Mad Men 3x11 Reaction
Added 2025-10-16 22:42:02 +0000 UTC
Comments
greg is a rapist. it's fine to enjoy him being hit with a vase, it's not a typical 'domestic violence' situation. if it were me I might actually kill him and go to jail 🤷♀️
Kara
2025-10-19 05:12:57 +0000 UTCGreat reaction. I'd forgotten exactly how Don's admission to Betty worked out, but it was absolutely heart-breaking. And I think you really hit the nail on the head about Roger and Joan's relationship and their chemistry. Though, I will say wasn't super keen on the condoning of domestic violence, but I guess that was in jest.
John Mokyr
2025-10-19 03:37:00 +0000 UTC‘You weren’t’ Ice cold.
Patrick
2025-10-18 00:06:43 +0000 UTCmaybe me favorite final shot/line of any madmen episode
T0ast
2025-10-17 23:24:31 +0000 UTCThe difference is Betty had proof this time. She’s *seen* the evidence. With the cheating, she was going off of her intuition and the word of Jimmy Barrett.
JJ
2025-10-17 22:49:30 +0000 UTC”and who are you supposed to be” Don Draper has no response
LtotheoG
2025-10-17 19:37:36 +0000 UTCThe way they hit you with the ep title reveal/who are you supposed to be/Oliver song all in 90 seconds. nuance and subtlety is great but sometimes you should just go for it. 10/10
cheech
2025-10-17 18:34:20 +0000 UTC"I was surprised that you ever loved me". I think this line speaks to why Don never felt like he could risk telling Betty about his true identity. He couldn't believe this woman, who embodies what he considered to be the perfect wife, would ever consider loving him. Any shift in her perception of him as anything other than Don Draper probably made him feel that he'd lose her. I don't think he was wrong to think that either.
Eric Viola
2025-10-17 18:34:14 +0000 UTCTo your point about therapy, Betty telling her lawyer only after saying it out loud does it "feel real". Good stuff
Chris B
2025-10-17 18:14:01 +0000 UTCAnd his effortless charm goes a long way.
Chidi.
2025-10-17 10:20:47 +0000 UTCMan what an episode, the weight that is lifted when Don finally reveals his story to Betty is so heavy and emotional for Don himself and us as the viewers. Such a great performance by Jon Hamm in that scene.
TylerNorCal
2025-10-17 10:13:14 +0000 UTCGreat reaction and commentary. This episode really hit me emotionally rewatching it before the reactions. I connect to Don more now than I did when I was younger. The weight of years of baggage, the difficulty opening up and feelings of being unlovable, holding others at a distance. It can be hard to overcome. I can definitely see the similarities between this episode and Sopranos 'Whitecaps' too. Both feel very attuned to their characters and the kind of relationship they have. Couples breaking down = good tv. Better Call Saul too.
Mark M
2025-10-17 09:51:05 +0000 UTCI feel like I should hate Roger. He’s an entitled, privileged, irresponsible nepo baby. But at the same time, he’s so completely self-aware about all these things that it kind of becomes endearing. And even though his misogynistic behavior towards women is deeply off-putting, it pales in comparison to most of the other male characters on the show.
Julmor
2025-10-17 08:39:19 +0000 UTCLove this episode. Don, the King of Gaslighting and Avoiding deep discussions being forced to finally be honest about his past is literally the best thing ever. I will always wish that we got a little more Adam but I loved how we got to see Don get teared up over his passing. Definitely one of Roger's best episodes for sure and he and Joan have the best chemistry of the entire series in my honest opinion.
Nyeisha Melvina Clark
2025-10-17 06:32:07 +0000 UTCHamm going up against Cranston for all those years was just cruel. This was the third straight year that he lost to him. (And it will happen again in Season 6.) At least Cranston was worthy alternative. How Jeff Daniels walked away with an Emmy vs. Hamm's S5 finale performance is... tough to understand.
Mike
2025-10-17 04:51:49 +0000 UTCI'll get a few of the obvious things out of the way: First of all, that ending is note-perfect. Greg joining the army in 1963 is an all-time dipshit move by an all-time dipshit. Roger's "You weren't" is just incredible and devastating. And man, Jon Hamm is one of the best to ever do it. But what stuck out the most to me watching this time was how the "Don comes clean" sequence isn't a fight, or even an argument, really. What it actually feels like -- and this intersects with dipshit-in-chief saying that psychiatry isn't "real medicine" -- is therapy. Don is saying all of this stuff out loud for (probably) the very first time. Adam killed himself because of me. I was shocked that you would ever love me. And Betty, to her credit, is *present* for the conversation, and even supportive at times. Not that she doesn't have plenty of reasons to feel betrayed by this revelation, but it pretty quickly becomes obvious to her that this isn't a "Don has a fake identity" thing -- it's a "Don is broken, broken man" thing. And she gives him enough of what he needs to feel safe unburdening himself like that. Phew. I said it already, but I'll say it again: Jon Hamm is one of the best to ever do it. Obviously, one of the best episodes of the Mad Men and in tv history. (What's great is that the next two, ten, twenty, etc. are also great. Sometimes even *this* great. Sometimes even better, if you can believe it.)
Mike
2025-10-17 04:15:37 +0000 UTCi remembered the teacher; for some reason Don touching grass when he sees her for the first time always stuck with me.
Chidi.
2025-10-17 03:49:58 +0000 UTCIt's funny, i had the opposite experience when it came to both types of confrontations portrayed. I watched mad men prior to the sopranos as well (at least the first few seasons as it wasn't finished airing at the time) but the realism and rawness of the latter hit harder, especially since it was stuff i've seen in my own household. And i always felt mad men's was a little too quiet and subdued with the situation being more extraordinary (i mean don's backstory in general is less ordinary). But as i've re-watched the show and read stuff in true crime where things like this do happen (i mean lol there are people who find out their spouses are serial killers) i've come to appreciate it more even if it doesn't top whitecaps.
Veya
2025-10-17 03:18:55 +0000 UTCyay... and yes to all of it. the crushing quiet sorrow that swept over you both is such a perfect example of how affecting this show is. the understated humanity of it all, and not the sopranos version, is why this show is such art. sopranos might be good tv, even genre-building tv, but mad men is art. so glad you're feeling the characters so deeply, and clearly. there are a few other shows that are of this caliber and subtleness, but that convo and those recommendations are for another day. today is special... thanks for the reactions.
pb24rf19
2025-10-17 03:12:14 +0000 UTCBeen waiting for this episode since you started the show. Good times are ahead
Zosko1
2025-10-17 02:12:16 +0000 UTCIt's a Big episode all the way through, but I know I was waiting for that vase moment specifically. It's so viscerally satisfying to finally see Joan just SMACK him once. For me, the reason that Roger and Joan's relationship seemed more "real" than all of Roger's other flings or marriages is that Joan had a very pragmatic and rational opinion of what their relationship was. She didn't want Roger to leave his wife for her, and she knew that if he did then eventually he'd be cheating on her with the next beautiful woman that came by. She was content with what they had while she looked for a Real Relationship elsewhere. She didn't expect more from him, so he could never let her down or disappoint her. One of those amazingly subtle things that I didn't notice until somebody else pointed it out to me, is that Don fumbles his cigarette when he and Betty start talking. He FUMBLES HIS CIGARETTE. Don's been smoking like a chimney the entire series, he's smoked even when he's drunk or traumatized or dealing with Serious Events, but here he is SO overwhelmed that he can't even do that normally anymore. It's a tiny moment that shows just how HEAVILY this hit him. I definitely feel sympathy for Don here -- we all do -- but the show is crafted well enough to never try and turn that sympathy into endorsement. Regarding divorce, I mentioned this in a comment on an earlier episode, at this time New York did not allow "no fault" divorce. You need to prove that at least one party broke the rules. Adultery (as the lawyer mentioned), or abandonment, or something else so one of them can be pointed to and say "THEY ended the marriage". Even spousal abuse wasn't grounds for divorce yet (I think it's 1966 when "cruelty" became legal grounds). This means Betty can't just go to court and say "We're not in love anymore", she needs to either have specific proof or get Don to agree to admit and take the blame.
JBK405
2025-10-17 01:49:49 +0000 UTCYeeeaaaaah. This may be the best reaction yet + a brilliant episode of capital-T Television. When you were wondering when the confrontation was gonna happen last episode all of us were like, ya wont have to wait til the finale! 💀 Lola's broken-down cackling like the Joker when we cut to a Roger scene with no pause killed me, we're right there with you. So good. It's funny Milena says she imagined the version of the confrontation that was a Sopranos scene. I watched Sopranos after watching Mad Men and while I think the show is amazing + important, I often found myself thinking "I would have preferred the Mad Men version of this without mafia violence + chaotic escalation". I think that's why I ultimately rank Mad Men above Sopranos and Breaking Bad (I love both), also probably why I prefer Better Call Saul to Breaking Bad. The type of conflict and confrontation and fallout Mad Men does is just more attuned to my personal taste. I love Betty's line about Don not understanding money. It's wild how much she just had to intuit about Don's history based off his actions and mannerisms. We've seen Don give away huge sums of money, lose money in silly situations. He really feels like a dirt poor kid who accidentally got rich and has no idea what you're supposed to do. You expect Don to run away or deny + gaslight like he has before but he doesn't, he's caught by the 1 person in the world he wanted to be caught by the least. 100% agree with Lola's comparison to the horse meat plot... "It's a label on a can. And it will be true because it promises the quality of the product that's inside." I think this is both true + something Don fundamentally must believe in order to function as a human being. Huge agree with both your takes here, spot-on analysis imo. As someone who read Scott Fitzgerald and Hemingway as a kid, finding out Roger was bopping around pre-war Paris getting into fights and falling in love is soooo funny to me, it fits so well. They absolutely read those novels and then moved to Paris to chase that excitement... rich american kids cosplaying bohemians in Europe, like 1930s influencers. And the implication that Roger had his heart broken so came home and joined his dad's company ("time to take myself seriously, get a real job" etc), it fits so well and explains so much. Bonus Thoughts: Don immediately forgetting Suzanne in the car is always funny, how long would you wait? I might wait an hour 😭 I love Don's casual "I've eaten [horse meat]" and Roger's look of surprise, I bet he mentally files away any rare personal fact Don shares. On the commentary they mention centering "the vase" in earlier episodes, knowing it was destined to be cracked against Greg's stupid head, now that's a character arc!
Kara
2025-10-17 01:17:29 +0000 UTCI agree, it's true that Roger acted like a sleazeball in season 1 and could've treated Joan with a little more respect, but I think we're seeing now that he truly does care for her as a person and that they have an undeniable connection and are actually good together (even if just as friends and not romantically).
Taya
2025-10-17 01:01:00 +0000 UTCI love that episode, but personally I don't think it's the greatest. There's one from S4, S6, and S7 that are above it for me but the one you mentioned is definitely in the top 5.
Bernardo
2025-10-17 00:47:34 +0000 UTCMan we're so close to what I'd say is the greatest episode of the entire series. Close the door, have a seat.
Stephen Calvird
2025-10-17 00:37:53 +0000 UTC100%. I remember really looking forward to it. Everything finally blowing up in dons face marathon ep. Instant classic etc. but i can’t even imagine it now. It’s just so much better having it be about his past than just affairs. There’s nothing to yell about.
cheech
2025-10-17 00:37:48 +0000 UTCIt makes sense to assume during this confrontation Don would try to lie his ass off and gaslight Betty as as he always does, but the way his face and shoulders fall, and his hand just slumps on the desk, you can see the fight drain out of him immediately. He is a completely broken shell of a man and the most vulnerable (and honest) we've ever seen him. At the same time, I'm so proud of Betty here. She is fierce and determined, self-assured, intimidating and fully prepared to tear down whatever excuses or lies Don tries to tell her. Such a huge contrast to when she confronted Don about cheating in season 2. She now has the upper hand. And there's no screaming or throwing things or loud theatrics needed! She stays calm, classy, and even empathetic throughout. "People change their names, Betts. You did." "I did. I took your name." Such an incredible scene. The weight of it is so heavy, the silence in between the dialogue is suffocating. It feels so serious you don't dare speak until it's over. Also I agree, Greg deserves violence.
Taya
2025-10-17 00:29:07 +0000 UTCI love the meta of how Matthew Weiner probably knew that folks were expecting a Whitecaps-style shouting match when Betty finally confronted Don, and instead it was anything but. That's how you properly subvert expectations.
Father of the Year
2025-10-17 00:23:09 +0000 UTCI'm glad the ladies have embraced Roger to an extent and realised he's pure comedy gold. Hamm's performance in this episode was nominated for an Emmy - he ended up losing to Bryan Cranston as Walter White.
Chidi.
2025-10-17 00:22:28 +0000 UTCBruh
Chidi.
2025-10-17 00:18:02 +0000 UTCI don’t remember much about this show. Rewatching it has made me realize how much I have forgotten. Like I don’t remember the teacher at all. I totally forgot about her. But the confrontation between Betty and Don is seared into my memory. Don looking so scared while Betty is intimidating him. It is so well done. John Hamm is amazing throughout the entire thing. So good.
Haye Zeus
2025-10-16 23:55:17 +0000 UTCI love the juxtaposition between Annabelle and Joan. Both women left him for other men and with Annabelle he wants nothing to do with her. But with Joan he still cares deeply for her and there’s no resentment there, even though I don’t think they would be happy in a romantic pairing again I do think Joan is the only woman Roger holds a deeper connection with than just sex
Jude G
2025-10-16 23:50:39 +0000 UTCYou weren’t.
cheech
2025-10-16 23:24:51 +0000 UTC“And who are you supposed to be?”
Wesley White
2025-10-16 23:22:44 +0000 UTCI love how the crumbling of Camelot (a reference to the end of the Kennedy administration) is occurring at the same time that Don’s fabricated life with his wife is crumbling too
Jude G
2025-10-16 23:21:42 +0000 UTCUt oh, here it is...and who are you supposed to be?
Scott
2025-10-16 23:01:08 +0000 UTC
