soapfaninnc

No, because then she wasn't coming across the way she is now. I don't want a mark to beat her up - I'd like to see her go against an American version of her - a female agent who could actually hold her own and not shown to be a keystone cop like Gaad and whatshisname were.

It just hit me why Stan took the rest of the beer. They made a pretty big deal out of the fact they found a fingerprint that wasn't Martha's. Stan has been suspicious of the Jennings before. What better way to get prints than to swipe something you know they've touched? If they just give me one scene of master spy Elizabeth getting a beat down like she put on Claudia, I will be a satisfied viewer, or her watching the Berlin Wall fall behind prison bars. I hated Gregory. He acted like the kids were not important. Just their beloved 'cause'. Elizabeth is treating her daughter like she has no identity apart from what Elizabeth wants for her. I see Paige starting to engage in destructive behavior - sort of Kimmy like behavior, or they're going to come home and find her dead. Elizabeth may mourn for two seconds, shrug, and then recruit Henry. The reason EST was able to be successful was that there is an element of truth in it. That's how those cult like things work. The part that the truth sucks a person in, and the rest is just piled on bs. Elizabeth's smug - 'See.... he's a lousy agent but I'm a faithful solider!' - look when they were talking about EST makes me want her in jail - yesterday. She's always been a smug character. No sympathy for her. At all.

I could not dislike Elizabeth any more if I tried. She's as brain washed as she accused Phillip of being. And nice head trip to put on your teenage daughter, Liz. You're just a real gem. I'd love to see her wind up in jail. In America - not her beloved USSR. You don't put that sort of pressure on a teenager. Should Paige have told her Pastor? Of course not, but she was a frightened, overwhelmed young girl who had just been told her life was basically a lie. And I hated Gregory too - Saint Gregory. But Martha, she was just simple. I thought Phillip was going to lose it when she said that. The cast is really doing a great job this season. Love Claudia - Oh boo hop. You tell Dracula, Claudia.

Well, that whole Nina storyline drug on forever and for what? We could have been spared the whole scientist thing. I bet he's dead too. I don't think Nina's story could have ended any other way, but I think it should have been ended sooner. Good for Elizabeth. Glad she's seeing her kids as something other than an extension of herself and her beliefs. And that she's not willing to destroy her daughter - and realizes that killing Pastor Groovy hair would - unless she's exhausted all other options first.

I was bummed by it too - I thought Freud had pretty much been proved a fraud and with quite the unsavory reputation. Why would a scientist like Leonard's mother even give his theories the time of day? I agree that it felt flat and forced. Plus Leonard seems to be turning into the character of Alan on Two and a half men. I hate that.

Yes, I wish they'd record together! I loved that. I could have done without Val and Kelly's strip down.

I forgot to mention how much I loved that conversation between Sandra and Phillip. It gave him a real sense of not being the only person who feels like no one knows them - he's not the only one who feels completely adrift and a total mess. (I also LOVED her shirt - I had one too and it made me feel - as someone else said upthread - like a sparkly princess.) I would love for them to explore a great friendship between not only Phillip and Sandra, but Henry and Stan. Just a friendship - no angle to be worked. One of the things I loved about Justified was the relationships between the characters - the bonds ran deep and rang true. No one was black or white - they all had their lines they'd cross. Phillip reminds me a lot of that type of character. He's so fully fleshed out, despite us not knowing much about his past, and his portrayer just kills me with the subtle things that let us know the toll this is all taking on the character. I just can't care about Nina any longer. As much as I like the actress, I feel they are really reaching to keep her around at this point in the story. I like that Stan is showing us why he was so successful undercover and that he uncovered Miss Candy Bar. I really didn't like the way the actress played that role.

That's not what I meant. I meant that Elizabeth told Gregory that she wouldn't have had children - she was ordered to do so. I don't recall that being part of any history I've studied concerning the revolutionary war. But Elizabeth has been pretty gung ho about the idea since it was introduced except for her initial reaction - which was pretty much the same as Phillip's. I found it very chilling that poor Phillip was trying to open himself up to Elizabeth at the end of the episode and it was very clear she wasn't paying attention. Her dismissive - "You aren't seeing things clearly." about Martha is correct even if its supremely ironic. She sees nothing clearly except her blind devotion to the cause. I loved the way they had his breakdown contrasted with Paige's. She is Phillip's child too and I think he understands her better than her mother does. I cannot stand Old Dracula. Telling Phillip to 'grow up'? Poor choice of words. What he meant was - shut up and be a good soldier and stop thinking for yourself. I was completely unmoved by the scene with Elizabeth and her mother. It was too short, for one thing. And I can see why it freaked Paige out. I never saw my grandmother cry until her father died. I was around Paige's age and she had always been my rock - I could always count on her to stay composed. Seeing her mother like that probably shook Paige up - even if she had compassion for both of them - and I think that she did based on her reactions. I think the actress is doing a great job.

Which of the Founding Fathers produced children specifically to serve in the 'war'? Elizabeth only had children because the Center ordered her to do so. She fully expects Paige to serve the Center - not in the same capacity as she does (at least in her mind) but Elizabeth fully believes Paige is going to be in lockstep with her as far as the USSR is concerned. The Founders of this nation agreed on one thing - freedom. Elizabeth doesn't believe in freedom. The Center doesn't believe in freedom. At least not in an individual sense. A person only exists as to their meaning to the state as a whole - what their role is. And their role is what the state says it is. The person gets very little choice in the matter. I must know some different teenagers than the rest of the board because most 15 year old girls I know are self centered, ruled by their emotions/hormones, and don't expect the secrets their parents are keeping to involve fabricating their entire identities. I can't imagine them taking that news well at all. As far as family loyalty, why can Elizabeth be given a pass for turning Phillip into the Center? Paige is supposed to be more mature at fifteen and more loyal than her much older mother? Not following that logic. Not at all. I'm not going to change my mind about Elizabeth being a lousy parent. She is, IMO.

I see Elizabeth as a narcissist. My mother was one. Nothing and no one exists except in relation to her. Everything is about her or must become about her to be considered important. She is always the victim, the most put upon, etc. She is never wrong. Phillip is doing his dead level best to give his children the freedom to make their own choices. We've seen how the job is slowly killing him inside. We get nothing of his backstory, but loads of Elizabeth. Elizabeth even gets some guy who just thought she was the best thing since sliced bread and died for her beloved cause. (The whole cause thing with Elizabeth reminds me ever so much of 'The Glorious Cause' they kept blathering on about in Gone With the Wind). It's not Elizabeth's beliefs in communism or that the US is evil or Reagan is evil that make her an awful parent. It's her narcissism. The children and Phillip only exist to her as extensions of herself. Truthfully, its probably pretty realistic of a spy. You'd have to be self absorbed and fanatical to your 'cause'. The whole 'Paige owes her parents' reminds me of the scene in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner' when Sidney Poitiers' father is guilt tripping him and he says that he doesn't owe his father - his father did what parents were supposed to do - what he would do for his child. Paige is a 15 year old girl. Teenagers see things in black and white and are self centered as a general rule. I feel for the character - learning your parents have been lying to you and everyone else your entire life. Yes, people lie. But she's fifteen and fifteen year olds expect their parents to generally tell them the truth.

I feel the same about the Christian bashing that's taken place on this thread. My objections to Elizabeth's parenting style have very little to do with her communism. I think Phillip is a very good parent. He cares about the children as people and wants them to have a chance to direct their own lives. Elizabeth doesn't see them as anything but tools - I'm not sure she sees anyone as having feelings - except herself and her sainted Gregory. Every so often she allows Phillip his feelings, but then she's so ugly about it later on, I can't count it to her credit. There are plenty of other good characters that are well developed to keep me watching the show, but she's not one of them. Not one iota of growth or change in three seasons and if she makes a bit of a gain she regresses almost immediately. I think being asked to give up one's child - to a cause the child doesn't believe in - either via death or them giving up their right to direct their own path in life - is bad parenting. Period. And that's based on my personal experience. Phillip is fighting like hell to keep his children's lives their own. Yes, he told Paige, but only because there was no other option at that point. He knows she's not OK - Elizabeth thinks because SHE saw her mother that Paige is ok because Elizabeth is ok and the hell with poor Phillip and she can't remotely connect with Henry so she doesn't seem to care where he is. And I complete disagree that the Center would hesitate to have Paige killed if she refuses to cooperate and turns in her parents to the authorities. They've killed others for lesser crimes - like needing someone inside a plant and having a car dropped on them for example. I find it ironic that Paige is being raked over the coals for talking to Pastor Tim when Elizabeth had been informing on Phillip for years to the Center and got him beaten up. Some family loyalty there, right Liz?

Aren't they? The Center is asking for their daughter's life. Not to kill her - worse - to make her give her life over to their service just because she was born to two of their spies. I fail to see much of a difference. Paige will not have a life of her own if the Center gets its way and Elizabeth is all for it. She refuses to see that Paige might be jailed, or killed, or have to honey trap someone to survive. And Paige doesn't really have a choice - despite what Old Dracula keeps saying. She is going to be forced to work for the Center - turn in her parents - or die. Me? I'd rather be dead that be given over to a life of involuntary servitude to a 'cause' I have zero ties to. It would be like me being required to fight for the South in the Civil war just because I happened to be born and have lived here my whole life when I believe the South was completely in the wrong about their beloved 'cause'.

I consider Elizabeth a lousy parent because she refuses to see her daughter - particularly - as a human being of her own - with her own ideas of what is right and wrong and seems to be determined to direct Paige's path instead of letting her find her own. A parent living through a child is not a good parent - at least in my experience.

Pretty much summed it up for me. I cannot. stand. Elizabeth. As I said before the last show, she is the Center's special little snowflake - she always gets what she wants. Poor Phillip is told to grow up and poor Paige is on the verge of a nervous breakdown because the woman who gave birth to her refused to give her an unequivocal answer. I think Paige sees that Elizabeth doesn't recognize that she is a person with her own thoughts and feelings and beliefs. And that she never will.

Elizabeth doesn't even see her as a person - just an extension of herself. I don't believe Elizabeth loves her. I don't believe Elizabeth has a clue in hell what love is.