sistermagpie

The point isn't that Ben should have brought supplies to the girls--obviously I get why he's just staying away from them now and considering them a danger to to him. But in a meta sense, we've got a bunch of mostly girl protagonists who are being shown surviving in the wilderness with at least some practical and psychological logic, showing them learning to build shelters and raise animals etc. and thinking communally, with Shauna's personal grievances threatening everyone. I'm not looking for a male authority figure representing a civilizing influence to show how the girls are morally inferior on their own. Losing his leg is enough trauma to cut him more slack than anybody else in the crash, and he had Misty on top of that, but it's not like he was established as caring about the girls even before they left. When he spent much of last season hiding in a fantasy world we saw he considered them monsters he resented having to deal with even before the crash, because he chose that job for self-protection over a scarier life that included connection to his boyfriend. Obviously compared to a bunch of murdering cannibals he's better, but that doens't make him somebody I can root for all that much. I'm fine with him living in his big womb cave with his boxes of food and potential cave friend and Natalie's protection, but his being freaked out by the girls doesn't make him a moral symbol. Hiding is just his thing.

Yeah, that definitely seemed like a possibility to me too. Especially since Tai just showed up at her door--that would seem like a sign to Van.

Nah, I think being married to Jackie would have made him feel like his whole life was dinner with those douchebags. I admit, I'd be annoyed at Ben having any kind of group. He retreated into his own issues about his own life early on. The girls have believably, imo, come up with ways to survive in the wilderness. He doesn't need to drink any Kool Aid because he's finding cheat boxes of hot chocolate for himself. Wonder if Hilary Swank is set up as what's her face Shauna was kissing in the wilderness, the one who has a personality now. I can't see how they could be blamed for his death at all. A healthy young man a totally unexpected heart attack. The fact that he happened to be running after these two middle aged women doesn't seem like it could really be their problem. I did like the hot chocolate call back. Jackie seemed to be seeing a vision of Cabin Guy at her death, and he presumably buried the box of stuff. I hope there isn't somebody else living down there with Coach but I'm afraid it will turn out his wife or daughter or something is there, icking out male survivors to take care of. I'm thinking Van got some surprisingly good news at Urgent Care that will be connected to the death of that waiter. Poor Misty had her first sleepover and wound up the girl that got pranked and sent home early. I really don't get Shauna letting her drive home in that state. I'm hoping at least Misty did pull a "you're ot the boss of me" moment at least. The person following Shauna story really does feel like another tedious retread of the blackmailing thing. It just doesn't seem like they ever know what they're doing in the present day timeline, although parts of it work for me. I don't feel like the past timeline is being dragged out as some said, though.

Finally got to see the first ep! I liked the first one so far. I agree with the above thoughts about Mari and Shauna--I feel like the hostility was on Shauna's side and Mari is just reacting to it. I immediately thought of Jackie picking Mari to cozy up to when she was mad at Shauna, and Mari being eager to use that to her advantage, but Shauna's so full of rage I don't think Mari feels anything on that level for her. It really was unjust that Nat punished both of them for the soup thing. I was mostly wondering why Akeelah and Mari weren't interacting since they used to be best friends. I was worried about Callie having too much of the wrong kind of focus after Lottie's "she's so strong" line, but I liked her story in this ep. I liked Misty a lot in this ep--I wasn't sure if the other women would really be ignoring her phone calls. We know they do that sometimes, but not always, and they already had wondered why she wasn't at the memorial. They would have at least talked to her if she'd gone. I liked her attempt to be Nat--and it's nice they can easily just use Sophie Thatcher to haunt Misty instead of Juliet Lewis. I'm taking the little society they've built as real. They've had months with nothing to think about but how to make some shelter. Really, Coach Ben's survival seems like it needs more explanation--I guess there is just stuff somewhere for him to live on in Javi's hideout. There are people who consider Coach Ben a big victim and the true hero who basically was right to burn down the cabin if he did (self defense!) but I just couldn't help but still see him as representing the patriarchal survivalist story--the one guy who just thinks about himself and his survival and conquers the wilderness vs. the girls who form a society and work together. Like when he found the supplies underground I thought yeah, of course he's going to drag it back to his lair while the girls would have shared it amongst everyone. Definitely wondering if it will turn out he didn't burn down the cabin. I wonder if Laura Lee wasn't mentioned as a sacrifice because "the wildnerness" didn't kill her, she died flying out in a plane (plus she was so clearly would not have been part of the wildnerness cult.)

I have no problem with somebody trying to have a kid if they want (but yeah, she should be thinking long and hard about what that could mean for the child), but talking about it as a dealbreaker in a relationship between two near-50-year-olds was hilarious.

I actually don't even think she's parentified at all. (The rest--definitely, they are damaging her.) Not any more than any older sister teenager in the 80s. She's got no adult responsibilities when we meet her. When she gets old enough to babysit and her parents aren't home she's in charge so might make dinner, but that wasn't unusual. It's just that to me she seems to be trying to parentify herself through the series to have someone to pull rank on, but Henry never relates to her as a caretaker or someone he relies on at all. Of course, she does get a massive adult responsiblity dumped on her when she's still a kid when her parents tell her their secret--but she's completely unprepared for it. (Not that anyone could be totally prepared for that.) Henry's actually more adult-ready than Paige was at the same age, imo. I remember there's a scene where Gabriel tells Elizabeth she's done a good job with Paige because she doesn't think life owes her happiness or something like that and I thought....have you met Paige? Not that she always expects happiness, but she absolutely thinks it's unjust that she has this stuff to deal with. If she could speak to a manager about it, she would. This seems even underlined when she asks Philip if he liked his hometown and he smiles, amused, and says they didn't think like that. Paige the middle class American naturally spends time thinking about how she'd rather things were. Yeah, and the way Tim's characterized he would totally be able to justify getting with Paige when she was older. He's not a predator, but there's a lot in his characterization, imo, that suggests his morals haven't been tested. I remember someone once getting defensive over them, as if people were saying she was funny looking. But it's not about looks at all, it's an acting issue.

LOL! I remember them trying to push the whole "Russian soul" thing and I kept thinking...I don't think that expression means whatever you think it means here. She's an American girl, surrounded by Russian characters and actual Russian actors. But yeah, it's totally Paige who just noticed there's no black people in the suburb she's lived in her whole life but is going to change that through non-violent resistance and has no interest in Russia whatsoever beyond whether it might lead her to true love who's the soul of Russia. She makes every scene feel like a Chekhov play. Her voice is a balalaika.

I remember the show runners being all astonished that people thought there was something shady about Pastor Tim and I thought...dudes, you wrote the guy as taking 600.00 from a 14-year old and acting like it was an honest mistake to assume her parents knew. And then have the kid over for a sleepover with the same excuse. How can you possibly say he's not shady? That, plus all the possessiveness and pushiness--Philip can't be the only dad who's nearly punched this guy. I didn't think they were going for sex predator, but it also seemed like he could easily wind up in bed with Paige down the line when she grew up if things went on. Just because she was such a fangirl of him and the guy's clearly got an ego. The one thing about it that does work is Paige being sort of parallel to Elizabeth in not realizing the difference between people who actually love you and people whose job it is to care for you. Like, institutions don't love you. When Tim and Alice say they love you, they mean you're one of many nice kids in the youth group. That's also why I always think it's funny when people think Paige at the end is going to go to Argentina to find Pastor Tim. Not that I think she ever would, but I just imagine Alice's face at Paige showing up with a suitcase. You know she ripped Tim a new one when he came back from Africa and told him the tape story was going to stay.

Exactly! I remember first time round I assume the problem was that it's probably hard to imagine what it would feel like to get this kind of a blow to your identity, so that's why she's fine in the role pre-reveal. But on rewatch I realized that the problem starts, imo, even before that, at the start of S3. That's the moment when Paige stops being written as a child and more like a teenager. Before that, playing the surface of the scene is fine, because the text is the point. But, for instance, in retrospect I started realizing how she ought to be making her search for the secret the subtext of practically every scene. We should feel how this can't go on forever. But instead the only time she seems to be thinking about it is when that's in the text. Yes--there were a lot of times where it seemed unlikely that the other person in the scene with her wouldn't say, "OMG, what's wrong?" because she had that stricken look on her face. And yes, there are times where it's supposed to be noticeable to others, but not guilty Golden Retriever noticeable. Like there's that whole sequence where everybody's watching The Day After and I haven't rewatched that ep yet, but I remember feeling at the time like Paige really stood out. Everybody else seemed to be doing a good job portraying their character watching this TV movie about a nuclear attack--it was interesting watching them, wondering what was going on in their head exactly. Everybody's reactions seemed to fit, including Young Hee, who's weepy because she's already established she's a crier who cries at everything in movies. Paige, however, looked like she was trying to Act, with dramatic expressions like "This is upsetting to me" and "This movie is making me think about this happening to people in the world" and "The idea of a nuclear war is a lot scarier for me than anyone else." Yes, an emotionally most of the actors create an emotion inside themselves and it comes through on their faces, and the character will try to control the emotion as the character would--like people do in real life. With Paige, if she's supposed to be sad, she tries to make herself cry by imitating crying. If she's mad she'll start speaking loud and fast. And eventually it seems like she also lands on the idea that she should indicate that there's a lot going on inside her by looking confused, doing the eyebrows and taking deep breaths, as if she's still not sure what emotion she's feeling yet and she's trying so damn hard to figure it out! Or a good example of the subtext missing from all of S6 is in the fight with Philip in S6. Her arrogance in that scene would play so differently if you could see it was covering up how disturbed she is at what Philip's doing/asking.

Hate that! She was born in 67--total nitpick, but I only say it because I was born in 68 and spent most of the show thinking she was also born the same year so we'd have been in the same class. When somebody corrected me I was sure I was right--but then I worked it out and they were right. She'd have been born probably in November 1967, class of 1985--it lines up with everything we've got for her on the show. I recently watched "Say Nothing," another F/X show, this one about the IRA and it definitely made me think of P&E. Lots of people who did terrible things believing it was for the greater good, and winding up thinking it was all for nothing. There are so many people who historically have part of things like that that fizzle out or lose support or get put down. It seems so important in that moment, but in the future people are like, "Oh yeah, that was a thing at that time." I do really like that I can imagine one thing, then imagine something else. There's no ideas about what will happen that I really think are right, just a few general vibes that seem right to me. Because everybody's lives are going to change. People often seem to do what to me seems like a Harry Potter future, where they take something the character did during the show and assume their life will be based around that when that's not realistic. But of course, when people try to deal with building a whole new world for people it's completely made up so it's probably not right either. Like if I could never predict season 4 after season 3, how could I know the future post-show? It's going to be really complicated. I feel like P&E are going to have to find their own way, the two of them, rather than slot into any standard types of 90s Russia, for instance. On one hand, you could argue that her character's development is stunted by everything that happened so she kind of is 17 still at the end. But that really doesn't seem to be anybody's intention--on the contrary it feels like the show wants her to be mature and outgrowing Elizabeth's control. But I agree, it doesn't seem like it. (To me, that's never more obvious as in that confrontation with Elizabeth over honeytrapping Jackson. I've probably analyzed that scene more than any other on the show and it seems like it's meant to be Paige having a realization about herself and finally being able to face Elizabeth on her level as an adult--but instead it's just a repeat of adolescent Paige confronting Elizabeth in David Copperfield.) Part of it is to me she seems to still be a child actor even at the end, which makes the character seem childlike. Paige doesn't seem like she exists between scenes--she sleeps in the prop closet, as somebody I knew once used to say. It occured to me, for instance, after watching Darkroom how it probably should feel like something happened when she sends Pastor Tim away. The relationship should have some weight just for how long we've been with it. He's been on since S2 and he's been a big part of Paige's life. Their relationship has changed a lot. But I honestly don't feel like they had any relationship at all. I don't feel like he ever meant anything to her, so it barely even seems like a change. Like with Stan and Henry, I feel like those two have the relationship presented on the show--they went through a period of hanging out when they both wanted it and Henry was a little kid, and now they have a residual fondness for each other. With Pastor Tim it's just more like, "Oh, are you still on the show?" even though he's the main person in Paige's life after her parents. It doesn't even feel like he's somebody she used to worship and has grown to dislike. It's just really hard to feel anything for or with her, even though on paper she's in a juicy complicated situation. Her biggest moments all become about what other people are feeling--like when she gets off the train or when her parents tell her their secret. Their relationship with Pastor Tim seems real! LOL. Yeah, it's kinda...it really might have been better to just have Stan call him over off the hockey rink and have Henry skate over to him looking wary. That was such a great addition to the show--I think I also wrote some whole thing here about my theory that one of the other purposes Hans fills is to show us what an imperfect but competent newbie looks like. A lot of Paige's spy scenes echo his, but to contrast how much she's failing.

Also funny that I remember MR saying how much he hated that scene because he thinks he's a terrible dancer and they had to keep yelling at him to look like he was having fun. I think he doth protest too much. That song's become a real Americans connect for me too! I tend to think that too. With Gorbachev still in power, seems like he'd be able to put in a good word for him, especially if there's any way to prove he was uncovering a plot that was about Russia--and that was working against the USA's interests as well. I always figured Claudia was supposed to be telling us something of the truth when she imagined them all doomed if they got caught in their plot. I don't think they'll vanish completely, obviously, but I don't think Arkady, the Burovs or the Jennings are in much danger from them. After all, it's not like they betrayed them or anything. They weren't part of their group to begin with. Except a Elizabeth who got tricked into it. I think because her main thing was she can't really live happily as anybody but her exact self. She wants to be Paige in America who gets to tell people about her weird parents, at least. But it seems really fitting to me how despite the fact that they make a point of showing her having to face the future alone, it's hard not to imagine her next step as seeking out some adult from her life to take care of her--go to Stan, go to Pastor Tim. Some even mistakenly think she's in there expecting Claudia for help. (And yet some this also goes along with the idea she's somehow going to "take care" of Henry--makes no sense to me.) Totally agree--I love that gesture!

I remember someone saying that everytime they cut to a Paige/Matthew scene they felt like they were suddenly watching a high school play and I admit, I see it. Though there is something believable in them both being kind of bland people who are into each other because they're conveniently located and the correct gender and age. Although it's hilarious how he unintentionaly makes things uncomfortable by asking obvious questions about Nina. Like how dare he suggest that spies you're playing can play you back! He really does manage to find so many people willing to do that emotional labor for him. Philip offers to have his date over for dinner to make it easier for Stan. Then there's Tori the EST woman who, annoying as she is, is willing to call Stan for a date and just keep offering herself. He's a super easy target. Yes! And he knows he's there to do just that but he's just soooo reuctant to do it. And she's so gleeful when she gets him to do it. She's so cute in that scene. I love the moment when she starts to dance and she's obviously questioning hersef about whether she looks cool or not. She's performing even harder than Philip is, because she's really invested. Yes! I think it certainly makes him feel guilty, but honestly doesn't seem to have any great insight into him personally. Even when he tells her something true about himself, it's usually with the purpose of getting her on his side and it just works. Like it sometimes strikes me how transactional the Clark/Martha relationship always is. Somebody recently even described the two of them as working things out collaboratively and I thought that was nuts. He only cares what she wants to the extent that he has to work around it to get what he needs. But Martha, too, does a lot of quid pro quo. Like the first time he spends the night she basically lays out how she loves him and will do all this stuff for him...so he needs to prove something by staying the night. Likewise, when he proposes, he does it because he knows he has to give her something big to get something big in return. Martha is always, on some level, aware that her power in the relationship comes from what she's giving him and doing for him. Yeah, I think he gets a chance to help a teenager with a lying parent. Also I feel like it makes him think about being a teenager himself in some ways, how he was manipulated. Of course he sees that with Paige too, but with Kimmy he's not her father. I wonder sometimes if on some level he gets that in some ways he's a stunted adolescent since his development was taken over by the Centre around that time. His character, Jim, is able to sort of grow up with her in ways that the real Jim never would have.

Takes toothpick out of mouth: "It's me, Lazlo!" The other line that cracked me up every time was the "other immigrants who are entering this country illegally."

Totally worth watching it 3x!!!!

Hurray! The different endings rumors are truuuuuee! Love Rosemary's Baby, and my favorite part was the Guide imitating Laura Louise's sticking her tongue out at Rosemary/Nadja. Perfectly done!

Nailed it! I'm going to miss all these guys and I can't wait to see what they all do next. Especially Harvey--loved him since Huge and he actually made that Kid Cowboy outfit work especially well!

Right?! It's so weird to me. Music has always been tied to fashion, but the 80s was maybe one of the most obvious decades for that. I look at Matthew and can't begin to guess what kind of music he's into, yet he's supposed to be into music enough that he briefly imagined himself in a band? He looks like he's wearing the same fashion he wore in elementary school in the 70s. Who's even cutting his hair like that? Yet he's okay wearing eyeliner? That was always a big thing to me that Stan was presented as exactly as subtly racist as a suburban guy of his age in that time would be in polite company....yet we're supposed to believe he lived as a Nazi for 3 years? I'm not saying he actually is the guy he pretended to be, but that ought to be informing a lot of his interactions in some way. He talks about them being violent but leaves out the bigotry that is the basis for the whole thing. I remember a quote where Matthew Rhys said they were working on the look for Jim and the costume/make up/hair people kept asking women, "So, if you were 16...." which of course made him even more skeeved out. LOL! I love Julia Garner ass Kimmy. Whenever somebody talks about Martha being some great outlet for Philip where he finds comfort or help etc. And once you can relax about him not having sex with her (until she's older, at least) I kind of like the relationship. I feel like it gets Philip thinking about or processing things in his own life in ways many people seem to think only Martha does. But I feel like there's less stress with Kimmy since he's not trying to get her to do anything for him except hang out.

I remember people trying to rewrite him as a good guy, like as if he was actually at Martha's because he thought she was turned and was trying to catch Clark or whatever and just...no. The guy's literally just trying to use his badge to scare off a potential rival. And this after he only lost Martha because he cheated on her. Something we know he's going to keep doing, since his entire relationship with Stan seems to be about encouraging him to cheat on his hot wife. Sorry but yeah, there's some satisfaction in watching a law enforcement agent try to bully a civilian and finding out he's outmatched. Philip gave him a chance to get away. Philip wasn't even armed--Amador pulled a gun and a knife! He's definitely part of the reason Martha is so open to Clark too.

Totally--and with good reason! I remember there's also a scene where Stan drops by his house and Gaad's pointedly reminding him of how Stan's screwed up his life. In fact, iirc, Stan says says something apologetically like "I feel responsible for that" and Gaad says, "You are responsible for it." And Gaad's right! It would be like Philip saying he feels responsible for the state of Martha's life as if he's being generous. It's one of the things I find so amusing about Stan and lines like this really show it's intentional. It kind of slips the maverick hero stereotype on its head when he mentions how most of the office hates him. But it also sets up how this guy will have no guilt about letting the Jennings go.

Yes! I so believe he did this. It's amazing to think how he first appears in, I think, episode 2 as the second in command and then goes on to be one of the most universally beloved characters, all without ever having to do anything super flashy. He's not killing anybody etc., but spray-painting those cars is just it. I admit I completely cheered in that scene with him and Oleg bringing in Philip. It's the perfect contrast to what's going on with Claudia and her gang and Elizabeth. Arkady wants guys who sometimes go rogue because he wants people who are genuinely volunteering for this mission he knows he can trust. Matthew's hair is one of the biggest mysteries of the series to me. I think I even did a post on one of the S4 eps about how weird it is that one of the few things we know about him is that he went to Rocky Horror and was in a band early on, yet dresses and does his hair like he's never heard of MTV, much less chosen a favorite band. It's true! We do get a couple of CIA women (Gaad's colleague that helps in the would-be Arkady kidnapping) and the woman Elizabeth gets the Afghan committee list from--but even she's almost turned because of sexism! The FBI, meanwhile, seems like a big boy's club. I wonder if the domestic Russian law enforcement would skew the same way. He does have some of the best lines (my personal fave: Disappeared? Is she Doug Henning?). I also really do like the way the show hints at his backstory in Vietnam without it being cliche at all. Heh--makes me think of that moment when Stan says he didn't serve since he was in the FBI at the time and Gaad says he was too but he volunteered with just the right amount of potential judgemental tone. That scene they have in the snow always reminds me of that winter's snowpocolypse.

And when he shows up again he basically becomes the big damn hero, figuring out the plot and choosing Oleg and Philip for his team to save Gorbachev. Couldn't have asked for better for Arkady--the guy who came up with the abort signal on the cars back in S1! I really did find it frustrating, I admit. I remember saying something about wanting more Philip/Henry scenes on Twitter and one of the Joel's either replied or liked it, making me think one was coming up...but then it didn't. That scene's like the quintessential Stan--right up there with having Henry there acting like he owns the place when Matthew finally comes back to visit him. "Hey, just wanted to make it clear that I've got plenty of time to hang out with kids, I'm just avoiding you." Then when he sees Mrs. Gaad she talks about none of the FBI guys coming to see her and Stan, who seems to have worked pretty closely with the guy, has only come to get her blessing to protect some random KGB guy after the KGB killed her husband.

Yeah, on rewatch there's a lot of parallel stuff between Henry and Philip that doesn't get underlined, but is there. Henry's life echoes Philip's a lot even without each one knowing about the other one. It took me a long time to connect these two things too! I really appreciate how many repercussions that act had--and such a stupid act it was. It's one of the many things that damages Gaad's career, and Gaad even reminds Stan of it, but Stan never really stops wanting support from Gaad (or his widow). LOL!

Yeah, I cringe at that line. It sounds like Paige has no idea what she means or why she's saying it, but I can't blame the actress on that one. I haven't gotten to S6 yet in my rewatch, but when I think about it, it seems like a lot of the time Elizabeth is trying to convince herself that everything's going well when it obviously isn't. Like when Paige screws up with losing her ID Elizabeth just assures her that that's normal (which it isn't), then randomly tells Philip that Paige is good at this stuff even after she realizes that not only did Paige lose her ID, she got the guy's name totally wrong. She even tries to tell Philip that she did that, but makes it seem much less important than it was. Then over the season she seems to get more freaked out by the problems so she's more aggressive about telling her she did wrong, but still acts like it's fine. So I tend to take as her just really trying to believe things are the way she wants them to be, if she just makes some adjustments like cleaning up after Paige's mistakes or getting her into a desk job where she's "safe?" It's maybe a bit harder to buy given that Paige always seemed to come across as so arrogant and clueless! I remember people thinking that at the time--especially when I think she uses a birthmark on her face at one point that people thought seemed like it was real. Oh yeah, I think he definitely gets treated as the younger kid who got away with more. Although Paige also often objected more to everything, so that might have played into it too.Like when he's breaking into houses we know that Henry already felt really bad about it...but you can definitely still see it from Paige's pov as the big sister.

All Glory to God, I thought. Loved this ep and it made a great ending. Everybody made good choices to move forward and be healthy and happy. I was looking for Iceland throughout Sam's song, and I loved how they first just showed him in the background watching her. Oh, and love that Sam's now volunteering at the pet shelter. I see a foster fail in her future. I didn't even mind the lack of resolution to Fred's marriage story--or I guess it's more accurate to say it was just a subtle resolution. Brad and Joel don't do everything together, but it seems like it's in a good way, where they both understand why the other is doing something else, and they can be a little disappointed, but it's okay. I totally get why of course it would be easier for Joel to talk about this with Sam than with Brad--and I loved how we saw why Brad loved his church the way Joel loved his. Him being all excited about the sermon and having all these questions was so Brad--this is the same guy who gave Joel that great history lesson (real and made up) on their first date. It's something Joel loves about Brad, but doesn't share. But with Fred it seems like it's less healthy. His wife is just putting down rules and it doesn't seem like it's something she's as open to talking about as Brad, so Fred is just going to work around her. In fact, it was nice how the show had little nods to that, like the way that, iirc, Joel waved to the guy who used to bully him in school. He'd accepted his apology, but he didn't want him in his life. Likewise it would have been false for Susie to be at the bar at the end. But Fred was, so it was happy.

I do agree about that Philip scene--it's so funny the few times he really allows himself to get fully annoyed at somebody. And both Tuan and Paige come across as so insufferable and arrogant respectively in those scenes. (That's another scene where going by my memory of it, I feel would play much more interestingly if Paige could do subtext! Yeah, I think she's got to be thinking of Tuan and imagining Paige in some way. But I also wonder if Elizabeth is more thinking that would be fine for Paige to not have a true partner, since she's imagining Paige having a very different job than she has. Plus, at that point she might be just imagining her having her mother. For instance, I get the opposite impression. I think she's convinced herself Paige will just photocopy things at the state department and never have to use sex. In the scene where they talk about their first times, Claudia does introduce thte idea of sex in exchange for something--and Paige rejects the idea. But I can't believe Elizabeth's "first time" story is true at all. She was definitely telling the truth to Philip when she said she'd never had a boyfriend. I don't think she was trying to have sex with a rando whose name she doesn't even remember just to do it. So to me it seems like she goes back and forth because she's so conflicted about it. She blatantly lies about sex work being part of her job even when Paige knows it's true (until Paige really pushes her), but she's also so freaked out about the idea of Paige ever doing it that she makes it totally obvious that she's lying about it being a thing. It's very strange, because Stan is obviously not able to do what he needs to do as a father, but somehow people think he can make up for it by entertaining the kid across the street That's so not parenting! I have a theory about Henry, too, there, where people assume that since he hangs out with Stan it means he's specifically lacking a father, when to me it seems like the reason Henry has a series of older male role models and mentors and male friends in his life (Stan, Matthew, his guidance counselor, Chris's dad, dads of his friends at school, the hockey coach...) is in part because he's so comfortable with men because of his father's always been warm and nurturing. Meanwhile, his history with women is a string of girls he can't have, whether it's Sandra Beeman, his science teacher, Brooke Sheilds, Chris (who never seems to become his actual girlfriend) and some girl at school he says dumped him for reasons he doesn't understand in S6. It's almost too perfect how he's recreating his parental relationships to me. He loves his Dad, but maybe senses he doesn't really know him so fills that with men who are fully themselves and want to guide him. He loves his mom, but... She does wear them well! But yeah, compare her to Sandra and she just seems barely real.