Hal25

With an asset like Martha they're going to want to keep it going as long as possible. Years, hopefully. There's no reason to invite a huge problem in the future (you said yes and now are saying no) when when you can have a smaller one and less trouble going forward (we talked about this and you were perfectly aware I wasn't going to want kids.) With Paige and Henry, I think we have heard them mention friends. Henry mentioned quite a few other kids in "Comrades." Paige mentioned a friend having trouble with a boy in another episode. I think the friends just aren't a huge part of the plot, but Paige and Henry are perfectly normal socially. I think you have to be a complete sociopath to do that to your kid. Not that some people don't, but we've really seen no indication Emmett and Leanne were like that and I would have to think Philip and Elizabeth would've picked up on it if they had. Jared and Amelia also seemed very happy and at ease with their parents at the fairgrounds. Seems like that wouldn't be the case if he was being prostituted out.

Knowing FX, I'm guessing clever editing. But if they need somewhere new to go for season 3, exploring the Russia/USA divide and issues within Philip and Elizabeth would be an interesting way to go. So maybe? The fact that he's meeting with Arkady is just... shocking...

I know, this looks so great. I have a hard time imagining the Canada scenario because once Jared knows the truth, he's a huge liability unless there's a reason he won't talk. There would be next to no risk he'd rat on his own parents, but a strange family he feels no loyalty to? That's a huge risk to the KGB for little reward. It would be much easier and safer for them to simply return him to the Soviet Union where he could be with family and where he would have little to no way of getting word out to anyone.

They've zoomed in on peanut butter in other episodes. I think it's because it's an all-American food and not a Russian one. I think one wrong number call to Kate wouldn't seem that weird. It would seem strange if he called back multiple times but in the days before numbers could be saved in phones and you had to dial everything manually, there were more misdials. They're from Viola, the person in episode 1-2 they were blackmailing, and from the CIA guy they kidnapped who is now dead (because Grannie killed him.)

Yeah, I'm not impressed with them being willing to take so much money from a minor without even caring to confirm with a parent. Didn't they find it strange that Paige's parents didn't attend church with her? They really didn't see anything wrong with accepting $600 from a 14 year old kid? I think 14 is pretty young to go away the entire summer especially for a kid like Paige who at times isn't very level headed.

I have to wonder if the person writing that article has even been watching the show... 1. Don’t Paige and Henry ever wonder where their parents have gone in the middle of the night? How many times have they taken pains to show this? If they're going to be gone in the early evening, they get a sitter. If they're going to be gone in the middle of the night they wait until the kids are asleep and come back before morning. That's the reasoning behind the kids not being allowed to open the bedroom door. 3. Where do Philip and Elizabeth change into their wigs and costumes? The safe house that was shown in "Behind the Red Door." Or sometimes probably a convenient bathroom or secluded area somewhere. The question also included how "Clark's" wig doesn't come off easily, which was answered in the same episode. It's held on with a freakish number of bobby pins 4. Why don’t Philip and Elizabeth ever slip and speak Russian? Because they've completely immersed themselves in English and haven't been allowed to speak a word of Russian for 20 years. If the KGB thought they were dumb enough to stub their toe and speak Russian, they would've chosen someone else for the job. 5. Can’t Nina do better than Oleg? I don't think Oleg is half bad, but that's neither here nor there. They work together and he's smart, funny, and helped her out of a fix with Stan Beeman. She could do worse. 6. Don’t the workers at Philip and Elizabeth’s travel agency ever question whether it’s a legitimate business? They don't need to. It is a legitimate business. 7. What happened to Claudia? We're not supposed to know yet. 8. With all the snooping around Paige has done in that laundry room, why has she never found anything? Her parents aren't complete idiots. Most teens "snooping" don't go as far as to take a chainsaw to the wall and find the hidden compartment behind the circuit breaker box. Even the compartment behind the dryer is behind a grate and there's nothing visible unless you hit a switch. It's just a vent.

True re: Scott, but even before that, his Scott disguise is a little too close to Philip for comfort. It's like some of those Elizabeth ones from season one that are just a slightly redder wig.

I don't think Larrick is pro-Soviet at all. He was being blackmailed first by Emmett and Leanne, and now by Philip and Elizabeth. Larrick wants out and he told them so. Then they went and killed a bunch of people rather than just take pictures like they were going to. I was surprised "Scott" would let Annelise see him so out of disguise, or in a disguise that is so undisguising rather.

That was such an awesome episode. Loved everything about it. The family theme, the Philip and Elizabeth moments, the great movement in the spy story... they really hit it out of the park with this one. Very favorite thing was that beautiful Philip and Elizabeth scene at the very beginning. I think there's often a misconception that Elizabeth is cold and Philip is missing out or only hearing affection from marks like Martha or Annelise, but it's very clear in this scene that Elizabeth loves him very much and is showing it. It hasn't always been that way for them, but it's clearly not something he's missing at home any more.

I remember checking TV guide and I think they actually reran all the episodes of season one before two started... they just did them on different weeks so it would've been easy to accidentally overlook a few. Personally, I would watch season one (if I had access) before season two simply because I thought it was spectacular and some of the things that might be suspenseful in season one wouldn't be at all if you already knew their outcome in season two. But in any case, enjoy the series!

I actually disagree that he never gets that from Elizabeth. Elizabeth has been shown to be quite loving with him this season. She's not prone to gushing her heart out but then, neither is the real Philip (you always have to remember the way he acts as "Clark" is a big con.) They tend to share their true emotions with one another in more reserved and personal ways, sometimes in emotional times fully saying how they feel, and more often they have an understood, wordless way of comforting each other that shows how well in touch they are. Elizabeth is in some ways more freely giving with emotion than Philip. He's the only one who's said "I love you" but as a general pattern, she tends to offer truer slices of herself to him. I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one because I don't feel that false hugs offered to a man who isn't him actually feel "good" to Philip--I think they feel the opposite and that's why he stays carefully in "Clark's" head the whole time and doesn't let Martha anywhere near the real man. Philip is feeling so awful because of the horrible things he's forced to do. Not only the murdering, but the horrible thing he's doing to Martha. Having Martha be all gushy and demonstrative as he's having to do something horrible that will wind up destroying her in the end is about like if he knows he has to kill some kid and it's this sweet, innocent child who smiles up at him, takes his hand and says he's a nice man and she trusts him. That won't make the murder easier to commit. It won't make him smile inside and feel great about himself and have a good warm feeling for a minute that this sweet little kid he's about to murder thought he was a good man. It would make him feel a thousand times worse. And what he's doing to Martha is really no different. The show is playing at obvious parallels with things Elizabeth doesn't do in a relationship and things Martha does in the fake one, just like it plays with all things in that manner (Philip is the family man who protects her relationship with her kids while Gregory is the guy who tells her to run off on her kids and that she should be willing to sacrifice them for the cause) but I see the way they're doing it with Martha as merely highlighting the sadness of the whole thing for both Elizabeth and Philip. Elizabeth gets to feel in control of her honey traps because she hates every last one of them as a rape survivor. Philip hears false words of love for the false men he portrays from Martha because he was always the one who wanted to be loved by Elizabeth in the years it wasn't reciprocated. But that doesn't mean Elizabeth is loving the sex she's having with random marks for work and it doesn't mean Philip is enjoying the fake-love the women he's fooling are throwing at his alter-egos.

I think it's important to discern that actually, she does not. She gives comfort and support never to Philip, always to a fake person Philip is pretending to be. Philip is not on the receiving end of good feelings, loving gestures, kind words... that's all a fake person he really isn't. Does anyone really think that if Philip walked up to Martha and said, "Martha, I am a KGB spy who is using you for information. My real wife (who I am very much in love with) and I picked you out because you were desperate and gullible enough to fall for our lies. We manipulated you and got you to believe I cared about you so you would feed us FBI intelligence and we could pass it on to the KGB. I killed Chris Amador after he followed me from your apartment. I doctored this tape to make you feel bad about yourself and alienate you from Gaad. I will continue using you and making you think I love you until you are useless, and then I will dispose of you"... that Martha would still be saying those things? Of course she wouldn't. She doesn't love the "real" Philip. She loves a fake lie. Elizabeth knows all the things Philip does and still loves him. That's a HUGE thing. Philip wouldn't get any good feelings from Martha being gushy over Clark. If anything, it would make him feel worse about who he really is, every time. This isn't to say Philip actively hates Martha. I'm sure he doesn't. She annoys him at times. He thinks she's a decent person at others. But I don't think he's sitting around getting good feelings from anything she says either.

I can't see anything we've seen that even allows me room to think Philip is developing love for Martha. Not even vague romantic inclinations. I don't think he wants to hurt her, but it's clear the whole thing is one big con. The act he put on at her apartment was designed to lessen her attachment to Gaad and get her willing to go in deeper spy-wise for him and Elizabeth. He needed to ask her to start poking around for information on the Stealth project, and given how she's been reluctant even to keep up with the bug, there was no way she was going to go for it unless he made her feel Gaad wasn't on her side and he (Clark) was super loyal and sympathetic. It's a cruel thing to do, but then I also don't see meanness in it either. I think he may be resigned to the fact that his job just results in him being a monster who hurts people, but his actions seem not like "I'm hurting so I'll hurt everyone around me" (he actually has been trying hard NOT to hurt people--not playing the tape until he had to, not wanting to kill Lewis) but rather "I'm just inherently a monster. Even when I try not to hurt people, I still wind up hurting them because I'm just inherently awful." Philip's going through a pretty awful time. Hurting others makes him feel worse, not better.

I don't believe he apologized at all, nor did he have anything to apologize for. Elizabeth apologized, and I was glad to see her having some recognition of what she'd done and the realization she had pressured him into a sexual situation he wanted no part of. I don't see that scene as even related to rape. Rape is about power over a victim. I think it's important not to confuse rough consensual sex or a certain positioning during consensual sex with rape.

Yeah, I thought he did.