AGuyToo

Has Elizabeth told Paige anything about the Center's plans for her? Hinted at them in any way? At three moments in this episode, I got the feeling that she had: (1) Paige asks her mother whether she would ever send her away as Elizabeth's own mother had, and Elizabeth responds that that wouldn't ever be required of Paige (which begs the question: how is anything required of Paige?) (2) Paige says she can't do "this" -- can't lie to people her whole life. (3) Paige tells Pastor Tim that not only are her parents liars but they're trying to turn her into a liar too. Maybe all Paige was talking about was the fact that P & E are forcing Paige to keep *their* lie, but, as others have pointed out in this thread, Paige's reaction seemed a little overwrought if that was all.

I also was struck by Elizabeth's answer. When Paige asked her question, I was expecting Elizabeth to reply with "Of course not! You're my daughter and I love you. And I will always be there for you." Instead, Paige basically got "Don't worry. That's not in our (current) plans" -- which might lead her to wonder what exactly she is expected to do.

This is an interesting take -- especially because of the light it would cast on Philip's conversation at the end with Elizabeth. He clearly indicates to her that Martha is still alive. If she's not, then that conversation suggests a sense of denial so profound to be almost pathological. I don't know. It would be interesting.

I'm glad Stan got a win tonight. I was getting really tired of how the show kept presenting him as the ultimate sadsack: lost his wife, lost his lover, lost his partner, estranged from his son, kind of crappy at his job, pathetically mooning over women he can't have (Sandra/Nina), and mooching home-cooked dinners off the Jennings. He needed a win.

I can't help but think that Philip has underestimated Martha. She's a good person. Gene was a person she knew. They weren't friends exactly -- maybe "work friends" ? -- but a real person (not an abstraction) to her. Why does Philip think Martha is just going to go along with Gene's murder? And she's too smart not to realize that it was murder and not suicide.

I like Gaad (and Richard Thomas) a lot too. I'm not sure how Gaad and Stan work together after this. Gaad's boss totally undermined him there. Chain of command exists for a reason.

That is a good idea (about Nina's cellmate). It would help get the Nina storyline connected to the main storyline.

I don't think Jared's case tells us anything about what will happen with Paige. (At least, I very much hope that it doesn't.) I enjoy and admire this show very much, but there are a few things about it that I think are ridiculous. First among the ridiculous things is the handling of Jared. I can believe that Jared would have been shocked by the revelation about his parents and would have acted out. But the idea that he would have murdered his parents and his sister is too much. And the idea that he would have spent his last few minutes on Earth "expositioning" to Elizabeth and Philip while blood gushed from his mouth -- explaining the ambiguous details of Season 2 -- was crap storytelling. That piece of the Season 2 finale was so lazy. Weisberg and Fields are talented guys, but they totally failed here. The conclusion of the Jared story was stupid. Sorry to hijack the thread. I came late to this show, and only recently finished a binge watch. The mention of Jared reminded me that I wanted to get off my chest how much I hated the Season 2 finale. Ignore me. Please continue discussing the show.

Sure, some things are "just life," but in this case, P & E are choosing to deny Henry a chance that he might value in later life. Maybe he wouldn't value it -- maybe meeting a sick old lady, a stranger to him, wouldn't affect him in the slightest, now or in the future -- but maybe he would. The fact that P & E don't even give him the chance to decide that troubles me; I see it as one more way in which they are bad parents (even though I do think they love their children).

The point isn't what Henry thinks is a big deal. He's a 12-year-old boy -- which is to say, not the kind of person known for long-range thinking. P & E are his parents. They're supposed to be looking out for him. Even though lack of family may not bother Henry now, it might in the future, when he's a little older and especially when he's old enough to think about having kids of his own. Part of Philip and Elizabeth's job as parents is to think about what's best for future Henry. It's true that Philip has never complained about lack of family, but we've gotten so little back story on Philip that I don't think that tells us anything.

Why doesn't Henry get a chance to meet his grandmother too? (I'm being willfully obtuse here -- I know the practical objections -- but I'd like to see what everyone else has to say.) Henry is Philip and Elizabeth's child too. They really are his parents; he really is their son; this really is his life. He has never met any of his family outside their little circle. His only living grandparent is about to die. He has never met her, and soon the chance will be lost. Why haven't Philip and Elizabeth even discussed how sad or unfair that is? I wonder if Paige will bring up this issue. She seems to look out for Henry as much as Philip and Elizabeth do.

But if Paige is being kept in the USSR against her will, why would she get on the phone to confirm the KGB story? And P & E (who, IMO, would never go along with this) couldn't just tell a story to the police or CPS. They'd have to provide the name of the school or the relative. Someone would want to check with Paige in person.

I think it would be much harder to disappear Paige than that. Pastor Tim and his wife know that Paige has been having problems at home. I expect that Tim also imagines Philip to be capable of violence -- given Philip's late night visit to the church last season dressed in his serial-killer clothes. I don't see how Tim just buys a boarding school or a relative story without investigating further or (more likely, in my opinion) calling the cops. (Really, given what he knows, he SHOULD call the cops in that circumstance.) Stan can be kind of oblivious around the Jenningses, but still I'm having trouble picturing him showing up at their house for a home-cooked meal, noticing an empty place at the table, hearing that Paige has been pulled out of her own school and sent to board school (in the middle of the school year), and having no uncomfortable follow-up questions. And I think Henry is the hardest problem. Are P & E really going to tell him that his big sister just left without saying goodbye to him in person. And he can't call her on the phone or go visit her? And maybe she'll be back in a year or two or three? The kid's already lonely and maybe a little messed up. I'm not quite sure what he would end up doing, but I'd be willing to wager that Child Protective Services would soon show up to investigate what's going on in the Jennings home.

If the KGB were to prevent Paige from leaving Russia, they would certainly lose P & E for good. A lot of the tension in this show comes from the idea that, dedicated as they are, P & E love their children more than their country. I can't see either one going along with a plan to kidnap Paige. Also, lots of other people know Paige (Henry, Stan, Pastor Tim). How would they explain that she suddenly disappeared without saying goodbye to anybody? I don't think even Henry would buy that. And Pastor Tim knows that there have been problems between Paige and her parents. If she disappeared without a word, I'm pretty sure he'd go straight to the cops.

It wasn't illegal to travel to East Germany or other Warsaw Pact countries in the 1980s or even earlier. For example, Bill Clinton traveled to the Soviet Union itself in 1969 when he was a grad student (http://articles.latimes.com/1992-10-09/news/mn-752_1_soviet-union). Still, if the Center hopes to recruit Paige, it would be inadvisable for her to make such a trip. They want her to get a job at the FBI or the CIA. Having to explain why she would have gone anywhere in the Soviet Bloc as a teen probably wouldn't help matters. ETA: As Umbelina points out above, the KGB could obviate the need for Paige to travel under her own passport. It still seems to me like a big risk to take.

I agree that Paige's opposition to Reagan, which I think the show runners have made clear, does not imply sympathy to the Soviet Union. The American political landscape was vastly more complicated than Reagan at one end and Soviet totalitarianism at the other. There were plenty of Cold War liberals, people who opposed totalitarianism and communism as fervently as Reagan did but who also opposed his economic, social, and foreign policies. Of the nine presidents (four Democrats, five Republicans) who served during the Cold War, Reagan was the one furthest to the right. He didn't define the landscape -- he was an outlier. Much of the Cold War was administered by people like Truman, Kennedy, and Johnson who, at home, were liberals but who, abroad, were strong anti-communists. While I think that all indications are that Pastor Tim is an opponent of Reagan's policies (nuclear weapons, the apartheid regime in South Africa, Vietnam), that worldview won't drive Paige into her parents' spying game. Indeed, there are aspects of Tim's worldview (pacifism, civil disobedience, nonviolence as a philosophy rather than merely a tactic) that would make Paige abhor her parents' work even more than anti-communism and as much as her Christian faith.

Yes! I loved that moment. Philip said it as a joke, but it actually made sense to me. What other friends do they really have?

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The relationship between Philip and Stan is one of the things I like best about the show. You're right that Philip really is Stan's friend. A lot of Philip's struggle over these last seasons has been about how to be human and not merely a spy/soldier/robot. He wants to be a good father, a good husband, and a good friend. He is not willing to sacrifice Paige to the Center's plans (and, indeed, if it came to it, I am sure he would fight to the death for her); he wants his marriage to Elizabeth to be real (and not just a Center-arranged farce); and he wants Stan to be his friend and he wants to be Stan's friend. When Paige demanded to know whether they were really friends with Mr. Beeman, Philip didn't hesitate when he said yes. That seemed real.

I cannot imagine a Reagan speech changing the views of Pastor Tim or other liberals on any subject -- certainly nothing as fundamental to their worldview as wanting to limit nuclear weapons. While Reagan was a hero to conservative America, he was certainly not a hero to liberal America. (Full disclosure: As a 15 year old in 1984, I was a campaign volunteer for Walter Mondale.) My sense is that Pastor Tim is politically considerably to the left of Jimmy Carter, the American president most personally associated with evangelical Christianity. Reagan had strong support among most evangelicals, but it did not extend to that (admittedly small) section of the movement. For liberals, the fear was that Reagan's thinking was simplistic -- too black and white -- and, despite his gifts as a speaker, his rhetoric often seemed careless ("We begin bombing in five minutes.") (To be fair, I should add that I think that Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, both gifted speakers, have also never persuaded anybody on the other side of anything. And a conservative would probably criticize them in similar terms.) I can buy Pastor Tim going to Miami to protest against Reagan's speech, but I can't buy him being swayed by it.

When Philip told Paige that he wanted Elizabeth to go see her mother one last time, I thought Paige was going to say "I want to go too." I can imagine P & E selling the idea to Gabriel that way -- it both helps Elizabeth and soothes the Paige situation a bit. Though, they probably can't go to Russia. Maybe the mother is well enough to travel to somewhere in America.

A new episode is about to begin and it might render what I'm about to write moot, but for the sake of continuing the discussion, three points: 1) When Paige offers "You're a pacifist" to Pastor Tim, he responds: "Yes, but are killing and dying the same thing? And didn't Jesus choose to die? I mean, he could have gotten away. He knew they were coming." His response is all about rejecting killing but not dying. Nothing he says suggests sympathy with killing. 2) My comments about "causal" and "determinative" were in response to this paragraph in your post: " For instance, Apartheid has become an issue this season and while Paige's part is to push for divestment, that's not a nonviolent struggle. In fact, anti-Apartheid activists tried nonviolent resistance and it didn't work. Not everyone was like Ncgobo, but they weren't averse to destroying property etc. And there were many riots. " I don't think the historical record supports the statement that anti-apartheid activists "tried nonviolent resistance and it didn't work." Too many conflicting things were happening to say what worked and what didn't work. 3) We'll have to agree to disagree that "People also choose [nonviolence] because it's the best strategy and if it's not effective they move on to other things to reach their specific goal." I would argue that such people were never really practicing nonviolence. I realize this runs the risk of the "No True Scotsman" fallacy, but I think it's true. Nonviolence has power only to the extent that people believe in it and live their lives by it and convince others of its value. If nonviolence is just one of several tactics -- and especially if killing the Bettys of the world is also considered legitimate -- then it loses all power.

You're right that Paige has never been personally been confronted by violence. We can't say how she would react if that did happen. But I don't think that's the question in front of her. Elizabeth wants Paige to join the KGB. Elizabeth wants Paige to join a brutal organization that uses violence to further its ends. In Gandhian terms, Elizabeth wants Paige to join the opppressor -- to become the oppressor. All Paige has to do is say no. All she has to do is say that she will not participate and will not be a party to this violence. Nonviolence, in its most basic form, doesn't require anybody to be a hero. It doesn't require them to be battered about the head. Nonviolence just requires them to refuse to go along with or obey those who do use violence. At Paige's birthday dinner, Pastor Tim doesn't reject pacifism. He remembers that, as a young man, he claimed that he wouldn't "kill or die". But now, he wonders about the die part, but not the kill part. He says that in the garden of Gethsemane, Peter wanted to fight the Romans, but Jesus said no. Jesus was willing to die but not to kill. I think -- and very much hope -- that Paige's beliefs are sincere and well thought out. It would diminish the story if Paige were just a dumb kid who could be swayed to diametrically-opposed worldviews -- Christianity, communism, nonviolence, totalitarianism -- depending upon whom she's listening to (her parents, Tim, or whomever). I think -- and, again, I hope -- that Paige is already her own person, with her own ideals. It would make a great story, in my opinion, for Paige's true ideals to clash with Elizabeth's. (I think Philip is already on Paige's side, even if he can't quite admit it to himself.) ******** You mention apartheid in South Africa, which is an interesting case study, but I don't think it's determinative. The struggle against apartheid had both nonviolent and violent aspects. It's not a good experiment. Unless we were able to roll the tape back and play it forward again with different mixtures of nonviolence and violence, we can't say what was causal. Moreover, the end of apartheid was coincident with the end of the Cold War: Mandela was released in early 1990, a few months after the Berlin wall was opened, a year and a half before the Soviet Union itself dissolved. By the time Mandela and De Klerk were negotiating the endgame for the apartheid regime, Bush the Elder had replaced Reagan as president. The world had changed and America's attitude towards South Africa had changed a lot. A lot of things were happening, and I don't think it's right to credit the real-life counterparts of Ncgobo with that. Certainly, South Africa's transition to democracy was eased by institutions like the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that the fictional Ncgobo would have opposed. But, whatever the case, the argument for nonviolent resistance is not that it's an effective tactic or that it yields good results, at least not in the short run. The argument that it is a philosopy, a view of life, that is morally defensible and that will, in the long run, benefit humanity.

Paige is a believer in nonviolence. I think that is the essential issue. More than her Americanness, more even than her Christian identity, that is the issue that will make it impossible for Elizabeth to recruit Paige into the KGB or convince her that the KGB mission is correct. We've learned a fair amount about Paige in these last three seasons. She favors nuclear disarmament; she is horrified by racism and racial hatred; she is saddened by poverty and wants to eradicate it; she is inspired by those willing to sacrifice themselves for the sake of peace and justice. And she believes that nonviolent resistance is the path to a better world. (In fact, she is so irritatingly verbose on the subject that Philip is tempted to respond with a punch in the face.) Confronted, as Elizabeth was last week, with Betty's question -- "[Do] you think doing this to me will make the world a better place?" -- Paige would say no. Young as she is, she would say no with conviction and without hesitation. In order to get Paige to join the KGB, Elizabeth has to convince Paige that the correct answer was yes -- that killing Betty was justified, that Betty's life and those who loved her weren't important enough to stand in the way of THE CAUSE. No way Elizabeth can do that, no way Paige lets her get away with that. That's the thing -- Elizabeth's and Philip's work is suffused with violence: they kill combatants, they kill bystanders, blood covers everything they do. If you really believe in nonviolence, whether you're a Christian or a Gandhian or something else, you cannot abide Elizabeth and Philip. Even if they're your parents, you have to say no. From what we've seen of Paige, I think she has the strength to say no.