AliShibaz

I couldn't quite accept this episode. I just didn't find much entertainment in about half of the scenes. I have to agree with Fellini about Sam & Gilly. But I felt the same way about so many other scenes. As a matter of fact, I felt that way about most all of the major characters - like Danaerys, Arya, Tyrion, Varys, etc. I would have liked to have seen Sansa, Theon, Brienne, Pod, Littlefinger and many others. But they were all absent. Perhaps, I am lacking an appreciation because I don't understand many of the subplots. I just don't know why I couldn't seem to find much entertainment in this episode.

I just can't get over the fact that Bran and Rickon both seem to be so much older this season than last. Last season, they were both little children. This season, they seem to be on the verge of manhood. Whenever I see them, I am taken out of the story and my mind focuses on the actors playing them. Somehow, I feel there was an error made somewhere along the line by expecting the audience to accept these two Stark boys as the same characters they were last season when they look so completely different. Maybe this is my fault. Perhaps I should be able to accept their growth and deal with it like most of the audience seems to handle it. But, I just don't know how.

I didn't find your explanation at all simplistic and I thank you for helping me to better understand. I agree that it would be fascinating to see her reaction to the dissolution of the USSR. I just wonder what the odds are that we will ever get to see that.

Why would Russia want to invest in a bomber? Especially one that was somewhat designed from the WW2 era? Isn't it correct that if one country wants to devestate another country with nukes, the most effective way to attack is by putting those bombs on missiles and then launching them from a submarine or some ground based silo? I don't know very much about this subject. So I could be all wrong about that. But it seems to me that producing nuclear bombers in this day and age is a very poor way to spend resources. Oh gosh! I just read the entire article and saw where it said that many of the Russians enjoy building nuclear "toys" (funny name for those things) and that is one reason why they may be doing it. This confuses me a great deal. I get the feeling the people who would enjoy building these things must be out of their minds. Good Golly! P.S. I know this will make me look like an "Old Fogey" but I just started watching Breaking Bad and I keep seeing parallels between the Jennings and their FBI neighbor and the Whites with their DEA brother in law. I have to wonder if the show runners for The Americans borrowed from the plot of Breaking Bad. It's a very entertaining parallel no matter how it came to pass. I'm sorry if I posted this in an inappropriate place. I just couldn't think of any better place for it.

Do you think that will be a hugely important event to Elizabeth? I ask because she originally came from Russia. I may easily be wrong about this, but from what I have gathered from history, the USSR was largely Russia plus a collection of "buffer countries" (like Poland, Chzeckslvakidon'tknowhowtospellthis, Romania, Bulgaria, Ukraine, etc.). Stalin forcibly took over those countries and forced them to join this "USSR" but his main reason for doing this was to protect Russia from another war with the West. Am I very wrong about this? That is just my own conclusion from what happened at the end of WW2. I would guess that Elizabeth's real love for the "Motherland" means love for "Russia" and if Russia is not in real danger of being the victim of some Western powers, I would guess she may not be too broken up about that. In fact, she may well decide to talk it over with P and take their family and either move back to Russia (doubtful) or to stay in the USA and seek immunity. Does that seem at all likely? I am very willing to admit it could be a very unrealistic idea. But I've always gotten the idea that E was far more loyal to Russa than she was to this USSR. E was alive during the war with Germany, wasn't she? If so, there was never any USSR at that time. So maybe it will depend on her view of why the USSR came into being? I don't recall ever hearing her views on that subject. Does anyone else know?

Oh. I wish! I wish! From your lips to God's ears! I cannot think of anyone who deserves a surprise visit from Elizabeth more than Maurice the Thug. Is it fair for me to call him, "Thugman Maurice"? I forget if we ever saw any evidence of Maurice putting his hands on a lady. But I do seem to recall that we definitely got the impression that he was happy to "push around" women - whether figuratively or literally. I hated this brute and bully from the moment I first laid eyes on him. For those of you who may not remember, he was continually trying to impose his will (or "push around") both his wife and Elizabeth from the moment we first laid eyes on him until the last moment we saw him. I really despised this S.O.B. --- "Thru and thru"!

This is truly an excellent point! When you consider all the world-beating training that she has had in various disciplines - such as hand-to-hand combat and trailing people and other things like that, she is portrayed to be one of the top women in all the world in those areas. When she was training Hans how to follow people without being observed and being able to report almost all the details of what she saw - kind of like a photographic memory, the audience surely must have appreciated just what an incredible skill she had. I know that I surely did. However, despite all the training she has been given in so many skills, she has never been trained or coached in how to maintain a successful marriage and that seems so unfortunate to me because surely that is an extremely important component to her job. P & E must be able to get along well together if they are going to work well together. Just consider that E has this kind of dagger regarding (Oh darn! I forget her name! But she is the mother of Phillip's son and E didn't even know P at the time that he fathered that child. So, logically (although surely logic has nothing to do with it), it just makes no sense for E to be so upset and hurt about the fact that P had intimate relations with that woman (again ... before E ever even knew of P). By the same token, when E pushes P's buttons, he pushes right back shouting at her about Gregory. I would have expected that a husband and wife team in their business would have surely been trained how to put shit like that behind them and never endanger their missions by getting so angry with each other about (excuse me for labeling these things as "trivial" matters - but that's the way it appears to me). I suppose I can understand why someone in a marriage would feel angry at their partner if they learned that some time before they ever even met their partner, they had an intimate relationship with someone else. But, my point is that is not cheating. I can easily understand the problem if one partner cheats on the other. But given these things happened when one partner had never even met the other, then it's really not cheating. So, maybe P & E could truly benefit from some training like EST (although maybe not exactly EST) but something that would train them how to let go of shit that really does not matter and put it behind them and go forward with their missions.

Besides, it seems to me that Lisa's usefulness had largely eroded since that engineer who was working with Nina (the one working on "stealth fighters") no longer seemed to need that info any more. Of course, I could be completely wrong about that. But we haven't seen E needing to work Lisa in a very long time. And just look at the result. Lisa's family is almost in ruins. I wonder if any of that is due to E's neglect. I still very much want to see E give some nasty payback to Maurice. He really deserves that. He has been very nasty to Lisa and he tried to push around E as well. I would love to see him try to push around E now. She would give him a very nasty surprise. Is it possible that Maurice was somehow involved in this controversy about E's bloody neck? Could it be possible that he was actually at home? Or that he had snuck into the home while Lisa was drunk and passed out?

I would like to emphasize to everyone just how great that interview was. I learned quite a few very interesting tidbits that I had never realized before. I think most anyone who enjoys this show would find that interview to be highly worth the time.

I know that I've missed the boat by quite a long time. But I just started watching this show. So far, I've watched the first two episodes. I'd like to ask if, given these circumstances, is there maybe a better thread for me to ask some questions about this show - especially about the early seasons? The one big question I have after watching the first two episodes is this: It seems so obvious that Pinkman is just bad news. Why doesn't Walt just dump him and consider himself lucky to be rid of him? He couldn't have known just how terrible Pinkman would be as a partner of sorts. But ever since Pinkman brought those two thugs back with him to the desert and the thugs treated him is such a disrespectful way, Walt clearly knows that Pinkman will just never do him any good and will almost certainly do him lots of hamr. So Walt should be able to figure out that he needs to dump Pinkman just as soon as possible. My question is: So, why doesn't he?

You may very well be correct. I had a different take however. I've been in a similar kind of circumstance before and I thought Martha's reaction could best be described in this way: She had given up and decided to live her life (at least for the present) in the deluded belief that she and Clarke had a great love affair and she will always be able to cherish the memories of that love affair for the rest of her life. So, she was very concerned about Clarke and his welfare because they were both the great loves of each others' life. Sound ridiculous? Of course it does. It's completely delusional. But my sense is that Martha's psyche has been completely shattered and she has no idea how to live except to live with this delusion that she and Clarke had this great love affair and they will continue to love each other for the rest of their lives even if they can never see each other again. I've met people who have experienced this sort of thing themselves and who have acted this way - although not permanently. Most of them got over this delusion eventually. But if Martha were a real life person, I would think she would need to spend a long, long time in psychotherapy before she could accept the fact that what she and Clarke had was not real and that he had taken advantage of her somehow. I would suggest that she could not confront Clarke about the reason why he could never come to visit her. I think she would just be too fearful of the answer to that and would prefer to make up her own version of the truth and live with that instead of asking him and having to hear him tell her the truth about why he could never come to visit her. She knows that if she asked, he would just tell her "some version of the truth that was not very truthful after all". Wasn't that a great line? Wasn't it acted masterfully? I am still in a state of shock as to what a great actor Alison Wright is and what a superb job she did with that line and with these two episodes. Applause! Applause! Of course, since this is not a real life situation, neither of us can ever really be certain what the truth would be. I can't think of anything else that would give Martha some happiness or a purpose in life besides Clarke's baby. And so, I have to agree with you on that score. I have never cried once since I've been ten years old. But reflecting on Martha, I've come closer to shedding tears for her than for any other person - both real or .... Dang! I can't think of the word to mean someone who lives in literature or films and not in real life. The Martha story line was so well written and acted that it just tugs at my heart and it just won't stop.

Oh yes indeed! I'm pretty sure it was Robert Mitchum who said something like, "The greatest acting I've ever seen is when an actor says nothing or almost nothing and just reacts to what other actors say and do. And as far as Young Hee goes, it seems to me that the nicer people treat P & E, the more likely they are to be killed in a violent and painful way and Young Hee has been treating Elizabeth so very nice. But we've seen almost nothing of her husband. Perhaps the reason for that is if something terrible is to befall that family, it won't be quite so terrible if it happens to the husband. After all, he is the one that presumably works with these horrible poisons and so he may well be the one who dies a horrible, horrible death.

icemiser69, I was very impressed with your post. I thought it showed some great insights and was right on the money. I was wondering why E was so upset and of course - you are right - it was misplaced anger. You were also right about P. Martha was a simple woman and she was incredibly vulnerable and P must know he took advantage of her. P has a lot more compassion than E who will do anything to get the job done. Remember how casual she was when she kicked that jack out from under the car? You helped me to understand a few things that I previously did not understand at all and I really enjoyed that. Thanks.

SlackerInc, You have certainly raised some good questions. I have no idea about the answers. However, it seems to me that sometimes the show runners deliberately give us tiny "clues" or "puzzles" and leave the answers up to us. I must admit the questions you raised seem to be excellent small puzzles and if anyone can answer them, my guess is those answers will provide us with some really excellent info about the show - or will show us some really serious errors stemming from problems with the co-ordination of certain scenes. My guess is that they are some clues to some very fine puzzles. The only thing I would like to consider is that perhaps Lisa was so drunk that she didn't realize Maurice was in the house and Elizabeth wound up killing both of them. I have despised Maurice ever since he pushed his way into this story and I've always longed for the day when he would try and push around Elizabeth. Surpise, big man! This little lady will kick your ass for a while and then terminate you with maximum prejudice. If I'm wrong about that, I sure do hope the day will come when we get to see Elizabeth say goodbye to Maurice the thug and bully - once and for all! What a creep!

OMG! I must acknowledge your courage to come out and make such a bold prediction. I have no idea whether I have the stones to agree with you or not. But I certainly am impressed with such a courageous prediction. I would like to agree with you except for one big problem. Martha is a rather gentle kind of soul who has virtually no experience in physically harming people - let alone killing them. Going from a lifestyle as a rather meek secretary to a cold blooded murderer is a huge step - especially if she thinks it through and realizes that it may seem a whole lot easier than it will actually turn out. It's like one of the younger would-be agents (was it Hans?) once talked about with Elizabeth. I think it was Elizabeth who said that these kinds of operations rarely go as you plan. In other words, the pilot will not want to go along with sitting still and allowing Martha to garrot him. In fact, the odds are that he may well have some anti-garroting training and have a surprise in store for Martha. But even if he does not and Martha is able to murder him without any problem, she will then be faced with a few minutes alone in an airplane that is likely going to crash into the ocean. At that point, she may well decide to change her mind. She may decide that she has made an unfortunate big mistake and would very much like to take things back and prefer to live in Russia instead of crashing the plane. Of course, you never can tell about these kinds of things. At that point, she may decide to try her piloting skills and take over the controls to avoid crashing. Unfortunately, that is almost certainly going to prove to be much, much easier said than done. No matter how things works out, it's bound to be a very entertaining sequence of events (entertaining for ghouls like me). But, it almost certainly will not work out as smoothly as Martha had planned and it will almost certainly not go according to her plan. If she thinks this through before she follows through, I think she will wind up shaking like a leaf. After all, there is just no telling how such a thing will turn out - except that she will likely wind up crashing the plane and either dying or doing some serious harm to herself. If she lives, she is bound to regret this attempt for the rest of her life (which may well be kind of short-term). My prediction is that if she does think it through before actually trying to commit the murder, she will be unlikely to ever find the courage to do any such thing. If she doesn't think it through, it will then become one big huge mess and it probably will not be very entertaining for the audience. I think we will just groan and say, "Oh Martha! Why? Why? Why? .... followed by a final ..... "Oh dear! Poor Martha!". Nonetheless, I think this is something that I certainly would like to see - Ghoul that I am.

The thing I find most interesting about this plot line is that E seems so very knowledgeable about how they must treat Pastor Tim to help him decide not to rat them out. But she has missed all the same signs about how to treat her daughter. Seems like she has done all the worst possible things she could do to her daughter even though she knows enough to tell her what to do to avoid doing those same things to the Pastor and his wife. She really ought to know better. It's as if she is pushing Paige into the arms of the FBI and encouraging her to rat out her parents. Bad, bad move Elizabeth. Shame on you! Paige is gonna betray you if you don't apologize to her and make things right with her.

Oh dear! Apologies galore! I'm going to leave the start of my post here because it should serve as a reminder to me that the very least I can do is check the first page and first few posts on that page before posting something without checking any of the posts first. I'm so sorry. Someone made the connection on the very first page of this thread and I failed to read that before posting my opinion. For shame on me! ................................................. I don't know if anyone has yet commented on the significance of the episode title, "The Magic of David Copperfield: The Statue of Liberty Disappears ... but ... --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Oh no! Oh no! Oh no! I really must go watch this epi again and I really must read all the posts in this thread before I post anything else. I have gotten away with not doing that on other forums. But the people who belong to this forum are just too savvy for me to get away with that kind of behavior here.

I'm still a newbie to this forum and so I wanted to tell you that I got a good LOL from your line, "It had more scenes than Gaad this season, " I know that I could give your post a like but I'm not sure how I could have shown you that it was this specific portion of your post that I liked. Seems like nitpicking. Bu that was just so funny. I got a real good Hee Haw. I like your sense of humor. I had a bad day yesterday (unrelated to this show) and your post made me feel a whole lot better. Thank you oh so much!

Do you mean his hair? Do you expect him to be bald now? (just joking) But what if the very final scene in the final season has "No One" Stark saving the day by using her assasination skills to kill someone who is threatening her sister? Wouldn't that make it all right?

Earlier in this thread, someone asked how it was that the very large man who was guarding Cersei was able to find out so very quickly about that fool who was boasting about Cersei licking her lips. By the way, is there any way we can know just who that large man is? Are we to assume he is The Hound and he wasn't killed by Brienne? People on this show can be very hard to kill - at least permanently. Anyway, I'd like to suggest that the reason that large man found out so quickly was to give the audience a signal. It was about the High Sparrow saying words to the effect, "We are poor and lowly. But we are many and the many can easily overthrow the few. I think this signal was that although that may be true, the High Sparrow may rule a few very dedicated fanatics. But the majority of people in King's Landing feel the same way about those fanatics that we (the audience) do. I would expect to see the High Sparrow and his band of fanatics fall very easily. Without any need for violence or a big fight. Just a few words to make them realize they are not "the many" after all. They are just a bunch of goofs equivalent to the Hari Krishnas. They are ripe for a fall and I hope to see that soon. I hate them for fucking with Queen Margaery.

Many people have expressed the opinion this was one of the most cringeworthy scenes ever shown. But, thank goodness they didn't show any graphic details of the attack. The camera cut away before we saw the wolves actually make contact with Lady Walda and thank goodness for that!

It was easy and it was also one of the most powerful moments I've ever seen on TV. My heart was racing. My blood was pounding. (Oh wait. Maybe it was the othe way around?) In any case, did they really need to string us along for two epis and then just leave us hanging at the end? Oh well, I guess if anyone ever wants to know what a cliff-hanger means, we can point them to that scene. Also, I can't be the first person to suggest this, but if there is any entry in a dictionary for "cliff-hanger", it should provide a link to that scene. More powerful than anything from Gone With the Wind. So well done. Other show runners need to take note. They can generate big ratings without needing to spend a whole lot of money on special effects or anything else. The story is so important. The story is just about everything. Isn't it? But I'm feeling so unhappy. The episodes just fly by so quickly. They seem to be over before they really get going. And there are so many story lines that it's very difficult to get wound up into any of them before it's time to switch. I sure do wish these episodes would last for two hours. I know. I know. The realities are such that it's impossible to do that. But, there is just not enough show. The season is over before it hardly even gets started and every episode is over before it hardly gets started as well. I know that there is nothing to be done about this. But it is just so painful that we just don't get enough show. If there was a special channel that just broadcast Game of Thrones 24 hours a day, wouldn't people just watch this show until they died from lack of sleep? I know it's impossible and can never happen. I'm just trying to express my trauma at getting so little show and desperately wanting more and more.

I apologize. I was very foolish to post those opinions without first checking to see if he had ever played any other roles and if so, what kind of characters they were. I thank you for being so kind to me. On other forums, many people would have ripped me to shreds for having done that. That was very kind of you. Thank you again. I still think that he is one of the finest actors ever to portray evil psycho killers. The last one I can remember was Malcolm McDowell in Clockwork Orange and Iwan Rheon is so much more powerful in this role.

It may be because the zealots hold some very important prisioners - like Margaery and Ser Loris. Remember how King's Landing needs House Tyrell to send them grain? It could become a huge problem if some of the soldiers were to kill the zealots and they slaughtered all their prisoners before the army could stop them. Even Cersei might not want to see Margaery killed because she might know Tommen would blame her. But speaking of Tommen, isn't it refreshing to see him burst into manhood? I'd love to see him do something manly and find a way to get his wife back. I'm guessing they might be able to figure out a negotiated settlement. The zealots likely would be willing to listen to some form of reason. They could probably find a way to work out a deal. I especially want to see Margaery out of her filthy cell and filthy prison clothes because I have a tremendous lust for Margaery. But, then again, what red-blooded man doesn't have a tremendous lust for her? Those piercing blue eyes are just one of the most beautiful sights I've ever seen. I'd like to see so much more of her and so much less of so many other characters.

Yes indeed! Thank you ever so much.