S04.E11: Dinner for Seven

[madam magpie]

8 minutes ago, Umbelina said:

It would be nice, but I think I'll understand if Paige is in shock watching someone die.  I was in shock seeing a body in a coffin at her age.  Death is huge.  This death?  Gory, scary, and she was right there.

I don't think she's smart enough to realize killing him was Elizabeth's only option at that point, because of the second guy, and her helpless daughter not having the sense to run to the car, or do anything to stay out of the second guy's reach.

Did you get the run in a zig zag unpredictable pattern rather than get into a vehicle with someone aiming a gun at you, duck between cars in a parking lot abduction, keys as weapons, drive to a police station or public place if you are alone in a car at night and the blue and reds are flashing in an unmarked car?  Ha.

I really should brush up.

A bullet may hit you but it's unlikely to kill you, and the noise will bring onlookers that will make the guy leave...so yeah, even with a gun in your face, RUN rather than go where he plans on taking you.

Yes! All of that! They used to pull cars up behind the gym and we'd practice like we were actually in a parking lot. 

We also used to do this thing where you'd put your forehead on a bat, put the other end of the bat on the ground, spin around a bunch of times, and then get up and spar completely dizzy. It was to mimick the sensation of being attacked while you were drunk, but mostly people just fell over..or in my case, threw up.

[Darrenbrett]

Just when it looked like Paige was settling in to make the best of her bizarre family situation, she gets the shock and awe treatment of seeing Rambo-mom in action. The pacifist story-line they told her is going to take some major tweaking now. Should be fun!

Edited May 26, 2016 by Darrenbrett

[AliShibaz]

Do you think E will stop on the way home at a pay phone and fake a call to 911 to report the incident? The purpose would be to show Paige that she had compassion for the scumbag who came at them with a knife and wanted to rape them. Otherwise, Paige will forever whine about, "How could you just leave him there to die?"

If I was E and I had time to think about it, I would make a fake phone call. But of course, I would never really make the call. I would hope that he took a while to bleed out and die in the way he deserved to die.

Also, I don't know if the other scumbag will call the police. I strongly doubt he will. Just try to imagine that conversation. But if he does, he did hear Paige's name and that could help put things back onto the Jennings.

Where do you think Stan's partner was getting to about the mail robot? I didn't really understand. Are they likely to tie that back to the Jennings?

17 minutes ago, Darrenbrett said:

Just when it looked like Paige was settling in to make the best of her bizarre family situation, she gets the shock and awe treatment of seeing Rambo-mom in action. The pacifist story-line they told her is going to take some major tweaking now. Should be fun!

I don't think it would be much of a stretch to tell Paige that all agents take a basic course in self-defense. The problem will be if E has no time to think of that before Paige starts whining about it. If she doesn't have any time, she may say something else that would cause problems.

[Umbelina]

He was already dead, what she needs to do is call a KGB clean up crew to get the body out of there before it's found, if possible.

By the way, speaking of fights and killing, there is an adorable interview with Jennifer Garner (Sydney Bristow), JJ Abrams, and Keri Russell out there, on one of the Alias DVDs.  At the time she had been Felicity, and she was adorable, praising Jen Garner, and saying she was so jealous, she wanted to do accents and wear wigs and get in kick ass fights and learn other languages for scenes too.

Now?  She is!

Edited May 26, 2016 by Umbelina

[madam magpie]

3 minutes ago, Umbelina said:

By the way, speaking of fights and killing, there is an adorable interview with Jennifer Garner (Sydney Bristow), JJ Abrams, and Keri Russell out there, on one of the Alias DVDs.  At the time she had been Felicity, and she was adorable, praising Jen Garner, and saying she was so jealous, she wanted to do accents and wear wigs and get in kick ass fights and learn other languages for scenes too.

Now?  She is!

I've seen that! Yes, it's so great, and that exchange is very charming. I really adore both of them, and I always say that what I REALLY want is for Jennifer Garner to join the FBI on this show, go on the hunt for the Jennings, and in the last episode, she and Keri Russell fight to the (almost) death, but then they both get away.

Edited May 26, 2016 by madam magpie

[AliShibaz]

44 minutes ago, Conan Troutman said:

Fair enough. So I guess this would make for a plausible explanation from Elizabeth then. Paige will probably still be more suspicious about her parents claim not to kill people, but the fallout from that scene will likely be less severe than I first imagined. 

A lot will depend on the first thing out of E's mouth when Paige starts to complain about it. If she just brushes it off by saying that all agents are given some training in self-defense, that should minimize the fallout. But the more she says beyond that, the worse she will make things. There is no winning with Paige.

[Bannon]

I thought this was the worst written episode since the season 1 finale. The character of Stan is just flat out poorly written, what with his unbelievable blabbing about his job with people he thinks are civilians. It's always been a sore spot with me, but it really stuck out this episode. The conversation with Oleg was  also stilted and not consistent with someone like Stan's bio. Stan should be a borderline sociopath himself. The idea of him getting all confessional with Oleg is just bad writing, in my opinion.

The Don operation was not resolved well, in my view. No, people with Don's security clearance aren't going to let strangers sit in his office unsupervised, because of a sense of shame, even if I buy that experienced wine drinker Don actually believes he blacked out on two glasses of wine. Which I don't. 

Finally, we get Elizabeth in the crappy action movie trope of the protagonist revealing her extreme competence with violence, to another protagonist, when set upon by robbers/rapists in a parking lot. Fer' the luv' of Charles Bronson, give me a break.Ugh.

I know I'm going to be in the extreme minority with this opinion, in this forum, and I'm fine with that. I've generally enjoyed this show, which is why I've watched it to this pretty advanced point. I've thought this was the best season yet, by a decent margin, up until now, but this episode really highlighted those things which I believe have held the show back.

I will agree to disagree with those who no doubt think I'm nuts or a heretic.

[jjj]

I think the mail robot is about to be summoned to the Director's office, and not because it has a special knowledge of stamps.

I imagine a sweep of the mail robot will put that entire office into a tizzy, as it has been infiltrated again.  I cannot imagine any way they could connect the Betty death back to the Jennings, unless there is a fingerprint that links to Philip (and I assume they have "Clark's" prints by now from his apartment).  But until they get a Philip fingerprint, it will not link back to the Jennings. 

I also expect the Young Hee story will come back in some way.  If I were Don, after a few hours of reflection, I would decide this might all have been a scam for money.  It was a scam, but not for money.  Patty could show up again to apologize for that to Don, who still would be quiet.  But I don't see how all this destroys their (Don & Young Hee) family, or that "they will never recover from this", unless there is a Phase 2 in the works. 

I think Elizabeth initially was working Pastor Tim, but got tortured enough that she was looking for some kind of answers to her torment. 

[Darrenbrett]

I don't think anything E says to Paige in the near future is going to alleviate Paige's mind from going to all sorts of tricky places. Because, one - she's a teenager. And two - because that's the more interesting direction for the story to go, anyway. Remember, it is a show. And conflict is good and necessary for dramatic tension. And, gosh darnit, things were just getting a little too "Brady" in the Jennings' household of late.

[jjj]

Given how security conscious Don's workplace is, I am surprised that he was allowed to leave the two civilians in his office while he escorted Philip to the bank.  Philip would need to hand in his visitor's pass to the desk, then check back in again, and the obvious question would be about the two others, and where they were.  I've been in facilities like that as a visitor, and you don't get to wander out with your visitor credentials.   

Edited May 26, 2016 by jjj

[Dowel Jones]

Quote

The conversation with Oleg made no sense at all.

I had a different take on the conversation than others here.  I thought it was Stan saying, in effect, "You guys killed my friend and my boss, and there is no way we can ever be friendly again after that.  You are the enemy.  Adios."  Remember, the last thing Gaad said to Stan was "Remember who these people are."

Aderholt's hunch about the mail robot (great cameo!) involves, I think, the unusual departure of the repair guy just when Martha is in charge of the office, so to speak.  Anything odd that happens that can be tied to her will raise suspicion.

At first I thought that Elizabeth might be having a non-faith crisis in her conversations with Pastor Tim, judging from her facial expressions, but thanks to the various posters here for presenting a far more likely scenario. 

The takeaway lesson here?  Smoking is bad for you.  It will cause serious damage to your throat.

[Umbelina]

22 minutes ago, Bannon said:

I thought this was the worst written episode since the season 1 finale. The character of Stan is just flat out poorly written, what with his unbelievable blabbing about his job with people he thinks are civilians. It's always been a sore spot with me, but it really stuck out this episode. The conversation with Oleg was  also stilted and not consistent with someone like Stan's bio. Stan should be a borderline sociopath himself. The idea of him getting all confessional with Oleg is just bad writing, in my opinion.

The Don operation was not resolved well, in my view. No, people with Don's security clearance aren't going to let strangers sit in his office unsupervised, because of a sense of shame, even if I buy that experienced wine drinker Don actually believes he blacked out on two glasses of wine. Which I don't. 

Finally, we get Elizabeth in the crappy action movie trope of the protagonist revealing her extreme competence with violence, to another protagonist, when set upon by robbers/rapists in a parking lot. Fer' the luv' of Charles Bronson, give me a break.Ugh.

I know I'm going to be in the extreme minority with this opinion, in this forum, and I'm fine with that. I've generally enjoyed this show, which is why I've watched it to this pretty advanced point. I've thought this was the best season yet, by a decent margin, up until now, but this episode really highlighted those things which I believe have held the show back.

I will agree to disagree with those who no doubt think I'm nuts or a heretic.

I understand your issues.  Here are my reasons that they didn't bother me much.

Stan told Philip about a FORMER agent, not a current FBI agent, and only that he'd been killed and that Stan suspects the KGB.  Nothing about the rest of the FBI suspecting anything, etc.  He did tell his own son about a secretary being a spy, but that too seems both normal and minor nearly 8 months later.

I'm still not sure what Stan and Oleg were doing there, but it felt raw and real.  He feels guilty over murdering that nice KGB guy for no reason.  His office is pressuring him to turn Oleg or blackmail him, he's had enough of death and doesn't want Oleg's on his conscience as well.  He's pooped.

I'm willing to allow the Don story, stuff happens, guards change, I did buy that his horrible guilt and shame allowed them to stay, something the KGB was banking on from the extensive investigation of him and his character, habits, Korean ways.  As far as the drugging of Don, that one is fine with me for two reasons.  He drinks wine with meals, he even mentions he hasn't eaten.  Having been roofied once myself, I agree that he would notice it the next day (or days in my case!) but this is the KGB and they would have access to any and all drugs here, maybe that one doesn't leave hangovers, and they chose it for that reason, unlike commonly available date-rape drugs?  Shakiest part, I agree.

Hang in there with us, I think next week will be great!

ETA, he did tell Philip about Gaad's travel plans too, but again, former agent, not traveling undercover, if the KGB wanted to know, they'd just check airlines, or tail him.  Mentioning it to a travel agent seems pretty normal to me, yes, even for an FBI guy.

Edited May 26, 2016 by Umbelina

[Bannon]

4 minutes ago, Umbelina said:

I understand your issues.  Here are my reasons that they didn't bother me much.

Stan told Philip about a FORMER agent, not a current FBI agent, and only that he'd been killed and that Stan suspects the KGB.  Nothing about the rest of the FBI suspecting anything, etc.  He did tell his own son about a secretary being a spy, but that too seems both normal and minor nearly 8 months later.

I'm still not sure what Stan and Oleg were doing there, but it felt raw and real.  He feels guilty over murdering that nice KGB guy for no reason.  His office is pressuring him to turn Oleg or blackmail him, he's had enough of death and doesn't want Oleg's on his conscience as well.  He's pooped.

I'm willing to allow the Don story, stuff happens, guards change, I did buy that his horrible guilt and shame allowed them to stay, something the KGB was banking on from the extensive investigation of him and his character, habits, Korean ways.  As far as the drugging of Don, that one is fine with me for two reasons.  He drinks wine with meals, he even mentions he hasn't eaten.  Having been roofied once myself, I agree that he would notice it the next day (or days in my case!) but this is the KGB and they would have access to any and all drugs here, maybe that one doesn't leave hangovers, and they chose it for that reason, unlike commonly available date-rape drugs?  Shakiest part, I agree.

Hang in there with us, I think next week will be great!

The thing that has always been wrong about Stan is that guys like that just don't talk shop with civilians, I don't care how lonely they are, how crappy their family life is, or how much they suffer from PTSD. They just don't do it, or do it so rarely that it remains a bad way to write this character.

Oh well, maybe they'll return to this season's previous form.

[jjj]

I thought Stan looked very unhinged when he was talking to Oleg, and that Oleg's stony immobile silence was self-protection.  (If you see a bear on the prowl, stay very still and look larger than you are. Oleg did this.)  I would have been equally not surprised at Stan suddenly shooting Oleg (we have seen him do that) or walk away.  And I think that scene would have made sense with either ending.  Now I think the intertwined connection of Stan and Oleg has not yet concluded.

[Conan Troutman]

37 minutes ago, Darrenbrett said:

I don't think anything E says to Paige in the near future is going to alleviate Paige's mind from going to all sorts of tricky places. Because, one - she's a teenager. And two - because that's the more interesting direction for the story to go, anyway. Remember, it is a show. And conflict is good and necessary for dramatic tension. And, gosh darnit, things were just getting a little too "Brady" in the Jennings' household of late.

So Paige is going miss the first four episodes of next season?

37 minutes ago, jjj said:

I think the mail robot is about to be summoned to the Director's office, and not because it has a special knowledge of stamps.

Yeah, it's pretty obvious: The show has been renewed for two seasons, but just couldn't afford the new salary for mail robot. 

[scartact]

Being in the west coast makes it difficult to keep up with how fast these post-episode threads can move!

Anyway, as folks may have said before about either this operation or previous ones on the show, I did quite enjoy how the show surprised me with the Young Hee storyline. I'm actually relieved they didn't go with an overt "Patty blackmails Don" story, which I was a little reluctant to assume. Sure, it's a little convoluted and ridiculous, and sure the line between failure and success is so immensely thin and really riding on Don making one small mistake that I only barely bought it, but the emotional level of the operation was more than worth the price of admission for me.

I sort of wonder if we are fully finished with the Young Hee storyline (I do suspect we are), but I keep thinking about the cultural magnitude of shame in Korean culture and how much this will fully effect Don, Young Hee, and their family. I don't think they'll so easily resume their normal lives, and sometimes this shame is even enough for people to kill themselves and their families. There's an article I read in the LA Times about how the father in this Korean family felt such shame for putting his family in great debt and his inability to pay it back that he fatally shot his son and wife, shot his daughter (but she somehow managed to survive), and then turned to gun on himself.

I don't know if the writers want to potentially use this storyline as another time bomb over Elizabeth to further her guilt, but Agent Alderholt bringing back Betty's death from season 3 makes me feel like there's still ample use for this plot point in light of the two seasons renewal if the writers choose to pick up on this thread again. It's also very good timing to remind us of Betty's death since she is one of the only other characters Elizabeth shows a lot of complex remorse for having to kill.

Regarding the Pastor Groovyhair side of the plot, I was surprised to find myself a little less reluctant toward him. A review pointed out this is probably the first episode the show successfully managed to flesh him out as more than just a character obstacle for Philip and Elizabeth to Paige. Of course, I was fascinated by Pastor Groovyhair's scenes with Elizabeth and how much they seemed to be testing the waters with one another. While some have expressed their believe Elizabeth is fully playing Pastor Groovyhair, I actually think it's more toward the middle and that aspects of what Elizabeth does are honest and do reflect her desire to find an emotional outlet for her guilt. I do believe a lot of what she says to him when she very hesitantly begins to discuss her feelings.

Now, part of why I do find some veracity in Elizabeth and Pastor Groovyhair's scenes is because I think a big part of this episode is about confession. There are so many moments where characters speak to other characters from a place of guilt and from that place, the truth comes out. There are many moments of this happening, from the aforementioned Groovyhair scenes to Stan and Oleg, to Stan and Philip about Gaad's death, and "Patty" to Don about her "pregnancy"; even on a more micro level, there is Philip to Elizabeth about mentioning Gaad's whereabouts in his report, to Young Hee calling Patty to confess her worsening marriage problems to her. What's interesting is that all these characters may or may not be confessing this information to the seemingly wrong people. Will admitting these different issues relieve them of their real burdens, or is it in service of something greater than them?

All of this leads back to the one "confession" I absolutely did not think would come out till at least the final episode of this season or in the next. When the potential attackers began to threaten Elizabeth and Paige, I really thought this would just be a regular fight scene, which would cause Paige to interrogate more about her parents' capacities as spies. But of course in light of Elizabeth telling Paige she and Philip would do anything to protect her and because the show will never slacken the tension even just a little bit, Paige seeing Elizabeth commit a great act of violence and kill someone was pretty shocking for me. It was even more shocking that this wasn't even a spy-related killing. Elizabeth operated simultaneously on maternal and KGB instincts, the combination of which I believed pushed her to not just handily disable the attackers, but stab the guy in the neck. For me, this really just comes back to my own fascination of how the writers allow these moments to be so greatly layered and rich.

I've written an entire essay, but I haven't even come back to parsing Elizabeth's conversations with Pastor Tim and how great I thought those conversations were!

[BW Manilowe]

I enjoyed the irony of when Patty said "I'm pregnant.", to Don given that Keri was actually pregnant when she filmed the scene (I went, "No shit, Sherlock." in my head when she said it. I also enjoyed the irony of Stan talking, but not talking, to Philip about the bad things the KGB did to people when Stan wasn't aware Philip knew all too well about those bad things because he actually was KGB & did them himself (along with Elizabeth).

[AliShibaz]

Upon some further reflection, I've come to thinking the plan to get Don's codes was really terrible. Not just because of one excellent post above that made it clear that no highly secure building would allow two visitors to remain in Don's office while a third went out to a bank with Don. But more because they would expect to find Don's security codes in plain sight.

People with high security levels would surely be trained not to write down their codes in plain view. I write my passwords down so I don't forget them. You have to nowadays when you need at least 8 characters and at least one uppercase, one lowercase, one numeral and one punctuation char. It's a real pain in the ass. But you also need a way to disguise them when you write them down so that an observer would never know to which accounts these codes or passwords belong or how to extract or translate the info they want from what is written down. There are many, many techniques that people can use to handle this. There are some apps that will handle it for you. And although I'm confident a good app could handle it in a way that was essentially "unbreakable", I would never rely 100% on some app because someone could steal my hard drive (or equivalent) and then I'd be screwed. In the 1980s, there were no "clouds" (which is a really good idea). But to bet that leaving two people in an office for 30 or 60 minutes would reveal Don's security codes is really, really dumb! The KGB is so much better than that - especially since they are being written with 30 years of hindsight.

Sorry. But I have to give the writers a fail on this one tiny aspect of this episode.

[kokapetl]

Perhaps the special order computer expert and her device achieved something. 

[Ellaria]

4 hours ago, jjj said:

Given how security conscious Don's workplace is, I am surprised that he was allowed to leave the two civilians in his office while he escorted Philip to the bank.  Philip would need to hand in his visitor's pass to the desk, then check back in again, and the obvious question would be about the two others, and where they were.  I've been in facilities like that as a visitor, and you don't get to wander out with your visitor credentials.   

That's the first thing that I thought, as well. I also feel that the "let's get the codes" plot line was convoluted. Regardless, it successfully delivered on its emotional intent - to Elizabeth and to the viewers. I am in the minority here but I hope that we don't go back to Young Hee and Don.

5 hours ago, VCRTracking said:

The FBI are starting to get wise to the mail robot murder.

Yes, they are - thank goodness. Justice for poor Betty!

5 hours ago, hellmouse said:

At the start of the dinner scene, I loved how Stan rubbed his hands together after hanging up his jacket and heading in to the dining room. He really was happy to be there for dinner. 

If we think it's painful to watch the long con on Young-Hee and Don play out, imagine how painful it will be to see Stan's realization about the Jenningses someday. I will need some anti anxiety medication before that!

I also keep thinking about how Philip will react when he hears that Stan had dinner with Martha's father. Will he ask Gabriel if the Centre has contacted her parents? Will he decide to contact them on his own, as Clark? And if they haven't contacted the parents, on top of them possibly using his report to target Gaad, will it increase his distrust of Gabriel?

Oh...Stan...you are busy playing videos games with your neighbor's kid and awkwardly inserting yourself into already awkward dinner parties. Meanwhile, your partner Adherholt is going to learn that your racquetball buddy and his wife are KGB. Hopefully, Stan wakes up soon and returns to being the Super Agent that he is rumored to be.

I hope Elizabeth isn't distracted by her parking lot kill and remembers to tell to Phil about Stan and Martha's dad, etc. I gasped when Paige mentioned that conversation. Guess that none of the teens in this show can keep secrets.

6 hours ago, izabella said:

I fully expect something to come of Pastor Tim and his wife meeting the FBI agent who lives across the street from the Russian spies they've been dealing with. 

Somehow, this is going to come back around and I can't wait to see it play out. Gotta love Henry!

6 hours ago, numbnut said:

While it wasn't Stan's intention, I think it's a step toward Oleg being a double agent.

I'm not sure that it wasn't Stan's intention...although that may be assigning him too much of an agenda. I agree that Oleg is taking steps towards becoming a double agent. I haven't quite decided what I was hoping for from Oleg but he needs a purpose beyond sleeping with his female co-workers.

Edited May 26, 2016 by Ellaria Sand

[Ina123]

I work in a fairly secure building. There is no way in hell that the guard didn't notice that 3 people went in with Don and only one came out. He definitely would have questioned it especially because they were "shady-looking".  Those visitor passes have to be accounted for even in my building where it's just client material that has to be protected. Don's building is a lab with deadly viruses. No way would that guard not check it out or question Don. He would have insisted that they come out and wait in the lobby. But it's a TV show and the plot has to continue.

I liked the conversation between Oleg and Stan, or rather Stan's speech to Oleg. Stan just doesn't want anymore blood on his hands. The tit for tat has become a burden.

[JennyMominFL]

6 hours ago, Umbelina said:

I was taught how to kill them as well.  It's been ages, but yes, especially for a woman in a fight, brute strength and overpowering a man is pretty much a joke.  The nose pushed into the brain, etc.  It's been a long time since I was trained in defense, but it was done with a sense of reality, not "being nice."  Ditto with shooting someone, if you aim it, shoot it, if you shoot it, empty it.  Then again, I had an ex marine training me.

 

One is never an ex-Marine :)  and yeah, they don't really teach  you to hurt. They teach you to kill. With a weapon, aim for center mass. If engaged in hand to hand combat, go for the quickest kill. I do remember getting a little bit of basic self-defense training in BC too. Elizabeth's technique was consistent with military training or special forces training

[BetyBee]

Actually, Elizabeth does have cigarettes.  Too bad she left them in the kitchen behind the spices or the whole mugging might have been avoided.  j/k

I thought this episode was oddly paced.  The dinner especially, had strange cuts.  At one point when Henry was sawing away at his meat, Elizabeth turned to him and put her hand on his back as if she was about to say something.  At another point there was a weird pause where it seemed that Henry was about to say something.  Perhaps that was just poor editing?  I felt like these stories seemed somewhat unrelated and this episode was just to move the story along.

Why in the world would Elizabeth park there?  That was a very unsafe neighborhood, especially at night.  She's playing a suburban mom, and a suburban mom would not do that, imo.  Just another plot device to move the story along.  

One more thing - what if Don had had a vasectomy after 3 kids?  That would have totally trashed P&E's strategy!

I love this show.  It's my favorite, but this was not my favorite episode. 

[Chaos Theory]

Most awkward dinner ever.  The only thing that would have made it more awkward was if Young Hee and her husband had shown up.

Six degrees of murdered Gaad.  That's why you don't put your spy friends bosses travel plans in your reports.

As for the mugger stabbing.  I don't think there is any reason to connect it to Elizabeth.   It's a bad neighborhood and even if surviving mugger does describe Elizabeth even fairly well it will be to the cops not the FBI and even if they believe him the police and FBI don't really share information especially on what amounts to a "public service murder".   

Even if the police/Stan does trace it back to Elizabeth the Jennings are adept liars.  They can lie and say they were mugged but 5/10 minutes earlier and didn't report it because Paige was tramatized and Elizabeth was more interested in her daughter the reporting a couple stolen credit cards.  

 

My my long winded point is that there is no reason to connect the mugger murder to Elizabeth without some pretty heavy dots.

[DrSpaceman73]

The situation with Don was pretty convoluted in the end. 

 

But recall this was not likely the plan from the beginning.  She spent some time "babysitting" for them to get access to the house and then try to find someway or some weakness to blackmail him, he just didn't give them much to go on.  So as a result they had to create a situation to blackmail him, which caused the whole convoluted story.  And even 99% of that story they created was not true.  He never slept with her and she was not pregnaent, obviously didn't kill herself, etc.  The convoluted nature of the situation is more a testament to the fact that Don probably was not a good target to begin with because they couldn't find much on him to use and had to create this whole big drama instead. 

[stagmania]

7 minutes ago, DrSpaceman73 said:

But recall this was not likely the plan from the beginning.  She spent some time "babysitting" for them to get access to the house and then try to find someway or some weakness to blackmail him, he just didn't give them much to go on.  So as a result they had to create a situation to blackmail him, which caused the whole convoluted story.  And even 99% of that story they created was not true.  He never slept with her and she was not pregnaent, obviously didn't kill herself, etc.  The convoluted nature of the situation is more a testament to the fact that Don probably was not a good target to begin with because they couldn't find much on him to use and had to create this whole big drama instead. 

I think this is kind of the point. Elizabeth worked that family for, what? Nine or ten months? This convoluted shame plan was a last resort because they couldn't find a solid or straightforward way in, and ultimately, it may not have even worked. I don't think we're supposed to be all that impressed with it as an operation. On top of that, Elizabeth lost a friend and potentially ruined a marriage, all for nothing. That's going to weigh on her; it already has been.

I'm very amused that the general sentiment here is that Paige should be grateful and impressed by her mother's skills, but...it's Paige. I had much the same thought process. The death of the mugger is going to cause her all sorts of anguish, and definitely getting her thinking more about the true nature of her parents' work.

[maczero]

9 hours ago, Umbelina said:

 

 

9 hours ago, Tetraneutron said:

I'm actually kind of disappointed in the whole Don plan, now that we know what it is. All that, just for a few minutes of unsupervised time in his office? Doesn't it seem needlessly elaborate? Not to mention all the ways it could have gone wrong. Don could have told YoungHee, he could have refused to give "John" the money, and a million other things.

Yeah, their entire plan hinged on Don letting strangers stay in his office.  Even the "dad" coughing wasn't convincing enough reason to let him stay there. 

7 hours ago, izabella said:

I fully expect something to come of Pastor Tim and his wife meeting the FBI agent who lives across the street from the Russian spies they've been dealing with. 

Me too.  Pastor Tim picked up on it though and asked Elizabeth about it afterwards.  Liz masterfully plays it off as coincidence that their neighbor is FBI counter-intelligence (which it is).  In fact, the Jennings didn't seem all that phased by having Stan at the dinner.

7 hours ago, Conan Troutman said:

That raises a few questions though. Are you really taught in a self defense class to aim for the throat? It surely would neutralize the target, but aren't there other spots to strike that are non-lethal, yet have the same effect? And why would she deliberately chose to kill him when she knew full well that Paige was standing right next to her? Maybe it was more deliberate than I first assumed, but that doesn't really make Paige think differently about it. 

Others have responded to this so I'm not going to.  However, this leads to a problem I've had since the board upgraded.  I can't seem to delete a quote that I don't want to respond to.  Any help would be appreciated.

Back to the ep, Pastor Tim was close to being likeable.  First, he seemed very humble when he apologized to the Jennings.  Second, I like that his advice to Elizabeth wasn't based on believing in God.

[RedHawk]

1 hour ago, BetyBee said:

Actually, Elizabeth does have cigarettes.  Too bad she left them in the kitchen behind the spices or the whole mugging might have been avoided.  j/k

I thought this episode was oddly paced.  The dinner especially, had strange cuts.  At one point when Henry was sawing away at his meat, Elizabeth turned to him and put her hand on his back as if she was about to say something.  At another point there was a weird pause where it seemed that Henry was about to say something.  Perhaps that was just poor editing?  I felt like these stories seemed somewhat unrelated and this episode was just to move the story along.

Why in the world would Elizabeth park there?  That was a very unsafe neighborhood, especially at night.  She's playing a suburban mom, and a suburban mom would not do that, imo.  Just another plot device to move the story along.  

One more thing - what if Don had had a vasectomy after 3 kids?  That would have totally trashed P&E's strategy!

I love this show.  It's my favorite, but this was not my favorite episode. 

I totally thought Don was going to say he'd had a vasectomy! Or ask her, "How do you know it's mine? I get the impression you sleep around." HA! No, Elizabeth read him as culturally being a man who would accept her at her word and feel responsible. I so wanted him to turn the tables on her and still do.

I agree about the odd editing. When Elizabeth turned to Henry I thought she was going to admonish his way of cutting the meat but then chose not to. It was oddly noticeable as a "gap". Maybe she was just pretending to be "typical suburban mom". When Alice asked Eliz if she cooked every night and Eliz said, "I try to. There's not always time" I thought, and when you don't have time, it's grilled cheese sandwich night!

[Chaos Theory]

Before they went through with the plan the Jennings probably pulled any medical files the could gong on Don.  They are too careful to leave things to chance.  The one thing they had to worry about is if Don had been a stand up guy and agreed to take care of "Patty's" "baby".  But they were playing against the odds on that one.

[RedHawk]

6 hours ago, Bannon said:

The thing that has always been wrong about Stan is that guys like that just don't talk shop with civilians, I don't care how lonely they are, how crappy their family life is, or how much they suffer from PTSD. They just don't do it, or do it so rarely that it remains a bad way to write this character.

Oh well, maybe they'll return to this season's previous form.

Here's the reason I can buy Stan talking shop when he does and to who he does. I live and work in DC and have been stunned at times when people who have sensitive knowledge blab bits of it to me. One neighbor in particular, who held a high position with big connections, straight out told me stuff and even introduced me to someone mostly because he wanted to impress me. I also had a CIA friend who would say "I can't tell you that" in a way that totally told me that. I think they talked to me because they thought I had no connection to their work/world, an assumption that was not quite correct. Never assume.

Stan, who has been deeply shaken emotionally over many months, was talking about Amador to his buddy Philip, who he trusts and thinks has zero connection to any of this. Some people talk, even people highly trained not to talk. Human nature. 

That said, sometimes this show requires a level of suspension of disbelief and not a lot of questioning about certain details. For example, in the timeline it should be Christmas about now, but no sign of it even at the church. Something I notice but brush aside, just like almost every location shot is so clearly not DC. 

Edited May 26, 2016 by RedHawk

[RedHawk]

2 hours ago, Kokapetl said:

Perhaps the special order computer expert and her device achieved something. 

Exactly. They weren't looking just for the passwords. She copied all his files so they'll be searched for any useful information.

Still, I agree that the "Our Patty's dead and you have to pay" plan was awful and last-ditch and probably was meant to be.

[RedHawk]

Whenever Paige is asked about her recent interactions with Pastor Tim and Alice she goes into a detached mode and answers very specifically, as in giving a report. We didn't see the 7 months of "training" she got from her mom to notice details and emotional states and report back, but while Paige is clearly not comfortable or happy doing it, she willingly complies. 

So we have the scene where she tells Elizabeth what Matthew told her about the FBI secretary who was a spy. It reminded me that in the previous episode, when Paige was with Matthew she suddenly "remembered" that she would need to ask her parents for a ride to the church. Then he offered to take her. I really felt that she was playing him there. She knew he was interested in her enough that he's probably offer her a ride if she appeared reluctant to ask her parents. I don't know that she decided to "use" him for information during their chat or if she just sees that it could be a valuable connection to have, maybe if only to get info to keep to herself or use at an opportune time. Paige IS developing some deception and spy skills.

[molshoop]

7 hours ago, Bannon said:

The character of Stan is just flat out poorly written

I agree.  I also don't like Noah Emmerich as an actor.  I think his line readings

are flat and full of odd pauses.  Sometimes he doesn't even seem " present" in a scene.

[snoba]

11 hours ago, TimWil said:

At first I wondered why there wasn't an announcement like there used to be on the daytime soaps-"The role of Claudia is now being played by Marceline Hugot"-but then I realized that this was the woman in her 50s with computer skills from Moscow who was mentioned by Tatiana in her post-coital discussion with Oleg in last week's episode. And I apologize for this run-on sentence.

 

11 hours ago, crgirl412 said:

For awhile I thought it was the phone lady in fat suite, prosthetic face and bad wig and they finally let her out of her apartment!

I thought it was the librarian that Gabriel mentioned an episode or two ago. I am a librarian myself, so it made total sense to me that she would have the computer skills! It wasn't until I saw on Twitter that it was the person Tatiana was looking for that I realized those skills might be a little much for a mid-80's librarian.

[benteen]

1 hour ago, RedHawk said:

I totally thought Don was going to say he'd had a vasectomy! Or ask her, "How do you know it's mine? I get the impression you sleep around." HA! No, Elizabeth read him as culturally being a man who would accept her at her word and feel responsible. I so wanted him to turn the tables on her and still do.

I agree about the odd editing. When Elizabeth turned to Henry I thought she was going to admonish his way of cutting the meat but then chose not to. It was oddly noticeable as a "gap". Maybe she was just pretending to be "typical suburban mom". When Alice asked Eliz if she cooked every night and Eliz said, "I try to. There's not always time" I thought, and when you don't have time, it's grilled cheese sandwich night!

I noticed a bit of odd editing last week too.  I think when Paige was asking her parents if they did something to Pastor Tim.  I wish I had pointed it out last week.

[RedHawk]

11 minutes ago, snoba said:

 

I thought it was the librarian that Gabriel mentioned an episode or two ago. I am a librarian myself, so it made total sense to me that she would have the computer skills! It wasn't until I saw on Twitter that it was the person Tatiana was looking for that I realized those skills might be a little much for a mid-80's librarian.

Which raises the question about Gabriel's librarian. What happened with her and when is she going to appear? Or, was Gabriel's story a cover for the KGB lady Tatiana asked for, so that Elizabeth and Philip wouldn't know exactly who she was or what her background was? Gabriel's story seemed so odd, that he recruited her after seeing her with a copy of "The Monitor" (was that his story?). At the time I assumed The Monitor was a socialist-leaning newspaper or magazine and didn't research it. Did he mean the Christian Science Monitor or what?

[sistermagpie]

10 hours ago, RedHawk said:

When Paige asked Elizabeth if her connection with Pastor Tim would be "forever" it finally brought up what I've been waiting for. Paige's former interest in the church and love for Tim and Alice has been destroyed by the enforced closeness.

I liked how I could feel like Paige was starting to catch on to how interesting her parents are. I mean, we used to see her talk to Pastor Tim and he'd give her what were often platitudes that made her feel better. (The scene where he apologized to the Jennings seemed like the first time he was being more humble and speaking from experience instead of just talking down to everyone.) It's not that he was always wrong, but his understanding of people had to fit into the guidelines of how he taught people to live.

Here I think Paige was starting to get into how people operate and can be manipulated. Not necessarily because she wants to be a puppet master, but it's just interesting. I liked how when she talked about what Matthew said she made it clear she didn't ask him to tell her this stuff, but in fact that wasn't true. She talked about his dad being an FBI agent and Matthew, in an attempt to impress her or just to have something of value to say, coughed up this story. She was kind of trying to play it to Elizabeth like she would never spy or not to expect her to share this info in the future, I guess.

10 hours ago, hellmouse said:

It really seems like a bad move to kill him. Won't Pastor Tim hear about a murder near the food bank? Will Paige have to pretend she didn't know about it? Or was a murder in that area commonplace enough that it wouldn't attract notice?

I suspect Paige is going to smoothly lie about having seen nothing in the parking lot to Pastor Tim if the subject of a random murder there comes up. But I don't think Elizabeth would have to be brought into it. Paige saying they didn't see anything would just be proof the murder didn't happen until after they left, I'd think. The guys were criminals hanging around trying to mug people so one of them being violently killed isn't much of a mystery.

10 hours ago, crashdown said:

 Stan was talking to Oleg the person, not Oleg the Evil Soviet.

But I think the evil Soviet was in the background. Stan would rather turn Oleg than shoot a cheeseburger out of his mouth but I can't believe he started the ep talking about how these people were "animals" and then is just letting that go. Killing Vlad didn't make him feel satisfied, but turning Oleg maybe would.

10 hours ago, crashdown said:

Elizabeth heard that, really heard it, and I fully expect that she's going to go to Young Hee before the end of the season and try to make things right. How she chooses to do that, and what version of the truth she'll be telling her, will be very, very interesting indeed.  

Elizabeth going to Young Hee would be completely betraying her cause. Patti is dead. She can't contact Young Hee. 

Re: Don letting them stay in his office, I could believe that he didn't have that much real experience with being paranoid and this situation, with the trashy family shaking him down, seemed so bizarre to him that all he was thinking about was getting rid of them forever.

Also I noted that every member of the Jennings family has now fucked up an adult creep who was perving on Paige except Paige herself. Philip stabbed the mall guy with a barbeque fork, Henry smashed a bottle over the guy who gave them a lift and now Elizabeth punched out and killed the two guys in the parking lot. 

[Darrenbrett]

Re: the Stan and Oleg conversation, I don't think, as some have suggested, that it was really about declaring him/Oleg the enemy and walking away. I actually think that moment was supposed to be about Stan being human. He didn't make a lot of sense; he kind of bumbled his way through the conversation (which was more of a speech), and then said - importantly - that in light of all the people who've been lost (also by Stan's hands, he admitted) he didn't want Oleg on his conscience too.

After the handshake and the departure, the look on Oleg's face told me he recognized some common humanity in Stan. And that will actually serve to solidify that relationship - even if it goes cold in the short term.

[attica]

Whether Elizabeth is working the pastor or not (and I agree it's likely), I for one will be mortally upset if he gets his Groovyhair all over my Lizzie. ::shudder::

[RedHawk]

6 minutes ago, Darrenbrett said:

Re: the Stan and Oleg conversation, I don't think, as some have suggested, that it was really about declaring him/Oleg the enemy and walking away. I actually think that moment was supposed to be about Stan being human. He didn't make a lot of sense; he kind of bumbled his way through the conversation (which was more of a speech), and then said - importantly - that in light of all the people who've been lost (also by Stan's hands, he admitted) he didn't want Oleg on his conscience too.

After the handshake and the departure, the look on Oleg's face told me he recognized some common humanity in Stan. And that will actually serve to solidify that relationship - even if it goes cold in the short term.

I agree. My interpretation was that Stan was saying, "I could have played you; it was working. Instead, I'm telling you that I'm cutting you loose. Farewell."

[jjj]

13 minutes ago, attica said:

Whether Elizabeth is working the pastor or not (and I agree it's likely), I for one will be mortally upset if he gets his Groovyhair all over my Lizzie. ::shudder::

Oh, yuck, I really had not thought of that!  But it's a strategy!

[sistermagpie]

12 minutes ago, RedHawk said:

I agree. My interpretation was that Stan was saying, "I could have played you; it was working. Instead, I'm telling you that I'm cutting you loose. Farewell."

Which could very easily be Stan playing him. He's known him long enough now that he'd have some sense of how he ticks. Playing hard to get is a good strategy.

[Blakeston]

1 hour ago, RedHawk said:

Here's the reason I can buy Stan talking shop when he does and to who he does. I live and work in DC and have been stunned at times when people who have sensitive knowledge blab bits of it to me. One neighbor in particular, who held a high position with big connections, straight out told me stuff and even introduced me to someone mostly because he wanted to impress me. I also had a CIA friend who would say "I can't tell you that" in a way that totally told me that. I think they talked to me because they thought I had no connection to their work/world, an assumption that was not quite correct. Never assume.

Stan, who has been deeply shaken emotionally over many months, was talking about Amador to his buddy Philip, who he trusts and thinks has zero connection to any of this. Some people talk, even people highly trained not to talk. Human nature. 

That said, sometimes this show requires a level of suspension of disbelief and not a lot of questioning about certain details. For example, in the timeline it should be Christmas about now, but no sign of it even at the church. Something I notice but brush aside, just like almost every location shot is so clearly not DC. 

I've been in this situation, too, as I've had an FBI agent tell me more than he should have, just because we were friends.

But he didn't tell me that he suspected that an enemy nation assassinated an extremely high-ranking FBI official - or anything remotely that bombshell-ish. And I can't imagine he'd ever lived under a secret identity for years amongst terrorists. For someone with Stan's background to be blabbing such extraordinary information, it would mean that he's breaking.

Speaking of breaking - I think there may be an element of that with Elizabeth. I don't think her killing the guy was as simple as "he had a knife, so her training kicked in." She wouldn't be trained to kill every attacker, no matter what the situation. She'd be trained to assess a threat carefully.

In this case, I think she reacted the way she did because she's under extreme stress, and a creep was interested in raping her daughter. That is to say, I think it was more about mother instincts than spy instincts.

[sistermagpie]

5 minutes ago, Blakeston said:

In this case, I think she reacted the way she did because she's under extreme stress, and a creep was interested in raping her daughter. That is to say, I think it was more about mother instincts than spy instincts.

But she basically did the same thing as Philip did in S1 with Amador. He came at him with a knife and Philip flipped the knife around on him, in both cases the guy got a mortal wound. In Philip's case he was more evenly matched with the attacker and was clearly trying to not have to go deadly, but Elizabeth was dealing with two people bigger than she was.

[Chaos Theory]

8 minutes ago, sistermagpie said:

But she basically did the same thing as Philip did in S1 with Amador. He came at him with a knife and Philip flipped the knife around on him, in both cases the guy got a mortal wound. In Philip's case he was more evenly matched with the attacker and was clearly trying to not have to go deadly, but Elizabeth was dealing with two people bigger than she was.

Everything is coming at Elizabeth at once and she has no outlet.  Philip has EST and for better or worse Stan.  Whenever he gets too stressed he plays a game of racketball with his good pal or they have a few beers.,  Elizabeth doesn't have that.   I can see everything just coming to a head and a violent confrontation happens.    It was most definetly a mix of stress, training and parental instinct.  A perfect storm of kick ass.

[SunnyBeBe]

I didn't like the way they handled the actual Dinner for Seven dinner scene. Too contrived for my taste. The way they had Stan all hyped up and giddy over his dinner time appearance at the Jennings home didn't ring true to me. He was really down emotionally, but seemed happy as could be at the Jennings door, even though they were entertaining other guests. That whole thing just seemed like a joke to me. It didn't seem to fit with the show, IMO. 

I was impressed with the way they handled the Don situation. I had racked my brain to figure out how they were going to get intel from him as a result of Patty's pregnancy. I didn't think of the route they went. We'll see if it pans out, but I am not as critical of that, since it was probably the best they could do.  Other options might have been available, but apparently The Center had tried them and they didn't work, thus, they had to go with Don's.

 At first, I thought that Elizabeth was coming on to Pastor Tim, but then towards the end, it looked like she really was asking for spiritual guidance. At first, I thought she was going to feign marital problems and seek support from Tim. Then it gets personal. Pastor Tim did seem to give her a certain look. When he left his desk and walked around to the front and leaned back.....to me that said he was attracted to her.  I have read that during pregnancy, the husband's risk of having an affair is much higher than normal.  Hmmm.... That would give Elizabeth leverage over him. Only two more episodes. It may not be enough time to do much on that end at this point in the season.

I just knew something dangerous was going to happen when Elizabeth and Paige were walking to their car. Once again...to contrived for may taste.  It's almost like the person who keeps calling out, WHO's there to a noise they hear in the kitchen. lol   Now, if the survivor tells police it was a mother/daughter team.....no.  please. I hope they don't go there. 

Stan and Oleg conversation.  I didn't believe it.  

[shura]

Btw, did the FBI actually establish for a fact that Amador was killed by the KGB? Stan said it as if they knew for sure, but I am not sure I remember it that way. I thought the FBI just assumed it was the case.

19 minutes ago, sistermagpie said:

Which could very easily be Stan playing him. He's known him long enough now that he'd have some sense of how he ticks. Playing hard to get is a good strategy.

That's what I thought was happening. If you want to cut him loose, just stop seeing him. There's no need to make Oleg drive to the middle of nowhere just so he could listen to your speech. On the other hand, this is Stan, he is not known for being considerate.

When the computer lady was working in Don's office, I was remembering how P&E were retrieving a computer punch card in the first season. And now we have diskettes! Technology moves fast, no?

[Inquisitionist]

Tickled to learn that the computer expert/Patty's stepmom was played by Marceline Hugot, who also portrayed Kathy Geiss on 30 Rock.  My goodness, that poor woman gets saddled with some truly egregious wigs/hairstyles!

 

Looking forward to a rewatch soon.  So much happened in this episode, running the gamut from quiet conversations to fast-paced shock.  The parking lot incident reminded me of A History of Violence.

Edited May 26, 2016 by Inquisitionist
Corrected typo

[hellmouse]

1 hour ago, sistermagpie said:

I liked how I could feel like Paige was starting to catch on to how interesting her parents are. I mean, we used to see her talk to Pastor Tim and he'd give her what were often platitudes that made her feel better. (The scene where he apologized to the Jennings seemed like the first time he was being more humble and speaking from experience instead of just talking down to everyone.) It's not that he was always wrong, but his understanding of people had to fit into the guidelines of how he taught people to live.

Here I think Paige was starting to get into how people operate and can be manipulated. Not necessarily because she wants to be a puppet master, but it's just interesting. I liked how when she talked about what Matthew said she made it clear she didn't ask him to tell her this stuff, but in fact that wasn't true. She talked about his dad being an FBI agent and Matthew, in an attempt to impress her or just to have something of value to say, coughed up this story. She was kind of trying to play it to Elizabeth like she would never spy or not to expect her to share this info in the future, I guess.

I suspect Paige is going to smoothly lie about having seen nothing in the parking lot to Pastor Tim if the subject of a random murder there comes up. But I don't think Elizabeth would have to be brought into it. Paige saying they didn't see anything would just be proof the murder didn't happen until after they left, I'd think. The guys were criminals hanging around trying to mug people so one of them being violently killed isn't much of a mystery.

But I think the evil Soviet was in the background. Stan would rather turn Oleg than shoot a cheeseburger out of his mouth but I can't believe he started the ep talking about how these people were "animals" and then is just letting that go. Killing Vlad didn't make him feel satisfied, but turning Oleg maybe would.

Elizabeth going to Young Hee would be completely betraying her cause. Patti is dead. She can't contact Young Hee. 

Re: Don letting them stay in his office, I could believe that he didn't have that much real experience with being paranoid and this situation, with the trashy family shaking him down, seemed so bizarre to him that all he was thinking about was getting rid of them forever.

Also I noted that every member of the Jennings family has now fucked up an adult creep who was perving on Paige except Paige herself. Philip stabbed the mall guy with a barbeque fork, Henry smashed a bottle over the guy who gave them a lift and now Elizabeth punched out and killed the two guys in the parking lot. 

Great point about Oleg and Stan. I totally read the scene as Stan being honest and saying farewell, but you're right, how did he get there from "they're animals". Maybe he just wants to play it straight and not resort to subterfuge (which is a little odd for an investigator, but then as Nina pointed out, he thinks like a cop not a spy). And in fact, writing that makes me think of how Nina gave up on subterfuge near the end of her life. 

Would the show kill Stan? It would be huge. But it's not inconceivable. 

I thought the same thing about Paige. The creepy guy in season 1 even asked the same thing "how old are you?". Maybe this is setting up a scenario where Paige has to protect herself, or one of her family members.They need to get her some self defense lessons!

[SunnyBeBe]

I would like to know exactly how the 911 call from the mail robot repair shop got put in info they would examine when researching Martha. Talk about finding a bone.  That's pretty remarkable.  Once again.....pretty difficult to swallow.  When it happened, my thought was that the owner lady had a chance to write out a description of Elizabeth when she went to get the lady a drink of water or something.  If she left the description along with her desk items, it might have been overlooked or stored away.  After all this time, I doubt that's likely.