Elly enters the middle years.

The interesting thing about the upcoming wedding planning arc is that we start to mark a transition in Elly. The Elly of the Early Years was often seen scrambling to find an identity outside the home so as to contribute more to society than children and a tidy house. The Elly that's busy helping Georgia make her dream come true and also finally make an adult of Phil doesn't seem to have that conflict. While we do get occasional flare-ups of the old conflict when the character most reluctant to embrace the wider world in which the Pattersons find themselves because he cannot hope to occupy all of it, the Elly who doesn't have to watch Mike be a needy gitface seems to have transcended that desperate search.

This is because we're now dealing with Middle Years Elly who can supposedly inhabit both worlds. While often seen at home, we do know that she does have a life outside of it because we reference it when we're not looking at the children stumble through their daily lives and experience it directly when Lynn wants to bludgeon her children over the head about how clingy they get or us about how stingy the government is with tax dollars. This seems to be signified by her wardrobe changing from a shirt and mom jeans to a rather dowdy looking dress. Hmmm. Most of them change their appearance to signify buy-in to the new paradigm. John is more clearly defined physically, Elizabeth stops looking like a demented Sally Brown and Elly starts dressing for success. The only person who looks the same is Mike because he doesn't want to live in a world that doesn't revolve around him. This gets him mauled because he's stupid.