“What’s in a name?” Don Draper asks wryly at the end of tonight’s episode. And indeed, “Time & Life” is a rather heavy-handed examination of what’s in each character’s name — what they’ve made of their name in their time at Sterling Cooper, and what meaning that name carries as their time at the agency comes to an end.

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Don learns that waitress/fling Diana tried to reach him, but without a message or phone number, all he has to find her is her name — as he searches around the city for her, we realize how flimsy and unreliable names are as a marker of our place in the world.

Speaking of flimsy. In an absurd scene upstate with Trudie, Pete Campbell socks a prep school administrator in the face because the geezer refuses to accept Pete’s daughter into his school. The reason? Legend has it the Campbell “clan” betrayed the MacDonald clan hundreds of years ago. “No MacDonald will ever mix with a Campbell!” the administrator shouts. To Trudie, “Just be grateful you can remarry and get rid of that name!” Punch. It’s almost as bizarre (but less forceful) a moment as Ginsberg’sdisembodied nipple.

But though they’re divorced, Trudie still carries Pete’s last name, and there’s a hopeful moment between the two — it seems that the Campbells might keep their name intact after all.

The episode also deals with questions of family names and lineage, dropping Peggy — who, several seasons ago, went to the hospital for stomach cramps, delivered a baby she didn’t know she was having and gave him up for adoption — into a sea of children she has a comically difficult time relating to. We get it. Peggy’s feeling the burn of sacrificing love and family for career ambition. Was it necessary to force all of those scenes with the kids, plus a rather contrived tender moment in which she confesses to Stan about her own child? I could have gotten by with just one or two of the pained sidelong glances.

On a redeeming note, the episode did address family dynamics not usually explored. Peggy and Pete and Joan and Roger are linked not by name but by children they’ve unspokenly had together, and I’m glad both pairs had compassionate moments in this episode to tie up their storylines in a nice little bow.

Roger gets an overwrought but important line at the end: facing SCDP being completely subsumed into McCann-Erickson, he realizes that his name could disappear. “No more Sterling Cooper and no more Sterlings,” he says. Neither of his children — married Margaret and largely unacknowledged Kevin with Joan — bear his name, and soon neither will the company.

What does it mean to face the end of your name? Of course, that question is left to Don Draper. “Draper,” the name stolen from dog tags, the myth Dick Whitman sweet-talked out of the Illinois dirt, is losing its potency. Twice Don is cut off during a grand speech, the kind of speech as intrinsic to his identity as his name. “This is a beginning, not an end,” he says when he announces SCDP’s move into the McCann-Erickson building. You can tell from the way his body language and cadence changes that it’s meant to be one of his signature pitches, but his words are quickly lost in a swarm of discontented voices. The episode closes with the five partners standing alone in the lobby as their frustrated staff files out, leaving Don in the quiet.

What’s in a name? “Something to aspire to,” Don concludes. And it’s true, all the characters had to face their grand aspirations tonight — what they’ve made of their name and where it will take them next. But the episode felt stagnant: we (and they) have considered these issues before. With only two episodes left before the end, more resolution — or at least evolution — of these eternal conflicts would have left me more satisfied.

Contact Senior Arts Editor Gigi Gastevich here.