Sheila about this part when he tells her that he’s now available to participate in civil rights activism with her.
- Harry gets a booze-powered office party in honor of the upcoming birth of his child. “You are going to be blessed with a stinking miracle,” Kenny tells him, before handing him a stack of Playboy magazines. There are so many things there that would never, ever happen in a Manhattan office in 2024.
Things you notice after watching the entire Mad Men series a bunch of times
- Even for the wealthy people who exist in this world, they all have the same generic and (mostly) beige landline phones. Some, like the one in the Draper’s kitchen, are mounted to a wall.
- Betty is often casually referred to as “Betts,” but I sometimes forget that she also has the nickname of Birdie. We’re reminded in this episode when Don calls her that at her father’s house, but she coldly reminds him that no one is watching at that moment so “there’s no need to pretend.”
- While Don and Roger are cordial with one another, it’s clear there’s still tension based on the fact that Roger went and got engaged to Don’t former secretary, Jane.
- Speaking of cordiality (sort of), we finally get another scene featuring Harry and Hildy, and a drunken one at that! Hildy tells him that she’s happy for him with regard to his becoming a father, but in the background is the fact that the two (drunkenly) slept together back in Season 1’s “Nixon Vs. Kennedy.” When she hugs him, it’s a little inappropriate, but sweet.
- And more relating to drinking and events of past episodes: a tipsy Pete attempts to have an intimate and self-centered conversation with Peggy, as is his mode when he decides he’s lonely, or drunk, or both. Peggy deftly deflects his whole deal and wishes him a good trip to LA.
- Betty and Glen’s strange connection is one of the enduring mysteries over the course of the entire run of Mad Men. When Glen tells her that he hates her for returning him to his mother, Betty replies, “I know,” and it’s the most authentic, sweet, and vulnerable version of herself that we see in this moment. Also: outstanding acting from January Jones.
Mad Men, “The Inheritance”: odds and ends
- Paul is interested in heading to Pasadena because Jet Propulsion Laboratories is located there, and also because of Ray Bradbury. I find this amusing because I lived in Pasadena for many years. I never made it to JPL, though I lived within walking distance of Cal Tech for a spell and visited its wonderful campus many times.
- Peggy’s star continues to rise within Sterling Cooper, and in this episode Don even threatens to send her to LA instead of Pete and Paul as the latter two didn’t bother to read the research materials that she prepared for them.
- Grandpa Gene’s use of the word “copasetic” brings me back to my own childhood in New York in a strong and visceral way.
- Pete drops a reference to the 1948 Alfred Hitchcock movie, Rope. I watched it many years ago on cable. Like most things Hitchcock, it’s very good.
- One of my favorite random moments in the entire series is when Don, Gene, and Judy are working on a jigsaw puzzle together – a bizarre moment and gathering to begin with – and Grandpa Gene calls out Don for “not holding up his end” after Judy finds a corner piece. I chuckle every single time I think about it.
- Dorother Dyckman-Campbell shows off her opinionated elitist side when she refers to adoption as “pulling from the discards.”
- Viola (Aloma Wright) plays a small but important role in fleshing out Betty’s backstory. She’s the Hofstadt’s longtime maid, but really we quickly understand that she helped to raise Betty in a real sense, and there’s an unusual closeness between the two that transcends class, race, and Viola’s status as an employee of the household.
- Don calls his future secretary (and one night stand mistake) Allison “Donna” accidentally. Allison is working the front desk, as his future wife Megan also will a few seasons later.
- This is the last of five episodes that Helen Bishop, played by Darby Stanchfield, appears on Mad Men. It’s a shame only in that Stanchfield is a dynamite actress and brings a really unique energy whenever she’s in the mix in Ossining.
Mad Men, “The Inheritance”: fun quotes
- “This is a business trip. I don’t want either of you coming back tan.” – Don
- “Sure. Everything’s perfect.” – Betty
- “Everything is copasetic.” – Gene
- “Stop counting other people’s money.” – Betty
- “You’ll see. The minute you leave you’ll remember him exactly the way he used to be.” – Violet
- “I just want to say happy birthday.” – Bert
- “I came to rescue you.’ – Glen to Betty
- “The consumer has no color.” – Paul
Some stats and info about Mad Men, “The Inheritance”
TV SHOW – Mad Men
SEASON/EPISODE – Season 2, Episode 10
AIRED ON – October 5th, 2008
NETWORK/STREAMING SERVICE – FX
GENRE – Drama, Relationship Shows, Office Culture, Period Shows
CREATED BY – Mathew Weiner
CAST – Jon Hamm, Elisabeth Moss, Vincent Kartheiser, January Jones, Christina Hendricks, Aaron Staton, Rich Sommer, John Slattery, Kiernan Shipka, Robert Morse, Christopher Stanley, Jessica Pare, Jay R. Ferguson, Michael Gladis, Bryan Batt, Alison Brie, Jared Harris, Kevin Rahm, Mason Cotton, Ben Feldman, Mark Moses, Anne Dudek, Maggie Siff, Joel Murray, Harry Hamlin, Talia Balsam, James Wolk