[DJ's left nut]

I still just can't make myself hate Pete.

He's an arrogant little shit that wants everything now. At the same time, he's clearly a very talented account man. It's not his ability that causes him trouble, but his eagerness and his ambition. He's simply terminally dissatisfied by where he is because it's not where he wants to be.

In other words, he's the same as a TON of young professionals out there, especially talented young professionals. Professionally, he sees people ahead of him that he's clearly outperforming and is frustrated that he doesn't have the grey in his temples to get the accolades they do. Domestically he's put himself into the life that an upwardly mobile young executive is supposed to have and has realized (like most young execs) that he didn't want that life. In ten years he will, but he doesn't right now.

They won't kill him. At least I hope they won't. Roger is right in that "When the job is going well, it can fulfill all your needs" and you can see that in the very near future, the job will be going extremely well for Pete Campbell. He's just caught in that tortuous middle ground that comes with being in your late 20s/early 30s, knowing what you want and seeing a clear path to it, but just not being there yet despite knowing you'll get there someday.

Pete deserved to get his ass kicked - but in the end pretty much everyone on that show...or anywhere really...deserves to get their ass kicked at least once. Hell, Lane is no angel himself. Ultimately Pete's dissatisfaction comes from runaway ambition - I can handle that. I like him a hell of a lot more than Peggy, who's dissatisfaction comes from indecision about who she wants to be and a general sense of whininess and entitlement that's pretty damn unreasonable for someone that got plucked out of the secretarial pool.