Sally Draper

Sally Draper is Don and Betty's young daughter, growing up in a picture-perfect suburban house that hides more than it shows. She's watchful and sharp beyond her years, absorbing the tension between her parents even when no one explains it to her, and testing the limits of what a good little girl is supposed to say or want.

Shipka plays childhood as a kind of surveillance, all quiet noticing beneath polite obedience, which makes Sally the show's most clear-eyed witness to adult hypocrisy. The writing trusts a kid's perspective to cut through Mad Men's stylish denial, and Shipka never plays her as cute — she plays her as paying attention.