Welcome, chatty pattie....I'd feel the same as you said if I was Betty.

When I think of the rude awakening that woman has ahead of her.....!

You're right. I'm sure she'd flip. However, the Don Draper we know is really Dick Whitman, and Dick was never married to the real Mrs. Draper. So, technically, he's not really divorced.

You know, Betty really knows very little about Don. Her father even made a remark about not trusting someone they know nothing about. I wonder at what point she is going to think about hiring a private detective to find out more about him. Now that he has "come into money", if she finds out he is being unfaithful again, she could decide to get as much dirt on him as she can and take him to the cleaners in divorce court. Once a private detective starts in on his background, Don/Dick, is going to be one screwed Louie.

.....Dick Whitman was never legally married, but has to carry all the Don Draper baggage, anyway.

I LOVED that scene where her father rants, "He has no people! You can't trust a man like that!!"

Brilliant.

It was such the "Pink Elephant."

The two heavy beats and look of horror on everyone's faces was genius.

(I mean, let's face it, isn't that every family gathering summed up in a nutshell?? D&S you know what I'm talkin' about!!)

How far did Matt and the writers have to go into the mechanics of dementia, not to mention analyzing the entire big picture, to come up with THAT scene??

That question comes up constantly with this thing, and is probably why it bugs the crap out of me, the way it does.

.....Betty hiring a detective is the next logical step in her growing awareness of the big picture. It fits - good call.

Or, there will be a blurted, revelatory betrayal (Pete? Duck? Someone else?), which is slightly more interesting.

It would be very hard for Betty to hire a private detective without Don realizing it, given that her money is his money. I'm sure he checks receipts.

And since Chatty Pattie asked this question, it got me thinking: to get married, one usually needs a birth certificate. I wonder whose Don used? The real Don Draper is what, 9 years older than Dick Whitman? It would be kind of hard for a 30 year old to pass himself off as almost 40. And, Don/Dick uses his (Dick's) real age, as when he told the doctor his age; and Pete mentioned the age difference, too, when he was talking to Bert about Don's real identity.

.....If you recall, Betty has taken to writing all the checks in the family, in congruence with her adopting long, bright-red talons as a style point.

Some vague dogma about feminine independence.

Anna said in the one episode, and I paraphrase, "You used my husband's serial number to get a job," or whatever it was.

Not sure about the age gap - if so, VERY good call!

I know we have discussed this ad nauseam, but I keep thinking about Betty and her barroom fling. If Don ever finds out, I am willing to bet he would act like she stabbed him in the heart. No matter how many affairs he has had during their marriage, her single moment of infidelity will be a huge betrayal in his eyes. We already know how jealous he gets over her - the yellow bikini, the night Roger came to dinner, watching Arthur just talking to her at the country club. Of course, he will never know unless Betty decides to spill the beans, and I am betting she will during some future argument - and there will be future arguments, you can stake the farm on that.

Mambo Deb -

And since Chatty Pattie asked this question, it got me thinking: to get married, one usually needs a birth certificate. I wonder whose Don used?

The birth certificate in those days was not to identify the person as much as to establish you were old enough to get married. At thirty, Don looked definitely old enough to get married and probably would have used his driver's license anyway. Like many others, he might have changed the date of his birth when he filled out the form.

The paperwork of Don Draper has always fascinated me. And I wish they'd go into more detail about it.

He's maintaining two households, so I'm assuming he has two mortgages? Does he also have home owner's insurance for both those households? Life insurance? A will? Is Anna listed as a beneficiary?

He says he doesn't vote and he doesn't have a contract at work, but there's so many other things that I'd think he'd need in order to maintain the ruse of being a successful mid-century man. He has a wife and young children, and he's swimming in material possessions. He drives a car, so he needs a driver's license. He got married, so he needs a marriage license. I'm sure he has a bank account, or several. What about stocks, bonds and other investments? Even back then, you couldn't just "have" those things. You had to sign for them -- to get them, to maintain and protect them. Then, as now, contracts were necessary. We know he doesn't like to deal with contracts, but for certain things he has to sign one. How does he do it? What will happen if he's ever found out?