Paul Dierden: Monitor Turned Boyfriend

[ElectricBoogaloo]

While I don't think that Dylan Bruce is the strongest actor on this show (he has a lot of competition from Tatiana Maslany alone), but as long as they keep showing him shirtless, I can live with him.

[Athena]

He real purdy.

I really enjoyed their chemistry, but Tatiana seems to have chemistry with everyone (including herself). I do like the choice of her rescuing him, and of course, the head lean when she arrives. He has shown moments of badassery, but Sarah is the one who rescues him when he is held hostage. It'll be interesting to see where they go henceforth.

[SNeaker]

I don't know why, since Paul is shady as fuck and Dylan Bruce is kind of blank as an actor, but something about this dude just does it for me, and his frequent lack of clothing is a bonus. I am hoping for more Naked Paul, and I'm rooting for Sarah/Paul right now, though I won't smash my TV if he turns out to be totally evil or whatever.

I'm also hoping for more of him interacting with the other clones, particularly Alison because that combo is pretty funny and this show started appealing to me more when it embraced the humor.

[Carrie Ann]

Bringing this thread out of the basement for clarification: in the episode threads, people keep referencing whatever happened with Paul in Afghanistan, and wondering if we'll ever find out. My question is...did I miss something? Was his explanation to Sarah in S1 later revealed to be false? He told her that he was there working with a defense contractor and he killed six Marines (?) in a friendly fire incident that was covered up, and that's what DYAD has over him. Now, S2E6 made me wonder whether that's really all there is to it, but prior to that, I didn't think we had any reason to doubt it.

[millahnna]

I seem to recall some of the specifics being left blank or perhaps a bit ambiguous, but yeah the basic gist is killed people in friendly fire as a defense contractor.  It seems like the show itself has been a bit odd about it this season, though.  Wasn't there something in one of the first two episodes that implied there was more to it than that?  Or am I just thinking of various interwebz chatter and speculation?

[shapeshifter]

Thanks, @Carrie Ann, for reminding me/us. I couldn't recall any details. So I'm guessing the penalty for this could be at least life in prison, right? With the multiple dense plots going on already, it would be hard for them to address this one too, but I could see them resolving it with someone higher up than Paul being responsible, and somehow he was innocent--but that would be going into NCIS-type plotting, and right now we already have Prolethians, DYAD, the local police, Cal, and more to deal with and keep straight. This is my favorite show right now, so I hope they have a handle on how all of this is going to work out. And I hope Paul doesn't have to become a redshirt so they can quickly resolve the Afghanistan thing. I like Paul with and without shirts of any color. Well, they have been mentioning Afghanistan in recent episodes, so maybe this will get resolved soon.

[Sarah-phile]

Paul told Sarah in season 1 that he killed 6 Marines in a friendly fire incident and covered it up. That's a big deal, but at some point what he's doing for Dyad is or will be even worse. Mrs. S sai something like Paul should join her side or Afghanistan will have been for nothing, which makes me think there's more to the story. Like maybe he killed the Marines on purpose.

[Ailianna]

Or he took the blame for something someone else did, and the cover up was actually to protect that someone else.

[Carrie Ann]

Yeah, that wording could mean almost anything. But it doesn't make much sense if Paul's story was as straightforward as it sounded, unless Mrs. S was just referring to, like, his conscience. Like, this thing went down and he's been trying to make up for it karmically? Otherwise, it does seem like there is something else to the story.

 

I've also considered that he and Sarah may have a vague agreement that he is trying to help her and the others as he can from inside, even though it may mean he has to do some stuff he doesn't want to do. One reason I thought that might be the case is the missing time between the seasons, when Paul and Sarah disappear from the DYAD elevator together, then Sarah enters Mrs. S's house alone and Paul appears back at DYAD. When and how did they part ways? There's also a break in the first episode where they have that phone call, where we don't see the call end before Daniel comes up on the Sarah decoy. So there was time to communicate that type of plan with each other.

 

Then Paul disappears for four episodes, and suddenly comes back on Team Rachel (or OK, even on Team Only Paul). It's too abrupt, and she is too awful a person to convince me that Paul just became entranced and dropped any concern for Sarah. One strange part of the scene where Paul framed Felix is when he's talking to Sarah (explaining what he's doing and what DYAD wants in order to get Felix out of jail)--she calls him a "gutless bastard" and he gets a little smile on his face. Because of how creepy that whole scene is, it plays like suddenly Paul is a pretty sadistic guy, which is a sharp turn from the Paul who put himself on the line to try to save Sarah last season. The other options are that this is all a part of a show and he just can't keep the smile down; or he just finds her adorable, even if she hates him; or that his masochistic streak makes her anger at him sort of satisfying because he hates himself and feels like he deserves her scorn.

 

Uh, despite all that "evidence," I don't actually believe they have an arrangement. It's wishful thinking, because I just want Sarah to have more allies, and I don't want Paul to be such a jerk. There was nuzzling last season, people, and I'm gonna need more time to get over that.

[millahnna]

That nuzzling slays me.  I'm an idiot.

[Sarah-phile]

Well, I'm an idiot too then. I'm a sucker for nuzzling too. But I have to agree. For him to suddenly be on Team Dyad working against Sarah just doesn't make sense with what happened last season. I think he fell for her as Beth the minute he saw her in that Clash tshirt.

On a completely unrelated note, does anyone else think religious freak Mark looks like a young Joaphin Phoenix?

Joaquin.

[caracas1914]

I don't like trying to make Paul darker and more ambiguous, just let him be eye candy who all the clones bed, so far it's been 3, why try to make him "deep". Helena should have a go at him, just saying, and of course Alison.

Edited May 28, 2014 by caracas1914

[millahnna]

Truly, I don't think Paul could handle Allison if she cut loose.  She'd break the poor guy.

[peachmangosteen]

That nuzzling slays me.  I'm an idiot.

I am, too, then because the second that happened I was SO down with Paul/Sarah.

 

On a completely unrelated note, does anyone else think religious freak Mark looks like a young Joaphin Phoenix?

Joaquin.

I think he looks like Cillian Murphy.

Edited May 30, 2014 by peachmangosteen

[mtlchick]

 

but as long as they keep showing him shirtless, I can live with him.

 

Preach.  I didn't realize it was him in the Flowers of the Attic movies airing on Lifetime until I still I started watching this show.  He's preeeeetty.  And yet so meh as an actor. 

[caracas1914]

I thought his acting in the seduction scene with Rachel with Emmy caliber. His acting goes up a notch or two when he takes his shirt off.

Just saying.

Edited June 2, 2014 by caracas1914

[Shan]

I'm kind of worried after the Donnie reveal that what Paul said was literally everything that Dyad had over him. I am still hoping for something a bit more mysterious in Paul's case (as I was in Donnie's case) to be honest.

[CatMack]

I feel like Siobhan's "If you kill us, Afghanistan will be for nothing" means there has to be more to it.  That line makes no sense if all that happened in Afghanistan was friendly fire.  Even if it was just friendly fire, how did Dyad get involved?  Did they come to him or did he go to them?  How/why was he on their radar/how were they on his?  There's no way what little we've been told is the whole story.  Donnie was always portrayed as kind of a bumbling idiot, so having his involvement turn out to be fairly minimal and unknowing fit with what we'd seen of the character already.  I don't see a similar "simple" explanation working for a character like Paul.   

[shapeshifter]

I feel like Siobhan's "If you kill us, Afghanistan will be for nothing" means there has to be more to it.  That line makes no sense if all that happened in Afghanistan was friendly fire. 

Maybe he killed some rogue soldiers who were murdering civilians willy nilly?

The recent social media posts by military members who knew Bowe Bergdahl claiming he was a deserter made me wonder if it was a case of them being the villains in the peace and worried he would now tell the world of their crimes. But I watch too many reruns of Goren and Eames on L&O CI.

[Shan]

Sure, that's more information than we've been told already and I hope it's true there's something more to Paul's story than just what we've been told. A genuine friendly fire incident that was a genuine accident wouldn't be held against someone under military justice (sadly, so are many incidents which aren't merely accidents). That photograph Olivier had seemed to suggest that Paul was given quite a beating afterwards so maybe that means there's more to the story, like what you're suggesting being one possibility. 

 

On the other hand, there's Donnie and the worst possible reason for spying on your wife for years and years. Even wives who aren't likely to maim would take a dim view on that and return seemed hardly worth it (the actor playing the part said his character was paid for it which would make more sense, it might have been worth mentioning in the episode I suppose). So, I hope there's more to Paul's story to explain the hold on him instead of just everything he's already told us, more mysterious and more likely that way.

[millahnna]

 

A genuine friendly fire incident that was a genuine accident wouldn't be held against someone under military justice

 

As Paul was a defense contractor and not an actual member of the military, I'm not sure he would have been under the U.C.M.J. (or whatever the Canadian equivalent is since the show is set sort of generically in Canukistan and I think of all of the North American characters as Canadian unless it's been stated otherwise).  I was in the Navy but very briefly and very long ago (between the two gulf wars) so I have no personal experience with private military like that to go on. 

[Souris]

Well, now, there's CLEARLY more to the Paul story after this ep. Now he's "a ghost" who's "on it."

[DrSpaceman]

So he has had sex now with 3 clones, at least, maybe more for all we know. 

 

I was trying to think of a term for this, sex with clones.  He may be the first, but probably won't be the last.  I thought it should be a combination of deja vu and menage a trois.  Manega a vu and deja trois are the two options, I think deja trois works best because it has the same rhythm as menage a trois.  If you translate it literally it may not make sense, but then I looked up what menage a trois literally means and its not that close to the current vernacular either (in french it translates as 3 people living in the same household, often for the purposes of a sexual relationship but not necessarily)

[halgia]

Pretty sure that Paul's "friendly fire" is in the same category as Beth's "accidental civilian shooting."

[lulee]

Except that Paul probably was just a hitman and didn't know the true nature of his targets.

[ShaggyDog]

With so little information, there are tons of scenarios -- here is my contribution.

DYAD is said to be a huge mulinational but we don't really know all that they do. The Clone project can't be all that they do. And we know the government is/has been associated with them. I'll go with the goverment interest is in enhancing soldiers, whether by cloning/genetic manipulation, or by somatic enhancement of adults.

DYAD might have been experimenting on soldiers, and then testing them in battle, along with of course, DYAD monitors. There might have been serious side-effects, and DYAD being DYAD didn't stop the program but continued to let it go in spite of the pain and suffering involved. Paul somehow found out about this, and to stop it, and he killed not the combat soldiers, but the DYAD monitors. DYAD found out, and instead of dispatching him, their way of handling it was to make him do monitoring for them of another project.

 

That way, when Mrs. S. says "If you kill us, Afghanistan will be for nothing" she means "You tried to stop DYAD once. We are trying to stop DYAD now, and killing us will not help you in that goal".

[beedub]

So he has had sex now with 3 clones, at least, maybe more for all we know. 

 

I was trying to think of a term for this, sex with clones.  He may be the first, but probably won't be the last.  I thought it should be a combination of deja vu and menage a trois.

How about "deja do", as in, the next time he goes to "do" one, it's like he already did. Do. Do them.

 

Or, we could just go with trifecta.

[shapeshifter]

@beedub, "deja do" is perfect in my book.

If he's not really a boyfriend anymore, maybe the thread title should be changed to:

Paul Dierden: Deja Do

[CatMack]

Honestly, since a lot of people, myself included, consider Paul's sexual encounter with Rachel to be assault because of the power dynamics, and there are all kinds of weird consent issues in his relationships with Beth and Sarah too, I'd prefer not making a joke out of the number of clones he's slept with.

[theFel]

Just because you consider Paul's encounter with Rachel to be assault doesn't mean everyone does and doesn't mean everyone has to sensor themselves for your feelings. A few things to consider: part of Paul's job of monitoring Beth involved having sex with her. So, in effect, Paul is a sex worker (I'm not making a value judgement here). I think he knew sex with Rachel was going to be part of the job of monitoring her and he took the job anyways. He could have left as her monitor at any time, which he did do later for reasons not related to sex with Rachel. Do you think if he had been sent to monitor another clone (who didn't know what she was) instead of Rachel and told to have sex with her he wouldn't have?

 

Second, look at when Paul really got into Sarah. It was when she took off his clothes, threw him on the counter and mounted him. Paul enjoyed every minute of that and even mentioned it later. Now, you can certainly make the argument that since Paul thought Sarah was Beth, that could count as sexual assault. Paul also got a little aggressive with Sarah when Felix was hiding and watching them. Paul is into sexual power dynamics.

[Athena]

I do not think anyone is trying to censor anyone else. I was very uncomfortable with the Paul/Rachel sex scene and it was beyond just sexual power dynamics. All because he enjoyed it with Sarah does not mean he enjoyed it with Rachel. I do not think he could have left easily. He was coerced to be a monitor for Beth and he's being coerced to be a monitor for Rachel. Having sex with a clone seems to happen naturally for monitors since it probably makes it easier for them. It does not mean they enjoy it. He took the job because of blackmail and/or whatever his end game is.

 

Since we do not know that much about Paul, it's hard to speculate what goes through his head when he is doing anything for Rachel or DYAD. We don't know his long game or whether he is just doing this survive.

[Sarah-phile]

I was very uncomfortable with the Paul/Rachel sex scene and it was beyond just sexual power dynamics. All because he enjoyed it with Sarah does not mean he enjoyed it with Rachel. 

I agree.  The power dynamics with Sarah were totally different because it was clear that she liked it too and it was mutual (she throws him on the counter, he pushes her against the wall).  Plus, the first two times he slept with Sarah he thought she was Beth.  I'm certainly not going to give him a pass on sleeping with Beth as her monitor and under false pretenses -- anymore than I would give Delphine a pass.  I think that was pretty low on both their parts.  But as far as Sarah, I'm with the camp that believes he does care about her.  He's tried to help her numerous times, all at possible risk to himself.  It seems that he never loved Beth and then Sarah comes along and she looks like Beth but has a totally different personality that he finds intriguing.  Suddenly the whole nature of the relationship changes.  I'm also not going to underestimate the value of great sex!  :)

 

I think the way the show handles sex in general is very interesting and provocative.  You don't see a lot of shows where the woman instigates sex in the way that Sarah, Alison (with the neighbor), and Cosima have.  Rachel too, but that's in a whole other category -- I agree that it was not consensual and rather disturbing.  I think it goes with the themes of female empowerment and a woman's ownership over her own body that are seen throughout the show.  In a similar way, I like (but also find disturbing) the character of Helena as a female serial killer.

 

I will be interested to see what happens when Paul returns after being a "ghost," but I hope it doesn't contradict what happened before.  That would bug me.  I do generally like the way the show has characters disappear and then reappear; the multiple and somewhat overlapping story lines that pop up and drop off make it more interesting.

[beedub]

Apologies if offense was given, it was certainly not intended, I was just going with the suggestion as made. I'll be the first to admit that humour tends to lack sensitivity!

 

All that aside, it would be nice if we could get some clarity about Paul's character, his motivations, to what extent he can exercise free will, and whose side he's really on, if any. At least before the end of this season.

[peachmangosteen]

All that aside, it would be nice if we could get some clarity about Paul's character, his motivations, to what extent he can exercise free will, and whose side he's really on, if any. At least before the end of this season.

 

I really hope we get some clarification on Paul. They have two eps to to do it, so I'm not sure it's gonna happen.

[shapeshifter]

Apologies if offense was given, it was certainly not intended, I was just going with the suggestion as made. I'll be the first to admit that humour tends to lack sensitivity!

I'm embarrassed to admit that I didn't notice it was insensitive too. I think because the actor seemed to joke in interviews about his character's sex scenes with Tatiana's characters, I lost sight of the fine line between acceptable and offensive humor on such topics. Also, in my mind, Paul might have enjoyed being sexually dominated by Rachel--we don't know for sure.

[millahnna]

 

Also, in my mind, Paul might have enjoyed being sexually dominated by Rachel--we don't know for sure.

 

He could have enjoyed it but still been extremely uncomfortable about it at the same time.  It's common enough to be a situation taught to rape counselors for more conventional, real world sexual assaults.  I don't see any reason why a more extreme fictional counterpart couldn't incorporate that element, though I find that I doubt whether the show will clarify Paul's feelings on the matter with that much specificity. I just can't imagine who he'd have the conversation with where he'd admit to such a  potential dichotomy.  Although now that I think of it, great hilarity could be had if he discusses Rachel sex with Felix, because Felix always brings great hilarity, even when it's not really all that funny. 

[CatMack]

Now this is a joke about Paul and Rachel's relationship that I can laugh at.

[shapeshifter]

From the media thread:

Dylan Bruce did a Google+ hangout today. Lots of interesting stuff about Dylan (his favorite clone is Alison, if he could play another role on the show it would be Donnie), a few tidbits about Paul's storyline going forward, and his take on the Paul/Rachel sex scene in 2x05 (he saw it as consensual).

That was my take on it too! Vindicated at last! For one thing, he could have overpowered her physically if he didn't want to participate, although until the episode where Rachel calls him to complain that he's missing, we seemed to agree that the Afghanistan thing was keeping him there.

There were other physical aspects that I considered too in reaching my conclusion. ;>)

[Riful]

For me it does not matter if DB thinks it was consensual. It is hardly the first time an actor or director viewed what I consider without a doubt a rape scene to be consensual. GoT is a good example of that with shooting a clear rape scene but calling it consensual despite the female physically struggling and saying no numerous times. 

Rachel threatened Paul and can have him killed any second. The power imbalance there makes it impossible for him to say no. It reminds me a bit with prisons, where any sex between a guard and inmate is inherently considered non-consensual as the power imbalance overshadows everything. Except here the threat is even more real, and Paul has definitely been reminded of that.

Also disregarding all of that, why would Paul want to have sex with Rachel at all? She treats him like dirt, as a little slave boy for her to boss around while holding his life in her hands. And "because she is hot" is hardly a proper reasoning for overlooking how terrible Rachel is as a person. At the most "beneviolent level" you can call the scene dub-con (dubious consent), but for me it definitely read as rape. Just because Paul is physically stronger, it does not matter shit if she can have a bullet in his head withint 20 minutes or have him on the run forever for fear of his life. If you remove all the leverage Rachel has, does anyone think Paul would want to have sex with Rachel if given the choice? I am completely convinced he would reject her.

[peachmangosteen]

I'm disappointed to hear DB's take on it. I wish we could hear how TPTB feel, though I fear they too would be all 'it's so hot and consensual he he!' and I would lose a lot of faith in them, so maybe I don't wanna hear what they think!

[Sarah-phile]

You would think if he were into it he would try to sleep with her again -- as he did with Sarah/faux Beth. We haven't seen any evidence of this so far. So it should be telling how he interacts with her when he returns. My bet is he's not going to be asking for seconds.

[Ankai]

I posted something similar in the episode thread, but is it possible to retcon that Paul actually knew about the clone project without losing anything in his actions or dialogue? He could have been lying through his teeth, feigning ignorance, or speaking cryptically to suggest that he knew nothing without actually saying that. The Afghanistan friendly fire incident may have been true, but misleading, with the male cloning project the main secret.

[lulee]

I posted something similar in the episode thread, but is it possible to retcon that Paul actually knew about the clone project without losing anything in his actions or dialogue? He could have been lying through his teeth, feigning ignorance, or speaking cryptically to suggest that he knew nothing without actually saying that. The Afghanistan friendly fire incident may have been true, but misleading, with the male cloning project the main secret.

Did the dialogue (or I guess the interview with the showrunners) indicate that he knew about the cloning project itself all along? Or could it have been posing as a monitor for Dyad but was really a monitor for Castor, infiltrating Dyad? In that case, he could have been in the dark about the true nature of the project until Sarah came on the scene.

 

Could Project Castor have staged/ manipulated the Afghanistan incident so that Paul believed he was guilty for some time? It would have given both Leda and Castor leverage over him, but then Castor revealed the true nature of the incident to him either during his monitoring of Beth or once he was promoted by Castor? I don't know. I'm starting to confuse myself.

[bluebonnet]

I think this is where DB's wooden acting choice comes in handy.  He's so wooden and opaque that you never really know what's going on in his head.  The only scene I can think of off the top of my head that might indicate for sure that he didn't know what the project actually was is when he put the poison in the whiskey bottle and intended to give it to Sarah.  Even still, that could work in as though he thought someone from Project Leda found out he was a double agent and was sent to take him out or something and he just wanted to be proactive in protecting his life and cover.  

[shapeshifter]

Did the dialogue (or I guess the interview with the showrunners) indicate that he knew about the cloning project itself all along?

In this interview given last week, a very lively, decidedly not-wooden DB states that the actors were never in on the story arc ahead of time, that they only saw the script for the next episode.

So...

I think this is where DB's wooden acting choice comes in handy.  He's so wooden and opaque that you never really know what's going on in his head.

...yes.

[CatMack]

This is the quote from the showrunners

 

 

EW: So what’s Paul’s deal now? He returns as a major. How long has he been working with the military?

MANSON: Paul has apparently been working with the Castor side of the conspiracy the whole time. He’s been playing double agent. But he steps up for personal reasons to get Sarah out of this. At the end of the day, Paul the double agent has been shady and shadowy and not that likable, but in the end he did, he did it for Sarah.

 

EW: So he had been with the Castor side the entire time, because that was a bit unclear?

MANSON: I think he was embedded from the beginning. If you go back, this Afghanistan scenario that got him compromised by Dyad and put in that position as a monitor was manufactured to put him in that position where he appeared to be someone that they could compromise. So he was inserted as a spy into Project Leda by Project Castor.

 

So he was in on it from the beginning, but they don't outright say how much he knew about clones and such.  To me, though, it doesn't make sense from a logic standpoint to send Paul in without knowing what was going on.  I mean, as it was he only recently got access to Dyad proper.  Before then it seemed like his only real contacts with the program were Beth (and Sarah eventually) and Olivier.  He was pretty low level, which would have hampered how much intel he could get them.  If he knew what was going on, then at least he can snoop around and dig into the limited sources he had, but without that awareness how does he even know what to look for?  What can he report on?  I mean, yeah, "I met with Olivier at this time and date, he asked me this, people came and did tests on Beth" is intel, but without any context it's not particularly useful.

 

Of course, if he did know about everything then that raises questions like what was Paul going to do if "Beth" took him up on his offer to run off to Rio after she quit the force.  Why was he going to poison Sarah if she hadn't answered his questions satisfactorily?  I'm going to have to do a season 1 Paul rewatch to try to make sense of this.  I'm not entirely convinced, at the moment, that this is going to work with the previous season and not come off as a retcon for the sake of shock value.  But who knows, maybe they'll pull it off.  Especially if they actually give him something to do next season. 

Edited June 22, 2014 by CatMack

[Ankai]

Did the dialogue (or I guess the interview with the showrunners) indicate that he knew about the cloning project itself all along? Or could it have been posing as a monitor for Dyad but was really a monitor for Castor, infiltrating Dyad? In that case, he could have been in the dark about the true nature of the project until Sarah came on the scene.

I think that the showrunners are hedging their bets and being coy...or they are being as vague as possible because they still don't know. In any case, I would imagine that they would want to keep all avenues open for the sake of audience speculation if nothing else, even if CatMack is right about it not making sense if he were ignorant about the projects. I don't think that there is any evidence in the dialogue that he had known anything in the first season, but if everything that he had said could be dismissed as him being cryptic or outright lying, then there is no evidence that he did not know everything. Was there something that he said or something that he did that indicated that he did not know?

 

I suppose that more deep-thinking viewers could spend a lot of time down that rabbit-hole, but perhaps his entire arc in the first season could have an alternate interpretation if one assumes that he knew pretty much everything. Maybe he did not know that Beth had killed herself and Sarah had taken her place before he seemed to have found out. But everything else, the clones. What is to say that his suggestion that they leave the city was not a means of taking "Beth" to some secret military facility? And when Paul realized that Beth was not Beth, he began to wonder if his cover was blown, but he decided to figure out how much this mysterious clone knew instead of cutting his losses? And I forgot if it was established that that was poisoned that he put in the drink and not just something that would knock her out. Then, when he learned that this Sarah was going to go after Dyad, he figured that he could use this as a way to get closer to the higher ups, even if they are not happy with it. So, he sort of let her do her thing and sometimes supported her efforts when he could, but not so much that Dyad would kick him out or kill him off.

[Sarah-phile]

This is the quote from the showrunners

 

 

So he was in on it from the beginning, but they don't outright say how much he knew about clones and such.  To me, though, it doesn't make sense from a logic standpoint to send Paul in without knowing what was going on.  I mean, as it was he only recently got access to Dyad proper.  Before then it seemed like his only real contacts with the program were Beth (and Sarah eventually) and Olivier.  He was pretty low level, which would have hampered how much intel he could get them.  If he knew what was going on, then at least he can snoop around and dig into the limited sources he had, but without that awareness how does he even know what to look for?  What can he report on?  I mean, yeah, "I met with Olivier at this time and date, he asked me this, people came and did tests on Beth" is intel, but without any context it's not particularly useful.

 

Of course, if he did know about everything then that raises questions like what was Paul going to do if "Beth" took him up on his offer to run off to Rio after she quit the force.  Why was he going to poison Sarah if she hadn't answered his questions satisfactorily?  I'm going to have to do a season 1 Paul rewatch to try to make sense of this.  I'm not entirely convinced, at the moment, that this is going to work with the previous season and not come off as a retcon for the sake of shock value.  But who knows, maybe they'll pull it off.  Especially if they actually give him something to do next season. 

So, I completely agree that it makes no sense to have him be a double agent if he doesn't know what's going on.  But now I'm thinking (or maybe fanwanking) maybe he was a sleeper agent -- not told what's going on but put in place to be ready to assist the military if/when it's needed.  While he's monitoring Beth, he's pretty low level, but once he gets promoted to monitoring Rachel -- and learns all about the other clones and Dyad's intentions -- suddenly he's worth using.  He did tell Siobhan that his promotion to major was more recent (count me with the others who didn't think camos were his look).

 

I don't know if that works, but it makes more sense to me than to assume he was a double agent during season 1.  If so, he's the worst double agent ever!  He and Beth are living together, and he doesn't know that she's discovered all these clones and even has met Sammy (who at some point knows who Paul is) in Cleveland and Alison in New York, or that she's found and killed Maggie Chen, or that she's contemplating suicide.  OK, so maybe he was a terrible monitor too.  Or are we supposed to think he knew all these things but didn't do anything about them besides report them up the chain?  Beth would have been a much better spy.  On top of that, if he knows that there are clones all over North America, how come he doesn't clue in that Sarah is a clone right away?  That only makes sense if he doesn't know Beth is a clone.  Also, there is the scene in Alison's basement where he finds her sleeping and thinks she's Beth.  He's alone in that scene, and he seems genuinely confused.  And he plans to kill Sarah (he mixed a bunch of pills with alcohol is how I recall it) despite knowing she is the one clone who can procreate?  That makes no sense.  He told Sarah that he was serious about flying off to Rio, so I agree that's another scene that doesn't fit with his being a double agent.  Also, when she blames him for Beth's suicide, he seems genuinely contrite and upset and tells her he didn't have a choice.  I suppose now we're supposed to think that was Paul's acting?

 

Even this season, we have: (1) he doesn't take Helena but lets Mark have her; and (2) he doesn't recognize Mark is a clone.

 

I don't recall if he said he didn't know about the clones or not, but I don't think that matters since (in the writers' minds) he could just have been lying.  But for me a show where anything and everything can be explained by the characters just lying to each other isn't much fun. I still think a big part of the problem is not letting the actors in on the plot ahead of time.  

 

I still love the show and will be watching season 3 (assuming there is one, but I thought I read there would be), but I am a bit disappointed.

Edited June 22, 2014 by Sarah-phile

[shapeshifter]

Even this season, we have: (1) he doesn't take Helena but lets Mark have her; and (2) he doesn't recognize Mark is a clone.

Are we sure he didn't know Mark was a clone? I think he could know about Mark's clone status and not reveal it. Right? That would fit with rest of your fanwank of Paul being a double agent/sleeper agent.

[CatMack]

The other thing that occurred to me today - how does Sammy's message to Beth fit in with Paul's double agent status.  His message was "Keep the faith.  Paul's like me, he's on it.  He's a ghost."

 

'He's on it, he's a ghost' fits with Paul being a double agent I guess, but why did Sammy think telling Beth that would help?  How much did Beth know?  Why did Sammy know about Paul?  Was Sammy also a double agent?  Why did Sammy use his dying breath to get this message to Beth?  What purpose did it serve other than letting the writers drag out revealing anything substantial about Paul?