I bought the pregnancy storyline, but I'm not sure they made it clear that she didn't suspect it at all. Not that they gave much indication that she did suspect something, but she was looking at her weight gain in the mirror in one scene and there was enough ambiguity that just maybe something was running through her head.

Or not. Fact is, people have been know to give birth on toilets totally unaware that they were pregnant.

Someone I work with didn't figure out she was pregnant until she was four months along--and she was TRYING to have a baby! And I have known people to be in denial longer than that.

For all of their obsessivness about every element of the Mad Men set being authentically 1960, they do make some odd choices elsewhere. The Dylan song won’t be released for several years, so it seems like a bit of a cheat to have it heralding change in the character's lives. And a few episodes back the head secretary was quoting a Marshall McLuhan piece from 1964.

Of course, the writers should be devouring McLuhan: Advertising, gender, and the modern workplace were his mainstay. There’s many an episode to be found there. McLuhan probably should be the "Grr Arrgh" guy of Mad Men. But prescient secretaries throw off my suspension of disbelief.

When I was in nursing school, one of my classmates was having abdominal pain thought she had a gallstone. Her boyfriend the fire fighter took her to the ER. Imagine their surprise at their full term, 7-1/2 pound "gallstone." Oh, and we'd been studying obstetrics and doing clinicals in the OB department while she was pregnant. I always wondered how much of it was denial.

What amych said. Yeah, that's all I've got.

Oh, except for the part where I kept waiting for Betty to kill herself.

Damages: So, the other attorney is also working for Frobisher? Or is he working for Patty and hopes to get the tape back w/o freeing Ellen.

It could be a fake out and they're just keeping an eye on Ellen to protect her. The show did that fake out once already.

No comments on Damages? I'm still processing the ending and where it looks like they're going next season. First impression is that I liked the way they went, but I wish they would have staggered the reveals a little more and not squeezed most of them in this week.

I agree with you, Wolfram. The thing that really got up my nose is (SPOILER ALERT)...

Patty ordering a hit on Ellen. Yes, I understand why Patty did it, but it doesn't really make sense to me that Patty Hewes would take this action. This seems a little reckless and unnecessary. Seems to be a big step to take without knowing for sure you'd need to take it.

It surprised me too, but until that reveal, I could not understand why Patty lost her shit at the beachhouse and then at the cemetery. Even when we find out she lost a child at birth, you don't expect to see that kind of emotion over a 35 year old stillbirth - at least not from Patty.* Only after you realize that she's transfered her feelings to Ellen does her emotional outburst make sense.

As to why she ordered the hit - I get the feeling that it's not the first one she's ordered. She clearly has a wetwork network in place with Uncle Pete and those strange not!investigators who keep popping up everywhere. Ellen was a loose end on the Ray Fisk matter, and when she started expressing regret Patty realized it was just a matter of time before Ellen broke and ratted Patty out.

• Obviously stillbirths are very tragic, and I don't mean to minimize their impact and trauma on folks who have endured such a tragedy. But in the context of the character of Patty, it seemed out of balance.