shura

If they didn't betray but simply ended up burned, and then returned to Russia, they would most probably be teaching in the KGB or other spy academy, what with their incredible experience in the field. Some former illegals also become models ;).

My take was very similar to this. The food fight and carrying her to bed was definitely much more friendly and fatherly than seductive. I don't know if Philip necessarily changed how he views Kimmie (as opposed to adopting a second view), but I certainly did. To me, she stopped being, as someone put it last week, just a horny Goldylocks and became a girl looking for human interaction she is not getting in her family. Does it really sound so bad? Especially if we don't label it "daddy issues" (even though that's what it is). Philip really is the ultimate people pleaser, isn't he? Maybe that's what makes him a good spy. He has his own motives and this is all kinds of objectionable, but the fact is, he is giving Martha and now Kimmie what they want despite not wanting any of it himself. They ask for something and he gives it to them and makes them feel good. I suppose a con artist does the same to his marks, but a con artist makes them want something. Philip didn't make Martha want to marry him or adopt a child (and you know that one is happening, although I have no idea how). And the whole seduction of Kimmie isn't really anything more on his part than letting her have what she wants, as bad as this sounds.

I'm assuming the docile white lab Elizabeth was walking came courtesy of the KGB prop department? Elizabeth, please. You can't expect Philip to buy the argument that Kimmie is screwed up the way she is because she doesn't know the truth about what her father is doing. That was a pathetic attempt in the battle for Paige.

The drug-dealing high school computer genius who wanted to kill himself? I had a feeling that we were supposed to recognize him from somewhere, but I totally blanked, so all the dramatic effect was lost on me. He must be what, 18 or 19 now? The episode kind of dragged, sorry to say. I didn't feel much tension, the story was straightforward and not particularly interesting. Oh well.

How about a Samantha West kind of deal then?

I was actually surprised that Tim didn't make a more overt play for Henry at that dinner table. He just let Henry sit there and develop interest on his own, and then just said that baptism is a beautiful ceremony when Henry asked.

Maybe she has some kind of amnesia and doesn't remember that she has been done with him numerous times already. Amnesia would actually explain a lot about Lizzie, like her forgetting all her profiling skills, for example. Or not remembering how to use facial expressions. And it would be easy to write it into the show and fix it, what with all her childhood traumas and someone messing with her brain and such. You are welcome, writers.

Okay, I was meaning to ask, too - how did this transcribing thing work? What were they transcribing and how did it help with their voice search?

Very loosely based. It sounds like the true story didn't have expelling extra boys as a matter of policy for mating-related reasons, it was done more to remove competition when needed, on a case by case basis. And the boys, or rather young men already, didn't sit in the woods, they would actually go out into the society, although they weren't prepared to deal with it. The true story is super creepy for sure, but it does have its sick rationale. What the writers did was increase the creepy at the expense of believability, imo. I get it that those cult members are not rational people, but practical matters are practical matters, they would have to be faced with at least somewhat rational thinking by at least some people.

Bow is shallow? How so? I don't think I've seen anything that showed her being any more shallow than any regular person.

I think the DMV guy is my new favorite character. I love how he doesn't take any crap from Red and just keeps generating his own BS regardless of anything, which drives Red totally crazy. The way he was writing down "Alan Fitch" was awesome, the bit about forgetting his dyslexia pills entertained the crap out of me too. It's like this guy (the actor) brings his own writer, who is way better than the regular staff writing for this show. The cult thing was weird, but not in a good way. Each male had to have exactly (or was it "at least"?) three wives? The cult leader must have been not very bright to have thought that up. Complete lack of any long-term planning there, demographically speaking. I'd love to see the moment it hit him that something had to be done with the surplus of boys there. And I bet he didn't even get to the idea that, if things keep going like that, the male-to-female ratio will keep dropping and pretty soon each man would have to deal with dozens of wives (unless they allowed women to stay single, which I wouldn't think they would). The expelled boys must have been extraordinarily dumb, too. Nobody ever had thought of maybe leaving those woods and asking someone on the outside to help them? Seems like at least some of them should have come up with that.

I'm confused, Did the previews imply that Tom is a woman? Good job, FBI Agent Keen.

My understanding is that the Institute studied economic and political trends in the U.S. (and, I guess, Canada, although I have no idea why) in order to predict how the U.S. could act in response to Soviet moves or which moves it was likely to make itself. It didn't have anything to do with propaganda, it was honestly analyzing real data. I'm not sure they would talk about everyday life in the States. And the concept of "tuna melt" would most definitely never come up even if they did. I am loving, by the way, how everybody is on the "Zinaida is too chipper to be for real" bandwagon now. Two weeks ago the consensus seemed to be that it's totally normal to have a public orgasm over a Milky Way, it's a Russian thing, plus Milky Way is genuinely awesome, nothing to be suspicious about :). And I do want to see Zinaida burst into that song. I bet she could do a fantastic "The Sound of Music". There is a short video of that on the recap page - it looks like it's just the lighting fixture.

I don't think the bastard even said "at least"! He was like "you can't be serious even mentioning this, it's for a good cause, why would such a trifle as your death matter?" Even the dumb Claire, who thought nothing of standing in the middle of the road to read some message in a quest game, caught on that something is not right here. Is it smart, economically speaking, to abandon a programmer job in favor of becoming a professional MMA fighter? If she is VERY successful (and lucky to last a while without being seriously injured), Anna might make a few millions over her fighting career. And then probably spend them on treating her concussion-related health issues. Why do it?

That wouldn't be a good way to do a dead drop. There is no way to control what happens to the Milky Way there. It could be bought by any random person and all the valuable info on it would be lost. Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, I don't even understand why Stan thought Zinaida would be leaving anything at that diner for someone to pick up later. Did she know they'd be going to that particular diner on that particular day somehow? How was she going to signal that she left something there to be picked up? I thought the FBI was babysitting her the whole time. Maybe her job is to see if Nina makes an earnest effort to do what she was tasked with.

What killed me there was how Junior replied to Jack's "doesn't everybody know how to check Facebook" - "No! I did something special, and Dad loves me for it!" So hilarious and at the same time almost sad.

There's that, yes. But if this is the principle we go by, then the whole concept of "who she really is" has no meaning because Paige really isn't anybody. OK, let's say Elizabeth instills into Paige her values. We'll still have a 15-year-old whose values are likely to change. Elizabeth would have to isolate Paige from the society and all its different ideas somehow to make sure Paige stays who she is after her "conversion". What was the diner scene, "Do you want a ringing endorsement or do you want to know how the burgers are?", about? Was that supposed to be some revelation Stan got about his relationship with Sandra? I was just enjoying the scene so much that I didn't really think about its meaning. Seems like too nice a scene to have it for no plot-advancing reason.

And she is not even hearing herself. When Philip points out that she has been going to church with Paige, Elizabeth says something to the effect of "I do it because I enjoy spending time with her, what's wrong with that?" Yet it's not okay for Philip to give his daughter a gift if he enjoys it. Exactly. Paige absolutely knows who she really is - a person with certain beliefs and values. Telling her "no, that's not who you really are" is simply telling her that she actually believes and values something else. That's absurd. And why would Paige's values change if her mother reveals to her that she is, in fact, a Russian spy? By the same logic, Kimmie is not who she thinks she is either, since she has no idea her father is in the CIA.

Oh yeah, she was supposed to take him somewhere else, wasn't she? So, those men in long coats weren't waiting there for Finch, they just hang out around school children habitually? I'm sure the parents have no questions about that.

Well, it was kinda obvious that either Claire was lying to Finch with her whole "Let's fight Samaritan, here's the flash drive" or the writers for some reason are going with an inferior story. Not sure the result came out all that stellar. My favorite moment: Finch, after using the urn to knock out the guard, places it on the shelf, notices a dent on the urn and turns it around so the dent is not visible.

We are talking about the guy who kept people in cages, soaked them in corrosive liquids or shot them willy-nilly. Just curious, what is you guys' definition of "bad" if you describe Denisov as "a good guy" and "not-so-bad after all"? What was that ginormous earring thing the Samoan guy was wearing? Some kind of large fang? A shark tooth? Someone on the writers staff must have a thing for unorthodox ear piercings - first that cattle tag, now this...

And then, when Paige confronts Philip and Martha catches them together, Philip will be like "Honey, look, I've found us that foster kid you were asking about!"

Still, you have to know what you are doing with those pliers. I'd be afraid that I would do more damage than is already there if I had to extract someone's cracked tooth. I bet spy schools have some kind of health class to teach things like that. Maybe folding and packing people into luggage is part of that class too, since it's kind of related.

That butt-ugliest, most amateurish print job must have been a prank Lizzie's colleagues played on her, right? I happen to have seen real FBI business cards - they look nice and professional - fonts, gold embossing and everything. Who does props on this show? I kinda liked the magic elevator. Stupid, yes, but also simple. Good for conveying the idea "they have found a way to get in touch with Denisov". Nice name for an Uzbek separatist, btw. Lizzie: "I need you to figure out what this thing is." Aram: "Umm... it's a pencil sharpener." Red: "People have been plundering this country since time began." Dude, people have been plundering all countries since time began, why do you make it sound like it's something objectionable?

There was this Soviet joke from that period - a TV anchor is reading on the evening news: "Dear comrades! You are probably going to laugh, but our Motherland has again suffered an irreplaceable loss..." The only person she admitted being a spy to is the guy who murdered her, so that's probably not going to carry much weight. Besides, wasn't Annalise married to someone from the Pentagon? It's not obvious the CIA will want to protect Yousaf under the circumstances. And I'm not sure he is that valuable to the CIA to start with - he is just a liaison and can be replaced just as easily as he himself replaced the previous guy. Even if Yousaf gives Philip to the CIA, they may still decide they don't need him that much (for all he knows, at least). Yes, but the question still stands - what is the point of Hans? This show has Chekhov's everything - Martha's gun, Zinaida's chocolate, Hans...