The only thing anyone can be sure of inheriting from their parents is their genes. We can also be sure of keeping scars as reminders of the ways in which they failed us – ways in which their parents failed them – growing up. Those of us who are lucky have only a few, faded scars. Then there are the Petes and Betties of the world.

Both our resident children dealt with their single surviving parents. Pete, navigating financial minefields with his brother Bud, had to deal with the mother he despises. From that encounter, and her comments on adoption, it seems likely Pete will be open to Trudy’s suggestion in order to spite his mother. It’s not as though Pete is worried about the inheritance his father pissed away.

The sum total of Pete’s inheritance: from his father, a chip on the shoulder and a weak chin; from his mother, the capacity to be judgmental without guilt. But their cruel dismissiveness of him also gave him the deep-seated need to be valued and honored. The very thing that makes Pete such a lickspittle is the thing that makes him work so hard. Annoying in a co-worker, but invaluable in an accounts manager.

While Pete fought with his mother, Betty saw how deeply her father has descended into dementia.

Betty, of course, inherited her parenting skills and strategies from her dearly departed mother. The casual distrust of Bobby, the body dysmorphic syndrome she’s developing in Sally, and the maid to do the heavy lifting of raising children are recipes from her mother’s cookbook. Her father’s slow descent into dementia effectively orphans her; with Don out of the house, Betty is truly alone as an adult for the first time. Frightening and exciting at the same time, I’m honestly not sure if I heard scorn or envy in her voice when she asked Glen if his mother had many boyfriends.

Ah, Glen. Betty’s incredibly creepy admirer, Glen Bishop (Matt Weiner’s son Marten), made his return to the show tonight, hiding out in the playhouse Don built last season until he could come rescue Betty from her loneliness. In moving from the house Don built with his hands to the home he’s destroyed with his infidelity, Glen quickly asserted his manhood. Betty, still reeling from the truth of her father’s dementia, played house with Glen in a warped simulacrum of her ideal marriage.

Even Betty isn’t quite crazy enough ((Bird shooting and flirting with tow truck drivers notwithstanding.)) to think she could find domestic bliss with Glen, and when her own children return home, the spell is broken and she calls Helen Bishop. Helen turns out to be the only person Betty’s comfortable talking to about her marriage.

Of course the courtship of Betty was a brief, telling interlude in an episode about the scars our parents leave on us. Glen’s wounds are fresh and deep; someday they’ll scar over like Betty’s or Pete’s.

It was an oddly structured episode and not my favorite, but I have high hopes for next week. The potential for both comedy – Pete and Don with astronauts ((Based on last week’s death of Marilyn and my guess that the conference is occurring in the wake of Kennedy’s speech at Rice University, I’d say they’re about a month before Wally Schirra’s Mercury 8 flight.)) – and drama – Paul registering black voters and miscegenating in Mississippi. Add to that some more fallout from Roger’s poor decision making skills and I expect a much stronger episode next week.

What did everyone else think?

R.A. Porter is an aspiring television writer who currently toils away in the software mines. He can be found at his personal blog and stalked on Twitter.