Story (aired on April 1, 2012/written by Erin Levy and Matthew Weiner; directed by Jon Hamm): Betty is back onscreen, concerned about her dramatic weight gain and a lump discovered on her throat. Awaiting results of the biopsy, she struggles with which option is worse: that she may be staring down the barrel of her own imminent mortality or that this horizon holds nothing but years of quiet loneliness, surrounded but untouched by wealth and an affectionate family, with her best years behind her and not much to show but vague heartache. This passage toward middle age (a doctor consigns her there already, and she barely winces in resignation) is represented by the loss of her figure and the shame she feels over her own body, even in front of her husband. She can only weep when a psychic, reading her titular tea leaves during lunch with cancer-stricken friend Joyce Darling (Adrian Tennor), offers a glowing personal assessment of Betty's importance to those around her. In a dream she speaks to her black-clad family as they sit at a table - in what looks like the old Draper home - and they can't hear her, staring grimly into space until Sally lifts Betty's chair and places it upside down atop the table; is this fear of the future or an allegory for the present? Receiving the good news from a doctor at episode's end, Betty feels both relieved and deflated - or as Wikipedia's description bluntly puts it, "She ponders her life as a sad, fat housewife."
Don, deeply concerned after Betty shares her condition, spends several scenes with Harry shoved into the crowded backstage area of a Rolling Stones concert, surrounded by sweaty, stoned teenagers - most notably Bonnie (Hayley MacFarland), whose attempts to flirt only make her seem more like a kid out of her depth. As the twentysomethings onstage conquer the world, those a decade behind and those a decade ahead of them look lost in the rubble, though they draw different conclusions from their disorientation. Don and Harry are there at the behest of another spontaneous whim offered by the Heinz representative; greedy manager Allan Klein offers a seeming "in" with the Stones, though the notion of them recording a cheesy beans jingle as late in the game as '66 seems pretty remote. Harry, high on a shared joint, accidentally signs the opening band instead (The Trade Winds - a real if largely forgotten mid-sixties group), spoiling the whole concept and leaving Don with a kind of comeuppance for consigning Peggy to that weekend of extra work after the last Heinz feedback session. Peggy, for her part, is roped into Heinz's search for a head copywriter; impressed by Michael Ginsberg's (Ben Feldman's) out-there submissions, she calls him into an interview and is horrified by his erratic, unprofessional behavior. Roger insists she hire him anyway - he's already gone out on a limb promising movement on the campaign and both he and Don are bemused by Michael's wackiness. Peggy, whose idea it was to reward his work in the first place, remains perturbed by the pass the eccentric young man receives (something she presumably never would as a woman, though she's also not hesitant to toss out "he's Jewish" when Roger suggests him for Heinz).
Elsewhere in the episode, Pete uses Roger to seal the deal with Mohawk Airlines and then stab him in the back in front of the whole office, treating him as a subordinate and driving the ever more dejected senior partner Sterling into his luxurious digs to drink and brood. "When do things get back to normal?" Roger asks Don. He probably knows the answer, as they all do - it's no accident that one of the Stones songs cited ironically in the episode's dialogue is "Time is on My Side" (which Raymond accidentally calls "Time is on Your Side," chuckling in response, "Yes, it is, dear," when Megan corrects him).
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