S04.E05: Clark's Place

[Roseanna]

On ‎14‎.‎4‎.‎2016 at 6:12 AM, ptuscadero said:

I knew we'd have the scene of Oleg telling Stan about Nina, but I was half-expecting the two of them to suddenly decide to team up together like super-double-spies to avenge her, or at least do a guy hug or something.

To avenge together to whom or what? It was ultimately Stan who could have saved Nina but didn't. So if there were a cause to avenge, Oleg should avenge to Stan. But of course he understands that Stan chose his country.  

Ultimately, although both men can't know it, it was Nina who chose her fate: to endanger her life in order to save her soul, instead of getting her "freedom" at the price of betraying anybody. I put inverted commas to "freedom" as she would no doubt would have put in the same kind of job f.ex. among dissidents - she was just too good to get people to trust in her, KGB would never let her of their grip.    

On ‎14‎.‎4‎.‎2016 at 6:21 AM, tennisgurl said:

Nice little transition from Olegs brothers funeral to Reagan giving his speech about how great it is when young people fight for their country. Speaking of Oleg, I feel like his increasing disillusion with the mother land is going to take him to some very interesting places soon. Informing to Stan? Defecting? That would be a huge deal for him and his family, but this whole episode seemed to be emphasizing his anger at the seemingly pointless deaths of people he cares about, and how sick he is of this whole thing.

Its time both the Americans and the Soviets came to realize the true enemy, and that enemy is Pastor Tim's hair. It is a menace and it must be stopped.

I think that, just like in Deutschland 83, the true enemy is the hardliners on both sides who can start the war on purpose - or that the war can be started by accident. 

On ‎14‎.‎4‎.‎2016 at 10:00 AM, dramachick said:

Stan still sucks.

It is soooooo clear why Stan was successful as an undercover agent in a white supremacist group. His sense of entitlement makes me want to gag. When he was married to Susan, he cheated on her without a care in the world. Now that she's divorced his ass and has a real life, he doesn't want Philip to talk to her without clearing it with him, and felt he was "owed" an apology for jumping to the wrong conclusions.  He murdered Vlad for no reason -- other than he could -- and got Gaad demoted.  He exploited Nina for little more than his own sexual gratification, and she ended up with a bullet to the head. Stan is way overdue for some setbacks.

I often wonder why people call Stan a "good" guy as if fighting for one's country makes a person good (and of course P & E fight for their country).

To me, Stan has been the person I like least among the main protagonists. The main reason is his hypocrisy which is again evident: he became angry about Phillip "cheating" him with his wife (although Sandra was no more his wife and he had cheated her).  Also, his murder of Vlad wasn't caused out of necessity (unlike the murder of his partner, although he couldn't know it), he did it out of revenge - and I think it revealed something about who he really is inside his "good FBI guy" image whom he shows outside.

Also, Stan was so easily manipulated by Nina because his high self image - and he never even suspected her. An interesting parallel is Martha whose low self image Clark originally used but who at least demanded to know the truth.   

Now, perhaps, Stan's conscience has been arisen. He doesn't see Oleg as an enemy nor as his "agent" as he has been taught.       

On ‎14‎.‎4‎.‎2016 at 7:10 PM, sistermagpie said:

 

I didn't see that at all. I saw two people who were really stressed out and needed some physical release. It wasn't athletic at all the way Martha sex is, imo. There was a lot of trademark Philip and Elizabeth eye-contact. It was very tender to start with when they were kissing, and then we skipped to the end when Elizabeth was kind of beyond that. She didn't even sound that loud to me--certainly not as loud as Martha's been in the past. The aggressive stance, especially, is exactly the way most of their most intimate sex scenes go. The scene in the car in the pilot, the one before they talk about Martha's talk with "Jennifer," the scene in the kitchen in Yousef. Most of those have some variation of Elizabeth standing over Philip, often touching his face, and then climbing into his lap. I'd say it's one of their favorite positions. In this case, thinking about it, I would think we're maybe supposed to see them switching who's on top to suggest a give and take just as the 69 scene was going for equality.

I don't think she was working him in any particular way. They talked openly about Martha. They both know she might wind up dead. There's nothing Elizabeth can say about that besides they'll do the best they can. It seemed to me like it was a scene when they were being totally honest with each other and Elizabeth wound it up by honestly just saying, "Hey, I'd really like to fuck now" and they did. It was a great idea on her part. I thought she was asking in large part for herself rather than out of any idea she could turn Philip's head with her sexual prowess.

That said, this is making me realize that even in bed there is a real pattern of Elizabeth being the more open of the two. Many noted in that scene in S2 how it winds up with Elizabeth lying there naked and Philip is fully clothed after sex. He's always paying attention to the other person. I think it's just a really deep character trait of Philip's that he rarely loses control the way she sometimes can--and this might go back to that early memory of beating that kid to death. Which again reminds me that we got one brief, tantalizing glimpse into Philip's past and now it's clamped shut again. We still don't know the context of any of it in terms of his life circumstances.

I think that on of the reasons that makes this series special is that sex and violence is never shown just for its own sake, in order to pleasure or shock the audience. Both are always different and tell something significant about the persons' character, their relationship and the situation they are just in.  

On ‎15‎.‎4‎.‎2016 at 1:00 AM, Chaos Theory said:

I disagree at least about Martha. Martha has always been loyal and useful. Killing Martha is a zero sum game. It has no benefit even in the short run. All it does is cause more problems. and a lot of them. Assuming that Philip has any feelings for her at all, it putshim at odds with his handler and the mission which he has always been iffy about. It makes the FBI even more suspicious then they already are and they start really investigating her life which will eventually lead them to Clark. The best option is to offer her the same deal they offered Gregory a couple seasons ago and get her gone. There will always be questions about Martha but a dead body is the worst thing they can leave behind. Even a dirty cop getting murdered gets the whole police force engaged.

<_~~~~edited for clarity

I am also very astonished about claims that there is no other way than kill Martha. The writers have all the time shown that they aren't satisfied with obvious or self-evident solutions but they try constantly to tell something new about the charcaters. In Gregory's case, Elizabeth couldn't kill him, so Phillip offered to do it, but in the end Gregory chose to die freely as a brave man.   

On ‎15‎.‎4‎.‎2016 at 1:51 AM, wellread said:

I can't give enough credit to the writers for the quality of their work.  Sending a Central American (probably fake) Jesuit priest to dangle the glamour of liberation theology in front of Tim and Alice.  Catnip for them!  I'm sure the good Father is only the first step in the plan to reel in the Groovyhairs.  And then the brief moment at the end of the burial scene when Oleg's father fires the gun to represent a forbidden military salute to his dead son.  A totally unexpected and deeply moving moment from a pretty unsympathetic character.

 

On ‎17‎.‎4‎.‎2016 at 0:09 AM, Chaos Theory said:

Re: Pastor Tim.

Most people even good people don't want to get involved and will look for even the smallest reason not to. We all like to think we would do the right thing and turn the Jennings in at the whisper they were secret Russians but the vast majority of us just wouldn't. We would make excuses in our own heads. Paige is an angry teenager and probably mistaken, what if we are wrong?, if we get involved the FBI will investigate us and what will they find in our closet?

I very much believe that the liberal leaning Pastor Tim doesn't want to turn in the Jennings for a whole lot of reasons and the Jennings just gave him a big one. He already somewhat believes Regans govt is bad and they gave him further proof and proof that maybe they aren't so bad after all. At this point he wouldn't destroy Paige by turning them in.

At this point.

 

On ‎19‎.‎4‎.‎2016 at 1:10 AM, Umbelina said:

Well, he should be.  That's the thing, this guy is politically aware, he reads, he is involved.  If he's just some idiot, I'm not sure I'll care for this story.  Liberals and people who cared about these things = being naive and/or against the USA itself, not the policies, is something I have a hard time buying.  We may not have liked what we were seeing, but enough information was available to know that we damn sure didn't want what was happening in Russia, or to live that kind of life.

 

Him seeing Russian secret operatives as "not dangerous" or "no big deal" is beyond my personal realm of believable. 

 

On ‎19‎.‎4‎.‎2016 at 8:11 PM, sistermagpie said:

I think that might have made it worse since it would have made Paige angry and more emphatic, plus Pastor Tim's known her for a while and has no real reason think she's making things up. Elizabeth did try that a little by saying "Spies? Is that the word Paige used?" Paige would probably have to really agree to the whole thing in order for them to claim she was telling lies. They told Paige the truth because they were showing her respect so it makes sense to me they wouldn't deal with this by destroying her credibility. That would really be on the same level as killing Pastor Tim and destroying her trust that way, except it might make her tell more people. Like even Stan.

I don't think he'd really need to know about the network. The mere fact that they are Russians who present as Americans says they were trained to pass as Americans and they're spies. This is so standard in US pop culture and US imagination (and it had happened) at that time he'd have to actually talk himself out of the idea that they are...exactly what they are. General Hospital was literally doing a Russian Illegals storyline in the spring/summer/fall of 1983 and nobody needed these details to get it. Just their real names being Mischa and Nadia gives the whole idea--that's ironically the whole reason why somebody might believe Paige is being nuts or making things up, that it's such a cliche. 

With pastor Tim it's the same as with Martha: to the writers it would be a too self-evident solution just to kill him - and to P & E it would create more problems than it would solve. 

Regarding why pastor Tim didn't just go to the FBI, I can understand that as I have heard true stories about the WW2. On the other hand, people didn't always inform about desants and spies, sometimes because of ideological sympathies but sometimes because they were relatives or relatives of their friends, or because they know that they would be put to death and didn't want to be responsible for that.  On the other hand, people could inform on alleged spies who weren't spies on the basis of the slightest (from their POV) "abnormal" behaviour.     

[Roseanna]

Continuing about Pastor Tim: his dilemma shows that people have many roles that may bring opposities demands and duties. He is a US citizen, but also a pastor and a Christian, a Liberal and a Pacifist, a friend and mentor of Paige.  So only one role urged him to go to FBI, all other roles urged him not go but put Paige's interests first, unless her parents harmed other people (although in his arrogance he didn't realize that he couldn't know it). 

 It's just this dilemma that makes P & E so interesting characters.  If they are loyal to something, they can betray something else. There is no way out of this dilemma, whatever they choose. 

 As for Martha: the murders P & E have done, are done by their cover indentities which evidently makes them easier to distance themselves from them.  Therefore, the decisive moment was when Martha asked "who are you" and Clark decided, instead of murdering her, to show her his true face as Phillip. It was a risk - but Phillip knew Martha by now:  when he put his fate in her hands, she couldn't betray him. 

[Roseanna]

On ‎14‎.‎4‎.‎2016 at 9:58 AM, jjj said:

My heart broke for Oleg twice -- not even when he tossed the dirt into the grave, but when he turned and saw his father breaking through the fog of Soviet denial by firing his gun -- that was when Oleg saw that his father really was in the same place of pain as himself.  

 

They both feel pain, but I doubt if they are in the same place. Like Igor said, it's much harder to loose a child than a brother. 

Plus, it pains Igor that his son didn't get military honours in his funeral and his grave isn't in the military cementary - his son's sacrifice isn't acknowledged officially by the Soviet state that he served. That's why Igor himself fired the shots the guard of honor should have done. I don't think Oleg cares for these kind of things.

On the other hand, Igor and his wife had some consolation: they got their son's body home and can visit his grave so often they want to - unlike in most countries in WW2.  

[Roseanna]

On ‎14‎.‎4‎.‎2016 at 7:04 AM, sistermagpie said:

Basically I think the show and Oleg are too smart and complex to simply be on the fast track to flipping in response to this. Btw, it's so funny on this show how I find myself siding with the most hardline Soviets even though I'd never actually be one. I kind of loved it when Oleg's father told him if what he was after was his father doing favors for him he should go back to America and all the perks. And I love Oleg!

I don't side with Oleg's father but I understand him. Oleg is very naive to inists that his father should and could have helped Nina more. His father knows the Soviet reality: it's dangerous to side with a traitor. And he is angry because he suspects that Oleg cares for American consumer good more than his family, especially his mother who needs him now.  

In the same time, I found Oleg admirable: he sees Nina as a human being, not "a traitor" or "bad" (as Stan now described Martha) and he wanted to help her even if it wasn't realistic and would have endangered his career.   

On ‎14‎.‎4‎.‎2016 at 9:58 AM, jjj said:

My heart broke for Oleg twice -- not even when he tossed the dirt into the grave, but when he turned and saw his father breaking through the fog of Soviet denial by firing his gun -- that was when Oleg saw that his father really was in the same place of pain as himself.  

 

I commented already this, but I still want to add one, perhaps the most essential point why they aren't in "the same place of pain". Although Oleg hasn't said it, I suspect that to him, after reading American media, the war in Afghanistan is a senseless war where his brother died in vain. Instead, being the WW2 generation, his father is pained because his son' safrifice isn't officially honored by the state. Plus, other nomenklatura people didn't send their sons to fight in Afghnistan which shows that they enjoy their priviledged status but only sacrifice other people for the Cause.

The funeral scene and the reaction of Oleg's father generally is interesting historically as it tells that Soviet people have begun to care for individual losses. During the WW2, the Soviet army let millions of soldiers die or captured "in vain" (in the sense that a better tactics could have saved them "to fight another day"), because they always has more millions to enlist but also because an individual's life didn't mean anything.

Also common soldiers showed odd indifference. After the ceasefire they could dance among their comrades's bodies.