PinkRibbons

The way I choose to see it was that killing his family left Jared in a state of shock and/or disconnection from reality. He blocked the true realization of what he had just done from himself long enough to clean up and establish his alibi, and when he went back into the room, he allowed the full horror of what had just happened hit him.

A really good article on The A.V. Club that walks through season 2 with the showrunners. There's a link at the start of the article that goes to an interview they did immediately after season 2 as well!

I'm just saying that you never know what little things can help a painful transition. Not having to change your name completely could help in adjustment to a completely foreign world. My thinking is that yes, Jared's name signifying being outside his own family could be a tip off that one of those things are not like the others (i.e. batshit insane). Paige's outsider-ness could mean something else completely; like her absolutely rejecting the KGB and/or turning her folks in (although honestly I'd really prefer to see her reaction to the news as an underwhelmed "well, at least I know the truth now. I'm good.' Of course, that would not make any sense with how she's been characterized until now, but I can hope.) I admit my theory breaks a bit with Emmett -- if I dug really deep I might be able to find a sound-alike, but nothing comes to mind off the top of my head. Leanne can easily be Lena.

My point, which maybe I should have emphasized more, is that it may be a symbolic choice on the writers' part, of setting Paige slightly outside of her family. If it is, that would lend another interesting note to Jared, who also has no equivalent name, but whose sister would be called Mila in the USSR. I was also merely using Philip and Elizabeth as examples of convertable names. Edited to Add: If the whole family were to be kicked back to Russia, I doubt that the kids would lose their identities. They'd be the children of Misha and Nadezhda, heroes of the country that have returned home. The kids wouldn't have to lie about themselves, and they wouldn't have to choose new names. Having one that easily converted would make the transition easier, however.

A little thing's been bugging me about Paige, and I wonder if it's symbolic or something on the writers' part: it's the fact that she's the only one in the Jennings family with a name that has no Russian equivalent whatsoever. The Jennings have probably known all this time that there's a chance they will be deported from the country with the kids in tow, so giving them names that work in both countries would make sense. And there are a ton of names that are used in the US and Russia as well without being obviously one or the other. (I mean, Philip and Elizabeth can even still be Philip and Yelizaveta in Russia, which were my late uncle and grandmother's respective names.) Alice, for example, would never point directly to Russian origins, but while rare, there were/are Russian Alisas. There's Eve, Joan, Mary, Anne, Rose, Lily, Amelia, etc. Henry's name in Russia would be Genrikh, which sounds a little too German for post-war Russia, but he'd probably adjust to being called Gehna quickly enough (almost no one in Russia is referred to by their full name by anyone close to them. In season 1's finale, even though her mother does call her Nadezhda at one point, Elizabeth's mother starts her taped letter adressing her as "Nadinka", and I'm sure she was called Nadia throughout her whole childhood. And there's absolutely no way Philip has "Misha" on his birth certificate. His real name is almost definitely Mikhail/Michael.) Paige would have to choose a brand new name in Russia if it came to that, and her parents could have saved her that trouble by choosing any number of names that converted well. So why choose "Paige", which has a completely English root? From what I can tell it wasn't a particularly popular name in the 80s US.

I'm rather fond of Paige's "There's something wrong with you" from the season finale. (And Philip's cheerfully true "There's a lot wrong with us, but now we have to pack and go!")

When Nina confessed to Arkady in season 1, didn't he say that since she came forward herself, they would take execution off the table at her trial? If that still goes, then the worst that could happen is Nina ending up in some God-awful Siberian prison. But she's a survivor, and she only has to make it to the end of the decade when all hell will break loose on the USSR. I think that if they are in fact taking her back to Russia (and not just putting on a show for Stan), she may score a slightly more comfortable prison cell if they want her to lecture other agents about her time double (triple?)-crossing the US government.

I was pretty shocked that they not only name-dropped Montgomery, but showed us that lance sticking right out of Henri's eye! I've got to hand it to the CW, they did not flinch from it.

Well, Leith just hit my shit list pretty hard. Never had a character fall from my esteem that fast, actually. Greer's making an incredible and necessary sacrifice for her sisters, and for Leith to just toss that away as if it was nothing was just stupid of him. After his whole speech at the end, I find myself hoping that when he pops buy at the Castleroy homestead to court Yvette (?), he bumps into a raidantly happy Greer, possibly pregnant and having her sisters living with her. I never disliked Mary, but in a way I feel that this season belongs to Francis more. I feel like Mary's hardening was too abrupt, and that Francis still has his moral compass to deal with. In that last shot (which was amazing, btw), with him turning away from the castle as Mary locks him out, I feel that he's the one whose become the true decent ruler and she's the one going down the dark path that will bode no good. Two styles of ruling clashing... I was indifferent to The Darkness before, but I'm actually intrigued by how the predictions are coming true. It seems kind of dumb of the characters to just assume that only Nostradamus has The Sight. I very much like Kenna and Bash together. They bring out the best in each other.

I just found out that Catherine de'Medici actually did have a "flying squadron" (L'escadron volant) of ladies who slept with powerful men for information. I thought that that was a complete CW-type idea, especially the name. I actually imagined some executive sending a note to the show runners saying "how about a secret group of gorgeous sexy girls who exist just to sleep around? Oh, and give them a cool name!" I have to say, I'm impressed. History can be wilder than any fiction, and I hope the writers pour more of it into the show.