8. Jimmy Barrett, Pt. 2
That brings us to the second time in which Jimmy should be slapped. Throughout the first half of season 2, Don engages in an illicit affair with Jimmy's wife and manager, Bobbie. She's bold, manipulative and sexually dominant - the female Don, and the polar opposite of Betty. Jimmy knows it but doesn't seem to care too deeply; so he cozies up next to Betty, fawning all over her and making sweet jokes about her beauty and likening her to a princess. Considering how absent and negligent Don is towards Betty, she falls hard for the flattery. Then episode 2x09 happens. At a party in which both couples arrive as couples, Bobbie and Don talk intimately with other clients, and Jimmy does the same bit he always does around Betty. He mentions that Bobbie and Don look so good together, and how he and Betty are the lonely, second-hand counterparts, the throwaway partners that are there just for show, and isn't it bold of them to show it off in front of us? Jimmy: "All I know is I know her and you know him and there they are and they don't care where we are." It's a complex moment: Betty finally gets the certainty she's been seeking since the season 1 finale that her husband has been cheating on her. She tries to escape Jimmy, and he drags her back down to the couch (actually THAT right there should be cause enough for a good, hard slap). It is not the fact that Jimmy forces her to face the truth, but the callous and selfish way he chooses to do it.