Mad Men isn't a TV show that's typically described as scary, but the seven-season-long period drama wove many intense moments into the plots over the years. Created by Matthew Weiner, Mad Men primarily focused on Don Draper (Jon Hamm), a high-level marketing executive in New York who tries to balance his dual identities and anxieties about his past with the idyllic family life he's supposed to want. Unsurprisingly, his feelings and actions rub off on everyone around him, especially his children, who have to grow up fast within the world of Mad Men.

Kiernan Shipka plays Sally Draper, one of the Mad Men and Don's daughter, a complex young woman who often questions her father. Since she and Don are often at odds in the later seasons, and she's such a confidant and forceful person, it's easy to forget that Sally is still just a kid. When faced with one of the scariest storylines in Mad Men, the audience is frightened for Sally, realizing that she's very young and that dealing with these parts of life is hard for anyone.

Sally Draper Facing A Burglar In Mad Men Season 6 Is Still Scary 12 Years Later

This Was A High-Stakes Scene In The Midst Of An Intense Episode

Mad Men season 6, episode 8, "The Crash" is one of the more surreal episodes of the series, told in a non-linear fashion with Don and the rest of his team using drugs to stimulate their creativity. In conjunction with this, it's even more unnerving when Sally wakes up in Don's apartment and sees a woman who calls herself Ida (Davenia McFadden) and attempts to convince Sally that she was Don's caretaker when he was a child. It's a tense scene, and Ida comes close to threatening the kids when she discovers Sally trying to call the police.

It's a pivotal moment for Sally's development in many ways. The end of the episode sees a rare moment of connection between Sally and Don, as her father calls to comfort her and remind her that she's young and handled herself as best as she could. Don is the reason that the children were put in such a bad situation, as he left the door unlocked, and his withholding nature has kept Sally in the dark about his past. This made Sally second-guess herself about Ida's story, since Sally knows almost nothing about who Don is.

Mad Men Showed How Brave Sally Draper Was

Sally Is Young, But She Has A Complex Understanding Of The World

When we first meet Sally on Mad Men, she's just a kid, still learning about herself and her place in the world. However, as the seasons progress, Sally's rebellious streak and her desire to differentiate herself from her parents and their mistakes come to light. A key part of Sally's character is her fearlessness. The audience sees her skip class, take the train by herself, and ask to leave home for boarding school at a young age. This sets Sally up as a force to be reckoned with early on in the series.

She isn't a perfect character, but Sally doesn't let others push her around.

In "The Crash," all of these moments come to a head, as Sally comes face to face with real danger for one of the first times. When confronted with the possibility that someone could hurt her and her brothers, Sally questions everything and takes on the role of adult and caretaker, since both Don and Megan are absent. Though she's doubtlessly emotionally affected by the event and is scared, Sally doesn't let this stop her from trying to take control of the situation. She isn't a perfect character, but Sally doesn't let others push her around.

Sally's ending is another example of why reboot, as she evolves so much as a character throughout the seven seasons, revisiting her character would feel redundant. In some ways, it would be interesting to see where she ended up as an adult, but part of Sally's importance on Mad Men is that she's one of the few characters we get to see truly come of age. Juxtaposing her arc with Don's complicated childhood is one of the more interesting parts of Mad Men and helps showcase how she gets her bravery from him.