Mad Men's episode 9 The Better Half, part of its sixth season, was all about relationships: their beginnings and ends, but especially the failed attempts by a few of the show's characters to rekindle that which was.

The biggest rekindling happened between Don and Betty, who shared a night of passion while visiting Bobby away at summer camp. The evening began with few camp songs, performed to Bobby's delight, but not at all Don's, before the two of them ended up in a cabin bed.

However, though they returned to old habits, there was a certain finality given to this event. Betty asserted to Don that's she's found security in her life and she let him know that he needed to do the same with Megan.

"That poor girl," she said, regarding Megan. "She doesn't know that loving you is the worst way to get to you."

Don finally saw things were over literally, as he watched Betty and Bobby smiling on the far side of the canteen with Henry.

Margaret's 4-year-old son led Roger to attempt to rekindle a relationship with Kevin, the son he has with Joan, but he ended up on the losing on both accords. The movie Planet Of The Apes, which Don took Bobby to in The Flood, turned his daughter against him and took his grandson away from him. He then learned that he may have already been replaced in Joan and Kevin's world, as he made an impromptu stop at her house and found Bob Benson in a pair of short-shorts that he thought were his.

Although they made the requisite steps toward becoming a family, Peggy first cut her boyfriend Abe in a comical harpooning scene, and then got cut off from him as he broke ups with her in the ambulance. Peggy was only marginally sad, because it just might have allowed her to follow up on her kiss with Ted in For Immediate Release. Like Don and Roger, Peggy too was cut off at the pass, when Ted set her straight that it cannot be.

In spite of all the relationship talk, next week's installment, A Tale Of Two Cities, appears to be all business. The network synopsis proclaims: "The agency works to hold on to a client. Joan is caught off guard."

Check out this week's Inside Mad Men.

Watch the preview for Episode 10, A Tale Of Two Cities.

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Mad Men, Television