SusanSunflower

You are not a 20 year old college-student undercover KGB agent living in Washington DC at the time of a major summit .... kind of makes a difference .... some might even call it situational awareness. My 80 year old father didn't follow the news ... on the day of the Rodney King Verdict he was just trying to get home from the health food store when he was blocked by a large angry mob of African Americans ... having no idea what this was about, he angrily told them to get the f*ck out of his way .... it wasn't pretty .... he only told me about it months later and I realized he was the man I had read about ... whose windshield was broken and who escaped with minor injuries .... ( I still marvel thinking about how terrifying it must have been for him ... but he wasn't one to talk) .... True that P*E didn't even bother to inform Paige of the bug-out plan.... but still ... that was dumb of them. Note this was in Venice, California where my father had lived for years ... he did not read the paper, listen to the radio or have a TV .... on principal.

stoopid, stoopd me ... enjoy

I'd love to watch her replace Mrs. Tim ... very "All About Eve" I take it as a given she's prime dominant-male cult material ... doesn't even need to be obviously "alpha" ... we all noticed the Pastor Tim / David Koresh resemblance ... didn't we???

From what the writers have said, it occurred to me that "The Garage Scene" or most of it could have been written (and honed)* well before the plot-particulars of this final episode and, on reflection, tonally it's a bit off .... between the assassination at the Summit and the recent Chicago fiasco, the FBI would have been on highest alert and adrenaline just dealing with that, and (finally convinced by Bannon), Stan would have likely been out-for-blood. I'm not sure where suspicions about P&E would have fit in the local and regional priorities and allocation of man power and other resources ... particularly with Stan playing his suspicions so close to his vest. Also, not to ignore the "unsolved" TeaCup murders** (and the warehouse) and other odds-and-ends previously unconnected incidents. It takes time, even days, for thing like positive identification of Tatiana (and what ever that means operationally in terms of the investigation) to percolate down .... and, regardless, her killer (E.) was "on the loose" and I would imagine the Summit in chaos and the venue and city locked down "like a drum". Not really the climate for two buddies -- no matter how close -- sharing a heart-to-heart on the down-low (Aderholt having been ditched). I find the ending disturbingly "relativistic" and amoral ... particularly with the havoc P&E left in their wake over the years and the lives harmed and disrupted by their actions (not even to mention ended) .... I was always disturbed by the Wheat Lab Murder ... what hell did that victims friends and associates go through during the investigation of that perplexing murder .... we can only hope these murders remain cold-cases and that no innocents have been tapped as "perp". Paige's "blurting out" impresses me as evidence of what a truly unprepared security risk she remained ... even in an obvious-to-anyone "code red" situation ... All together now, STFU Paige. * I am not arguing that it's not brilliant or Emmy worthy but that it could have been inserted in many contexts, particularly considering what is elided in this finale. ** by my read, Stan "should" have been devastated and outrage wrt the TeaCups .... in front of their child ... and the FBI's abject failure to protect.

I remember CNN first being on 24/7/365 at the laundromat ... it was also on continuously in the main lobbies of the hospital I worked at ... I don't remember when it started ... I do remember it also being on in some cafeteria around the same time ... ( It's not part of the (very) basic cable package on Dish now, but at the time, it seemed to me to be everywhere people waited -- the airport, for example) I never had cable until it came with an apartment I rented circa 1995. I was of course correcting my previous statement that there was no CNN to make Paige's avoidance merely a matter of print media. (about radio, I know nothing)

But Paige knew she was the get-away driver from that "mission" at that warehouse .... she ostensibly / CRITICALLY did not know that 3 guards have been gunned down and killed (burglaries do not usually involve murder) ... so -- even a passing overheard mention (ain't it awful, 3 men dead -- or what a mystery -- who would burgle that warehouse???) or glanced at front page of the newspaper might have DESTROYED her (oh so ridiculous) naivete about "what mommy really does at work" aka "we don't kill people" .... I don't know if "Russian Defectors Savagely Murdered in front of Infant Son" managed to stay off the front page ... I'm guessing that story would have been hard to contain .... (good thing Paige didn't know they were under Stan's protection) I did wonder just this morning -- given that P&E weren't even supposed to share their real names -- how Cooking and Reminiscing with Claudia fit in ..... and how Elizabeth and Phillip handled the Paige's quite reasonable curiosity about their Russian past-lives .... where were you born? stuff.

MY bad -- CNN was founded in 1980 although I do not know when it gained ubiquity in public places (only to lose it to FOX in the 1990) .... but even if Paige wanted to avoid newspapers, it's likely that CNN was first inescapable in places like cafeterias and other communal campus spaces .... again, giving the writers too much credit, I wondered if SOME of these murders might have been hushed up or downplayed by the national security/news cooperation but many of the recent murders might well have been too bizarre to put a lid on first responders and other LE personnel talking about crimes on their turf. eta: On the eve of the summit, along with other random but suspicious activities (including the Teacups) .... yeah, the warehouse wasn't just any warehouse .... and nothing was taken ... as with other E killings, trying to figure out who would have or even would have wanted to break into or managed penetrate that space ... much less kill the innocent bystander they found there .... it becomes suspicious because of how mysterious (doesn't make any sense) it is when considering who/what/why/when/how.

Paige is a college student. College students, in any good college, are exposed to "current events" as they relate to classroom material (particularly in the first two years of survey classes ... true in high school too ). Back in the 1980's people still bought and read the newspaper regularly because there was no other way to stay abreast of events (Newsweek and Time magazine were popular too) -- there was no internet or CNN and depending on your schedule the 6 oclock nightly news might not fit .... Paige doesn't know jack about what's going on because ..... she's written that way .... keep it simple. (and no I don't think that's "realistic" unless maybe she's in cosmetology school or a theatre major.

yes, I was thinking ruefully that the closing music should have been Streisand singing "People" .... yes, it's 1964, but it's also "timeless"

But the turmoil begins when the question as to who was that masked (wo)man (the Lone Ranger) who killed Tatiana and saved Nesterenko (and why/how was she so fortuitously in the right place at the right time ) .... (and how did she get away ...)

I remember thinking that Elizabeth HAD to notice that she was being used less and less as a crack "operative" and more and more as an assassin (and short term honeypot) .... that the quality of her assignments was declining -- almost as if -- this was discussed -- she was being prepared for "retirement" perhaps due to or enhanced by unease about Phillip. That as the #1 illegal asset, she was being used for errand work. There was a noticeable decline in number of support characters and the appearance that the KGB mission was similarly suddenly skeletal. The phone person and the clean-up crew and the trio of younger operatives to supplement stakeouts seen in early seasons seemed to vanish without explanation. (?? The better for Paige to know-nothing about them?? adding to the list of things kept from Paige's knowledge? or part of evidence that "someone" knew she was a security risk?) We didnt even get to see the aftermath of Elizabeth killing Tatiana ... on the summit (or the Washington or FBI community) or the intra-KGB civil war ... and it turned out the Summit had less to do with the final identification of P&E than that (oh, so unAmerican) Thanksgiving trip to Chicago to try to rescue Harvest. Lots of plates left spinning when the show's light went out ... revealing them, like Erica, to be .... really just smoke and mirrors?

Paige had spent the last 6 years keeping the secret and watching the secret (and her spy training) change her .... that moment was "existentially" a not-to-come-again opportunity, if not leap to "freedom"(arguable), but rather leap out of that cage. One of the issues I had with Paige's development was that "at the age when she should have been developing into her own person and adulthood" she had chosen to hitch her wagon to her mother .... and living in Elizabeth's shadow and under Elizabeth's direction wasn't EVER going to have a happy ending emotionally or psychologically for Paige (all that lying and killing and treason aside). (In hindsight the contortions the writers went through to keep Paige "innocent" and without (arguable) blood on her hands was part of the failure of the character whose status as "dead wood" and "slow on the uptake" would have ended that charade of "training" years ago ... Paige wasn't just "bad" at spying, she endangered others .... whiff.)

Stan became an afterthought in the last two seasons, mini-me Paige having taken center stage, irrc, so the affection and sentimentality of the "bond" rings plot-convenient / manipulative / fan service rather than actual .... queue Springsteen on YouTube (official video) singing "Glory Days" .... when he (and we) were impossibly young.

I was thinking about the "If you hadn't left EST, you'd know what to do line" swiftly followed by the kick-to-the-guts line about Renee (neither of which seem to have really made sense or worked either with Stan or the audience) -- however -- when Phillip met Stan he was married to the wonderful Sandra who had gotten involved in "personal growth" and specifically EST both when she was a grass-widow to Stan being undercover and after when Stan came home from the war and they couldn't reconnect as they had before -- as a matter of martial emotional intimacy. Phillip tagged along to EST and found something of value (having similar emotional distance issues with Elizabeth) and Phillip and Sandra became good emotionally intimate friends. Stan walked away muttering, abandoning his marriage. Sandra met "someone else" and decamped shortly thereafter. I suspect Phillip still thinks Stan's was/is an idiot to let Sandra leave .... to now be married to the questionably authentic Renee. If Stan had worked harder with EST, if he had emotionally recommitted to Sandra, would he ever "wonder" about (too perfect) Renee? I don't have an answer but it's almost like a knife to the gut to bring up (without mentioning) Stan's failed marriage to the wonderful Sandra who largely alone raised their wonderfully well adjusted son and who was responsible for their (too rare) successful and amicable divorce. (Matthew's equanimity and compassion for both parents seems special to me) I may be out in left field, but I'd love to know more from the writers about those two final gut-punches ... a shout-out to Sandra by Phillip made sense to me.

Yup, Elizabeth would have been on Stan in a heartbeat, like a mongoose on a python .... (of course any hope of a "feel good" ending would have had to be sacrificed)

I think it was more that Paige didn't see that honeytraps were part of the job description, part of the arsenal, sexual allure exploiting men's vanity and lust as a weapon. I didn't believe that Jackson would have loudly bemoaned having been bamboozled into what amounted (in the right light) to a criminal, even treasonous act (if such unwitting aid to the enemy is taken on face value, like Paige being enlisted to "drive getaway" or act as "lookout" on missions she didn't comprehend). Jackson should have -- of course -- put national security first and discretely confessed to having been apparently used, led around by his libido and youthful naivete by a skillful and determined mysterious older woman. That Jackson had been so targetted and used was not something for him take "personally" by him or -- god knows -- by Paige. eta: Three years!!! When was Elizabeth going to get around to teaching Paige the facts of life??

yes, I wasn't sure with the "real marriage" that Elizabeth wasn't "servicing" Phillip .... one for you, one for me ... E.'s happy participation was a really big "gift" to Phillip (not to be forgotten), because she knew he was the "sentimental" one, because it mattered to him. Which doesn't mean that she wasn't moved by his devotion to her ... just that, no, it wasn't something she would have initiated in a million years. My dislike and mistrust of Elizabeth (initially for bad-mouthing Phillip to Claudia and Gabriel because she needs to be the "best girl") really led me to pretty much never see the "oh they love each other so much" story line that many others have expressed. Her remorseless killing spree led me to see her like vampire bad or a feral cat whose tolerance for "affection" was limited and conditional, because, of her really deep need to avoid questioning her own righteousness. I did not understand why she did not react more strongly to realizing she had been lied to, used and betrayed wrt to the anti-Gorbachev plot. Maybe now, back in Moscow, she'll have that nice nervous breakdown she's been putting off for decades, but I doubt it .... people with her sense of righteous superiority just "move on." She will never have to reconcile herself to Paige's defection or inadequacy as an operative or to the fact that she really could not relate to the young man Henry grew into ... her marriage ... useful for the timebeing.

and I never saw Elizabeth have a similar epiphany about the people she killed "just following orders" or because they were inconvenient About EST, I think Phillip meant that Stan would be able to be the "bigger" or alternate context of his dillema .... in which P&E were patriots to their country and had -- in fact -- prevented both a coup and the breakdown / failure of arms reduction treaty .... That it was "not personal" wrt Phil and Stan ... that both were doing their jobs and that Stan could (rather like Tale of Two Cities, "Far greater thing) let P&E walk away, return to Russia, no longer demanding arrest .... It was sophistry and manipulation by Phillip -- If Stan had stayed in EST he would be able to see the "greater picture" and let P&E go free.

No, not Paige having a tantrum, just Paige recognizing the reality that she has a choice... Her ability to walk away from spying to avoid a life of false-fronts and lies and omissions (lack of intimacy) was -- prior to this collapse of P&E's cover -- a done deal .... Paige was (and would always likely be) KGB, watching her blissfully unaware brother living and creating the life of his choosing... Yeah, goes back a couple of seasons, but for me William's loneliness was a sentinel cruelty of the spying life .... and something Paige had entered into unwittingly .... and now was locked into. Even her relationship with Matthew was aborted -- too risky. I grew up keeping a lot of my parents' secrets. My empathy for Paige in this is enormous (even if not well-explored imho). It's incredibly inhibiting, a burden and involves a lot of self-censoring. I was delighted Paige stepped out of line.

We don't know (much if anything about) what P&E told their kids .... (or what their official biography gave) ... no reason they couldn't be pre-revolutionary Russian!!!!, or Polish or Austrian. Most everyone in the USA is from somewhere else in their lineage, at some point immigrants .... I'm half old-New-England (from England in the 1600's) and half Czech in the 1880's (to avoid the draft and Imperial Wars) .... and yes, my mother made a big deal about our lineage/blood lines (which I rejected as elitist) and my father made nothing out of his Czech side of the family (I know only what's in a short letter from my grandfather, but not, for example, the city they immigrated from) .... This was common in my neighborhood. My best friends mother was first generation American of Polish Immigrants and her husband (their father) was first generation American-Irish. My other neighbor's family was half "Mexican" in the USA / California since the big Rancheros, Grandmother German-speaking German ...

Actually, I thought the reality dawned on Paige that IF Henry could stay behind (say no), she could too .... and that she also could deal with the uncertainty of "who will pay my tuition" and other burning security question. I don't think she "understood" that her only chance to break down the wall to intimacy created by her secret spy identity was to destroy / walk away from it ... but I can wish .... she was doomed to always be alone (like William, who after his wife's departure, found forming some new relationship simply overwhelming and unsatisfying) -- too many secret, too guarded, too censored) ... She needed to leave so she could "be herself" .... just herself.

Nussbaum's dissection in the New Yorker of the garage scene (which is chilling) is the best I have read and I think (suspect) is spot-on to what the writers intended ... Paige's demeanor and guilt-suggesting exclamations/admissions again suggest that Elizabeth never "really" explained both "what to do" and "what not to admit" (hint: anything to anyone). I suspect that Stan will appreciate her lack of wiles.

I'm really disappointed that Elizabeth largely escaped being "outed" as the monster she is (became) ... particularly to herself, but also largely to both Paige and Phillip (who I doubt knows about how she "took care of " Erica ... I think the writers "whiffed" on this aspect, likely because (as we've seen) they really have avoided characters talking about issues and questions ... The amount that Paige doesn't know (and has not apparently asked about) in the last 3 or 6 years despite endless hours on stake-out with her mother ... see also information not shared with Paige by Elizabeth ... Paige has been kept in the dark to be blindsided again and again ... I wish she had gotten off the train in full-boil anger, asserting her right to make decisions about her future ... but it was left vague for the audience to figure out ... like what she was doing at Claudia's (or the significance that the FBI had not yet apparently stumbled on or connected Claudia and that safe house). Question I've never seen is how / what exactly did Elizabeth think this was all going to work out. I also wish that I'd ever seen Paige confronted with the terrible life-time burden (and jeopardy) she foisted on the The Tims ... Everyone seems to have forgotten the (should be dead) Mrs. Tim. Pastor and Mrs. Tim will live with the dual jeopardy forever --- gee, thanks Paige. I'm guessing Pastor Tim didn't tell her about Stan's (mysterious) phone call. Another secret to keep. Also -- are the negatives and photographic prints of Tim's diary ashes?

I can see, as in the movie 45 Years, Phillip becoming deeply disturbed as Elizabeth quickly, too quickly (despite always saying "the right thing") gets over it and "moves on" .... while he is left guilt and grief stricken... My mistrust of Elizabeth (in large part because of her ability to play Phillip like a violin) is enormous .... yes, "she'll be fine" ... and quickly grow impatient, even resentful that Phillip won't "move on" ... In such a stoic society, Phil's deep feelings will be shut down ... no cult of "deep feelings" and touchy-feely authenticity (like EST) to take refuge in.

Similarly, apparently concealed from Paige (and largely from us) were the support personnel who spelled out the details of the missions they were to carry out. Wrt "Jackson", someone knew he was the "one" who would have the access and clearance (and invisibility) to be useful to Elizabeth (who was not scouting the intern lists and the conference scheduled or Jackson's details to know that he would be at that movie, and that the conference to be taped would be in that room (just for a start) .... similar background "field work" attached to all the various honey-pot schemes ... identifying the mark and providing the logistical details .to make the "meet" seem natural and unforced. I think the writers were incredibly "artful" and deliberate in keeping Paige utterly "unknowing" wrt how sausage is made.... and while this could have been attributed to Elizabeth's "mama lion" it's not really plausible that Paige would be so shielded. I grew very weary trying to remember who knew what and from what source with what confidence .... particularly wrt Paige's legal culpability ... and even her level of knowleged and understanding wrt the complicity in crimes she may (or may not) know were committed by her mother .... similarly, Philip might know (because E told him) that she carried out the Teacup hit ... but he might not know the brutality of those murders. Mission accomplished, tasks crossed off list. After Paige and Pastor Tim, I can see it being deemed reasonable to teach Paige skills without divulging the infrastructure that made P&E's missions possible. I've wondered about the accrued small-talk knowledge one gains over years about co-workers and neighbors -- political and religious background (be they ever so vague). Phillip's vietnam military record. Elizabeth's home town. We don't know even thumbnail of their official cover biography, but yes, Paige and Henry would "wonder" about where "their people" were from (how many generations in the USA, from where, why immigrated ... these are bread and butter topics of conversation in Elementary School ... as well as literally innocent small talk amongst neighbors, coworkers and some acquaintances ... being "too private" can become a flag or a challenge for a snoopy neighbor ... or result in extremely awkward pauses as one member of a crowd balks at sharing the story of "their first kiss" or "how we met" ... my parents were both only children ... I remember being asked about cousins and uncles and aunts who were integral parts of my peers' lives.