On Mad Men, characters more or less stayed the same or, at least, became more extreme versions of the characters they already were. Dynamic change was reserved only for a select few characters on the pantheon television drama, but one figure in AMC's Mad Men was destined to go through growing pains.
Sally Draper, who navigated the show from childhood to young adulthood, had to change because that's the time in a person's life when change is all that occurs. Some of these changes were the better, but many of them showed Sally, portrayed by Kiernan Shipka, becoming a worse character over the course of the show. Ultimately, she might end up a favorite of many, but it was a challenging road to get there.
She Becomes Increasingly Confused About Gene's Legacy
Granted, no child will be able to understand death at the young age Sally was when her grandfather, Gene, died. However, her reaction to it was quite muddled and not all that enviable.
Over the course of the show, this reaction becomes more and more confused and Sally remains unable to fully grasp what it means that Gene is gone. It starts out with a belief that Gene is a ghost inside of her new brother and manifests in corrosive hatred for those who try to fill his void.
She Acts Out More And More
At the outset of the show, Sally was one of the more reliable bedrock characters of good behavior. Where others might act deplorably, she could always be counted on for consistency.
However, as Mad Men grew into its later seasons, Sally became more and more prone to acting out and treating figures of authority with a complete lack of respect. One of the earliest instances of this is when she lashes out at Betty and Don for laughing about something else in the wake of Gene's death. By the end of the show, she is directly disobeying the dying wishes of these same parents.
She Becomes More Inclined To Break Rules
Obviously, fans would not want Sally to remain the buttoned-up, demure child that Betty attempted to instill in her from season one of the show. However, that does not mean they would be rooting for Sally to break rules and, furthermore, laws.
In season four, for example, Sally runs away from home. It might seem like a minor infraction that every child experiences, but it is actually a development of her getting worse and worse on Mad Men. The rule upholding deterioration had to start from somewhere, right? Perhaps it can be traced back to when she encouraged Glen to break into her house and destroy the place. The rule-breaking only perpetuated from there.
She Acts Inappropriately Around Others
Considering the era in which Mad Men was set, it's no surprise that Sally is punished for many of her actions in public. However, she gets worse over the course of the show because of how she maintains these actions in public and around other people.
From touching herself at a sleepover to throwing temper tantrums around those Don trusted, Sally's inappropriate behavior around others worsened over the course of the show. Part of it is the growing pains of childhood curiosity. Part of it is outright contempt for standard decorum. Those barriers only get more torn down throughout Mad Men.
She Starts Bottling Up Her Anger
In the wake of these sorts of actions, Sally is forced to see a psychiatrist at the behest of the even more detestable Betty. This seems to backfire to an extent, as Sally bottles up her anger instead of expressing it in a healthy way.
The more she bottles up her anger over the course of Mad Men, the worse she becomes. Not only does it begin to eat at her, but it manifests in horrible ways towards other people.
She Becomes More Resentful
As a result of bottling up her anger more and more, Sally also becomes worse by becoming a more resentful person. With parents like Don and Betty, she seems hardly to blame for these elements of resentment in her, but she still possesses them all the same.
Her parents are not role models and her anger turns into corrosive resentment over the course of the show. By rebuking her parents in this way, however, she happens to become more like them. It results in further upset when the resentment is directed toward her friends and trusted, innocent family members.
She Grew Closer To Resembling Her Parents
As one could tell from the past couple of entrants on this list, Sally's arc on Mad Men is similar to those of her parents, in their younger years. Betty and Don are terrible people, so the more Sally becomes like them, the worse she becomes as a person and a character.
For example, the last shot of Sally on the show exemplifies that there might be more in common between her and Betty than either she or the fans would like to admit. Sally might grow out of the cycle at some point, but as contained in Mad Men, she becomes worse by becoming more like Betty and Don.
She Betrays Her Principles
Part of the similarities that sprout up between Betty and Sally (as evidenced by the aforementioned final scene) also mirror the betrayal of some of Sally's moral and ambitious principles. She doesn't want to be like her parents and yet, she might have caved at the end of the show and sent herself down on the path to being Betty 2.0.
The betrayal of her morals is definitely a showcase of how Sally got worse, especially when Glen eventually leaves. Initially, Sally's natural instincts take over and she scolds Glen for his decision to join the military. But Betty's influence takes over when she swallows her morals and supports him unconditionally. Talk about a depressing turn for the worse, even if it resulted in a hearty goodbye to friendship.
She Becomes Haughtier
In a more general sense, Sally became worse and worse because of her New York sensibility and the development of poor attitude attributes. Multiples times over the course of Mad Men, Sally becomes a haughtier character by pretending that she's better than others.
It's one thing for Betty to act like and believe she is better than the other people she meets in her life. It's another thing for Sally to know she is not superior and to act like a haughty person anyway.
She Never Takes Responsibility
Sally has a lot of developmental issues that she will be dealing with for the rest of her life, due to the parents who raised her and the divorce they encountered while she was very young. She is a flawed character who got worse as a person over the course of Mad Men, but she has a good reason to be.
However, she hides behind those reasons more and more as Mad Men progresses, shielding herself from the opinions of others. The lack of responsibility-taking is not a good look for Sally. Always blaming others, even the people she cares about the most, results in the utmost deterioration of her character.