S02.E03: The Walk In

[Tara Ariano]

 

Philip and Elizabeth complete their next mission - but not without complications - and Philip's fears about Elizabeth's readiness for action deepen. Stan tracks the KGB walk-in which leads to much praise at work and a deepening of his attachment to, and dependence on, Nina. Meanwhile, Paige snoops into her mother's family background and Oleg begins to scrutinize Nina's secret operation.

[Tara Ariano]

Here's what I wrote about it!

[Carrie Ann]

So many great threads in this episode. I teared up at the scene with Elizabeth and Jared, but I'm glad she burned that letter, honestly. I don't think the good it would do him (having some answers?) outweighs the bad (feeling like his parents were traitors to his country, putting others in danger).

I liked the Obviously Spy Teen Paige met on the train, and the fake Great Aunt. Nice job, Center. I feel like eventually, Elizabeth and Philip will have to tell her that they are actually American agents. Something that will satisfy her, keep her quiet, and not put them in danger.

Other pros:

• No Martha!
• Closing montage to great '80s song!
• Philip being the Bad Cop with Paige for once (also, he was legit scary in that scene).
• Excellent wigs

Cons:

• Stan, you are gross. Leave your wife, please.
• Oleg, stop invading Nina's space when she doesn't want you there (even though I think you're v. cute)

[Tara Ariano]

If Sandra's getting into est, she's no great shakes herself. Cough cult cough.

[Carrie Ann]

Agreed. I loved how serious she was about it. "Have fun? This is work. I'm working on myself." The best. He just doesn't even seem conflicted about the Nina thing anymore. Just loves her and is going to stay with his wife anyway. It's only because Noah Emmerich is so great that I don't hate Stan completely.

[John Potts]

I'd actually forgotten Stan was still with his wife (not for long, possibly). I dunno if she's going to join a cult, but it wouldn't surprise me.

Paige was a believable teenager, "Great Aunt Agatha" (or whatever her name was) was brilliant - I'm guessing she's the go-to relative for all the sleeper agents (and being senile is excellent cover for any slip ups in getting their names wrong) and Philip was genuinely scary as the badass dad laying the smack down (perfectly fair, I thought) - aside from what could happen to her, she was meant to be babysitting her brother. I'm also assuming Philip really did lose his dad aged six, though presumably not how he's implied (I guess he "died in the war", he'd be about the right age - just not fighting for the US of A).

Still kind of curious as to who killed the other Sleeper agents.

[Milburn Stone]

This episode had me in incredible suspense, in particular whether Elizabeth was going to crowbar the guy at the factory. His early and gradual realization that he was in deep doo-doo was masterful. I think I was just about as nervous as he was.

And the portrayal of "Aunt Helen" (first doddering and harmless, then revealed to be calculating) was positively Hitchcockian.

Previous episodes have succeeded in making us "identify" with Philip and Elizabeth. But this episode (with its references to the Vietnam War, and the dominion of the rich in the Western World over everybody else) really planted some seeds to make one question who was more on the side of good in the big picture, the Americans or the Soviets. Which amazes me, because it is positively subversive. Even now.

[ToxicUnicorn]

Philip being the Bad Cop with Paige for once (also, he was legit scary in that scene).

He was great.  Matthew Rhys is my favorite thing about this show.  

 

I love the payoff to the Nina story.  Although I never believed she cared enough about that sandwich eating guy to turn on Stan, it is fun to watch her get more confident at being a double agent.

[Happy to be here]

never mind

Edited February 16, 2017 by Happy to be here

[Chaos Theory]

Its always interesting to see what P&E were like in the Pre-Pilot days.   Of course Elizabeth wasn't someone who wanted children but did it like she did everything else out of a sense of duty to the motherland.    I would have liked to see more of the mission Elizabeth went on with Leanne but I guess that was beside the point.  It was an emotional journey for Elizabeth at least enough to decide on children.  

Watching Elizabeth be cold to Philip as he tries to get close to her is interesting though.  It shows what their marriage must have been like for the first decade they were together.  It was just an arrangement and not even between friends really since Elizabeth was informing on Philip.   They came to the US in 1965  but it was 1967 before they first had sex and I doubt they did it after that once Elizabeth got preggers.  Not sure when Elizabeth met Gregory but we do know they were in a relationship around the time Elizabeth was pregnant with Paige.  

Oh Stan Stan the cheating man can't seem to communicate with his wife.  It looks like they are in the position of of just being in an arrangement and not even a convient one anymore.  Sandra is looking for something and Stan just doesn't seem to get it.   It reminds me of what sometimes happens when a partner dies and the survivor tries to move on by finding out who they are now.  Even though Stan isn't dead he is like a ghost in the house and Sandra is trying to figure out who she is without him.  

Watching Elizabeth threaten to janitor dude was scary.  I think his name was Derek and watching him talk his way out of getting killed was entertaining.  Talking about his kids may have saved his life.  That's right Derek do what the scary lady threatening you with a crowbar wants and maybe you will get home for dinner with your kids.  

Paige The Detectives quest to find what mommy and daddy are hiding.  Heh!   Hi old lady who is probably not your great aunt.   Watching dad play bad cop was scary.  You forget sometimes that he is just as deadly as Elizabeth is.   Although Paige's lie wasn't all that bad.  A little too involved but believable.  With normal parents they might have bought it.  Then again she might have had to join the debate club.   However with parents who have turned lying into an art form she didn't stand a chance.   Does take you back to the first episode of the season Comrades when Philip wondered if this was the first time Paige checked up on them.  Ha!

Stan Stan the hero man.  Well kinda sorta.  Mostly anyway.  So what if it was a set up.  Give the boy a puzzle  so he doesn't suspect he is being played. 

Elizabeth going to the people taking care of Jared but not giving him the letter his parents wrote was an interesting moment for Elizabeth.  I guess it comes down to where Elizabeth is at the moment.  She doesn't want her kids to know who and what she is.  That fear is still a part of her and she now wants to protect Jared from the truth.  Watching her comfort Jared is the kind of thing you don't expect from the cold Elizabeth but it worked.  Actually it worked exceptionally well.  

Instead of "The Walk-in"  This episode could be called "The Story About Paige"  It was essentially how Paige came to be and how Paige is learning to be.  

[sistermagpie]

36 minutes ago, Chaos Theory said:

Not sure when Elizabeth met Gregory but we do know they were in a relationship around the time Elizabeth was pregnant with Paige.  

I think Gregory says they met in 1968. So after they at least started trying to have Paige. I wouldn't be surprised if her anxiety over becoming a mother was always central to their relationship

 

37 minutes ago, Chaos Theory said:

Even though Stan isn't dead he is like a ghost in the house and Sandra is trying to figure out who she is without him.  

What a great way of putting it. Sandra's really got her head on straight throughout the show. On one hand it seemed like a bad idea to go straight into another relationship, but I guess in a way she'd been alone for a long time at that point. Plus she'd lived on her own when Stan was undercover.

41 minutes ago, Chaos Theory said:

Elizabeth going to the people taking care of Jared but not giving him the letter his parents wrote was an interesting moment for Elizabeth.  I guess it comes down to where Elizabeth is at the moment.

It's cool, I think, because probably the central issue of Elizabeth's life is this personal vs. political thing with kids. She herself was sacrificed to the cause and always desperately believed that that was the right thing. But with Jared we see, I think, the first time she puts Jared's everyday child existence over the noble cause and her parents' wishes about it. Her instinct in that moment is to protect Jared the way she herself wasn't protected.

[Roseanna]

On ‎16‎.‎2‎.‎2017 at 5:25 AM, sistermagpie said:

It's cool, I think, because probably the central issue of Elizabeth's life is this personal vs. political thing with kids. She herself was sacrificed to the cause and always desperately believed that that was the right thing. But with Jared we see, I think, the first time she puts Jared's everyday child existence over the noble cause and her parents' wishes about it. Her instinct in that moment is to protect Jared the way she herself wasn't protected.

I think we have seen one scene when Elizabeth was protected by her mother. Some party boss tried to buy her mother's sexual favors by giving them extra food parcels. Despite poverty, her mother refused and urged her daughter to trust in only herself. 

Of course this scene could be interpreted also in an opposite way: the party boss could revenged by making a false information about Elizabeth's mother. If she had been prisoned, her daughter would be taken to the orphanage as a few people wanted to take care of children of the "people's enemies".

In any case, I liked Elizabeth's mother's ethical and feminist attitude, although I would have understood also if she had make another decision.

Just as with Elizabeth's relationship with Jared, there was no simple "right vs. wrong". If Jared's parents had been imprisoned or executed, it would have been right to give him his mother's letter, so that he could have at least some understanding about his parents' motives. But because they were murdered, he was psychologically in too fragile a state.  

Spoiler

Or so Elizabeth and the audience assumed in this phase. 

Elizabeth is often claimed to be cold, but I think that it's mostly that she keeps her feelings in control. 

[SusanSunflower]

Elizabeth's bogus caseworker "cover" would have been shredded if the foster mother had, in fact, needed help in dealing with Jared or just wanted to talk ... particularly when the the phone/answering service was rendered out of commission.  Even simply if foster mom lost Elizabeth's business card and called information or the folks at Victim/Family/Childrens services.   Stan could easily have stumbled on Elizabeth in talking to the foster mom (as someone who had sought out and privately interviewed Jared).  No matter. 

I kept thinking of the Meeropol kids (Ethel and Julius Rosenberg's two sons) who were something a cause celebre in leftist circles and beyond (and probably quietly considered the children of heroes/Martyrs by the Russian embassy contingent).  The curse of the "sins of the father" being applied to the next generation was abhorred then ... now, not so much. 

[sistermagpie]

6 hours ago, Roseanna said:

I think we have seen one scene when Elizabeth was protected by her mother. Some party boss tried to buy her mother's sexual favors by giving them extra food parcels. Despite poverty, her mother refused and urged her daughter to trust in only herself. 

I always took that scene as Elizabeth learning to mistrust help since it often came with strings attached. Which was a good thing for her to learn, whether or not she took it too far. Elizabeth was being trusting of this guy and would have taken the food, and her mother explained there was more going on than met her young eye.

But I do think that in general her mother was protective in many ways. Some people have described Elizabeth's mother as cold, but to me she just comes across like a woman who does protect her daughter, she just thinks (just as Elizabeth does) that making her strong and independent is the best way to protect her.

[SusanSunflower]

I also felt that the mother's refusal might have also been related to a "not in front of my daughter" offense ... black market and scarcity were ubiquitous, even for the virtuous (though not all bribes were "necessarily" sexual) ... but, please, not so blatantly carried out in front of my child.  

Elizabeth's months of hardship caring for her mother 

Spoiler

while the mother recovered from diphtheria (can't remember which episode that was mentioned) 

also represented a golden oldie hardship that Paige and Henry (and Jared) were spared. 

Spoiler

made obsolete by the diphtheia vaccine  (don't know about USSR vaccination availability/programs 

Quote

wiki:  Toxoid was developed around 1921 but was not widely used until the early 1930s. It was incorporated with tetanus toxoid and pertussis vaccine and became routinely used in the 1940s. Diphtheria toxoid is produced by growing toxigenic C. diphtheriae in liquid medium.

 

Edited May 16, 2017 by SusanSunflower
typo/spelling/words left hout

[Roseanna]

On ‎16‎.‎5‎.‎2017 at 8:22 PM, sistermagpie said:

I always took that scene as Elizabeth learning to mistrust help since it often came with strings attached. Which was a good thing for her to learn, whether or not she took it too far. Elizabeth was being trusting of this guy and would have taken the food, and her mother explained there was more going on than met her young eye.

But I do think that in general her mother was protective in many ways. Some people have described Elizabeth's mother as cold, but to me she just comes across like a woman who does protect her daughter, she just thinks (just as Elizabeth does) that making her strong and independent is the best way to protect her.

Even if we leave out spying, Elizabeth is a modern, strong and independent women who works as a team with her husband both at home and in work. Whereas Sandra is a traditional woman whose husband is so used to be served at home that he can't even take coffee himself in the kitchen.

I guess people think Elizabeth's mother should be like American mothers are nowadays. But such a woman wouldn't have survived in the Soviet Union.

I remember Elizabeth listening to the tape where her mother said that she missed her although she shouldn't say it (probably because it would seem as if the mother wanted to pressure her daughter to come back) and how beautiful Elizabeth's family was in the photo and "they are my family too".  

[sistermagpie]

3 hours ago, Roseanna said:

I remember Elizabeth listening to the tape where her mother said that she missed her although she shouldn't say it (probably because it would seem as if the mother wanted to pressure her daughter to come back) and how beautiful Elizabeth's family was in the photo and "they are my family too".  

Yes, I thought her mother's tape made it clear how much she loved her--and she was more open about it than plenty of other mothers would be.

Also, regarding Elizabeth being independent and modern and her marriage being a partnership of equals--very vague spoiler here, but it does refer to characters who haven't appeared yet here

Spoiler

I always thought there was an interesting little dynamic there with Pastor Tim and his wife who seem clearly more traditional and compared to the Jennings. It's not anything that's really in your face, but it always seemed like there was a lot going on there when it came to that.

3 hours ago, Roseanna said:

I guess people think Elizabeth's mother should be like American mothers are nowadays. But such a woman wouldn't have survived in the Soviet Union.

Heh. Like the many people who think Elizabeth and Philip should be like a specific type of American parents in 2017 whose children are never left alone or un-entertained for a moment.