I think that Sal is aware of being gay, he just doesn't want to be. Or he doesn't want the life that being gay entails.

See, I think he has odd dreams, finds it totally reasonable as an artist to want to draw the handsome shirtless guy next door, thinks he hasn't found the right girl yet who would make him want a woman, and never got that lightning-bolt until Elliot brushed against hand and lingered there. The look across Sal's face for just a moment was desire and fear of being caught and also a good dose of just utter unexpected surprise.

(Incidentally, this is where I pour out many many praises for Brian Batt's acting in this role. Because, whoa.)

He'll go out to dinner and flirt, but he won't follow through with it because he wants to be successful, and he wants to make his mother happy. That means a wife and kids. I see him dating that poor girl from the switchboard and her wondering what's wrong with her because he never tries anything.

Poor switchboard girl! And I have a sad little gut-feeling that she'll be the way it all comes out in the office, when she says something along those lines to the other girls and it gets back to Joan.

I still don't see race (or religion) as the thing about which Don's passing. He's all about the class story, to me, now with added motivation to get away from the family that calls you whorechild.

In retrospect, I think that the family found Don and took him in, which is why he called himself Moses.

There's just so much hate emanating there. I can't see what motivation they'd have to take him in as charity. Depending on when, I suppose. If they wanted labor.

But I tend toward the husband as the dad, with something happening to the mom, and the wife having to take him in, hating every breath of him as evidence of her husband's infidelity.

The reason I thought there was still space for the religion thing, was the husband's "We're not Christians here anymore" and the wife's pregnant pause before her rebuttal, when asked for charity.

I agree with amych on the status of Sal, and on the acting chops portraying him.

I got the feeling from the flashback that neither the woman or the man in young Don's life was his biological parent. In fact, I got the sense that the family was a little like Sally Field's "Places in the Heart" where the woman's husband died a some point before and the man who was with her was a worker on her property.

But I tend toward the husband as the dad, with something happening to the mom, and the wife having to take him in, hating every breath of him as evidence of her husband's infidelity.

Yeah, something like this is what I'm guessing. I do think that the dishonest man is Dick's father (with what evidence? Dunno, gotta rewatch), but the whole family tree is something ugly and twisted.

The reason I thought there was still space for the religion thing, was the husband's "We're not Christians here anymore" and the wife's pregnant pause before her rebuttal, when asked for charity.

Oh, they've got issues upon issues there too, I think -- but no way is Don a crypto-Jew as I've seen speculated both here and elsewhere. I'd give odds that his people have never even seen a real live Jew before.

I do think that the dishonest man is Dick's father (with what evidence? Dunno, gotta rewatch),

Because the mom gave the man a nickel and the dad took it and said "you'll get it after you do some work" Next day, after the drifter did the work, the dad kept the nickel.

I wonder if it was supposed to be particularly telling that the dishonest man symbol was carved into the post instead of just written with chalk?

I just assumed that the symbols are always carved - otherwise one rainfall would wash them away.

He gave the boy the chalk and said that it was their method of communication.

Because the mom gave the man a nickel and the dad took it and said "you'll get it after you do some work" Next day, after the drifter did the work, the dad kept the nickel.

Sorry -- I was unclear! I caught the evidence for his being dishonest -- I only meant that I couldn't quote any proof for the man being Dick's father.

(on rewatch: in the falling-down-the-stairs flashback in "Babylon", when post-partum HolyRoller!Stepmom (the same one as in this episode) refers to baby Adam as BowlHaircut!Dick's brother and he says "he ain't my brother", Uncle Mack says "of course he is - he's got the same father". We don't actually see the Dishonest Man in that scene, but Baby Daddy = Partner of HolyRoller!Stepmom, so I gathered that Baby Daddy = Dick's father.)

So, it's mere coincidence that the Dishonest Man so resembles Don/Dick as an adult?