Midge! I could not remember her name! Although Peggy looks more and more like her.

I think I finally understood Pete's growth with his pointed comment about making the Soviets back down. It didn't seem out of character, and it seemed remarkably perceptive for a guy who used to be completely unable to read a room.

On a completely shallow note, I loved a couple of Peggy's outfits this episode, so yay for sartorial character growth, too.

Oh, yes. The last few episodes she's had some knockout dresses. I particularly like the one she wore in the finale.

And in other shallow news, I was watching Chuck last night and thinking to myself how completely hot Captain Awesome looks in Mad Men genre.

Now, back to the characterizations. One of the things that I saw that I liked in those interviews was that he said you get out of the show what you bring to it. I was thinking about that and I realized that may be why the show seems to be all about the women to me. It's because I'm thinking about the women.

I still think we're on about Trudy acting out a role. Her little creased brow kiss was her playing a part. She only has to revise her identity periodically to keep up with the external world. But she does it less than she needs to. Very little intrudes on the world she's built in her mind.

I still think we're on about Trudy acting out a role.

I never thought about it that way before, but it makes perfect sense why she and Pete got together. Pete was also about trying to do what others expected, what's appropriate. His behavior never seemed natural. He and Trudy were stage-acting - two children paying dress-up with their respective Daddies' monies.

Maybe when Pete's Dad dies, penniless as it turns out, Pete starts to realize he's not just someone else's idea of a son/husband/accounts executive, but a thinking, feeling human being. He seems more comfortable in his own skin, and this reflects as success in his professional life.

Pete starts to realize he's not just someone else's idea of a son/husband/accounts executive, but a thinking, feeling human being. He seems more comfortable in his own skin, and this reflects as success in his professional life.

also, I think that he begins to see the fallacy of a facade that everyone expects. His dad had that, and his mom is now penniless.

I think that he begins to see the fallacy of a facade that everyone expects.

Which, oddly, brings to mind Joan.

Pete thinks less of his father now, although it may have made him rethink why his dad didn't want to give him the money for the apartment.

The central preoccupation of the show is that everybody is playing a role. Dick Whitman plays Don Draper. Peggy plays a chaste, good Catholic working girl. Betty plays the perfect housewife. Sal plays a heterosexual. Joan plays a sex bomb.

Which is why the show is such an interesting examination of the American myth of reinventing the self. If you can make yourself into anything, then who are you? And how do you reconcile your desires and your history with your facade? It's why advertising is such a perfect backdrop for the show. It appears to be all surface and shallow, but in reality it works because it plays off desire.