A million years ago, fresh out of college, I had a low level job in a famous advertising agency. It’s a testament to the richness and depth of the series “Mad Men” that I’ve been loving it for 2 whole seasons before connecting it to my own experience just last night – this show is so good that it literally made me forget that I once peeked behind the curtain of the ad biz.

The moment came when I started explaining to my partner K. the tensions in ad agencies between Creative and Accounts. Both believe that they are the key to an agency’s success – Creative makes the ad campaigns that they think get customers to buy the client’s product; Accounts feels they bring in the clients or there would be no campaigns to create. Creatives see Accounts as simply schmoozy sales people whereas Accounts folks see Creatives, as being, well, in Duck’s words - artistic and temperamental (aka prima donnas).

Duck’s business assessment in the meeting with the new owners might be a little opaque for those who don’t know how ad agencies make money. Namely that they don’t charge for their services, including creative work, but instead make money based on ad revenue – how much they buy, in what media and for how much. The third rail of an ad agency is the utterly unglamorous Media department, which handles the nuts and bolts of this process. In that sense, both Creative and Accounts are merely overhead while Media is the moneymaker. But of course, all parts have to work together to get and keep clients.

It’s more evidence of the subtle brilliance of this show that the splits in an ad agency are a mirror of the splits in many of the characters, between their creative/authentic selves and their pragmatic sides. The parts disown, devalue and even try to destroy each other, in a competition that would leave no one standing. Integration and acceptance of all parts of the whole are needed for survival, much less success, in both a person and a business.

We know Duck’s goose is cooked when he takes the house divided approach, suggesting that Creative is mere window-dressing – that the content and style of advertising matters very little in the end. Instead he argues that people buy things when they have money and don’t when they don’t. (Was it just me, or did anyone else feel the timely resonance of that line, given our own uncertain economic times and the recent downturn in consumer spending?) The Creative folks, of course, feel that this is ridiculous, since clearly some campaigns are persuasive and generate sales while others do not.

Is it even a question what side is going to be taken in a show made by a group of amazing artists? (If made by more business-minded souls, Pete Campbell, not Don Draper, would be the hero.) And one reason that I love the show is that I’m on the side of the Creatives, too. But then that’s why I’m writing on Open Salon for free rather than working in sales. (Perhaps I need my own Media Dept., or at least an account exec.)

There was a lot of drama in last night’s episode, but ex-Catholic girl that I am, the moment that really struck me was when Peggy stood up to her priest, after he warned her sternly that she was risking going to hell for not having confessed her sexual sins. When she told him, “I can’t believe God is like that” and turned on her (rounded) heel and left him speechless, I cheered the image on the TV screen: “Good for you!” But then I immediately turned to K. and said, “Of course, she just committed the sin of pride.”

In Catholicism, the “sin of pride” is thinking that you know better than God and/or the Catholic Church, as embodied by your priest (or any priest). In Catholic dogma, the Church (through its priests) is there to explain God to you, as well as to act as your intermediary to Him, and anything that goes against that chain-of-command is verboten.

By asserting that she has a different conception (!) of God than the Church does, Peggy is saying she knows better who God really is than the Church dogma. You don’t get a bigger sin of pride than that.

The fact that she makes the sign of the cross in bed later that night (after finally making her confession, but to Pete, not a priest) suggests that Peggy may have made peace with herself but also that she hasn’t quite severed her ties with the Church, as would be logical given that little bit of heartfelt heresy. After all, this is years before mix-and-match, cafeteria style spiritual beliefs will become popular. In 1962, you accepted without questioning the dogma of whatever religion you followed, or you left it entirely.

On the other hand, is it a coincidence that it was St. Peter who was declared by Jesus to be the “rock on which I build my church”? But Peggy rejects this option, of building a new life with Pete, telling him that her love for him has disappeared, destroyed by her sacrificing their son…her only begotten son.

OK, that’s probably going too far, but for me that’s the lure of this richly layered and allusive series. The more you delve into it, the more interpretations and connections spring to mind.

But I better stop here. I don’t want to suggest that I know Mad Men’s meanings better than its creators. That would be a sin of pride.