Despair and Confusion: When the president is killed, people are naturally going to be upset because, well, it's sad, and it upsets the natural order of things. We're used to a hierarchical structure of government with someone at the top who is wise and strong and who will protect us when bad things happen. When an event occurs to disrupt that, we begin to question not only our safety, but everything about our lives and the fragility of our happiness. That leads to confusion, and confusion often leads to clarity, but it always leads to rash acts.

This plays out beautifully with beautiful, beautiful Betty, whose fragile shell cracks when she learns the news. She puts herself to bed and withdraws even further from her family. For her, Kennedy being shot is her way of dealing with Don confessing the truth of his past. The strong, handsome man she can trust has been murdered, and she is sad because her life has been ruined. The pretty fairy tale facade that she tries so hard to cultivate has been nothing but an illusion, and when she wakes up from her dream, she finds a very scary reality: she is deeply unhappy.

That shouldn't be too much of a shock to her, but when the only stability in her life—the cool control that Don exerts over her—is subverted by the disclosure of his past, she has to find some way to recover. Initially, she lets Don control her again. At the wedding, she accepts that everything is going to be OK, because Don tells her that it will. When the ill-fated reception is over, Betty (in a rather dowdy dress that Michael Kors from Project Runway would describe as "mother-of-the-bride") is walking towards both Don and Henry, her object of unfulfilled desire. She chooses Don, hoping that, like he says, everything will go back to normal shortly.

Then, Oswald is shot by Jack Ruby in front of America, and Betty freaks out again. Passively listening to Don isn't going to work anymore, and she needs something else—someone else—to satisfy her.