JBravoEcho09

It's what clued her in because she was listening with "newly woke" ears. She could have just heard it and decided he was a lying liar that lies as was previously assumed and never actually "listened" to him before.

He was always bumbling into their office lol. Yeah, she learned her lesson last time she tried to turn Elizabeth against him. "This isn't gonna go well for you, old lady" are words I'm hoping the show still lives up to. Shades of that convo are all over that latest confrontation between the two Finally, yes Paige asked a silly question. in her defense it's just a common fallacy. I work at an 8,000 person dept in the govt but everytime I tell someone that they inevitably go "Oh do you know Steve...I think he works there." It is dumb but it's that 'I don't know many of you so you must all know each other' impulse lol

I completely disagree. I think epiphanies are real and sometimes it doesn't take much to push you over the edge. She has been running herself ragged not just all season but the past three years (and to those who say oh she's doing it an episode or two before the finale, she doesn't know she's in a TV show!). I honestly think due to her natural tendencies to follow orders and lack of empathy, especially without Phillip, she has literally turned into an all-out automaton. Back when they were together he made her question her choices and kills multiple times (from the 4th episode where he convinces her to sit on the General Hague Intelligence to the episode where they fumbled the military base op to the episode with the plant schematics janitor). With him out of the picture, I think not only have her natural spy tendencies been dominating but also the lack of time due to him not helping hasn't allowed her the ability to sit back and think about anything (she's said she's been exhausted all season and it shows). Just like Stan. While many of you say he's dumb and had taken stupid pills after his highly undercover op with the Klan. He knew he was undercover there and didn't develop any personal feelings for the men he was with. This has been different. There are reasons he has been blindsided because he came into this as a person with no shield built in. As long as its taken to have him figure things out with P&E, I think it's because he needs them more than he'd like to admit. While Elizabeth has poked fun of Phillip's friendship with Stan, I honestly think (more than both of them know/would admit) that's really been the only thing stopping him from going after them (I mean we all see him targeting Elizabeth first. There's a reason for that choice.) While his spy instincts have often been repressed because of the feelings he's had for those he felt he should be loyal to, his subconscious has always been working over time. (Remember that one dream sequence with him in the office with Martha in the background stealing things off the mail robot.) So in summary, I completely buy from both of these characters "transformations" because sometimes all it takes a little push it nudge for something to click and completely change everything.

I think that's extremely true. I think the thing about Paige is that she inherited her mother and father's most abrasive qualities. Her mother's self-righteousness in her set of beliefs with her father's insistence on a moral code. Those two things together, along with Paige's quiet desperation for any sort of approval from her mother (which Henry has long since given up on as was made clear in the last two episodes), were the makings of a true pro-Russia believer. While squishier than Elizabeth, due to her being raised here and not in the hard-scramble world of post-war Russia, she is very, very much her mother. And even when she did have friends (Matthew), she ended up pushing them away when things got too complicated. Also like her mother.

Ends up the date of the speech (and probably the beginning of a lot of the anti-Russian sensationalism that many of you apparently grew up with) is March 8th, 1983. Hmmm interesting, it also seems to be the title of the S3 finale. Also many of you seemed to get much of your anti-Ruskie sentiment from your parents (clearly P&E are not going there, especially since E sticks up for Russia multiple times in S1), the news (which clearly hasn't started yet on top of multiple scenes from S1/S2/S3 where Paige and Henry ask their parents to turn off the news or are ignoring it), or movies (the earliest of which, War Games, is a few months away). So I don't think it's out of the question that Paige is in one of those inbetweener times where a lot of the fear of Russians wouldn't have been fully developed.

Oddly this episode really hit home for me in an unexpected way. They may have been surprised about the amount and intelligence of the questioning, I don't think they were caught flatfooted. I think they were caught at a crossroads. It actually reminded me of coming out to my parents. When they ambushed me with a phone bill that had the same number over and over again (my ex), my mind was racing through my cover story. It would have totally been plausible, but I had been thinking about coming out to them for months, and I just couldn't bring myself to lie more. It wasn't like I had to do it, I just knew it was time. Even if it felt forced, it was still my decision to tell the truth. I think P&E's reaction to Paige was very similar.

For me the personality and voice are totally Stassi from Vanderpump Rules.