SPOILERS FOR EVERYTHING THAT HAS AIRED TO DATE
As I began typing this review, it hit me suddenly that we are now about two-thirds of the way through the season. Can you believe that? I don’t know how I feel about these short-season series. They come and go like traveling salesmen in the night, tempting you with their exotic wares, only to abandon you before you’ve even turned the clocks back to standard time. I’m nursing a cold, so you’ll have to forgive me — that’s the most evocative simile I could conjure in my Mucinex-induced state.
This episode’s title, “Souvenir”, is evocative in its own right, even if it’s sort of stale. Upon seeing it in print, I immediately thought, Uh, oh. Someone is going to be bringing something unfortunate back with them from somewhere. It turned out to be not quite so simple.
There are essentially three stories at play in this episode. In the main plot, Betty and her colleagues with the Junior League of Tarrytown earn a reservoir victory with the city council, thanks to some bureaucratic intervention from Henry Francis. Henry makes it clear in the parking lot, however, that he’s done this feat in order to win favor with Betty. They share a kiss, and she leaves. That night, she asks Don — who has been working long days in various cities for Hilton — to take her with him to Rome. Although they’re only there for a few days and Don has to work much of the time, Betty takes every advantage of the time they do have together. It’s like a mini-second honeymoon. The couple especially enjoy showing off for a pair of sleazy Italian men who deride Don as old and ugly. The rest of us don’t stand a chance.
Once they return home, Carla confronts Betty with the second plot of the episode: Sally beat up Bobby after he made fun of her for kissing Ernie. To be fair, if you kiss someone named Ernie — fully clothed in a bathtub, no less — you probably deserve to be made fun of. But that’s beside the point. Sally gives Bobby a few cudgels, though it’s not nearly as out of control as Carla makes it out to be later. Sally’s game of make believe bathtub-driving with Ernie appears to have been a deliberate imitation of Betty and Don. Sally had earlier carefully observed Betty preening in the mirror. And when Betty tells Sally that she needs to learn to control her temper, you can almost hear Betty on the verge of losing her own.
So the romantic trip to Rome ends abruptly with the return of parental responsibilities. And it’s been even harder than usual lately, with Don having to work extra long hours. Betty tells Don she wants to go away, but she doesn’t mean another vacation. She wants to leave their life, and that no doubt includes her thankless, disobedient children. For an immature brat like Betty, they are the most unpleasant of souvenirs. She’d much rather life the life of a socialite. It’s not a fantasy for Betty; it’s a genuine desire.
There was a point in this series when it was easy to feel sorry for Betty. In fact, crazy as it was, she stuck up for Sally and the family dog by shooting the neighbor’s beloved homing pigeons out of the sky. And she had to endure the quackery of a psychiatrist who treated her like a child. In retrospect, he turns out to have been more or less correct. It’s unbelievable.
Pete, on the other hand, spends the week at home. Trudy is away for the week, and Pete is left to his own devices. He spends the first day watching children’s TV shows and passing out on the sofa. As he returns to his apartment that night after a trip to the store, he discovers a young woman trying to stuff a party dress down the incinerator chute. She introduces herself as Gudrun after Pete recognizes her as the au pair working for his neighbors, the Lawrences. She explains that she has accidentally spilled wine on the dress and is trying to dispose of the evidence. Pete, gentleman that he is, tells the German immigrant that this foolish plan will just lead to the Lawrences assuming she stole the dress, and offers to rectify the problem himself.
Pete takes the dress back to the store, dresses down a store associate who doesn’t share his optimism about the dress, and ends up talking to … Joan! Is she managing the dress department? The entire store? It’s not clear. But she does agree, despite Pete’s offer to pay for a new dress, to exchange it at no cost. A little quid pro quo, perhaps: I won’t tell Trudy that you’re swapping a dress that isn’t her size, and you won’t tell anyone I’m working at this store instead of sitting at home eating bon bons while my rich surgeon hubby pays the bills. Greg is apparently thinking of pursuing a specialty in psychiatry. Good luck with that.
Pete brings the new dress to Gudrun, who receives it with bafflement, but spurns Pete’s offer to “celebrate”. So Pete goes back to his apartment, gets good and hammered, then returns to the Lawrences’ place to he can have his way with Gudrun. She doesn’t resist him this time, but she has so much to lose: for one thing, Pete could tell Mrs. Lawrence about the dress. Even worse, he could inform immigration — one gets the impression Gudrun may not have all her papers in order. She she lets Pete kiss her, and presumably more.
One of the recurring themes of the series is power, and Henry Francis states a political truism early in the episode: “When you don’t have the power, delay.” Don tried his best to do this last week, but finally ran out of time when Cooper forced him to sign the contract. Pete, on the other hand, has a keen sense of when he has power, but terrible instincts about when to use it. His abuse of the nanny was repugnant, bordering on rape. But strictly from a self-interest standpoint, it was stupid. The following day, Mr. Lawrence comes by to put up a roadblock between Pete and Gudrun. We can only guess what she actually revealed, but it must have included his name. What kind of moron has his way with a girl who lives a few doors down from the apartment he shares with his wife?
So Pete has an unpleasant souvenir from Trudy’s trip away: a constant reminder of his inability to control himself, in the form of a neighbor’s au pair. So when he’s at work he can see Peggy — the mother of his child — and when he’s at home, walking through the hallway or riding the elevator, he can see Gudrun. How about that?
Before dinner, he begs Trudy never to leave town without him again.
But at the end of the episode, has anything changed? The city council has held a secret meeting, and is apparently going ahead with the development anyway. Mr. Lawrence has assured Pete that he’s not going to rat him out. Betty is back to being frosty with Don. Would Pete and Trudy have had a romantic time together if he’d gone with her? Who knows? But now, like Betty, he has something to get away from.
I’m not sure why Hilton called the Drapers’ room, seemed surprised to hear a woman’s voice, then never asked to speak to Don. But I’d like to see more scenes with Hilton. Chelcie Ross brings such an interesting energy to the show. And I’ll have to give a little shout-out to Mark Metcalf, who played the Master on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He was the mayor in this episode.
Rating: 
Cooper’s in Montana. I won’t repeat where Sterling is.
