sistermagpie

Heh. It's funny to read this now when I was just having a slice in a pizza parlor I go to a lot and I looked up and realize there was a picture of customer Paul Rudd on the wall with the owner. He can show up anywhere!

TBF, I didn't get the impression they meant nobody could remain married, just that in order to have a show they'd need to have conflict, and so their lives would need to be back in dissaray with reasons for them to go back to a dynamic more like the ones they had before they were married. Which I still disagree needs divorces, but I assumed that's what they meant. That the ending of the show was meant to be stable and they'd have to shake things up for drama. Mike and Phoebe always made a lot of sense to me. She's with a guy who's stable and easygoing who supports and loves all her weirdness. She doesn't need some guy who's competitive with her on that score or has the same vibe as her. Also, he quit a job as a lawyer to play the piano, so he shares her fudamental values too. Surprised me too!

Yes, it really was an amazing example of creating a situation with a lot of emotional complications and then ignoring them in favor of a soap opera twist with a mustache twirling villain that just puts the whole thing to rest without it really affecting Peggy or showing her character. She's just angry at her father or not. Other than that she's still mourning a baby she never knew that died. Her husband doesn't seem important either way.

Agreed. George's point was that he knew that Gladys didn't love Oscar, and he seemed to know that Oscar wasn't in love with Gladys either. He was right on the money when he said he believed that Oscar genuinely didn't want Gladys to be unhappy in the marriage--that's not love. But that doesn't mean he knows Oscar is gay. He could be saying the same thing to him without that specific meaning. Oscar could be a straight man who didn't love Gladys (and wasn't loved in return) too. That might have been more of an issue of Gladys loved him back but since she didn't love Oscar either, he knew there would be no personal heartbreak like that on either side.

Ah! I see, yes--you meant the point of the scene. I agree, then. George was well aware that their money was part of the deal for Oscar, but also knows it would be for anybody. George's issue wasn't financial at all, but personal. He didn't even think Oscar was that bad of a choice--he said he believed that Oscar liked Gladys and wanted her to be basically happy with their arrangment.

I admit I'm confused what the point is then? Oscar likes Gladys because he wants money and she has a lot of money--and her other attributes make her a good candidate to get the money from her. When it looked like her family might be ruined, he dropped her, because her money is the main reason he's marrying her. So what makes the term fortune hunter distract from the main point? Just that them both considering money and status in marriage would be expected?

So much this. It's one decision that always disappoints me any time the rerun is on. The original way it happened was so perfect and more importantly sweet in the way the rest of the relationship was. Re: writers wanting to break people up, I always remember something I read about Six Feet Under how whenever they were brainstorming what would happen in a season somebody would suggest David and Keith breaking up because it was just easy conflict--and it was always rejected, thank goodness. It's weird b/c on one hand it is easy conflct, but otoh it's like they don't think about what a betrayal it would really be and how it would change everything. With R&R it made sense because they threw in the "break" thing and, more importantly, their relationship problems were always adolescent and there from the very beginning. But you don't take a couple based in respect and genuine friendship and think cheating can be wacky.

Was just going to say exactly what iMonrey is saying. Plus, I get the feeling Fellowes as a pretty rosey view of the past and maybe for him this *is* showing how terribly racist things used to be. Because in reality not only would Armstrong be saying things beyond the pale, but Agnes' defense of Peggy would probably be just as bad. Regarding the priest, someone mentioned above that Oscar is a bit old to be looking for a first wife. Well, so is he! So they'll probably be some reason he hasn't married yet. Not saying he's gay, necessarily, but he could be. Or else there's some other story. It would be sweet if Ada could actually marry this guy. I liked listening to Robert Sean Leonard's accent, though. I'm no expert on Boston accents, but it seemed like he just had some subtle signs on his pronunciation of certain words that was endearing without being distracting.

She seems like she's going to turn into a big bunny boiler. She's already seemingly wildly jealous of Marion. Sure it won't kill his reputation to be sleeping with a woman, but she seems ready to go pretty nuts very quickly. I think it's meant to be racism, but again, the show doesn't want to have people be as blatantly racist as they could and would be back then. As a racist it would probably be all the more galling to her to be threatened because she refused to consider Peggy an equal. Seems like it might not be known that she was a maid. Maybe the guy is hiding the fact and has enough power to make that stick, or maybe she fooled him too with some fake story. If a previously wealthy man makes a good valet, a lady man could probably pass very well as a mysterious formerly rich lady.

That's why, I think, the real story is the Met, which is being built to hold more people. Old Money wants the Academy to stay "the" place to see opera, but New Money is just going to create their own place that winds up destroying the academy, which no longer exists. Bertha will no longer have to be part of the Old Money crowd if she can best them. Though it might be more interesting conflict-wise if she stays on the side of the academy and loses, ironically, to new money.

Spoiler from the preview for the season...

I suspect the real difference is just that Fellowes wants Agnes to be sypathetic, so while she can be as hard as she wants about young ladies not working, she needs to be surprisingly progressive about race. Though one could probably also explain it as Peggy being black means that Agnes doesn't consider she needs to follow the same rules as someone like her, because Peggy is outside of society no matter what.

Yes, it's funny that with all the conflict someone in her position would be facing at that time period, it's just odd to toss this at her instead.

In Peggy's case, her child was kidnapped. Had that family been complicit in the kidnapping they wouldn't get rewarded by getting to keep the kid because he doesn't know his mother now. As it was, they were innocent and the boy was dead, so I wasn't thinking of him being taken away from any home. Just that a child knowing that his biological mother would have wanted him and didn't give him up voluntarily, would be the opposite of rejection. Peggy showed how fiercely she loved him by admitting she would have wanted him for herself, but also admitted that might not have been a good thing for him, which shows she was a good mother who put his feelings first. In Marigold's case, only time Edith was out of her life was when she was in Switzerland, after Edith finished nursing her, and didn't seem old enough to consciously remember the people she was with there any more than Edith herself. Once back in England, Edith visited her constantly and couldn't stop acting like her mother. But if we're going to cut Peggy's father some slack over kidnapping his grandson and making his daughter mourn her baby because it gave her a brighter future, we ought to do the same for Marigold, who would be considered lucky to be made a ward of Lady Edith and even luckier to have her rightful place as blood family. It just seems like in all these situations there's risksof children feeling rejected or misunderstanding the situation even when adults think they're doing what's best.

Well, really in both cases their problems start with not following their own desires, since neither woman gave up their child of their own free will. Edith was convinced to do it because of the alleged scandal and Peggy's child was just stolen. Both women just admitted that they wanted their child--selfishly. But that in itself is kind of comforting to a child, since it means they're loved and wanted and not rejected. A toddler going from one loving home to another will probably be fine--especially in Edith's case where she wasn't a stranger (and the foster family agreed from the start the child wasn't supposed to be 100% theirs). In Peggy's case, the other family probably only respected her for saying that, since the child was already dead so there was no threat of his being taken away, and Peggy was just confirming that she loved him as a mother, she just thought he was dead. But at the same time she acknowledged that it was better for him that he'd been able to stay where he was (except for the possibility that he might have lived if she'd done that.) I mean, tbf, if we're judging by the standards of the time, I'm sure plenty of people would consider it a good thing for a poor child to be adopted as the ward of the manor too. But as others have said, it doesn't really seem like a vulnerability since not only is it outside himself, it doesn't seem like a real threat. Didn't he basically gamble it all last season and win? He seems to be presented as a guy who's going to eventually claw his way back up no matter what happens. I feel like we've been told he's even already done it more than once. Right now his big challenge is workers who want a decent living, so nothing to root for there. Definitely. She's just terminally ambitious, the domestic version of her husband who can't even allow workers safe conditions. She has to win.

Love that ep--my favorite ep is Chandler answering Monica's question of how he got so cute: "Well, my grandfather was Swedish. And my grandmother...was a tiny little bunny."

I don't think he is in love with her. He still just seems to think she's his best bet, for some reason. She's better than getting beaten up in alleys (which is still going to happen, really).

My favorite thing in this ep was the dress the one woman--is it Mrs. Fish?--was wearing at the opera party. She looked like a big slice of red velvet cake and I loved it. Marion was a little better in this ep, at least. She seemed more passionate about teaching watercolors than she ever was about Mr. Rakes. But I'm ready to be bored by her again later. And at least the opera house was a real thing where the stakes, such as they are, are more clear.

Damn.

I took it as her showing that she's working because she doesn't like to feel like she's only relying on his checks. When she was married, he gave her an allowance. The spousal support is kind of similar, but that's why she's generating her own money too. Even if yes, of course, most of her wealth comes from him, either in the form of checks or from investments she gets from investing those checks, she's saying don't just rely on someone else writing you the check. Do something for yourself that would still be there if that went away.

Seems like "This will get me cancelled" is usually just code for "people are too sensitive about social justice stuff." People don't use that term to describe stuff like shutting down or banning LGBT-stuff, for instance, even if it's literally getting something cancelled. I can't remember the last time it meant anything else.

Yeah, that spiritual healer really made me uncomfortable. Not because I had the urge to make fun of her name, but because she seemed like she was appropriating different NA ideas into standard New Age healing that costs a ton to cater to rich people. "descent" seems like it could be doing a lot of work there. Not seeing anything on her site that connects her with any actual Indigenous people or issues.

Exactly! When he first starts out I think oh, this is something I'd usually like that he's just really into this stuff. But then I realize...is he really into this stuff? Or does he just have really polished stories that he knows exactly when to use. That fact that he never gets too carried away or drones on is actually a drawback. When he asks "Am I boring you?" it's more a brag than an apology.

Right???! Exactly! He knows a little bit about many things but talks like he knows everything about everything. So many women have heard these same things! He's not doing anything bad on the show, but I'm always thinking oh god, I know this guy. And yet it's somehow fitting for Elizabeth's character that despite all her experience, I don't think she gets him. He's not a type she usually deals with (and I think she might naturally be drawn to guys speaking with authority or something.)

Just watched Crossbreed, and am trying to tease out the developments of everybody here. STAN AND OLEG Stan and Oleg are mostly just doing their jobs in this episode. We know Sofia, the Russian lady Stan and Adderholt are approaching in this ep, will eventually be important for Stan’s story, but at this point she’s just another person on his list. Oleg doesn’t seem to be particularly enjoying sending someone to prison because the guy is too afraid to give them the names of bigger fish. Stan’s threats to the CIA about confessing to killing Vlad at least seem to have worked, since Oleg’s meeting with the CIA agents in Moscow doesn’t happen, though he has no reason to think Stan really stuck his neck out for him, since it’s Stan’s tape that’s gotten him into trouble. Oleg and Stan will remain consistently different, though. Despite his fear here, Oleg will risk everything again next season when it seems important while Stan’s priority remains wanting to feel like a good guy on a personal level. For Stan, that’s more important than anything the CIA might get from Oleg, and it’s probably always been important to Stan’s character to be this way, because it’s always leading to him letting the Jennings go. Also, I notice we’re seeing Philip and Elizabeth both figuring some things out here that they’ll repress in S6. Like Elizabeth, now, obviously sees that her marriage is important to her, but she’ll go back to putting the Centre above everything. And Philip says something here about how he used to have so little and now has so much, but when he’s “retired” and has nothing but the agency to occupy his time, he’ll start chasing more stuff. GABRIEL Gabriel’s made the decision to leave after lying to Philip about Mischa—or at least keeping him a secret. Claudia, of course, not only thinks he’d did the right thing but considers Philip to have lied to him first, so he’s the real problem. I do love Gabriel saying Mischa looked like Philip when he’s worried about something, and when he says Philip’s not happy these days Claudia asks if he ever is. Claudia and Philip often snipe at the other from afar. People sometimes say they don’t buy that Philip would love Elizabeth, but mostly the times he’s happy, it’s because of her. BEN STOBERT Elizabeth’s source is still tiresome to me, though not to her. I ask myself why this guy who’s so into all these different interesting things wants to be with the woman Elizabeth is pretending to be, a marketer who works in fashion. It’s not really a mystery. The answer is that he isn’t really into her. It seems like he’s almost got a file of just exotic info to use with women. Every time he starts talking, I hear Joey Tribbiani from Friends: “Years ago, when I was backpacking through western Europe, I was just outside Barcelona hiking in the foothills of Mount Tibidabo…” I almost wonder what he’s like when he’s with men, since he’s probably not asking them to stick out their tongue like ancient Chinese medicine says to do, or jumping up to do Tai Chi with them. Elizabeth just has to laugh and follow along when she’s with him. He talks just enough about her to be flattering, but doesn’t really need her to talk about herself. If Philip got seriously into Tai Chi, she’d be rolling her eyes big time. It does always amuse me how Elizabeth so often gets paired with sources who have something cool they want to teach her. HENRY Henry confirms that yes, he’s into this Chris person that his parents already know he’s into, though she’s not his girlfriend yet. Again, people always seemed to stick with this impression that Henry’s still always with Stan when this scene reminds us that Henry is over that phase now, even if he still likes Stan. And Stan actually isn’t more up to date on Henry’s life than his parents are. He complains about his parents assuming he’d screwed up again when his teacher called to Stan—because it’s his parents’ opinion gets under his skin. Stan assures him he was always smart and just never worked at it before, but of course, that’s exactly what his parents were saying to begin with. Of course, even when talking to Stan Henry gets asked about Paige. Henry’s the Jan Brady of the family and Paige is Marcia. I still don’t think it’s a coincidence that Henry’s big love story is yet again with a girl he’ll never actually go out with afawk. His model for romantic relationships is his mother, poor thing. PAIGE I don’t know if Paige’s scene with the Mary Kay lady was supposed to hint at her vulnerability to manipulation, but she seems to genuinely consider Elizabeth’s firm “No thank you” to the saleslady to be “not very nice” when I’d think a girl her age would be more aware about not having to indulge a salesperson. I originally wondered if Elizabeth’s telling her that it’s nicer to just not waste the woman’s time if they’re not going to buy anything was going to lead to Paige breaking up with Matthew, but that’s not in this ep. However, Paige does start sending up serious signals in this ep about wanting to be recruited. She seems to already understand that Elizabeth is the recruiter. If she wants a rosy view of what they’re doing, she goes to Elizabeth because Philip’s not offering a rosy anything—nor is he ever taking any bait she lays down to bring her into their world. Philip represents the harder work of finding her own way alone. Elizabeth finds her reading the Marx essays that Pastor Tim gave her. Paige says she agrees with a lot of what Marx says, but notes that he doesn’t like religion. As usual, when Paige talks about religion, it doesn’t seem like she believes in God at all. When asked what she thinks about religion being a drug that keeps people in chains, she doesn’t talk about God being real, or suggest, as many Christians would, that on the contrary, God makes her free. She doesn’t talk about God at all. She just as she’s deciding between two clubs. The day she got baptized was the happiest she’s ever been…but maybe Elizabeth’s club can give her the same sense of belonging. That’s one thing Paige imagines she’ll get with Elizabeth: not being alone. Paige very rarely asks about life in Russia, but here she asks what it’s like there, if the Soviet Union has indeed solved all the problems of inequality. Elizabeth admits that they also have “problems,” but that they’re “all in it together.” This is exactly what Paige wants to hear and maybe Elizabeth gets that. Paige hasn’t drunk the Kool-Aid quite yet, because she points out that Elizabeth hasn’t been there for years, just like Philip says. It’s not a coincidence that when she’s being truer to herself, Paige sounds more like Philip—not because she’s like him, but because he wants her to be herself and question things. Whenever she’s in a recruiting scene, Elizabeth still takes on this certain affect with Paige where she sounds like Pastor Tim. She affects the same performative interest in Paige’s opinions, asking her questions as if she really cares about Paige’s answers when really, she’s pushing her towards the answer she wants. She even responds to Paige’s challenges with a sort of exaggerated bon amie. Paige isn’t yet ready to completely jump from Pastor Tim to Elizabeth, but both speak to her like a child. It’s just an interesting pattern with Paige that she really does seem to be vulnerable to this kind of manipulation, and I think we’re maybe meant to see her as regressing when she’s drawn to this sort of thing. PHILIP The real meat of the episodes is with Philip and Elizabeth, with a therapy theme running through. The two of them have completely different responses to it. When Elizabeth returns from her fake therapy session in Topeka, Philip asks if the doctor asked about her dreams because he’s heard they do that. It’s one of those little moments where the show reminds us that as much as people often want Philip to be American, he’s just as Russian as Elizabeth and sometimes is going to view aspects of US life with ignorance and suspicion. He’s already in quasi-therapy, basically, in EST, but he doesn’t know it. Despite that, he seems to be sort of trying to create a therapy session with Elizabeth, telling her how he keeps remembering these men who glared at him and his brother. (Oh, did he mention he had a brother? Because he does and that’s apparently not a shock.) Elizabeth first tries to draw some practical conclusion, asking if the boys that beat Philip up were the sons of the guys who glared at him, but Philip doesn’t seem to make any connection there. (Honestly, if they were they probably would have said something about his father at some point and why would they need to be?) Elizabeth suggests he see Gabriel about this, since he’s read Philip’s file and won’t be there much longer. That’s how Philip finally learns that his father was a guard at a prison camp. Just as Elizabeth tried to find an easy answer to connect the boys that beat Philip up with the men he remembers, Philip seems to also want to find some easy answer here: did the Centre come for him because his father worked for them too? It an odd conclusion. A prison guard wasn’t some glamorous job. Connecting the two seems like thinking that one’s father being a janitor at Princeton explains why someone got into Princeton as a student. Philip putting them together seems more about his own issues, wondering if he’s genetically a killer. But there again, Gabriel can’t help. His father being a prison guard doesn’t really say anything about either him or Philip except that he took the job for whatever reason. Philip asks why Gabriel didn’t tell him this, but it seems like the obvious reason is why would Gabriel think he needed to tell him? Shouldn’t Philip know that himself? Whatever he says about his mother never telling him, I’m not so sure this fact was as hidden from him as it seems to him now. Everything Philip is saying here should be considered a preview of what Henry’s going to be thinking post-series. Hopefully to his own very good therapist. What Philip ultimately draws from this is that it’s sad that he didn’t know his parents. I’ve heard him saying that, btw, used as proof that Philip didn’t care about his family, that they were strangers in the sense that he didn’t give a damn about them, but he’s obviously talking about his parents the way Henry someday will. Far from not caring about them, he thinks it’s sad that he never knew them as people instead of just parents. And that leads him to bring Paige to meet Gabriel. I feel like this moment is one of those times where Philip accidentally makes Paige a more likely recruit. He probably feels more comfortable bringing her to meet Gabriel because he’s leaving the country, but Claudia will no doubt use Paige’s impression of a handler as family to make herself seem more trustworthy, despite not being like family at all. ELIZABETH Elizabeth starts the ep in conversation with Gabriel about how the wheat plot was a lie. It’s really just funny listening to them insist to each other that they feel terrible about the mistake in order to talk about Philip, because they both know he’s the only one who actually feels bad about it. Elizabeth goes to see a therapist to plan on breaking into his office. She makes up a story about being mugged that seems based on Paige’s experience, including the self-defense classes. But she’s totally resistant to the doctor’s thoughts on it, rejecting the word “trauma” to describe what happened and rolling her eyes on her way out after he tells her that she can’t just go back to the way things were. That part, I think, is about Elizabeth and Timoshev rather than Paige. She dealt with her rape by learning to defend herself physically, dealing with the threat outside of herself. She doesn’t want to believe that the trauma changed who she was, or that she should deal with it head on. This is exactly the solution she’s trying to offer Paige, forgetting any development she’s made during the show with Philip. In fact, even Stobert carries this theme by telling her that she’s hiding emotional turmoil inside even when—maybe especially when—she’s in a softer emotional state. This is coming up in a number of ways, too, like when she asks Gabriel if something is wrong with her for not wanting to continue seeing Stobert. As far as she’s concerned, there’s feelings and there’s work, and if the former interferes with her enthusiasm for the latter, it means she’s doing wrong. One of the advantages to her theory that the guys who attacked Philip as a kid were the sons of men with something against his father is it avoids the fact that post-war USSR was a dog-eat-dog world. Citizens might have felt like they were all in it together during the war, but afterwards, from everything I’ve ever heard, it was a brutal place where you had to learn to defend yourself. Philip was attacked because he was small and vulnerable and had something bigger kids wanted, and he dealt with it by killing them. Naturally, Elizabeth has nothing to say about the prison camps that Philip’s now thinking about—that he probably has been thinking about since Alexei brought all this up for him. She and Gabriel similarly act as if they’ve discovered some wonderful key to ending the food shortages in the USSR through their work with Stobert, ignoring the fact that Stobert’s work protects against drought and bugs, not the supply chain issues that are the root of the actual problem. It’s subtle, but I think these moments are well chosen to show how automatically Elizabeth ignores anything like an internal problem in the USSR, be it supply issues or the GULAG. She knows the camps existed. That’s all she’ll say, even after just telling Paige that they’re all in it together in the USSR. That conversation with Paige happens after several interactions with sources in the same ep. Stobert picks up on Elizabeth being “softer” with him now because she no longer thinks he’s trying to starve the USSR. That’s how close to the surface her feelings are. Then she clearly enjoys following his Tai Chi moves. Back home, she gets a painful reminder of where this sort of things can lead when the Mary Kay rep shows up at the door, and she makes a clandestine visit to Young-Hee’s house. Another family lives there now, which is obviously a bad sign. Back in the day, many thought Young-Hee would be the story that would start to turn Elizabeth away from the Centre. Instead, we see she’s determined to not let it do that. Right after she stares at the home of the family she probably destroyed and the friend she betrayed, she comes home and works on recruiting Paige. If Paige is with her, she seems to think, she’s solved the problem. Her solution to everything is usually the same—do what she’s been taught is right and don’t look too hard at anything that might be wrong.