And so were we. It continues, the conjecture (which crosses from conjecture to really really stretching) that Anita was just pretending to be pregnant (with like, pillows?) to help cover up for Peggy, or that Anita's baby died and so she took Peggy's. Matt answered the question. Fin.

Plus the whole parallel storyline with Pete & Trudy's adoption situation made me think for sure Peggy had placed her and Pete's baby among "the discards" as Pete's mother said. It was just too perfect for this Dychman snob to be saying that — when in fact she was talking unknowingly about her grandchild — for it not to have been written that way on purpose. Weiner & MM writers are simply genius.

Oh man, I love this show. Love this blog!

About the seal of confession, it didn't seem to me that Father Gill told anyone or even acted directly on something someone told him. I do think he is just trying to soften Peggy up enough to get her to confide in him so he can help save her.

I agree that Anita viewing Peggy as a "seductress" which she clearly wasn't with Pete, is wrong. But I think Peggy, at least at first, totally has the hots for Father Gill. (Heck, I sure do! Colin Hanks is adorable.) Of course, Anita didn't see the once-over "hey, sexy" look Peggy gave Father Gill when they first met, all the while asking innocently, "Are you the new priest?" but WE see with that subtle look that Peggy is still aware of her womanliness, and I think, open to a new guy. It's just alarming that as she's leaving Mass (hung over no less) she totally eyes him.

Anyway, WOW, everyone. Great post. Great comments. I LOVE this blog so so much. Frankly, I spend too much time here. hehe

Okay, people. I've watched the flashback episode where Peggy has the baby at least 5 times, but I'm still SUPER confused. It appears Anita WAS pregnant (quite pregnant actually). I remember being SUPER confused when Anita asks Peggy if she wants to say goodnight. I wondered if she just couldn't stand seeing a baby at all cause it reminded her too much of her own, but what's the deal? How did I miss the answer to this? Is it Peggy's baby in Anita's house? If so, where is Anita's baby? If not, I might have been imagining things.

Call me an idiot, but I need your keen eyes for this. SO confused.

I just wanted to post a comment from the perspective of a practicing traditional Catholic.

The fact that Anita is going to confession would not have seemed unusual for the time. Monthly confession is recommended and weekly confession is not out of the question – all the more so in 1962. Catholics of today don't go to confession nearly as often – but then there would have been lines at the confessionals every week.

Anita confessing her sisters sins is a common thing. Every guide to confession you read says not to do it – and every priest I know says that it's common. I know I have done it myself.

I think in addition to the 'why is it that I am good but everyone loves my sister theme' there is something else. The fact that this shows that Peggy is envied everywhere she goes. At work because she made it out of the secretarial pool, and at home because she is escaping the path of a 'good' girl (marriage and caring for parents and children).

Anita said out loud what Joan never would – 'Why does this little nothing of a girl get everything when I have been working here for years and get nothing.'

A word about confession. Fr. Gill breaking the seal of confession was shocking to me. Seriously shocking. I don't think that a priest in 1962 would have driven her alone in his car… but I KNOW he would not have broken the seal of confession in that way. Someone earlier wrote they thought the Church had changed it's stance on the seal of confession – that is NOT true. A Catholic priest can not reveal the contents of confession (or even if someone went to confession) under any circumstances.

As a Catholic I find the portrayal of Catholicism in 1962 to be fascinating. Some details have been perfect (Can you say *real* grace now Father) and some have been wrong (Mass is not the repetition of the same prayer in Latin again and again). The time period and the inclusion of a Catholic character leaves lots of openings for story arcs with the transitions in the Church in the 60s.

Now Mary had chosen to sit at the feet of Jesus and learn and Peggy has chosen to leave her child with her sister and pursue a glamorous life in Manhattan, so I realize that the parallels end at some point. But I do wonder how the Father Gil story is going to progress and whether, if he ends up on the receiving end of Anita's complaints, or if he simply gets more information, if he might feel like Mary/Peggy really did make the right choice.

About Peggy–I really don't think anybody born after 1950, maybe even anybody born during the official "baby boom" can understand how crappy her situation was. Competent young women of legal age routinely got overruled in favor of parents or married older siblings. You weren't really considered a competent adult until you were married and even then you were subordinate to your husband.

I believe her confidentiality (by our standards) in the hospital was violated–some nurse called her family and said your sister/daughter is here and she just had a baby come deal with it–and then the family rushed in and the doctors decided they were the ones with decision making authority since obviously showing up in the ER in labor is a sign you may not be playing with a full deck.

So she's screwed–that baby would have been surrendered for an adoption except for her family. So she is angry at her family and angry at herself and trapped and if she were a little braver she should move to San Francisco or LA and start over. I wonder if that's what will happen with her.

I don't for one minute think that we are setting up a teenage alcoholic storyline. I think, as Glass said upthread (comment 36), we are perhaps allowing for one at some time in the future, but as has been pretty much covered in this discussion, it could go either way.

I think Weiner was showing us two things. (Probably more, but I'm going with two.) One is, the cavalier attitude towards alcohol. Children didn't drink because they were children, but they were not kept away from alcohol, because alcohol was not considered a bad thing. As rampant as drinking still is today (and probably always will be), it is held in a different light. Sally pouring drinks and being able to sneak drinks is just one more example of how different it was then, like drinking in the office or everyfreakingwhere and anyfreakingtime.

The other is that this is another example of how unprotected the kids are, and in particular, how little attention Don pays to them. The way he walked past Sally as the Creative department paraded into his office was frankly chilling. He seems to be bonding more with Bobby, and I hope that's not a direction that they're taking this (Don not being as loving a father to Sally as he is to Bobby) because I just don't want to see that, even in the hands of these writers. But it was Bobby that he went to last season, Bobby he woke up and said Ask me anything.