S04.E11: Dinner for Seven

[sistermagpie]

13 minutes ago, icemiser69 said:

 

I didn't think the culture thing applied to Don at all.  That dude had a porn tape hidden behind a whole bunch of other tapes near his TV at home.

 

What would one have to do with the other? 

13 minutes ago, icemiser69 said:

All of those things could have been possible.  I don't recall Elizabeth researching Don's medical history or anything about Don's sexually history.  It just so happens that everything fell Elizabeth's way which made the whole thing to me so unbelievable.  That is a one shot deal.  You don't get to pull that type of con twice.

We didn't see anything about the preparations for the Young Hee operation so there's no reason to think they didn't check out obvious things like that. Apparently this was actually something the KGB did. Of course it had possibilities for failure, but it also worked plenty of times. I wouldn't say everything fell Elizabeth's way--the ways she tricked Don didn't really require too much good luck on her part. And they still don't have the codes. If Don had turned out to not be somebody this worked on Patti's "family" could just have backed off in a way a real family like that might have.

[Inquisitionist]

11 minutes ago, icemiser69 said:

I didn't think the culture thing applied to Don at all.  That dude had a porn tape hidden behind a whole bunch of other tapes near his TV at home.
Who knows what kind of lifestyle he and his wife had?  Maybe there was just one tape and that is as far as it went.  Perhaps he and his wife could have been into some kinky threesome type of thing.  That type of thing gets told to no one, except to the people that are involved in it.  The other possibility is that Don could have had a vasectomy which pretty much would have ruined the pregnancy angle Elizabeth was spewing.  All of those things could have been possible.  I don't recall Elizabeth researching Don's medical history or anything about Don's sexually history.  It just so happens that everything fell Elizabeth's way which made the whole thing to me so unbelievable.  That is a one shot deal.  You don't get to pull that type of con twice.

 

Elizabeth had been developing her relationship with Young He and directly observing YH's interactions with Don for at least 8 months.  She did a lot of homework that we don't explicitly know about.  She took her best shot, and if it hadn't worked, she would have reported that to the Center.  As it turned out, she understood Don pretty well.

 

4 minutes ago, SunnyBeBe said:

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. 

I think Alderholt is examining a wide range of files that might potentially be connected to Martha.  Again, it's been 7 or 8 months since Martha disappeared, so he should have covered a lot of ground.

[hellmouse]

6 minutes ago, SunnyBeBe said:

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. 

Maybe there was a delay in getting the mail robot back because of the death? Or maybe an enterprising assistant looked up any other police matters that happened on that day? That was what Martha did when she told Stan about the murders in Alexandria - he hadn't been considering them as part of his investigation until she raised it. 

But I don't think there's a description of Elizabeth. I think what will happen is they'll find the bug in the mail robot. And the new boss will freak out. And over at the Rezidentura, Arkady will no longer have to have people transcribe the beeps and chitchat from it. 

[scartact]

1 hour ago, sistermagpie said:

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.

This makes me wonder how much the writers are interested in setting up and exploring how much Paige is her mother's daughter. That would be an interesting direction to see Paige instead of completely freaking out, this becomes a moment of her learning how to lie and manipulate for her family. Plus, noting that the second guy ran away, perhaps they could easily pin the first guy's death on him if they wanted to.

1 hour ago, sistermagpie said:

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. 

Also, good catch!

As for the Young Hee/Don stuff, I would be cautious to dismiss the cultural implications of shame especially in Asian culture and society and how powerful that sense of shame can be. This is partly why I'm curious to see if the show will pick up on this thread again or if it is truly done.

Edited May 26, 2016 by scartact

[Dev F]

19 hours ago, sistermagpie said:

Also, I think Elizabeth's got a lot more experience than Tim putting her life in the hands of something outside her control that may or may not ever exist--she's not only handed her life over to the Centre but she knows her life's been in his hands since she decided to let him live for Paige's sake.

But there's a difference between handling it as a problem to be solved -- say, by working Pastor Tim to convince him to turn over the supposed tape -- and treating it as a situation one accepts and assumes things will be okay. The latter is the thing Elizabeth doesn't have much experience with -- though her history of having to constantly bear up under hardship makes her perhaps better able to accept the notion than someone like Philip, who tends to see hardship as something that needs to be immediately beaten to death with a brick.

Indeed, I see this whole episode as being about the question of whether people are able to accept unexpected complications instead of treating them as problems to be solved. That's how they get Don: by exploiting his need to solve every problem as quickly and quietly as possible. And it's the source of the episode's title: if an FBI agent shows up to your dinner with the couple who know your darkest secret, do you decide that it's going to be a disaster and you need to immediately send him away, or do you invite him in and make it dinner for seven?

And despite the fact that Elizabeth's interactions with Pastor Tim end with her making peace with a certain amount of uncertainty, what follows demonstrates the limits of her ability to do that. When she's confronted with one last pair of unexpected arrivals, she can't just assume that they can be endured and everything will turn out okay. She has to solve the problem by killing them.

6 hours ago, icemiser69 said:

I didn't think the culture thing applied to Don at all.  That dude had a porn tape hidden behind a whole bunch of other tapes near his TV at home.

But someone with a cultural aversion to shame wouldn't be squeamish about keeping a hidden porn collection in the privacy of his own home. That would be the reaction of someone from a more Western, guilt-based culture.

Edited May 26, 2016 by Dev F

[SunnyBeBe]

I now understand where Don works.  Can someone confirm where William works?  

[jjj]

48 minutes ago, Inquisitionist said:

I think Alderholt is examining a wide range of files that might potentially be connected to Martha.  Again, it's been 7 or 8 months since Martha disappeared, so he should have covered a lot of ground.

I got the feeling Agent Aderholt was looking at files that pertained to Gaad (slamming file drawers, kicking the Mail Robot [the Pain!!!])-- because now they are looking for hints of what might have happened to him.  And this would now be a CIA matter, not FBI, because it happened in Thailand. 

[sistermagpie]

55 minutes ago, SunnyBeBe said:

 

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.

 

I don't think it is. Aderholdt over these months has apparently been looking through everything Martha was doing in the office. The Mail Robot repair would be an obvious out of the ordinary thing that would turn up, and if he's being careful he'd check out that repair. This many months later he's just running down every single lead for anything out of the ordinary.

32 minutes ago, Dev F said:

But there's a difference between handling it as a problem to be solved -- say, by working Pastor Tim to convince him to turn over the supposed tape -- and treating it as a situation one accepts and assumes things will be okay. The latter is the thing Elizabeth doesn't have much experience with -- though her history of having to constantly bear up under hardship makes her perhaps better able to accept the notion than someone like Philip, who tends to see hardship as something that needs to be immediately beaten to death with a brick.

I guess my issue with that is that Elizabeth does have experience with that--much more than Tim does. Gabriel himself described them as living in a burning house. I think both her and Philip have been just hoping things will work out for a long time because what else can they do? 

I guess it's also just that Elizabeth telling Pastor Tim how out of control she felt with Alice and the tape just seems so calculated on her part that it's hard for me to take anything at face value. That was just so reflective of what Tim said to the Jennings, hitting that whole idea of how scared Elizabeth was--just like Tim worried she was scared. I don't think her goal was just to get him to turn over the tape because frankly, they could easily make another tape and Elizabeth might not even believe they have a tape to begin with since Philip said there was no mention of it on the bug. It makes just as much sense to me that Elizabeth and Philip had just discovered another way to keep Pastor Tim close so it didn't all fall on Paige. It's much better for the Jennings if the Tims see them as vulnerable and scared than as the KGB who could have people killed.

[Ina123]

Gene was the go to guy for keeping the mail robot running and Gene's death was suspicious. Then they catch Martha spying. I can see how it could all be in a report together. They're probably looking at everything the least bit suspicious and every once in awhile they put 2 and 2 together. They're going to look at every little thing. It will dawn on them how much Martha used the robot too.

[Chaos Theory]

38 minutes ago, SunnyBeBe said:

I now understand where Don works.  Can someone confirm where William works?  

I believe William works the same place Don does but at a much lower security clearance.  I think that was the point of leaving Gabriel and uhhhhh (I forget her name) in the office!to get Din's security codes so William could use them later.  Don may have been rattled enough to leave two strangers in his office but security concience enough not to leave his credentials/passwords in plain sight.

[monkeypox]

Stan blabbing to Phillip about his former boss' vacation is totally plausible to me. 

Two unescorted visitors in a high-security deadly-virus building? No. That could not have happened. I've worked in buildings where most people don't even have clearance, but  we developed systems for Department of Defense. EVERY visitor was escorted. The first month I started working there, I had to be escorted everywhere, including the bathroom, until I got badged. Half the time, my escorts were the opposite gender, so I wouldn't eat/drink as much, so as to minimize awkwardness. Lost four pounds.

[Darrenbrett]

2 hours 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.

I agree it's a good strategy. But I don't know that Stan is sophisticated enough to play it that way. He's a little too straight ahead for that. I think it's Oleg that will end up initiating contact in the future - because he'll remember the conversation, and see a fellow human being in Stan. And that leaves open the possibility of growth in Stan at a later point - which feels potentially satisfying to me.

[SunnyBeBe]

I didn't buy Stan's words.  I do recall that in that last conversation with Gaad, didn't Gaad encourage Stan to go after Oleg?  Did I read that right?  I would think that Stan would be more prone to honor Gaad by doing that, rather than withdrawing. And all that about how ashamed he is of his behavior?  No, he seemed outraged with the Soviet's behavior.  I just didn't believe it.  

OH, maybe someone knows this.  Doesn't Oleg have diplomatic immunity?  How could they touch him, regardless of what they find out?

Edited May 26, 2016 by SunnyBeBe

[jjj]

9 minutes ago, Chaos Theory said:

I believe William works the same place Don does but at a much lower security clearance.  I think that was the point of leaving Gabriel and uhhhhh (I forget her name) in the office!to get Din's security codes so William could use them later.  

Yes, they work in the same facility, with William having lower clearance level, as you note. 

8 minutes ago, monkeypox said:

Two unescorted visitors in a high-security deadly-virus building? No. That could not have happened. I've worked in buildings where most people don't even have clearance, but  we developed systems for Department of Defense. EVERY visitor was escorted.

Totally agree, and I noted that above.  There are reasons there are NO exceptions to the escort policy. I was a visitor to a commercial bio research facility back closer to when this show has its time frame, and had to get picture ID badge at entry just to be a visitor.  Even now, when I have to go to a research building where I have meetings several times a week and all the front desk people have known me for years, they have to ride up in the elevator with me to make sure I don't get off at the wrong floor, because I don't have the same clearance as regular employees who can ride the elevators alone. 

Edited May 26, 2016 by jjj

[Umbelina]

6 hours ago, JennyMominFL said:

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

Oh man, this made me laugh!  Once a marine, always a marine.  My bad.  I would be in trouble for that one, I've known more than one marine.

6 hours ago, BetyBee said:

 

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!

 

It was a parking lot near the food bank, possibly the only place to park.  ?

I think after 9 months working this case, Elizabeth would know if Don had a vasectomy, a pretty easy thing to find out, since she was very good friends with Young Hee.  "Are you guys going to have more kids?" or girl talk about problems with birth control, all kinds of ways.  She didn't spend 9 months with them only to have a girlfriend, she found out every single thing she could about them.

6 hours ago, Chaos Theory said:

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.

We shall see.  I think there are several ways it could connect, but it's equally possible it won't.  The whole reminder to the Beemans about just how involved the Jennings are with the Reed St Church seemed deliberate to me.

5 hours ago, maczero said:

. 

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.

 

CONTROL RIGHT CLICK!  Thank heavens someone mentioned it on another forum here, they found out accidentally. @maczero

4 hours ago, RedHawk said:

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.

Yeah, this wasn't the play they wanted to make.  Of course it had risks, and of course it might not work, but after extensive investigations before they even singled out Don and the most likely to turn, and most of a year with Elizabeth studying them closely, and even searching their house?  It was the only play they had.  Maybe I've read too many spy novel or real spy books, but honestly, this op was not that convoluted to me.  I've read about many much more complicated long shot ops that were carried out.

3 hours ago, RedHawk said:

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?

I wonder about that too.  Did Gabe lie to Philip and Elizabeth, or with the librarian show up next season in a different kind of operation.  Probably the latter, Gabe would still be working her I think.

1 hour ago, SunnyBeBe said:

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. 

That's how many cases are solved though.  Painstakingly going back over every little "off" detail, tiny threads left dangling, Aderholt is doing his job, tedious and thorough.  (That's also why I think that parking lot death may come back to haunt them, sooner or later.) 

Edited May 26, 2016 by Umbelina

[Darrenbrett]

One little pet peeve to express here:

I love, love, love the show; love the characters.

But Pastor Tim... he just doesn't line up with any brand of American Christianity I've come across. The comment he made to Liz: "none of that matters" - in reference to her not believing in God, prayer, faith... followed by his comment "All that matters is how we treat each other". Again, nice notion. Very progressive and humanistic. Not particularly believable for many strands of American Christianity I've experienced - and I've experienced a lot of the spectrum. Sure, there are the very liberal, mainline elements of Christianity out there - but other things he's said - about his reliance on Jesus and the Bible and such - tell me he's not in that vein. But neither does he fit an evangelical mould either - too liberal and socially progressive for that. In other words, he doesn't really fit any vein. And I often find this with religious characters on television. They're too often either caricatures or simply untenable.

[maczero]

2 minutes ago, Umbelina said:

CONTROL RIGHT CLICK!  Thank heavens someone mentioned it on another forum here, they found out accidentally.  

Thanks!

[SunnyBeBe]

So true. When Pastor Tim said that the only thing that matters is how we treat each other, I was shocked. Even liberal pastors believe in some other stuff, based on my experience.  So basically, you can be a Christian, without believing in Christ or even God.  Man,...I guess that means P & E can get baptized and join the church, even if they don't believe in a higher power. 

[Tara Ariano]

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

The Americans Force Don To Face The Consequences Of 'His' 'Actions'

They also celebrate Pastor Groovyhair's safe return by bringing together disparate members of the community at a (fairly awkward) dinner party. За здоровье!

[sistermagpie]

5 minutes ago, Umbelina said:

We shall see.  I think there are several ways it could connect, but it's equally possible it won't.  The whole reminder to the Beemans about just how involved the Jennings are with the Reed St Church seemed deliberate to me.

I tend to think Pastor Tim would bring it up at least. He was at the Food Bank that night, must know it's a place to park. He'd probably ask any of the kids if they saw anything or would worry if they were okay if the police asked questions of him, which they might. I think it might be a chance for Paige to lie.

 

6 minutes ago, Umbelina said:

Maybe I've read too many spy novel or real spy books, but honestly, this op was not that convoluted to me.  I've read about many much more complicated long shot ops that were carried out.

Yeah, I didn't think it was that complicated either. Most people just don't go through life with an easy way to blackmail them, so you have to create something made to order from them. And it did work believably imo. Getting into the office didn't get them the codes they wanted, but the plan to get into the office worked.

6 minutes ago, Darrenbrett said:

But Pastor Tim... he just doesn't line up with any brand of American Christianity I've come across. The comment he made to Liz: "none of that matters" - in reference to her not believing in God, prayer, faith... followed by his comment "All that matters is how we treat each other". Again, nice notion. Very progressive and humanistic

I have to agree here. I feel like Pastor Tim and his whole church are just ever changing things that don't line up. First, my god do they come up with a million things for Paige to do there. In this ep alone she had choir practice (she's in choir now? At a church where the singing is terrible), youth group and working at a food bank "a couple of nights a week." We've also heard about her doing a food thing in the morning before school. And she goes to Bible study. There's apparently a lot of pot lucks and protests. All of these things alone would be fine, but I feel like every week somebody just comes up with a church thing Paige could be doing and throws another one on the pile to explain where she is.

Then there's Tim, who honestly barely seems to get anywhere near a coherent, consistent Christian viewpoint. That convo with Elizabeth at the end I didn't even follow. It seemed to just be there for Pastor Tim to say all that mattered is how we treat each other, which was cutting to Elizabeth but had little to do with the question of how one stopped thinking about something they were obsessing over. Her original questions seemed like she was begging him to convert her and he doesn't bite. Meanwhile his church really does seem to be as he described to Stan--social justice with a little Jesus thrown in. Except without the Jesus most of the time. The only time he really came up was Paige seeing him as a proto-Pastor Tim the not-quite-radical activist.  Paige is shown with a Bible full of stickies (and she apparently goes to a study class too) but rarely references it. I just don't buy any of them at all. In fact, in my experience somebody saying "none of that matters, all that matters is how we treat each other" immediately marks them out as at most nominally Christian, but more likely not Christian at all. And this guy is a pastor. A pastor in 1983 when I'd guess there was far less awareness other faiths.

It makes me think back fondly to characters like Rev. Alden on Little House on the Prairie. 

[crashdown]

3 hours ago, sistermagpie said:

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.

13 hours ago, hellmouse said:

I see it as exactly the opposite--I think she was groping toward asking Elizabeth whether or not this sort of thing would be useful to her parents, and whether she should continue to do it in the future.  Paige is conflicted and trying to figure out where she stands and what she might do: she wants to be a "good person" in the traditional way that she's come to understand the label, and she also wants to help and support her family.  For the first time in her life, these two goals are at odds.

3 hours ago, sistermagpie said:

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

Right, that certainly should be the case.  But I'm kind of expecting a season finale phone call that Elizabeth makes to her, to parallel Paige's season finale call to Pastor Tim last season.  But we shall see--I find the plot points of this show refreshingly hard to predict.

[RedHawk]

I thought Elizabeth telling Paige that she had to see the Tims every day was just an exaggeration in the heat of the moment, but it has seemed to be specifically what Elizabeth and Philip expected. To me that is just excessive and would more likely raise the Pastor's suspicions rather than make him think all was well with the Jennings family. And really, what a misery for Paige, having to give all her free time to the church. Sure, she brought it on herself, but still.

[sistermagpie]

2 hours ago, crashdown said:

Paige is conflicted and trying to figure out where she stands and what she might do: she wants to be a "good person" in the traditional way that she's come to understand the label, and she also wants to help and support her family.  For the first time in her life, these two goals are at odds.

That's true, it could be that.

2 hours ago, crashdown said:

Right, that certainly should be the case.  But I'm kind of expecting a season finale phone call that Elizabeth makes to her, to parallel Paige's season finale call to Pastor Tim last season.  But we shall see--I find the plot points of this show refreshingly hard to predict.

But that's putting Elizabeth on the level of a novice 15 year old who doesn't understand the seriousness of what she's doing. And I'm not even sure what she'd get out of it.

Edited May 26, 2016 by sistermagpie

[Chaos Theory]

What I love about the show is things you expect to happen don't always happen or don't happen quickly.  The bug in the mail robot is just coming into play again.  Martha's gun was never actually used.  It's complely  possibly that The mugger murder will never be connected to the Jennings even though Stan knows that the Jennings and Pastor Tim frequent the area.  Hell it took Martha's spy pen a season to really come into play.   

Edited May 26, 2016 by Chaos Theory
Mostly Autocorrect

[Umbelina]

The closest church I see Pastor Tim's resembling would be a Unitarian Church.  You can believe in Jesus, or not, believe in God, or not, accept Buddist Ways with Christian teachings thrown in, or be a pantheist, wiccan, etc. and still be welcome there.

It's more of a gathering for spiritual support, and instead of hating other beliefs, being interested in them, or at least accepting of them, a community spirit that values love and treating others as you would want them to treat you. 

ETA, some Unitarian church ministers are very Christian, some are primarily another faith, but all of them accept all beliefs in their congregation, in spite of their own personal bent.  I'm not saying this well.  But yes to @DoubleUTeeEff's post below, they are walking the walk, the talk isn't the important part.

Edited May 26, 2016 by Umbelina

[DoubleUTeeEff]

20 minutes ago, sistermagpie said:

Then there's Tim, who honestly barely seems to get anywhere near a coherent, consistent Christian viewpoint.

There's a coherent, consistent Christian viewpoint?  That's news to me!  Pastor Tim's church actually seems like it has a lot more Jesus in it than many Christian churches to me.  Helping the poor, pacifism, lack of materialism/consumerism, caring more about how you treat others than judging them, love and acceptance over fear and hatred of the "other".  That all seems pretty Jesus-like to me, from an outsider's perspective anyway.  That said, I would probably still hate to be a member of it! Not because I don't share those values but because in the end, it is a church.  Pastor Tim is just one man and his philosophy might be inconsistent with his church but that is the first thing that makes me respect him.  I think Elizabeth might have a little, too.

[crashdown]

6 minutes ago, DoubleUTeeEff said:

Pastor Tim is just one man and his philosophy might be inconsistent with his church but that is the first thing that makes me respect him.  I think Elizabeth might have a little, too.

What really struck me in the Pastor Tim/Elizabeth convos is how weirdly similar the two of them are: both of them have a strong sense of social justice, and both of them live their lives by believing that forces outside of themselves, forces that they don't fully understand but have to trust are rational and just, make their actions meaningful.  In a way, Elizabeth the atheist is one of the most religious characters on the show.

[Dev F]

1 hour ago, jjj said:

There are reasons there are NO exceptions to the escort policy. I was a visitor to a commercial bio research facility back closer to when this show has its time frame, and had to get picture ID badge at entry just to be a visitor.  Even now, when I have to go to a research building where I have meetings several times a week and all the front desk people have known me for years, they have to ride up in the elevator with me to make sure I don't get off at the wrong floor, because I don't have the same clearance as regular employees who can ride the elevators alone. 

But they were being escorted, weren't they -- by Don? And contrary to earlier assumptions that Don was being targeted because he was a scientist with his own Level Four access, this episode seems to make it clear that he was actually an operational manager, who would be in charge of assigning security access to the scientific staff. So it seems like he'd be the sort of guy that, if he did something a little off book, the security guards might feel weird about questioning him about it. Because it would mean questioning the security procedures of the guy who's in charge of the security procedures.

[Darrenbrett]

47 minutes ago, DoubleUTeeEff said:

There's a coherent, consistent Christian viewpoint?  That's news to me!  Pastor Tim's church actually seems like it has a lot more Jesus in it than many Christian churches to me.  Helping the poor, pacifism, lack of materialism/consumerism, caring more about how you treat others than judging them, love and acceptance over fear and hatred of the "other".  That all seems pretty Jesus-like to me, from an outsider's perspective anyway.  That said, I would probably still hate to be a member of it! Not because I don't share those values but because in the end, it is a church.  Pastor Tim is just one man and his philosophy might be inconsistent with his church but that is the first thing that makes me respect him.  I think Elizabeth might have a little, too.

For the record, I personally wasn't questioning whether Pastor Tim is admirable or not. I was merely pointing out that he's not a realistic character, as it pertains to the context of American Christianity as it really exists. As I pointed out, there are certainly churches and pastors on either end of the spectrum, but Tim's church treads a middle ground that, to me, comes across as suspiciously untenable and unrealistic. Churches that are heavy into progressive social justice issues, and would consider it good conscience to give safe harbor to known spies, are not the same pastors who lead and expect their congregants to be highly conversant in the Bible - mainly because if they're progressive like that, they're post-literal when it comes to theological interpretation. Thirdly, I certainly don't believe for a second that there is one definition of American Christianity - far from it; it really is a pretty broad spectrum. However, there are still points along that spectrum where churches tend to converge, and none of the points I'm aware of (in real life) fit Tim and his church. 

Edited May 26, 2016 by Darrenbrett

[snarktini]

12 minutes ago, Dev F said:

But they were being escorted, weren't they -- by Don?

Don escorted them to his office, but then he left them unattended (and thus unescorted) in his office. Then he left the building! Visitor access should have been revoked if the employee responsible for them was no longer present to be responsible.

Of all the things that could have gone wrong, his taking them upstairs to his office seems like one of the more vulnerable spots. I assume they thought (hoped) he would feel safest taking them to the privacy of his office, yet it semi-surprised me he took them upstairs rather than outside to keep this away from work.

[sistermagpie]

1 hour ago, DoubleUTeeEff said:

There's a coherent, consistent Christian viewpoint?  That's news to me!

There are many of them, and Pastor Tim doesn't seem to have one of his own, is what I'm saying and I think what Darren is saying. It's not that there's one way to be to be Christian--of course not. There are many different versions of Pastor Tim that would be recognizable, it just seems like he's not coherent as he is. 

 

1 hour ago, DoubleUTeeEff said:

Helping the poor, pacifism, lack of materialism/consumerism, caring more about how you treat others than judging them, love and acceptance over fear and hatred of the "other".  That all seems pretty Jesus-like to me, from an outsider's perspective anyway.  

Jesus-like from an outsider's pov view could apply to lots of things, though. It's unclear to me, for instance, what Paige is often supposed to be getting out of the Bible full of stickies if the idea is just this sort of thing. It suggests, as Darrenbrett says, a sort of non-specific bunch of impressions that often don't go together. There's no one version of American Christianity by a longshot, but a single church tends to fall somewhat on a spectrum of recognizable versions, and I honestly don't get the feeling that Tim's fictional church has been really thought through. 

[Umbelina]

I really think it's very much like a Unitarian Church, this one with a Christian Liberal minister (ministers usually rotate in and out.) 

They just can't say that on the show, or really, give it any real Church's name perhaps?

[Darrenbrett]

2 minutes ago, Umbelina said:

I really think it's very much like a Unitarian Church, this one with a Christian Liberal minister (ministers usually rotate in and out.) 

They just can't say that on the show, or really, give it any real Church's name perhaps?

But please note my point about progressive theology and Bible studies. Bible studies tend to happen in more theologically conservative churches, where there is a more literal interpretation. In postmodern churches, like the Unitarian Church and other mainline expressions, heavy Bible focus is not very common. Thirdly, to sistermagpie's point, the weird mix of Christian-ese just seems not very thought through. From a plot point of view, it's much more interesting for Paige to fall in with an evangelical group - because that really flies in the face of P and E's mentality and ideology. And at first, when we saw Paige reading her Bible in her room, that seemed to be what they were aiming for. Then all of a sudden the church got really postmodern and progressive. It just comes across as incoherent and a little sloppy. Which, as I said already, I notice happens fairly often when it comes to how religion is portrayed on television.

[hellmouse]

1 hour ago, Dev F said:

But they were being escorted, weren't they -- by Don? And contrary to earlier assumptions that Don was being targeted because he was a scientist with his own Level Four access, this episode seems to make it clear that he was actually an operational manager, who would be in charge of assigning security access to the scientific staff. So it seems like he'd be the sort of guy that, if he did something a little off book, the security guards might feel weird about questioning him about it. Because it would mean questioning the security procedures of the guy who's in charge of the security procedures.

Yes, that is a good point. I also thought that maybe he could get away with it because he is in an office, not an actual lab. 

They were just lucky there were no security cameras in his office. 

[Conan Troutman]

3 hours ago, Umbelina said:

 

CONTROL RIGHT CLICK!  Thank heavens someone mentioned it on another forum here, they found out accidentally. @maczero

Thanks, that's great! I've been doing this manually with my mouse and the delete key (a really bad idea if you read the whole thread, click on quote half a dozen times and when you're finished you see that most of it has already been addressed) . Even Henry with his prehistoric joystick would be faster. 

Edited May 26, 2016 by Conan Troutman

[Dev F]

21 minutes ago, hellmouse said:

They were just lucky there were no security cameras in his office. 

They could've gotten that information from William, I imagine.

[AllyB]

If I was Paige the part about the attack and defense that I'd find impossible to rationalise as mere training, was Elizabeth making sure to retrieve her wallet as the man died. No matter how much training you've done, nearly killing someone would be shocking. Efficiently taking the time to protect your identity before running away would be impossible. Only an experienced killer would have the presence of mind to act as Elizabeth did as the man bled out.

[sistermagpie]

4 minutes ago, AllyB said:

 

If I was Paige the part about the attack and defense that I'd find impossible to rationalise as mere training, was Elizabeth making sure to retrieve her wallet as the man died. No matter how much training you've done, nearly killing someone would be shocking. Efficiently taking the time to protect your identity before running away would be impossible. Only an experienced killer would have the presence of mind to act as Elizabeth did as the man bled out.

 

Yes, and that grab for the wallet was just one of many signs that Elizabeth was perfectly calm about killing the guy. She stuck the knife in his throat and jabbed it in there, not flinching from the actual contact with blood, she looked around immediately for witnesses, she picked up the wallet, she commanded Paige to come to the car to make a getaway. Absolutely nothing about her demeanor suggested someone who had just killed someone for the first time. 

[AllyB]

16 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. 

I trained in Krav Maga, the proper version not the toned down version that's common in the US, and in my very first lesson we were taught to go for the throat. In fact we were taught proper biting technique for the throat, which is to bite down hard and rag like a wild animal.

[madam magpie]

12 minutes ago, sistermagpie said:

Yes, and that grab for the wallet was just one of many signs that Elizabeth was perfectly calm about killing the guy. She stuck the knife in his throat and jabbed it in there, not flinching from the actual contact with blood, she looked around immediately for witnesses, she picked up the wallet, she commanded Paige to come to the car to make a getaway. Absolutely nothing about her demeanor suggested someone who had just killed someone for the first time. 

This makes me wonder how Elizabeth did react the first time she killed someone. I could believe she kept her wits and cracked later, actually, but that's based on who she is now. We really have very little idea what kind of agent Elizabeth was when she was young. She was nervous and hesitant with Philip, but that was expected to be a much more intimate a relationship.

[sistermagpie]

5 minutes ago, madam magpie said:

This makes me wonder how Elizabeth did react the first time she killed someone. I could believe she kept her wits and cracked later, actually, but that's based on who she is now. We really have very little idea what kind of agent Elizabeth was when she was young. She was nervous and hesitant with Philip, but that was expected to be a much more intimate a relationship.

I was thinking about just that after this ep because didn't she tell Lucia about it? She just said the first time she had to do it she did it and wrote it up in her report, something like that. I picture her being very nervous but repressing the emotion, probably walking until she stopped shaking or whatever and then being extra professional about writing about it. But I don't doubt for a moment she'd not have shown it and been a bit traumatized by it.

I wonder about Philip too, of course, since we know the first time he killed, but did that make the second time easier or harder? And when was the second time?

I wonder if this subject might come up now that Paige knows.

Edited May 26, 2016 by sistermagpie

[Conan Troutman]

8 minutes ago, AllyB said:

I trained in Krav Maga, the proper version not the toned down version that's common in the US, and in my very first lesson we were taught to go for the throat. In fact we were taught proper biting technique for the throat, which is to bite down hard and rag like a wild animal.

With all these properly trained badasses here, I guess I'll have to think twice about what I write...

[jenrising]

I know it isn't fair, but I'm so over Paige and her traumas. In reality I'd have all the compassion in the world for her situation, but it's enough with her sad puppy eyes on the show. 

[SunnyBeBe]

Did Elizabeth have on gloves when she grabbed that knife?  I also wondered if Gab and his wife wiped their prints too, before they jumped back into their seats.

[Umbelina]

The podcast says this particular con was used very successfully in real life, on highly trained people taught to be wary of KGB tricks.  He gives examples, an ambassador, etc. 

[hellmouse]

17 minutes ago, SunnyBeBe said:

Did Elizabeth have on gloves when she grabbed that knife?  I also wondered if Gab and his wife wiped their prints too, before they jumped back into their seats.

She did have on gloves.

[CarpeDiem54]

30 minutes ago, Conan Troutman said:

With all these properly trained badasses here, I guess I'll have to think twice about what I write...

I was just thinking the same thing.   I certainly don't want to piss someone off.  ;-)

21 minutes ago, jenrising said:

I know it isn't fair, but I'm so over Paige and her traumas. In reality I'd have all the compassion in the world for her situation, but it's enough with her sad puppy eyes on the show. 

I couldn't agree more.  I'm getting tired of the Paige Show (co-starring the Groovyhairs).

[madam magpie]

13 minutes ago, hellmouse said:

She did have on gloves.

She's no amateur! (Also, it is always winter...)

[stagmania]

16 minutes ago, CarpeDiem54 said:

I couldn't agree more.  I'm getting tired of the Paige Show (co-starring the Groovyhairs).

I have a lot of sympathy for Paige and mostly think that her finding out and all that came with it has been great for the show, but I admit this was one of my first reactions after the mugging scene sunk in. She was just finally chilling out! I guess now that the end date is set, though, there's not really time to let things settle.

[Chaos Theory]

For the record there is something called progressive Christianity which is characterized by a willingness to question tradition, acceptance of human diversity, a strong emphasis on social justice and care for the poor and the oppressed.   Progressive Christians have a deep belief in loving one another within the teachings of Jesus Christ.     Conservative Christians are all over the place but there are places you can find more progressive churches if you know where to look.   Pastor Tim has always struck me as a progressive christian that would more then appeal to a teenager passively raised by two Soviet Agents.  It would have struck false if she was outright right wing.