In an era when skeletons are better left in the closet, when things are not talked about, and everything is a façade on the face of truth, Barbara Flynn does her best to keep the status quo. However, with the looming revolution of the sixties she is ready to open up.Barbara comes to Sterling Cooper with little hurrah as an operator. She only receives funny looks and jeers from her new coworkers because of her lack of makeup and self-made dresses that are less than made to fit.

She speaks very little at first, even to the other operators. She hides behind her thick-framed glasses. Her dark brown hair reaches her mid-back despite its many clumps and strands jutting off to each side and sticking to the knitted sweaters she wears over her humble dresses.

She twirls a pencil in her hands when she’s nervous, which happens pretty much every time we see her. She often does the same thing with her glasses when she has no pencil. Despite her ticks, however, she does speak very well. She finds herself confident when speaking in presentation situations, but lacks the ability to do so in normal social exchanges.

In years to come, due to the beginning efforts of balancing the workplace between men and women, Barbara finds herself in the unique position of interviewing for a new account executive job. Having been the only woman from the operators hired for the position and having absolute zero experience in any facet, she finds herself alienated from the entire company.

She slowly becomes a different person under the pressure to be accepted. After enduring jokes and ridicule about her clothing she unwillingly becomes more conventional. With the pressure of her new work situation she finds solace in drugs and the new ideals of the reforming 60s, which she tries to preach to everyone she encounters.

With the changes and influence of the drugs, her past ghosts begin to resurface. She relives her mother’s death often, as well as the abuse her father impressed upon her.

Barbara lives alone in a single room basement apartment that has nothing more than a sink, toilet, and bed. She’s been on her own since running away from home at 16. She’s tough, but hates confrontation. Normally she cowers to altercation until she has bottled up too much and explodes. She avoids arguments at the office at all costs which eventually leads to a melt down in front of her first big client when they have a slight problem with one of her media placement ideas. She storms out of Sterling Cooper in a rage.

Alone at home and depressed she kills herself in her gas stove. We then see how her character has, without her knowledge, left a wake of change and idealism behind. The employees at Sterling Cooper change without realizing they’re doing so, and though they soon forget her, their lives are altered.