S04.E09: The Day After

[Bannon]

Just now, stagmania said:

This theory seems highly unlikely to me. There has been nothing to suggest that the end goal of this is to get Don fired; quite the contrary-they want his access, which necessitates him staying in his job. And even if the goal was to get him fired, faking Elizabeth having sex with him so that they can stage a murder suicide between him and his wife is a very convoluted and bizarre way to get there. 

I agree, which is why I hope the writers haven't been so foolish as to take this path. Really, if the writers have Don or Young Hee killed for any reason, I think I'm done. 

[shura]

I'm thinking they want to try to blackmail Don by threatening to ruin his marriage through exposing this. 

Speaking of Don, how clueless is he? A woman calls him up to give her a lift. Then it turns out she needs him to come up to her apartment. Then it turns out she has wine she wants him to drink. Dude, do those porn movies you've been watching have no plot?

[ChromaKelly]

I am guessing that Elizabeth is going to threaten Don with telling Young Hee about the encounter. I am almost certain this is going to backfire somehow. Don tells YH himself, refuses to be blackmailed... it's not going to go the way these things usually do for her.
Paige is burdened? Of course she is. P&E (E especially) need to remember that she is a *kid*, raised as an American, with no reason until recently to think of the Soviet Union as anything but the enemy. Now she has to placate and keep tabs on the adults that she previously sought comfort from. She's not a super spy, she doesn't have their training.
I'm worried about Oleg, but that loud sex was funny.

[Ina123]

7 minutes ago, ChromaKelly said:

I am guessing that Elizabeth is going to threaten Don with telling Young Hee about the encounter.

Exactly. There's no other reason to do it except as blackmail. The idea is to use Don's access to get William in.

[Tetraneutron]

11 hours ago, Umbelina said:

Well, looks like the Pastor and his wife die in Africa after than little "we need to see where we are" to Philip.

Oleg, you really shouldn't be telling your daddy's secrets to spies, come on now buddy, you are smarter than that.

I don't think Tim and Alice will die in Africa. P and E would never risk doing something that would get Paige to turn away from them forever. I think the plan is they continue to bluff Pastor Tim. 

I really want to see where the Oleg thing goes. I have no idea what Tatiana's angle is and I love it. 

Elizabeth is planning to blackmail Don to give up the security info that gets William access to level 4, by threatening to tell YoungHee. In other words, Elizabeth torched the only friendship she ever had with someone she really likes. That was the point of the arc, that for the first time Elizabeth had a real friend and she sacrificed that for the cause. Like she expects everyone else (like Philip and Paige) to sacrifice the way she does. Only now we're starting to see that Elizabeth feels the emotional consequences. This is the first time she likes something about America. 

I wonder where William's story is going. He can't just show up to move the plot forward and then exposit about various horrible diseases. He's a name actor and third-billed in the credits so I assume he's leading to something big.  Is he supposed to monitor P and E and find out if they've lost their fire and become too comfortable as Americans? Is he supposed to defect? The big theme of this season seems to be P and E breaking down and not being sure the cause is worth all of this. I assume William plays into that.

[izabella]

William seems to be a mirror for Philip.  He has long been disenchanted with his KGB mission of gaining access to deadly diseases that could potentially become bio-weapons.  He doesn't trust his KGB bosses to know what they're doing, and he doesn't trust the threads on their deadly-bio-weapon thermoses.

Philip has also become disenchanted with his mission, is questioning orders and running amok (getting Elizabeth and Paige to Germany, pulling Martha, etc.).  William feels trapped in his role, and so does Philip.

I suspect William will die at the end of the season, maybe from mishandled toxins.  I mostly suspect this because I don't expect the actor to stay for more than this season...I think he's a guest actor type rather than a regular.

[Tara Ariano]

In case you missed it, here's the Previously.TV post on the episode!

The Americans Ponder The Day After

A TV movie event -- remember those? -- has everyone in the greater D.C. area pondering how their choices may affect the world.

[Bannon]

The problem, from a plot writing vantage point, is that Don is a really sh*tty blackmail target. His biggest vice is a few porn tapes, and he's not a moron. As soon as E makes the blackmail threat, he really oughta' know that he was drugged, and that E is KGB, which means his next step is a phone call to the FBI. It just doesn't make any sense.

Edited May 12, 2016 by Bannon

[teddysmom]

Quote

 

I'm thinking they want to try to blackmail Don by threatening to ruin his marriage through exposing this. 

Speaking of Don, how clueless is he? A woman calls him up to give her a lift. Then it turns out she needs him to come up to her apartment. Then it turns out she has wine she wants him to drink. Dude, do those porn movies you've been watching have no plot?

 

I thought she was doing this to blackmail Don, too.  I actually ff'd thru these scenes they were so ridiculous.  

I think I had the pin Elizabeth was wearing when she put the kids to bed at Penny's house. 

I was a young adult when The Day After was on tv. I thought it was a mini series for some reason, not just a one episode movie of the week deal.  It was a huge thing back then, and it was absolutely terrifying.  Jason Robards played a doctor and he was working at a hospital with JoBeth Williams and slowly everybody was dying.  

I guess it was too expensive to get the rights to Sting's "The Russians" for this episode, it would have fit really well. 

Is Phillip still working Kimmie? We don't see her anymore so I thought that deal was over. 

[Chaos Theory]

1 hour ago, stagmania said:

This theory seems highly unlikely to me. There has been nothing to suggest that the end goal of this is to get Don fired; quite the contrary-they want his access, which necessitates him staying in his job. And even if the goal was to get him fired, faking Elizabeth having sex with him so that they can stage a murder suicide between him and his wife is a very convoluted and bizarre way to get there. 

It's more likely Philip will show up as some sort of internal affairs for the company Don works and confronts him about sleeping with a Patti and questions his security clearance.  Once he changes it they can give the new security info to  William.  They've done a shortened version of it before in season 2 with the other spy family (the one who got murdered).  

[Bannon]

15 minutes ago, teddysmom said:

I thought she was doing this to blackmail Don, too.  I actually ff'd thru these scenes they were so ridiculous.  

I think I had the pin Elizabeth was wearing when she put the kids to bed at Penny's house. 

I was a young adult when The Day After was on tv. I thought it was a mini series for some reason, not just a one episode movie of the week deal.  It was a huge thing back then, and it was absolutely terrifying.  Jason Robards played a doctor and he was working at a hospital with JoBeth Williams and slowly everybody was dying.  

I guess it was too expensive to get the rights to Sting's "The Russians" for this episode, it would have fit really well. 

Is Phillip still working Kimmie? We don't see her anymore so I thought that deal was over. 

Yes,  one or two episodes ago, Phillp handed over one of the tapes from Kimmie's house to Gabriel. I'm glad they haven't done much with that story arc this year, because beyond the creep factor, it also doesn't make any sense. The CIA knows that the identities of their Afghan Group have been compromised, because of the way P & E broke up a tail job. All of the Afghan Group's homes and offices should be swept for bugs about 87 times a week, making bugging Kimmie's dad an impossible task.

Edited May 12, 2016 by Bannon

[Bannon]

18 minutes ago, Chaos Theory said:

It's more likely Philip will show up as some sort of internal affairs for the company Don works and confronts him about sleeping with a Patti and questions his security clearance.  Once he changes it they can give the new security info to  William.  They've done a shortened version of it before in season 2 with the other spy family (the one who got murdered).  

This would entail Don being too dumb to check up on Phillp's identity. I was able to buy it with Margaret, because desperately lonely people will lie to themselves about ridiculous stuff. This entire arc with Don appears to hinge on Don not knowing he was drugged, and frankly, that's really stupid.   

[Dev F]

1 hour ago, shura said:

Speaking of Don, how clueless is he? A woman calls him up to give her a lift. Then it turns out she needs him to come up to her apartment. Then it turns out she has wine she wants him to drink. Dude, do those porn movies you've been watching have no plot?

I figure he probably did know Patty was coming on to him; he just thought it was her reaching out in a post-breakup moment of vulnerability. He was probably both flattered and reluctant to upset his wife's friend unnecessarily, and figured he could let her down gently if it went too far. Which he totally could have, were it not for the completely unexpected complication that she roofied his drink.

22 minutes ago, Chaos Theory said:

It's more likely Philip will show up as some sort of internal affairs for the company Don works and confronts him about sleeping with a Patti and questions his security clearance.  Once he changes it they can give the new security info to  William.  They've done a shortened version of it before in season 2 with the other spy family (the one who got murdered).  

Yep, that's what I figure as well. Blackmailing Don would be so obviously a setup that their plan has to account for its obviousness somehow.

[JennyMominFL]

32 minutes ago, teddysmom said:

 

I guess it was too expensive to get the rights to Sting's "The Russians" for this episode, it would have fit really well. 

 

 

Russians came out in 85 though. 

I just did a final exam with 2 essays. One was a Prince titled homage, the other  was titled If the Russians Love their Children too. I did another paper on Threads, and could have done the Day After.

I don't know that young people today get just how scary and big of a threat Nuclear War seemed to be.  This episode really brought it all back. It really was a huge event. It is unconfirmed, but likely that Reagan saw Threads and The Day After and it influenced him to change his stance on nuclear weapons. 

[Bannon]

6 minutes ago, Dev F said:

I figure he probably did know Patty was coming on to him; he just thought it was her reaching out in a post-breakup moment of vulnerability. He was probably both flattered and reluctant to upset his wife's friend unnecessarily, and figured he could let her down gently if it went too far. Which he totally could have, were it not for the completely unexpected complication that she roofied his drink.

Yep, that's what I figure as well. Blackmailing Don would be so obviously a setup that their plan has to account for its obviousness somehow.

I really fear the writers have screwed the pooch with this arc. We'll see if they can salvage it.

[FormerMod-a1]

Granted, I was maybe 10 when The Day After came out, but I don't remember it being a thing.  No one in school talked about, my family, including extended family, didn't watch it.  I don't know of friends' families watching it.  I vaguely remember hearing about it at the time.  It wasn't really until a few years later and I was in junior high that I heard people talking about it, and by then it was "old".  So, I don't think everyone watched it, or was affected by it, at the time.  I kind of wish that had at least one of our main or recurring characters not watching it.  Even if they were interested, it seems odd that no one had a conflict or something.

[JennyMominFL]

12 minutes ago, aquarian1 said:

Granted, I was maybe 10 when The Day After came out, but I don't remember it being a thing.  No one in school talked about, my family, including extended family, didn't watch it.  I don't know of friends' families watching it.  I vaguely remember hearing about it at the time.  It wasn't really until a few years later and I was in junior high that I heard people talking about it, and by then it was "old".  So, I don't think everyone watched it, or was affected by it, at the time.  I kind of wish that had at least one of our main or recurring characters not watching it.  Even if they were interested, it seems odd that no one had a conflict or something.

 

 

It had more than 100 Million viewers. 62% of all Americans were watching, which was a huge audience. MASH's finale which was the biggest audience in history  at the tie got 105 million and a 70% share.  Its still the most watched TV movie of all time. It was really really big, but being a kid can sometimes cloud just how big it was.

Edited May 12, 2016 by JennyMominFL

[sistermagpie]

21 minutes ago, Bannon said:

I really fear the writers have screwed the pooch with this arc. We'll see if they can salvage it.

Since we have no idea what her plan is after this, it seems a little early to assume they've screwed anything. She's been studying their family dynamics so this wouldn't be a generic blackmail plan.

[FormerMod-a1]

5 minutes ago, JennyMominFL said:

It had more than 100 Million viewers. 62% of all Americans were watching, which was a huge audience. MASH's finale which was the biggest audience in history  at the tie got 105 million and a 70% share.  Its still the most watched TV movie of all time. It was really really big, but being a kid can sometimes cloud just how big it was.

I'm not saying it wasn't a big thing, just that it wasn't literally everyone watching and talking about it.  Even with 100MM people watching, there's still 100MM+ people that didn't watch. 

[Bannon]

1 minute ago, sistermagpie said:

Since we have no idea what her plan is after this, it seems a little early to assume they've screwed anything. She's been studying their family dynamics so this wouldn't be a generic blackmail plan.

Well, I said I "feared", not that I "assumed". If they can write their way out of this, in a way that doesn't entail Don being a moron, I'll tip my hat.

[topanga]

2 hours ago, Bannon said:

I agree, which is why I hope the writers haven't been so foolish as to take this path. Really, if the writers have Don or Young Hee killed for any reason, I think I'm done. 

Wasn't her goal to allow William to have Level 4 security clearance? I would imagine that there are only a certain number of those positions available. With Don out, this may pave the way for William.

I hope Elizabeth won't have to resort to having a guy's car smash him to death, as she had to do for Lisa.

1 hour ago, Chaos Theory said:

It's more likely Philip will show up as some sort of internal affairs for the company Don works and confronts him about sleeping with a Patti and questions his security clearance.  Once he changes it they can give the new security info to  William.  They've done a shortened version of it before in season 2 with the other spy family (the one who got murdered).  

But it's not usually that simple. People in management will have to clear William for that level. He'll have to be screened, questioned, etc. even though he already works for the company. And if Don is at all suspicious of Elizabeth (and now Philip), I would think he would make that information known.

[Dev F]

2 minutes ago, sistermagpie said:

Since we have no idea what her plan is after this, it seems a little early to assume they've screwed anything. She's been studying their family dynamics so this wouldn't be a generic blackmail plan.

Yep. If it were about blackmailing him directly, Elizabeth would at least have had Hans outside taking photos or something. At this point all she's done is make Don think he got drunk and had sex with his wife's rebounding friend -- something that he'll feel hugely guilty about, but that no one is really in a position to prove in a "do this thing for us or we'll tell your wife" way.

[stagmania]

Given the writers' track record with constructing complex and surprising stories, I'm pretty comfortable giving them the benefit of the doubt that they have a solid plan for the Young Hee/Don stuff. They've certainly taken their time in setting it up; I don't see any reason to think it will devolve into anything too predictable or detrimental to the show.

[teddysmom]

Quote

 

Russians came out in 85 though. 

I just did a final exam with 2 essays. One was a Prince titled homage, the other  was titled If the Russians Love their Children too. I did another paper on Threads, and could have done the Day After.

I don't know that young people today get just how scary and big of a threat Nuclear War seemed to be.  This episode really brought it all back. It really was a huge event. It is unconfirmed, but likely that Reagan saw Threads and The Day After and it influenced him to change his stance on nuclear weapons. 

 

Good catch! Thanks!  

I agree I don't think young people realize how scary those times were.   The movie Fail Safe, which I believe George Clooney did a black and white remake of for tv in 2000, also illustrates just how close things can get to annihilating the planet, based on one or two people making the wrong decision. 

[Bannon]

12 minutes ago, stagmania said:

Given the writers' track record with constructing complex and surprising stories, I'm pretty comfortable giving them the benefit of the doubt that they have a solid plan for the Young Hee/Don stuff. They've certainly taken their time in setting it up; I don't see any reason to think it will devolve into anything too predictable or detrimental to the show.

I think the Margaret arc was for the most part very well done, albeit with the response to Gene's "suicide" being a little off, and given the Margaret arc has been the most central to the show, it has really made the show, in my opinion. Some other arcs? Eh, not so much. The Kimmie arc has been pretty bad, it seems to me. I like the show, obviously, or I wouldn't have watched it as long as I have. I think it had perhaps the best premise of any heavily serialized drama I've seen. I've been frustrated from time to time with the writers not executing the premise as well as it could have been, I think mostly due to their belief that they have to inject action-movie tropes to maintain viewership.

If people differ with me, and think the show has been better than my opinion of it, that's fine.

Edited May 12, 2016 by Bannon

[Trillian]

1 hour ago, teddysmom said:

I guess it was too expensive to get the rights to Sting's "The Russians" for this episode, it would have fit really well.

 

I have been waiting for that song since the first episode.  I still haven't given up hope, but it's too much to have it play as background.  Maybe Paige (or even Henry?) will discover it and play it in the house?

[stagmania]

3 minutes ago, Bannon said:

I think the Margaret arc was for the most part very well done, albeit with the response to Gene's "suicide" being a little off, and given the Margaret arc has been the most central to the show, it has really made the show, in my opinion. Some other arcs? Eh, not so much. The Kimmie arc has been pretty bad, it seems to me. I like the show, obviously, or I wouldn't have watched it as long as I have. I think it had perhaps the best premise of any heavily serialized drama I've seen. I've been frustrated from time to time with the writers not executing the premise as well as it could have been, I think mostly due to their belief that they have to inject action-movie tropes to maintain viewership.

If people differ with me, and think the show has been better than my opinion of it, that's fine.

You mean the Martha arc?

Re: Kimmie, I find that storyline very uncomfortable, but I believe that's entirely the point. I'm grateful we haven't had to see much of it since its initial set up; just knowing what Phillip is doing with her and the occasional confirmation that it's still happening every week is enough to make me squirm. 

[madam magpie]

23 minutes ago, Dev F said:

Yep. If it were about blackmailing him directly, Elizabeth would at least have had Hans outside taking photos or something. At this point all she's done is make Don think he got drunk and had sex with his wife's rebounding friend -- something that he'll feel hugely guilty about, but that no one is really in a position to prove in a "do this thing for us or we'll tell your wife" way.

My inclination is that's exactly what they want to do. I'm hoping it doesn't work. Don is high enough on the ladder to be aware that people might try to blackmail him, and I want him to report it. We need to raise the actual stakes for the protagonists, and I don't buy that EVERYONE who works for the US would trade secrets to avoid embarrassment with the wife. This was my biggest issue with Martha; I don't buy that she didn't know she shouldn't be doing what she was doing from the outset. She needs to be the exception, not the rule.

I was only ten when The Day After was released and I always got terrible nightmares, so I wasn't allowed to watch it. But I remember being terrified of nuclear war. My mom was an anti-nukes activist too, so we were always protesting something or other. ("No nukes are good nukes!") And my Brownie troop once wrote letters to Reagan asking for disarmament. It was such a big, scary thing back then. Everyone was aware of and affected by it somehow.

The stuff with Philip, Paige, and the car was great.

Edited May 12, 2016 by madam magpie

[Bannon]

7 minutes ago, stagmania said:

You mean the Martha arc?

Re: Kimmie, I find that storyline very uncomfortable, but I believe that's entirely the point. I'm grateful we haven't had to see much of it since its initial set up; just knowing what Phillip is doing with her and the occasional confirmation that it's still happening every week is enough to make me squirm. 

Yeah, I lengthened Martha back to Margaret, a  habit from a friend of mine. The problem with the Kimmie arc isn't the uncomfortable nature of it. The problem is that it entails the CIA being populated by people who couldn't beat my dog at checkers. 

Edited May 12, 2016 by Bannon

[crgirl412]

When I was looking to work in research rather than hospital nursing, the lab descriptions went from Biosafety Laboratories BSL-1 to BSL-4.  I thought that was what William was talking about.  I would think Lassa would be in BSL-4 since it liquefies organs!  Maybe today it is but not in the 80's.  

From the CDC:

http://www.cdc.gov/biosafety/publications/bmbl5/BMBL5_sect_IV.pdf   

Edited May 12, 2016 by crgirl412

[sistermagpie]

19 minutes ago, Bannon said:

Yeah, I lengthened Martha back to Margaret, a  habit from a friend of mine.

I don't think Martha is usually short for Margaret. I assume her name is just Martha.

[Bannon]

18 minutes ago, madam magpie said:

My inclination is that's exactly what they want to do. I'm hoping it doesn't work. Don is high enough on the ladder to be aware that people might try to blackmail him, and I want him to report it. We need to raise the actual stakes for the protagonists, and I don't buy that EVERYONE who works for the US would trade secrets to avoid embarrassment with the wife. This was my biggest issue with Martha; I don't buy that she didn't know she shouldn't be doing what she was doing from the outset. She needs to be the exception, not the rule.

I was only ten when The Day After was released and I always got terrible nightmares, so I wasn't allowed to watch it. But I remember being terrified of nuclear war. My mom was an anti-nukes activist too, so we were always protesting something or other. ("No nukes are good nukes!") And my Brownie troop once wrote letters to Reagan asking for disarmament. It was such a big, scary thing back then. Everyone was aware of and affected by it somehow.

The stuff with Philip, Paige, and the car was great.

Yeah, if E's plans are thwarted because Don is fundamentally a very poor target for blackmail, that'll be o.k., but it does raise the issue of why normally brilliant E doesn't quickly realize that trying to blackmail Don is a poor strategy. I really was fine with how the Martha arc unfolded, because the writers had the time to unspool it, and desperately lonely Martha was a psychologically perfect victim for such a ruse. 

[sistermagpie]

4 minutes ago, Bannon said:

Yeah, if E's plans are thwarted because Don is fundamentally a very poor target for blackmail, that'll be o.k., but it does raise the issue of why normally brilliant E doesn't quickly realize that trying to blackmail Don is a poor strategy. I really was fine with how the Martha arc unfolded, because the writers had the time to unspool it, and desperately lonely Martha was a psychologically perfect victim for such a ruse. 

This is what gives me optimism for this arc. It seems like they've usually made a point of creating a psychology for their sources that at least attempts to explain why they do what they do. Even Pastor Tim is set up to be the guy who doesn't tell on the Jennings. So whoever Don is he has to be written to do whatever he's going to do for some specific reason. Nobody could just assume that the guy would start handing over dangerous secrets because he doesn't want his wife to find out he got drunk and slept with her friend that as far as he knows he didn't even want to sleep with.

[Darrenbrett]

10 hours ago, TheodoraK said:

as much as i'm hating Elizabeth tonight one of the weird things about this show, for me, is that no one ever comments on how freaking gorgeous she is. even in her hideous disguises. on Felicity they mostly talked about her hair but it was acknowledged that she is stunning.

 

Seriously, that's your question? On social media, that's 80% of what the men manage to say - "Wow, Kerri is SO hot!". As a guy, it's really embarrassing. The women make constructive, insightful comments about plot and character, and the men resort to commenting on Kerri's looks, or how other women on the show don't compare to her physically. Again, embarrassing. So please, we don't need more of that here.

Okay, carry on, everybody.

Edited May 12, 2016 by Darrenbrett

[Bannon]

1 minute ago, Darrenbrett said:

Seriously, that's your question? On social media, that's 80% of what the men manage to say - "Wow, Kerri is SO hot!". As a guy, it's really embarrassing. The women make constructive, insightful comments about plot and character, and the men resort to commenting on Kerri's looks, or how other women on the show don't compare to her physically. Again, embarrassing. So please, we don't need more of that here.

Okay, carry on, everybody.

Eh, go to any Game of Thrones thread recently, and read the female posters rave about the hotness of naked dead Jon Snow.....

[Chaos Theory]

2 hours ago, stagmania said:

Given the writers' track record with constructing complex and surprising stories, I'm pretty comfortable giving them the benefit of the doubt that they have a solid plan for the Young Hee/Don stuff. They've certainly taken their time in setting it up; I don't see any reason to think it will devolve into anything too predictable or detrimental to the show.

I agree with this completely.  I think this show is among the best written and acted currently on today.  I don't think there has been a storyline I haven't enjoyed.  Even the Kimmie story worked for me in that it was a mirror into Philips fears about recruiting Paige.  Honestly in all the episodes this may be the first one that did not work for me.   

Edited May 12, 2016 by Chaos Theory
Autocorrect is fun isn't it?

[Bannon]

7 minutes ago, sistermagpie said:

This is what gives me optimism for this arc. It seems like they've usually made a point of creating a psychology for their sources that at least attempts to explain why they do what they do. Even Pastor Tim is set up to be the guy who doesn't tell on the Jennings. So whoever Don is he has to be written to do whatever he's going to do for some specific reason. Nobody could just assume that the guy would start handing over dangerous secrets because he doesn't want his wife to find out he got drunk and slept with her friend that as far as he knows he didn't even want to sleep with.

I think they have done a good job wth the psychology of Pastor Tim. 

[Darrenbrett]

Just now, Bannon said:

Eh, go to any Game of Thrones thread recently, and read the female posters rave about the hotness of naked dead Jon Snow.....

If you think women, as a general rule, reduce men to physical objects the same way men do, then you're living on a different planet than the rest of us. An exception doesn't disprove the rule, my friend. Call a spade a spade. Doing so helps us all move forward in a more evolved way.

[Bannon]

16 minutes ago, sistermagpie said:

I don't think Martha is usually short for Margaret. I assume her name is just Martha.

Yeah, it's probably just an idiosyncrasy of a family I know. Maybe a Swedish thing....

http://www.britishbabynames.com/blog/2012/12/martha.html

[BetyBee]

Very nitpicky, but I thought Yung Hee's kitchen looked too modern for the 80s.  I agree with a poster above that Don is likely to confess his "transgression" to his wife anyway and that would take away Elizabeth's blackmail power.  So maybe there's another story line planned.  I was glad that Pastor Tim has noticed that Paige seems burdened.  I love Matthew & Kerri, but I don't want to see Philip & Elizabeth always winning!  

[Bannon]

4 minutes ago, Darrenbrett said:

If you think women, as a general rule, reduce men to physical objects the same way men do, then you're living on a different planet than the rest of us. An exception doesn't disprove the rule, my friend. Call a spade a spade. Doing so helps us all move forward in a more evolved way.

I try to avoid general rules about huge groups of people, but I have many, many, many examples I could give of women objectfying men. Are men more likely to do so? Yeah, I  think it very likely, but we probably shouldn't be using this space for a discussion of internet thread trends, or gender differences. 

[Dev F]

42 minutes ago, madam magpie said:

My inclination is that's exactly what they want to do. I'm hoping it doesn't work. Don is high enough on the ladder to be aware that people might try to blackmail him, and I want him to report it. We need to raise the actual stakes for the protagonists, and I don't buy that EVERYONE who works for the US would trade secrets to avoid embarrassment with the wife.

Fair enough, but if that is the approach the writers are taking, doesn't it sort of stack the deck for Elizabeth to have done a really half-assed job of setting up a blackmail scheme? It's not much of a statement to say, essentially, "Not all Americans are susceptible to blackmail, if you pick a really unlikely thing to blackmail them about and don't bother to obtain or fake the proof that they did that thing."

Seems like the better way to set up that storyline is to tell the story of a couple who are deeply in love but having marital problems because the wife is suspicious of her husband's infidelity, and Elizabeth takes the time to fake photographic "proof" that the husband is cheating with her. Then, if he decides to blow up his marriage rather than commit treason, it means something other than "This was a stupid plan all along."

That's why I'm fairly confident that Elizabeth's plan for Don is something more elaborate.

[madam magpie]

2 minutes ago, Dev F said:

Fair enough, but if that is the approach the writers are taking, doesn't it sort of stack the deck for Elizabeth to have done a really half-assed job of setting up a blackmail scheme? It's not much of a statement to say, essentially, "Not all Americans are susceptible to blackmail, if you pick a really unlikely thing to blackmail them about and don't bother to obtain or fake the proof that they did that thing."

Seems like the better way to set up that storyline is to tell the story of a couple who are deeply in love but having marital problems because the wife is suspicious of her husband's infidelity, and Elizabeth takes the time to fake photographic "proof" that the husband is cheating with her. Then, if he decides to blow up his marriage rather than commit treason, it means something other than "This was a stupid plan all along."

That's why I'm fairly confident that Elizabeth's plan for Don is something more elaborate.

I don't think it's an unlikely assumption, on the part of the Soviets, no. But I do think it shouldn't always be so easy for them to use the honey traps. Martha and Nina were both ensnared that way. Then Nina tried it on Oleg. (Right? Oleg??) That's too much.

If Elizabeth uses this approach and it gets her what she wants, I'll have trouble with that storyline. But if she uses this approach and is wrong, I think it works.

[AliShibaz]

3 hours ago, TAG42481 said:

I think we might be done with Don and Young Hee.  The goal of the operation was to figure out if Don had any secrets, and it appears that he didn't.  Once Elizabeth realized that, she needed a way to end the friendship.  She can't just randomly stop hanging out with Young Hee.  So she "has an affair" with Don as the reason that she won't be over at the house again.

From a narrative perspective, I think it will be less important that they didn't find anything out about Don, but more important that Elizabeth had the arc of having a "friend" which she's now lost.  At least Philip has Stan as a "friend."  Elizabeth has now had the taste of having a friend and has now lost that.  It will weigh on her that much more.

I found this post to be quite amusing comparing E's friendship with P's. Isn't it strange that P has maintained a friendship with this guy who is kind of prickly by nature and (I suspect) he is  not at all easy to make new friends. But, YH has a great sense of humor and she seems to be the perfect kind of friend people would like to have as a friend. But, P keeps his friendship while E loses hers.

[Bannon]

1 minute ago, madam magpie said:

I don't think it's an unlikely assumption, on the part of the Soviets, no. But I do think it shouldn't always be so easy for them to use the honey traps. Martha and Nina were both ensnared that way. Then Nina tried it on Oleg. (Right? Oleg??) That's too much.

If Elizabeth uses this approach and it gets her what she wants, I'll have trouble with that storyline. But if she uses this approach and is wrong, I think it works.

I hope the writers haven't taken this approach to simply write a scene where Keri Russell takes her clothes off again. A plot line where Don or Young Hee is a complusive gambler, with subsequent huge financial problems, or something along those lines, would have been better.

[sistermagpie]

5 minutes ago, madam magpie said:

I don't think it's an unlikely assumption, on the part of the Soviets, no. But I do think it shouldn't always be so easy for them to use the honey traps. Martha and Nina were both ensnared that way. Then Nina tried it on Oleg. (Right? Oleg??) That's too much.

So far it's not a honey trap. Don only thinks he slept with her, so he's probably not ready to do anything out of lust for her. Though she might use his misunderstanding to convince him into an affair someway. I don't know how that would work.

I didn't take Nina as honeytrapping Oleg, really. Maybe to the extent that she hoped it would make him more on her side, but not in a major way.

6 minutes ago, AliShibaz said:

I found this post to be quite amusing comparing E's friendship with P's. Isn't it strange that P has maintained a friendship with this guy who is kind of prickly by nature and (I suspect) he is  not at all easy to make new friends. But, YH has a great sense of humor and she seems to be the perfect kind of friend people would like to have as a friend. But, P keeps his friendship while E loses hers.

Makes sense, though, since Elizabeth only became friends with Young Hee to get to her husband. Philip said he was working Stan from the start, but he always seemed to have the actual friendship as a draw. He doesn't ask Stan about work or try to get some stuff him for their friendship. Of course he might one day use it--he knows that. One day he might have to kill the guy. But I don't think he plans to do that. 

[madam magpie]

9 minutes ago, Bannon said:

I hope the writers haven't taken this approach to simply write a scene where Keri Russell takes her clothes off again. A plot line where Don or Young Hee is a complusive gambler, with subsequent huge financial problems, or something along those lines, would have been better.

I have no problem with Kerri Russell taking her clothes off if she's game. And I have no problem with Elizabeth being a honey trapper. I just don't think it should always work. Men are dogs, sure, but even when confronted with a naked Kerri Russell, I suspect there are at least one or two who could keep it in their pants...or fess up when it becomes OBVIOUS that they did keep it in their pants and are being blackmailed for American secrets, assuming we go in that direction.

 

Quote

So far it's not a honey trap. Don only thinks he slept with her, so he's probably not ready to do anything out of lust for her. Though she might use his misunderstanding to convince him into an affair someway. I don't know how that would work.

 

At first glance, it looks like that's where it's going. Hopefully I'm wrong.

I do think Nina was sleeping with Oleg to get him on her side or ultimately trade for favors. It just didn't work because he didn't have enough power, which is good. I think it would have worked if he'd had the sway.

Edited May 12, 2016 by madam magpie

[Epeolatrix]

I am trying to get discussion about the real-world effects of "The Day After" started in the "Politics of the 80s" topic, if anyone wants to reminisce or ask questions about it there (so that we stay on topic here).

[Bannon]

1 minute ago, madam magpie said:

I have no problem with Kerri Russell taking her clothes off if she's game. And I have no problem with Elizabeth being a honey trapper. I just don't think it should always work. Men are dogs, sure, but even when confronted with a naked Kerri Russell, I suspect there are at least one or two who could keep it in their pants...or fess up when it becomes OBVIOUS that they did keep it in their pants and are being blackmailed for American secrets.

 

 

 

At first glance, it looks like that's where it's going. Hopefully I'm wrong.

I do think Nina was sleeping with Oleg to get him on her side or ultimately trade for favors. It just didn't work because he didn't have enough power, which is good. I think it would have worked if he'd had the sway.

Keri Russell can do whatever she wants. I just think it is lazy writing to have the E character so frequently taking her clothes off as a plot device, especially, as you note, as a plot device which nearly unfailingly works for the character of E. I think we are largely in agreement.  

[whiporee]

I think they really messed up on something. They skipped KAL 007, which would have sent everyone into a tailspin, na took place about two months before The Day After. Can you imagine Phillip and Elizabeth trying to justify THAT to Paige, or even Pastor Tim? It throws E's "they dropped the atomic bomb" phrase into a lot of context, and I think it would have really made Tim and Alice's benign avoidance of their situation a lot harder. 

The Day After was galvanizing, but part of the reason it was galvanizing was because of what the Soviets had just recently done -- shot down a civilian airliner (killing a US Congressman, too). I think showing the repercussions of that act would have done a lot to add layers to everyone. I'd like to have seen Phillip and Elizabeth fight over it, to see their country's sins displayed for them without being able to call it propaganda. it's too big an event for this show to have just dodged, and that's too bad. 

I thought the episode was a lot better than the last one. I'd like to have a better idea as to what's getting E so close to the breaking point, though. This kind of explosive rage isn't something we've seen from her in previous seasons. Maybe she's contemplating Paige having to go through the same kind of rape training she had to go though and that's bugging her. I don't know -- Phillip's always walked a line in this show, but not E, and her starting to emotionally slip seems out of character. They both seem like they are sleepwalking, and if that's the case, I hope it's building to something.