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.

Peggy plays a chaste, good Catholic working girl.

Not any more.

It is, as they've shown, all in the packaging. And if anyone got repackaged this year, it was Peggy. She may be playing good at home and in church, but she's become someone different at work. Joan's package hasn't changed, but the contents have shifted in shipping. Still, it's all packaging and packaging can be deceptive. "New and improved" may mean, I got divorced, and I'm sober, but I'm still the same mean old (now dry) drunk I was before. There's no one who's been untouched, but it's still not obvious how much they've changed. I wish like a wishing thing that this was a 22 episode show instead of 13 because I hate how long I have to wait for the next season!

Simpsons is doing a Mad Men spoof on the 11/2 ep:

[link]

The central preoccupation of the show is that everybody is playing a role.

I love this observation, but I disagree, or at least would modify the comment to the extent that that each character's role-playing runs the spectrum from "nearly indistinguishable from actual personality" to "significantly removed from natural behavior".

Take Don/Dick. His role-playing is the most blatant, yet he's the most natural as well. He doesn't play Don, he is Don. In a way, he's so trapped by being Don, he can't even break character when he needs to - like when Betty is pleading with him to admit his affair. West-coast identity crisis ensues.

Pete (at least pre-airline crash Pete) doesn't even know who Pete is, much less, how Pete needs to behave. His role-playing is awkward and stilted - like he's in a play he doesn't understand, and he's forgotten his lines.

Joan is really good at her sex-bomb role, but this season she starts to see how limiting it really is. She hates it, but isn't ready to admit it.

Betty knows what her role should be, but unexcitedly goes through the motions, perfectly willing to phone it in if that takes the least amount of effort. Until Don's infidelity (tossed in her face by Jimmy) shocks her into reacting with actual energy - from kicking Don out, to finally going through with the infidelity she's been flirting with since the salesman from S1.

Sal plays half a role - himself at the office, and someone else at home. He's artistic, flamboyant and competent by day, and goes home every night to the lie that is his personal life.

I think Peggy plays her role with reluctance and some disdain. She's the most real in some ways. She makes no secret that she's not the biggest fan of church and sermons, but she doesn't hate religion either. She doesn't seem to hesitate or regret decisions like sleeping with Pete, or taking Freddy's office (well maybe a little regret on the latter). She dresses how she feels like, and changes her look because it helps her self-esteem and her career, but there's some reluctance there too.

Just a small note, but did anyone else remember that Pete got that gun by trading in the chip-and-dip they got as a wedding present? I saw it noted elsewhere.

One thing that hasn't been commented on, but I got a kick out of, was the 4 muskateers of creative traveling in a paranoid, bumbling pack throughout the episode.