Betty Francis is history’s greatest monster!

Maybe that’s going a bit far, but I think we can all agree that she’s a ghastly human being, what with her perma-scowl, her passive aggressiveness and the not-so passive aggressive child abuse. Of course Sally isn’t the easiest of kids to handle, particularly not in this week’s episode where she occupied herself with an impromptu hair cut… and masturbating (which is making me shudder just thinking about it, the mind boggles just thinking of how they managed to shoot that scene).

You could argue that Sally’s merely acting out because she’s ten years old, but I’m not really sure that’s an excuse, at least not since I read this interview with Kiernan Shipka who plays Sally – she’s still a child and is far more intelligent and together than most adults (or me, at least), which is both impressive and somewhat depressing. It’s more likely that Betty’s (well Betty’s and Don’s, but she seems to be the main offender) sub-par parenting skills are to blame, and of course there were plenty of opportunities to watch them in action this week. Her lowest point for me was her not even bothering to escort Sally to her first appointment with the psychiatrist, instead leaving it up to Carla once again – considering the fact that Betty’s meant to be a housewife, she doesn’t really do much does she?

To be fair to Betty, her reluctance to attend may have had something to do with the fact that the psychiatrist had decided that Betty herself was quite emotionally disturbed during their first chat, and seemed as keen, if not more so, to analyse her than she was for Sally (considering the actress who played the psychiatrist was last seen at the end of the second season of True Blood cavorting around topless – something that like Sally’s moment of sexual awakening based on the sight of David McCallum in the Man from U.N.C.L.E. that I’ll never be able to unsee – this had the probably unintentional effect of casting a particularly damning verdict on Betty’s psyche).

Meanwhile, my reactions to Betty’s hubby Henry this week were 1) outrage at his rush to pass judgement on Don (not that Don’s behaviour is above reproach, quite the opposite in fact, it just seemed very tacky of Henry to get involved in the whole accusing Don of neglecting his children argument) and 2) finding him oddly attractive – how did he manage to acquire such a lustrous tan when everybody else in the show is so pale, does he actually do any work or just hang around at the beach all day?

Perhaps Don shouldn’t have left his children alone with his neighbour nurse Phoebe, I’ve got nothing against her – she seems like a genuinely sweet girl who didn’t deserve the whole ‘severance’ pay treatment from Don after Sally’s haircutting incident – but rather because his date with Bethany was a bit of a bust. In fact the most interesting thing that’s come from Don’s courting of Bethany is being shown that now fairly tacky and ironic (albeit tasty) cuisine was once exotic and fashionable. Their first date revolved around Chicken Kiev, and now their third (‘in five months!’ as Bethany grumbled) was taking place in a Benihana, which unsurprisingly made Bethany grumble further, now going on about how the restaurant would make her smell like she had been frying chicken. Is Bethany meant to be the new Betty? Both are pretty and charming (in a shallow, insincere way) and quite a bit younger than Don (and of course their names both start with the letter B), but they both spend much of their screen time complaining.  I’m not one to accuse the makers of Mad Men of sexism, but they don’t seem to be doing blonde women any favours, it might be only a matter of time before Don’s next conquest – focus group leader Doctor Miller – is revealed to be annoying and shallow as well. Fortunately that didn’t happen this week – instead she joined Don for a chat over a glass of Sake. Although it does seem a bit strange that she was still hanging around at the SCDP offices, they must be paying her and her colleague Doctor Atherton a fortune for the continued use of their services.

As the presence of Benihana and Sake suggest, there was a definite Japanese feel to this week’s episode, as Pete had managed to get SCDP a meeting with the representatives for Honda Motorcycles. This meant that Japanophile Burt Cooper was brought in from the sidelines for the first time this season to act as the office’s Japanese culture expert (although Pete did overeagerly try to help, stuffing every corner of SCDP with Chrysanthemum flowers – in honour of Ruth Benedict’s anthropological study of Japanese culture which gave the episode its title – only to find out that he had to get rid of them all again, as apparently the flowers representing death, he probably should have studied his copy of the book a little more diligently). Less fortunately, the Honda meeting also brought out the wrath of Japanophobe Roger, who may well have a good reason for his anger having had some pretty horrific experiences in the pacific during the war (it probably didn’t help that Honda motorcycles were also a fairly powerful symbol of Japanese post-war optimism as well, as they were initially produced as a response to war-time fuel shortages), but not a reasonable way of expressing his opinions, instead walking around the office bellowing racist insults. It was a relief when Joan told him to get over himself, not least because ever-paranoid Pete was convinced that Roger had sunk the Honda account to get back at him. Considering the only thing that Roger does at SCDP is look after the Lucky Strike account (which he didn’t even acquire himself, but rather inherit from his father), he really should start working harder to prove his worth before everybody in the office turns on him.

Even more unfortunately the Japanese plot also served as an introduction to up and coming rival ad man (in his own mind at least) Ted Chaough, who frankly deserves a Betty-style smack in the face, what with his smugness and general all-round oiliness (he also annoyed me as I spent much of the episode with a trying to work out where I had seen the actor before – even after looking at his imdb credits I’m not entirely sure from where, he seems to be one of those people who pops up in the background in pretty much anything). I did like his tie though, Mad Men is now starting to become something like tie porn for me – anybody know where you can get ones like those that they wear on the show? Anyway, somehow Chaough had managed to spy on the developments in the SCDP office as he knew instantly about the Honda incident, sending a bottle of Sake to the office in order to rub Don’s face in his defeat.

Although the Sake didn’t quite have the desired effect as drinking it caused Don to have another one of his brilliant ideas. An idea that was based around the pulling off of a frantic, but enjoyable scam (despite the discomfort caused by Sally’s storyline, it was a surprisingly funny episode, even if some of the humour was borderline racist – part of the brilliance of Mad Men is that it can make unsavoury jokes seem funny – I particularly enjoyed the Honda representative’s awe-struck expression when confronted with Joan’s generous… figure, and Miss Blankenship’s complete inability to understand how to use an intercom) which probably wouldn’t salvage the Honda situation, but would at least ruin the increasingly cocky Chaough (and it’s not like Chaough even deserved to have such a high opinion of himself as he couldn’t even win over Smithy who had somehow found himself working for Chaough’s agency after the dissolution of the Sterling Cooper). As Honda’s rules banned the submitting of any completed work, and as they couldn’t afford to film a spec advert anyway (which meant by extension Chaough and co wouldn’t be able to either), Don’s plan involved fooling their rivals into thinking SCDP were filming an ad and so forcing them to film an even more elaborate and expensive one themselves. Therefore SCDP could maintain a bit of dignity by withdrawing from the Honda competition by blaming Honda for not playing by the rules, and put gullible Chaough out of pocket as well. Not only did the plan work, but it turned out that there wasn’t even a Honda account to fight for at the moment – they were merely taking a speculative dip into the water of ad agencies other than the one they were currently with – and, even better, the plot meant that we got to see the adorable sight of Peggy riding a motorbike round and round an empty soundstage in order to keep up the ruse. If the creators of Mad Men want to create a Roman Holiday-esque spin-off featuring Peggy biking her way around exotic locations (or even not so exotic ones), then I’d be the first in line for a ticket.

And that’s pretty much it for this week’s episode. I suppose we should make the most of the chance to chat about the show while we still can as, with last week’s news that Mad Men’s now been bought out by Sky, it seems like the era of Mad Men being a little watched but hotly discussed show is coming to an end. Although there will probably be some inevitable benefits to the show switching channels (such as moving even closer to US transmission dates), it’s fairly likely that it will follow the lead of other cult American shows like Lost when they moved from terrestrial to Sky, in that their audiences became even smaller and even more fragmented as non-subscribers moved to downloading, waiting for the box sets, or just gave up on following the show completely, and gradually people started talking about them less and less. Hopefully I’m wrong, but I’m not feeling particularly optimistic.