This episode featured two actors operating on full steam: Jon Hamm and Christina Hendricks. The episode, ironically named "The Good News," contains some news that is the worst we've heard in the season so far. Anna Draper, Don's first wife (it's complicated), has cancer. As her niece puts it, "It's everywhere." Not only that, but Anna doesn't know about it.
This is very simply the best acting I've ever seen from Hendricks. In particular, I'm referring to the two scenes she shares with Lane, going from quietly angry to furious to furious at someone else.
The episode is also far from humorless. Don and Lane's drunken spree is some of the funniest writing in the show. Sandra delivers "I don't know what that means" perfectly. And of course, Joan actually falling for the diversion before a needle.
But of course, it's all on the backdrop of an event that rocks the foundation of the show: Anna's cancer, and the fact that Anna doesn't know about it. It presents a moral question that seems easy to answer at first, but in their shoes it would be a difficult task to ask yourself this. Do you tell Anna about her cancer? Our instincts say yes immediately. Of course you tell her. I'd rather hear the bitterest truth than the sweetest lie. But on the other hand, it seems hopeless. She doesn't have very long to live. There's no chance of even a partial recovery. Why taint her final weeks with dread? Let her live our the rest of her life unburdened. Then again, it feels creepy to keep her in the dark. After all, as Don puts it, "What's your plan? One morning she wakes up in agony and you tell her it's over?"
And behind all this is New Year's. It's interesting, because it's a holiday, and this is (I think) the first episode where we don't see Betty even once.
The creators should be proud of this one.
This is very simply the best acting I've ever seen from Hendricks. In particular, I'm referring to the two scenes she shares with Lane, going from quietly angry to furious to furious at someone else.
The episode is also far from humorless. Don and Lane's drunken spree is some of the funniest writing in the show. Sandra delivers "I don't know what that means" perfectly. And of course, Joan actually falling for the diversion before a needle.
But of course, it's all on the backdrop of an event that rocks the foundation of the show: Anna's cancer, and the fact that Anna doesn't know about it. It presents a moral question that seems easy to answer at first, but in their shoes it would be a difficult task to ask yourself this. Do you tell Anna about her cancer? Our instincts say yes immediately. Of course you tell her. I'd rather hear the bitterest truth than the sweetest lie. But on the other hand, it seems hopeless. She doesn't have very long to live. There's no chance of even a partial recovery. Why taint her final weeks with dread? Let her live our the rest of her life unburdened. Then again, it feels creepy to keep her in the dark. After all, as Don puts it, "What's your plan? One morning she wakes up in agony and you tell her it's over?"
And behind all this is New Year's. It's interesting, because it's a holiday, and this is (I think) the first episode where we don't see Betty even once.
The creators should be proud of this one.
