'Mad Men': Like a ticking time bomb

I thought the look on actor Jon Hamm's face when Betty told Don to open the drawer was very well played. He truly looked like he was about to pass out. I kept waiting for him to collapse on the floor. It was nice to have Don's backstory finally fully explained after all the bits and pieces that were doled out along the way.

I don't see Joan (Christina Hendricks) leaving the show. She's such a larger than life character. I believe her call to Roger is a set-up to get her back into his life. And his refusal of his old flame's advances is part of that set-up. Before, Joan was a free-agent when it came to having affairs with married men. Now, she's married, too, but her hubby is being sent far away. I think she'll choose to stay behind in NYC and will end up back with Roger.

I didn't think for a second that Suzanne was going to barge in on the Don/Betty confrontation. I thought it impossible that Weiner&Co. would set up Don's unmasking and have it complicated by an ancillary character. I figured Suzanne would see the lights on and shadows through the curtains and do exactly what she did--get out of the car and quietly make her way home.

I don't quite understand the antipathy so many viewer have toward Suzanne. People keep comparing her to Glenn Close's character in "Fatal Attraction" and impugn her with motives and faults that her character simply hasn't shown. Her character isn't especially memorable and we may be a bit jaded about Don again taking up with another woman, but their feelings for each other seem deeper and more tender than with his previous involvements.

The Betty/Don talk reminded me, at least in raw emotion and soul-baring intimacy, of the Tony/Carmela fight where she says she had feelings for Furio and the two of them trade verbal haymakers. Hamm was just remarkable, with just a droop of his mouth he turned from Don Draper to Dick Whitman. There was one line that really struck me when I watched the show a second time--when they go to the kitchen and a destroyed Don splashed water on his face and wiped it dry with a towel. Betty asks if he's thinking up a story to tell her or if he'd going to run out the door he keeps staring at and Don says, "I'm not going anywhere". He sounds almost defiant, but it's hard to say if it's Don defying Betty or Don defying Dick. It's too late to run, there's nowhere to go, and his words show that he's given up, that he'll tell Betty (just about) everything.

I definitely think they're foreshadowing Roger & Joan getting back together.  They set Jane up from the beginning as only a shadow of what Joan is (even with a similar name - in some languages, these two names are the same).  She's not as well-built, tactful, or capable.  It was quite satisfying to watch Joan wallop that jerk Greg over the head with that vase!

I was on the edge of my seat, too re: Suzanne wandering in during the big confession!  Last week's episode was such a let-down when Betty didn't confront him.  I thought Don was having a stroke when he fumbled that cigarette.