S03.E07: Walter Taffet

[SlackerInc]

 ETA: In all fairness, part of the reason I thought Stan brought that up was not "because he's hateful" , but because he was aware, "Jeez, I'm not reacting to this guy like this because of his race....am I?"  and that's part of why he might have floated that out there to Phillip.  So he might have been practicing some full disclosure to see if Phillip said anything.  Just a "I'm testing the waters here, I don't think this has any bearing, but if I don't mention it when it is in my mind...what does that mean and....? Oh hell"   I think it's human nature to trip around in our own minds, trying to figure out how and what we feel.  

 

I'd call that pretty charitable.  I agree with the rest of what you said in this post, though, and a later one on the same subject.

 

Does anyone remember at about what point in the episode this conversation happened?  Now I want to go back and look more closely at the intonation, etc.  (It's reminding me a bit of the Francis Ford Coppola classic "The Conversation", in terms of parsing a key phrase in terms of emphasis on which words.)

[lucindabelle]

I think Elisabeth isn't jelaousofmath ecause martha seems ridiculous to her and to Philip, at least the way he talks about her.

Kimmie, though, she can see Philip cares about, and she knows she shouldn't feel jealous and that makes it worse.

[RedHawk]

The piece of jewelry -- I think it was a necklace? -- did have significance. I think we saw a flashback that it was a gift from Philip, like for their anniversary or when Paige was born and maybe it truly surprised Elizabeth because it was the sort of gift a "real" husband would give and she didn't realize Philip had those feelings.

[sistermagpie]

The piece of jewelry -- I think it was a necklace? -- did have significance. I think we saw a flashback that it was a gift from Philip, like for their anniversary or when Paige was born and maybe it truly surprised Elizabeth because it was the sort of gift a "real" husband would give and she didn't realize Philip had those feelings.

 

 

No, I'm pretty sure we never were told at all what the significance of the necklace was--definitely there was no flashback about it. But the reactions of the two characters did imply some significance of that nature.

[Umbelina]

I think Elizabeth's "jealousy" is probably much more simple/common.  She's getting older (and yes, we have to ignore how beautiful her body still is to us, and think inside her head.)  Kimmy has one thing that Elizabeth has lost, that fresh dewy firm skin and body of the very young, and also, innocence.  Heck, Elizabeth was even insecure about the much less attractive Martha.

 

I know it's hard to believe that someone as gorgeous as Elizabeth would have insecurity about her body when faced with a nubile 15 year old having sex with her husband, but yeah.  Even Elizabeth would likely have some issues.  Being beautiful doesn't make you immune to that.

 

I want to bring over a snippet of StillShrimpy's post in the Divestment thread. 

Contrast her with Aderholt, who gave very measured and careful responses to actually insulting questions.  Taffet has to know that's a choice on Aderholt's part.  He's trying to be a jackass to him, to get him to show emotion and Aderholt did choose to show an emotion in response.  It just happened to be near serenity in the face of an attempt to provoke.  But Taffet would know "This is how Aderholt reacts to a blatant attempt to provoke:  He chooses to ignore the implicit insults entirely, even when they are purposefully repeated."

 

I think this perfectly described what went on between Aderhold and Taffet.  It also illustrates well that Taffet will probably use many different techniques.  Personally, I'd expect his "style" to change with each of them, based on these initial interviews, and I also strongly feel that he's probing for things other than what happened with the pen, ways IN to each of his suspects.

Edited March 21, 2015 by Umbelina

[RedHawk]

No, I'm pretty sure we never were told at all what the significance of the necklace was--definitely there was no flashback about it. But the reactions of the two characters did imply some significance of that nature.

Thanks for setting me straight, funny what our minds fill in. We did learn from Elizabeth's behavior when giving it to him and his reaction when he saw it that it had significance.

[SlovakPrincess]

Martha's freak out in the bathroom - and really all of her scenes - were really well done.  I like Martha and I really like the actress playing her.  "Clark" got himself a fake apartment pretty quickly, LOL.  

 

Poor Lisa.  They are really going to mess up her life, aren't they?  

 

I'm usually disinterested in Stan's sad sack life, but I liked the scene of him talking with his son about his past as an undercover agent.  

 

Philip's goth get-up gave me the giggles.  

 

Why did Elizabeth kill the lady with the bread?!  WTF?  I just can't with Elizabeth anymore.    

Edited April 4, 2015 by SlovakPrincess

[Umbelina]

The lady with the bread was the getaway driving for the South African's planned abduction.

[SlovakPrincess]

Oh, ok, thanks!   Heh.  I guess I'm still mad at Elizabeth for squishing that poor innocent Northrup employee under a car.  Now I just expect her to to be kill-happy.

[ToastnBacon]

 

Philip's goth get-up gave me the giggles.  

 

He reminded me of Chrissy Hynde from the Pretenders.

[Roseanna]

I think Martha's scenes with Clark were just great. She tried so hard to conceal that she had found out he wasn't what he had pretended to be and act normally and in the same she tried to find out about Clark by suggesting that they visit the first time his apartment. And she succeeded half: although Philip made a conclusion that something was bothering her, he didn't have a clue what it was.

It was like Martha was suddenly put in the make-believe role Clark had been all the time - and we were shown that although she wasn't bad in it, in fact she was astonishly good considering her lack of training and her mental state of shock and terror, she wasn't so brilliant as Philip had been.

But with proper training - who knows what she could have become? In the office she has earlier shown talents to make observations and to conceal her real emotions behind the mask of the perfect secretary and when the pen was discovered, she showed that she could act intellegently and swiftly even when terriedied to death.

It was her emotional deficiency and dependency that made her an easy offer to Clark. But those qualities were created in the macho athmospehere where she was undervalued as a woman both in the work and in the private life.

[LeGrandElephant]

I’m years late in watching this, but the discussion about Stan’s backstory is fascinating and I think I agree it doesn’t quite jive with what he’s like now. Does the FBI really send family men with a wife and kid at home off on long term undercover missions? Did he really not see them AT ALL for three years? I would have assumed he was at least visiting them every few weeks. 

[sistermagpie]

1 hour ago, LeGrandElephant said:

I’m years late in watching this, but the discussion about Stan’s backstory is fascinating and I think I agree it doesn’t quite jive with what he’s like now. Does the FBI really send family men with a wife and kid at home off on long term undercover missions? Did he really not see them AT ALL for three years? I would have assumed he was at least visiting them every few weeks. 

I remember reading a book about police undercover and I think at least one of them had a family and I think he did see them periodically. I think that was the idea with Stan, they it wasn't that they hadn't seen him at all, but it wouldn't have been very often.

The guy wound up having a baby undercover, though. What Bannon has said does seem true--you don't accept that kind of assignment if you actually want that family life!