Emily Nussbaum (who has criticized the portrayal of Betty) and Logan Hill hash out the finale.

They specifically address Weiner's post-finale comment.

E.N.: I read Weiner's remarks about her on Vulture and honestly, found them a bit disturbing! "We all had mothers like this?"

L.H.: I did not have a mother like that.

E.N.: Neither did I. The thing is, I don't take issue with the notion that being a suburban mother back then was stultifying or deforming. But Betty goes beyond that.

I hold out great hope for Dr. Edna to help her.

I don't. I kind of want her to completely lose it and bottom out. I want to see what happens when the public facade totally explodes.

But maybe I'm just a big meaniepants.

I think I was about Sally's age. My mother was extremely unhappy and bitter about being a suburban housewife. On top of that she was bitter about being Catholic and having no power over having 7 children.

But she was from the WWII generation and had gone to work and college and wanted a career, but instead she married my father and followed him all over the country trailing kids.

Me too. I think even dating back to when they first slept together. She knew she wasn't going to catch Don by putting any kind of relationship pressure on him, that it had to at least seem like it was all his decision. That being said, I'm not as convinced as everyone else seems to be that Don is making another bad decision.

I agree with all of this. I think Megan is really interesting -- smart and canny, without being outwardly ambitious, great with the kids and with Don, etc.

But I think she really does not know what she's getting. I think she has a fantasy of who Don is. I think Don has a fantasy of who Megan is. Worse he has a fantasy of who he is when he is with Megan. Of course, it makes for a more interesting show when main characters mostly make bad choices.

I think I could buy Betty as an "every mother" if I could easily recall any scenes where she seems to genuinely like her children at all. Surely every mother has a moment or two when she is petty or says something awful to her children, but those moments are all we ever see of Betty as a mother.

The last time we saw as good mother was shooting pigeons.

Just a couple of weeks ago (a couple of months in show-time) she was grinning with delight at Sally shrieking over Beatles tickets, and when Don showed up at Gene's birthday party (thank you, Doctor Faye, for insisting he be there) she shrugged off Henry's irritation and put Gene where he belonged at that moment, in his father's arms.

Tiny, tiny little glimmers of something better in an otherwise completely damaged and damaging job of parenting, but a lot better than shooting pigeons!

I know for certain that my mother was nothing like Betty, but I would actually hesitate to ever suggest she watch the show because her own mother truly, truly was. My mom is a little over a decade older than Sally, her younger sister just a couple of years older, and between them I don't think there's been one Betty/Sally clash that they didn't experience in their childhoods. (They, and she, did eventually come to peace; it's no exaggeration to say that joining AA saved her life and her soul and her relationships with everyone in her family.)

Possibly my grandmother is part of why I still feel sympathy for Betty; I didn't have to live with her as a mother, and all I know is her beauty, her sorrow and regret, her constant, fumbling efforts at atonement. Stopping being Betty was a huge good thing for her and for everyone who knew her, and utterly necessary, but the cost to her of that relentless self-examination was brutal.

I think the structure of this season did Betty the most disservice of any character. With the focus shifting from Don's home life to the new office, she was in so few episodes that there wasn't really time to show nuanced character development, so every time we checked in with her it was "Yep, still a bitch. Yep, still unsatisfied. Yep, still emotionally stuck at age 14."

Worse he has a fantasy of who he is when he is with Megan.

Sure, and it doesn't help that it all happened in California, where he is so different from Work Don, but some of the difference is fake-it-til-you-make-it, I genuinely believe. Stuff like the reaction to the spilled milkshake. It really is possible to create a more pleasant life for yourself if you can prevent yourself from getting mad about stuff like that.

I don't know, I think it could be fine. I'm not saying he won't screw his next secretary.