AliShibaz

Well said. That was an eye-opener for me. Now what about Tim's wife? It's probably not fair to expect him to "minister" to his wife and explain (in much nicer terms) that she acted like a real shithead and no matter how many members of the Jennings family tells Tim & Alice that her actions were "understandable", she really needs to do something more to balance the scales. For one thing, she could ask P&E how they are feeling towards her and if there is anything she can do to atone for her (I'm at wits end trying to think of a way to describe her behavior that doesn't involve curse words). Alice could admit to P&E that she behaved in a way that was contrary to her faith and she needs to ask them for forgiveness or explain she would like to know just what she could do to make things right with them. I'm not suggesting she should offer to give them the tape or that they should ask her to hand it over. Isn't it strange that it somehow seems wrong for either party to break the ice and be the first one to talk about the tape? Besides which, how can P&E ever feel certain that all copies of the tape has been destroyed? On my darker days, I still feel the best solution would be my darkest solution. But if this were a real life incident, I don't think I'd feel right about doing that - and I can be a very nasty and vindictive person. But there is a big difference between wishing someone would disappear and taking a hand to help make that happen. I have never been forced to confront these darker aspects of my nature in real life. I view this as a real testament to the power of this show that I feel the need to do that now about a TV show whereas I've never been forced to do that in real life.

I just saw a movie starring Keri Russel called "Waitress" (2007). It's not a very good movie. But I enjoyed it and you may enjoy it too. It's kind of sweet and sappy. But the one interesting part is that she is pregnant and has a baby daughter and the relationship she has with her daughter is really heart warming to see and reminded me of her relationship with her kids on The Americans. She has a husband who hits her. He smacks her in the face - more than once. Eventually she tells him to, "get lost" and we never see him again. I would have liked it had they spent more time dealing with the process of his getting kicked out of that marriage. Also, I hated the casting of the husband because they chose an actor who is very hard to believe as a bad guy who would hit his wife. This actor appeared as a good guy in "Six Feet Under". Maybe that was why I could never accept him as a bad guy in this movie. Anyway, to summarize, it was a sweet by silly movie. However, I really love Keri Russel in The Americans and I was very happy to watch her in this movie. I can't really recommend it to you. But if you love Keri as much as I do, you may enjoy it.

Wonderful because her mom intervened and prevented Paige from getting raped and/or murdered. If one of my parents ever did that for me, I would definitely consider them to be wonderful parents. I know that many people may wonder how I could ever consider E and P to be wonderful people. Perhaps it would have been better had I narrowed the focus to "wonderful parents" and stuck to the incident where E prevented Paige from being harmed as well as the incident in an earlier season where Phillip prevented that pedophile who was looking to hit on Paige in the clothing store. Remember? Phillip went to visit that creep later in the day and laid a good beating on him. I would have liked to have seen what one or both of those parents would have done to that creep who picked up Paige & Henry that time they were hitchhiking. Remember? Like many people, I get somewhat carried away when it comes to dealing with Pedophiles. I really have little mercy for them because they victimize the most helpless members of our society.

I would like to see Elizabeth have a discussion with her daughter about rape. Paige will likely initiate some discussion about the mugging incident and I would guess she would begin by complaining about something - not by thanking her mother for saving her neck or praising her mother or even just asking how her mother ever learned how to defend herself like that and whether she could show Paige how to do likewise. I'd love to be a fly on the wall when E explains to Paige just how incredibly devestating it is to get raped and how it can make a person feel terrible for the rest of their lives. I'd love to hear her explain to Paige just how important it is for any woman to know enough self-defense (or carry a weapon) or something to prevent her from getting raped. I suppose that I'm being somewhat sexist. However, I'm fairly certain the crime of rape affects far more women than men. By that I mean to say that I've been convinced that women are the victims of rape far more than men are. I don't know of any exact figures. But that would just seem very likely to me. E does indeed know what it's like to be raped. If you recall that officer who voluntered to "train" her but actually raped her and called it a "perk or benefit of his job". It felt so great to see him get his just rewards. I would love to see the mugger who ran away get some kind of justice as well. But, my point is that Paige needs to understand just how excellent E behaved in saving Paige from being raped or murdered. And if she doesn't understand that, I suppose it would be consistent with her nature. But it sure would feel wonderful to me if this was the turning point whereby she finally decided her parents were indeed wonderful people and not evil people and that she decided to do most anything she could to support them in appreciation for their protection. I would be just ecstatic if this incident was a major cause of a shift in Paige's attitude that helped resolve all the problems with Tim and his Ogre wife. I believe that I would feel very justified in appreciating that development.

By any chance, are you referring to that ATF agent from Breaking Bad? If so, that enterprise did not work out very well for him. Stan is unlike most any other FBI agent I have ever known. I really do not understand Stan. He is a very different kind of FBI agent.

Sorry. I just can't go along with calling the writing lazy - no matter how sporadic. First of all, the writing has to deal with several future episodes to which we are simply not privvy. I'm sure you understand there are several episodes that have already been written and taped and waiting to be shown but have just not yet been shown. There may be future events that will bring meaning to the writing which is just not yet apparent. From everything I've seen about the "behind the scenes" working of this show, "lazy" would be the very last adjective I'd ever choose to desecribe the people who work on this show and that includes the actors, producers, directors, show runners and all the rest. Seems to me that everyone who works on this show works incredibly hard to create the very finest product possible. IMHO, they mostly succeed. Sure, there are plenty of minor things we can find to complain about and it is fun to do that. No one is perfect. But these people do a job that is head and shoulders above and beyond most every other show - even shows with much larger budgets (like Game of Thrones). So, lazy? No.

I have always thought the casting of Noah was deliberate. He often comes across as a fairly dopey fellow. He fails to notice many things. He talks out of school. Despite what we've heard about his being a great undercover FBI agent, from all that we've seen, he's really not that great. I think the show runners gave us this intentionally to allow us to enjoy the humor of our stars living next door to an FBI agent who just can't seem to figure things out. His partner Adherhold seems like a very inexperienced agent compared to Stan but he figures out way more stuff before than does. I always get a chuckle out of Stan watching movies and playing video games with a little kid.

Upon some further reflection, I've come to thinking the plan to get Don's codes was really terrible. Not just because of one excellent post above that made it clear that no highly secure building would allow two visitors to remain in Don's office while a third went out to a bank with Don. But more because they would expect to find Don's security codes in plain sight. People with high security levels would surely be trained not to write down their codes in plain view. I write my passwords down so I don't forget them. You have to nowadays when you need at least 8 characters and at least one uppercase, one lowercase, one numeral and one punctuation char. It's a real pain in the ass. But you also need a way to disguise them when you write them down so that an observer would never know to which accounts these codes or passwords belong or how to extract or translate the info they want from what is written down. There are many, many techniques that people can use to handle this. There are some apps that will handle it for you. And although I'm confident a good app could handle it in a way that was essentially "unbreakable", I would never rely 100% on some app because someone could steal my hard drive (or equivalent) and then I'd be screwed. In the 1980s, there were no "clouds" (which is a really good idea). But to bet that leaving two people in an office for 30 or 60 minutes would reveal Don's security codes is really, really dumb! The KGB is so much better than that - especially since they are being written with 30 years of hindsight. Sorry. But I have to give the writers a fail on this one tiny aspect of this episode.

A lot will depend on the first thing out of E's mouth when Paige starts to complain about it. If she just brushes it off by saying that all agents are given some training in self-defense, that should minimize the fallout. But the more she says beyond that, the worse she will make things. There is no winning with Paige.

Do you think E will stop on the way home at a pay phone and fake a call to 911 to report the incident? The purpose would be to show Paige that she had compassion for the scumbag who came at them with a knife and wanted to rape them. Otherwise, Paige will forever whine about, "How could you just leave him there to die?" If I was E and I had time to think about it, I would make a fake phone call. But of course, I would never really make the call. I would hope that he took a while to bleed out and die in the way he deserved to die. Also, I don't know if the other scumbag will call the police. I strongly doubt he will. Just try to imagine that conversation. But if he does, he did hear Paige's name and that could help put things back onto the Jennings. Where do you think Stan's partner was getting to about the mail robot? I didn't really understand. Are they likely to tie that back to the Jennings? I don't think it would be much of a stretch to tell Paige that all agents take a basic course in self-defense. The problem will be if E has no time to think of that before Paige starts whining about it. If she doesn't have any time, she may say something else that would cause problems.

Bran may well be the very worst villain of the story. In the very first episode, his mother told him, "No Climbing" and he promised he wouldn't. Then, as a result of his climbing and peeking into a bedroom window (there is a name for that - what is it called?), his father was beheaded, his mother and brother were murdered, he was crippled and Hodor was forced to carry him around and then finally killed. How many others were killed as a result of this? Summer, certainly. I seem to recall others were too. Oh yes, Theon took over Winterfell and killed a bunch of people. If you ever run into Brandon, you should run away just as far and as fast as you can. Talk about a "jinx". This kid has to be the ultimate jinx.

If IRC, their relationship began when the man was in trouble and Arya helped him out. He promised her 3 deaths because he was grateful to her. But perhaps his true gratitude took the form of knowing about her and her list and realizing she didn't have what it would take to assassinate all those people and the only way she would realize that was if she tried to join the Brotherhood and decided for herself that she just couldn't make it as an assassin. Then she would be free to rejoin her family and give up her notion of assassinating so many people. Then she could live out a good and happy life - at least as happy as Arya could ever be.

I have to wonder how much of this show is devoted to the conflict between the genders. So many times, the females have shown themselves to be much better rulers than the males. If there will be one ultimate ruler, surely it will be a female. I'd guess that Sansa will wind up ruling the North. Perhaps her lie to John will be responsible for her being unable to rule the entire world. But maybe Danerys and Sansa will strike a deal that Dany will rule all the lands and Sansa will rule the North which will be an independent kingdom within all the lands. What about the Iron Islands? They aren't part of "all the lands". They are part of the seas. So Yarrah may well win there and become the ruler of the Iron Islands. Danerys, Sansa and Yarrah. They deserve to become the winners. Am I forgetting anyone? Cersei and Margaery both have too many shortcomings and may well kill each other off long before the finals begin. But still, I have the feeling I'm forgetting someone?

OMG! and LOL! I never associated the word "sewer" with "one who sews". I thought you were referring to a sewer meaning the big pipes under a city that carries human waste. That was a real puzzle. Thank you for explaining.

If the writers wanted to show us that Paige has what it takes to become a good spy, I would think they would show her getting close to Matthew and having him tell her stuff about his dad's job. Also, they might show us Paige asking one or both of her parents how they would feel about her relaying info she heard from Matthew. By the end of the show, they could try to promote the idea that Paige will become a great spy. But I somehow doubt all of that. If she was ever seriously confronted with the idea of becoming a spy for the USSR (just like mommy), I think it would cause her to have some kind of breakdown. She just doesn't seemed equpped for that. AAMOF, she doesn't really seem to be equipped for anything - except maybe having some kind of role in her church. That seems to appeal to her. But, then again, it's just about the only thing she has ever experienced that could possibly offer her the way to participate in something.

The one plus to this plot line will be if Arya learns a bunch of superb assassination skills and then uses them on her family's enemies. That would make it worthwhile.

Can you explain what you mean by that? I'm not looking for a quarrel. I really don't understand Sansa. Someone said that Sansa trusted LF tonight. But I'm not sure that is true. If she trusted him, why didn't she let him give her the Army of the Vale and let John command them - or someone else - but not LF. My initial impression was that she told LF to get lost and we will never see him again. But I have serious doubts about that.

I couldn't help but think there was some significance to the actor who played Joffrey complaining about having two warts on his private parts. This show just doesn't seem to insert random personal remarks like that unless they are used to tie into some other situation. Is there any way that his genital warts could possibly be related to Arya's mission?

I hope this is the correct forum for this post. I recently saw Frank Langella in a couple of other roles and was extremely surprised by a couple of things. First, if you've never seen the movie, "The Twelve Chairs", you'll really be amazed to see Frang Langella (he is the lead in this movie) in 1970. You would never be able to pick him out if you had only ever seen The Americans. In 1970 he was 32 years old and he was the most incredibly handsome man I've ever seen. It's just amazing. I don't know how to post a picture in this forum or I would. On other forums, I have to open an account on some other board which is used to store pictures and although I did that once, that site was soon closed and they left a message that I had to open an account on another site and I just couldn't be bothered. Sorry. But you can always go to the IMDB site and look up the movie there. They only have some B&W pictures, but I hope there are some other ways you can see what he looked like back then. Another film he made in 1979 was "Dracula" in which he played a vampire and it was a fairly popular film. You may have seen it. If you did, you likely wouldn't remember the actor in that movie with Frank Langella in The Americans. The other thing about The Twelve Chairs is that it was directed by Mel Brooks and is described as "The forgotten Brooks movie". It has a lot of his humor and so there's a good chance you may enjoy it. Brooks also acts in this film. If you do see this movie, there is one scene where a character has to pretend to be an actor and he walks onto the stage of a live play to read his part. I found the result so funny that I had a huge LOL. If you only skim through the movie, I hope you will watch that scene. Frank Langella also appears in two other movies that I found were quite wonderful and I'd like to recommend them to you. I really enjoyed these tremendously. "Dave" (1993) casts him as the lead villian and "Muhammud Ali's Greatest Fight" (2013) was a fascinating historical drama that was almost a documentary explaining how the fighter was stripped of his World Heavyweight title championship because he wouldn't fight in Viet Nam. I never knew all the facts behind the story. But it went up to the US Supreme Court and they initially rejected hearing the case. The reasons why they then heard it and overturned the lower court were truly fascinating - especially if you have any interest in how cases are appealed. Frank Langella plays the Head Justice and does a terrific job. There are many other great actors in this film. I loved it.

A "talent for recruiting"? Really? Do you mean the part about not asking The Ogre to return this tape? You think that shows talent? Or, was it the part about pressing her parents about telling Henry? Well, believe it or not, I really don't want to say many negative things about Holly Taylor because I have posted my opinion before and I'm quite certain that it seriously angers many people. Most people here seem to admire her very much and I have to question - is it the character they admire or the actor? I must admit that I could very well be wrong. Seems like, whenever I express a contrary opinion, it angers many people. I know there must be a way to express a contrary opinion without angering people. I just don't seem to be able to do that. However, you said that, "Holly Taylor has been on fire as of late". Oh my! Oh my! Oh my! I had to summon up every little bit of strength to resist making a terrible joke about that statement. I just knew that if I had done that, I would have gotten burned at the stake. So, I will just keep my mouth shut. Can you guess the terrible joke I was going to make? I will give you two hints. The first is the Internet acronym, "DIAF". The second is my previous post(s) where I said that I don't think Holly Taylor is a very good actor because her range is so tiny. She hardly ever displays more than a single emotion. I know most people here do not agree. But, please just ask yourself how often you have seen her show any other expression(s) on her face. She usually displays either a blank face (which doesn't count) or a bewildered face. That's it and that's all! She only ever seems to play one of those two notes. And she almost never plays any others. Believe it or not, as an adult, I really do feel bad about making negative remarks about a young person? Holly? I'm sorry. I'm quite certain that you will soon display a wider range of emotions or else you will be given some scenes that demand a wider range --- and then, you can come back here and tell me to go "F" myself. I will truly deserve that. I'm sorry but I just can't go along with calling her "mezmerizing". I just can't see much acting ability. But that likely has a lot to do with her being thrust into such a tough role alongside such other great actors. Oh Shit! I'm sorry. I should just apologize and shut up.

I could not agree more. I think it's pretty clear they never stopped to consider just how they would handle things when their "kids" reached the teenage years, then the young adult years and then the adult years. They are all very different and IMO (which is not to be relied upon because I've never had any children), all these diff stages of life require diff handling. I guess my conclusion is that since children (and I know this very well from my own experience) tend to always push the boundaries and try to find just where their limits are ... it's just crazy to have children in the first place. I think it's really crystal clear to expect they will all come very close to revealing your secrets as part of their "search for limits". I know the idea of lying to your children is pretty repugnant. But it's one whole Hell of a lot better and easier than "Life imprisonment". It's just so much easier and more effective to construct a solid lie and then just lie to the children. You only need to lie about a few things. It's definitely possible that they just never had many relatives in the first place and however many relatives they did have were all lost in any one of a number of ways. That is rare, but not extremely rare and as long as they had a good solid story prepared and practiced it a few times, it would be highly unlikely the kids would ever question them at all. The show runners just failed to anticipate this problem or else, they have some kind of big crazy surprise in store for us. Either way, it doesn't feel very good to me.

I don't like the actress either. I know that I will be very much in the minority, but I find her quite unattractive. I'd use a more descriptive and more accurate term but I've seen some other people do that on another forum and they were roundly roasted, flamed, screamed at, etc. However, my biggest complaint about her has nothing to do with her looks. After watching this episode, I read several people applaud her for her wonderful acting skill. Again, I have to disagree. I don't think it's valid to call her a skilled actress because it seems to me she has only ever displayed two different moods. I don't know exactly how to describe this. But I think it's referred to as "range". It seems to me she just has no range. It's very hard to criticize her because she was plucked out of obscurity and picked to play this very young girl. Anytime a child actor is picked in this way, the show runners are taking a big chance that if the show runs for several years, she will become talented as she grows. Surely not everyone is a talented actor. I would venture a guess that a good part of the writing of this show is designed to compensate for any of the young actors who just didn't develop much talent. I expect a great deal of criticism for saying this. But the alternative is to believe that every child actor picked does develop talent as a young adult and that is silly. The actor who plays Matthew is a prime example. He seems to me to be the worst actor of them all and his role seems to be very sharply limited. I wonder if that was done after the show runners realized that he was unable to project any kind of emotion. I would guess that if he did develop more talent, they would have given him a larger part. I don't have any opinion about Henry. But it seems very odd that he gets almost no speaking parts. So many of his contributions do not involve him speaking at all. Remember when he broke into the neighbor's house to use their computer? He spent a fair bit of time on screen. But he was all alone and didn't speak a word. On the episode last night, his largest part consisted of him offscreen banging a tennis ball into the garage door. I know that I could be wrong. But doesn't that seem odd to anyone else? I've only ever seen Paige display two emotions and they both seem very similar to each other. In fact ... (I'm going to stop now because I anticipate a lot of criticism for expressing these opinions - espectially for saying the actress is just not at all actractive. I'm sorry. But that is honestly the way I feel. I'd like to write a lot more and express an even stronger opinoin. But I anticipate much criticism ahead.

I can't agree strongly enough. A POS end to a POS season. I'm surprised people aren't talking about it being time to cancel this POS show. I think it should have been cancelled a few years ago. It's past its prime. I'm saddened to see so many people will still accept this shit as good entertainment. I think it's a symptom there are so few good shows on the air and people sit back and stream good shows into their homes and ignore all the crap from the big networks. It's mostly all just terrible.

I thought maybe she could have been acting for almost anyone (including Probst) who wanted to give Tai some "fan favorite" money but didn't want to re-initialize the practice of doing this every year. But there is a more interesting issue here. When the one-hour "reunion" shows first started. Probst would spend most of the time talking to most all of the players. Now? Seems like he only spoke with a handful and there were so many other things going on. It's as if they are using this one hour show to advertise other aspects of the show and the whole thing is just miserable - awful - terrible - definitely not worth watching. I get the feeling they stopped giving out this "fan fave" award because it took 2 or 3 minutes and they now have other things they consider more important they want to do But this is just the SHITS. I mean why waste our time talking to only 4 or 5 players (especially when drivel-mouth Tai just talks endlessly and continuously until someone puts their hand over his mouth. It doesn't take much effort to "prepare" the contestants by telling them that when Probst asks them a question, they have 10 or 15 seconds to answer and if they're not finished, Probst will interrupt them and he won't ask them anything else. The purpose of the reunion show is to re-unite the players. I wanted to hear from most of them. Not a word from Scott or Jason. Not a word from the two black players. Not a word from most anyone in the back row. Just lots and lots of disgusting and boring promotion. I hated it. I don't expect to ever waste my time watching another one of these things again. It just pure CRAP!

They can always avoid great difficulty. They may need to get Paige to co-operate - which is no small feat. But right from the start, if I was the Jennings, I would just respond that Paige was suffering emotional difficulties and had made up these stories and we are thinking of committing her. A good FBI office might decide to just investigate the Jennings quietly at that point. So they may have to leave the country. But at least they would not be put into a pen for a long term for being spies. By admitting they are KGB agents, they are vulnerable to having the cuffs placed on them immediately and going to prison for life. If I was the Jennings and I had to return to Russia (or maybe Cuba would be better), one thing I would not do is to take Paige. Let the pastor and his wife raise her if they think she is such a joy. Let them get a taste of the misery that can only be seen by having Paige as a daughter. Hateful little shit! P.S. For those of you who may have guessed this ... yes. I had a younger sister and we never got along. I didn't even attend her wedding. That was 20 years ago and we haven't spoken since. I'm probably projecting my feelings for my sister when I watch Paige. But I cannot help that. My guess is that is why they call it the "subconscious mind". Because we have no control over it. I know it's a terrible result. But I have never been able to control my feelings towards her. I wish you all a better outcome with your younger siblings than I had with mine - much better!