S05.E01: Amber Waves

[DrSpaceman73]

Quote

Also, I am so dumb.  I figured out they wanted William for a sample but imagined they would take his whole body, like they did with the rat.  Then when they cut a chunk out of him, I thought of course they would only take a small portion!  Imagine them carting his whole body around.

I thought the same thing, that they'd take the whole body.  Then it made sense they just took a "sample", obviously easier.

A bit surprised they had so little trouble breaking in there to steal the sample and dig up the body.  They had to be there for hours. 

[benteen]

1 minute ago, DrSpaceman73 said:

I thought the same thing, that they'd take the whole body.  Then it made sense they just took a "sample", obviously easier.

A bit surprised they had so little trouble breaking in there to steal the sample and dig up the body.  They had to be there for hours. 

That's what I was wondering too.  I would have been nervous as all hell to in one spot for several hours in enemy territory.

[Blakeston]

I didn't get the impression that the USSR sent Pasha's father to the US to work diplomatically. I got the impression that he had defected somehow (like the Jewish scientist who Philip smuggled back to the homeland). And now that he's in the US, he's more than happy to share secrets with the US government.

[Tetraneutron]

19 minutes ago, Blakeston said:

I didn't get the impression that the USSR sent Pasha's father to the US to work diplomatically. I got the impression that he had defected somehow (like the Jewish scientist who Philip smuggled back to the homeland). And now that he's in the US, he's more than happy to share secrets with the US government.

Yeah I thought he defected as well. Which raises its own questions. Baklanov has a very specific and highly sought-after skill set. No one else could do what he does so he was extraordinarily valuable to the US and USSR.  But this guy doesn't seem like anything special. And they're letting him work for the federal government? Isn't that dangerous? Remember in season 2 when the Soviets invented a defector just so she could go on a goodwill tour. And Stan still has to watch her. 

[operalover]

2 hours ago, DoubleUTeeEff said:

It was definitely decomposing considering how much the people digging him up coughed and choked when they opened his coffin.

To me it looked really fresh. There was blood and all, like he died the day before. I guess very little time had gone by? It almost looked like he'd been embalmed, except for the blood. I guess I'll have to look up the rate of decomposure of the human body but the piece of flesh they cut off seemed really "fresh". Yeeks this is so gross.

I love when Paige asked her mom about did she ever think about killing that guy? NO because she has done way, way worse. She doesn't give it a second thought. I doubt she  regretted shooting old Hans in the head.

[jjj]

1 hour ago, Kokapetl said:

Could 5 people manually excavate 8 cubic metres of compacted soil in a couple of hours?

Well, it had to be somewhat loosened, because William had been put in there fairly recently.  They were clearly working strenuously.  I am surprised, though, that the military/FBI had not put a layer of concrete or metal over and under the coffin, to assure that it would stay far underground and not contaminate surrounding earth.  This was at the bottom of a hill, so where water runs to.

About Elizabeth's ice-coldness:  you know that part of her was thinking, "huh, this is convenient" when they rolled Hans into William's coffin.  No clean-up.

[misstwpherecool]

Was somebody following Oleg in Russia? The rainy night walk to his parents apartment.

[jjj]

1 minute ago, misstwpherecool said:

Was somebody following Oleg in Russia? The rainy night walk to his parents apartment.

Yes, but hard to know for what reason.  Friendly spy or enemy spy?  I think everyone just assumed they were under surveillance all the time, anyway, and that phones and rooms could be tapped for any reason.  Without FISA warrants!  

[jjj]

I liked how they "introduced" Henry in this episode by saying "Henry will be here soon".  If Henry had walked in the door with Paige, they would have needed some terrible dialogue for us confused viewers, like "Hi, Stan, you remember my brother HENRY, right?"  ("Even though he grew a foot over the weekend?")

[mwell345]

1 hour ago, Sarah 103 said:

Me too! I felt the scene went on too long.

Way too long.  Overall I felt the episode to be bland, but I give them a pass because they're setting up the season.  Hopefully it will pick up but I wonder if there are too many story lines right now - Paige dealing with her parents being spies, Paige and boyfriend, Tuan, the digging, the storyline taking place in Russia... 

[FormerMod-a1]

I loved Philip's deadpan "Maybe they'll put him on a stamp" when Elizabeth said that William was a hero.

[Sarah 103]

16 minutes ago, mwell345 said:

Overall I felt the episode to be bland, but I give them a pass because they're setting up the season. 

I had almost the exact same thought. It felt like table-setting, which is okay because it's the first episode of the season, and they have to introduce the new characters and plotlines. That being said, I am intrigued by what they've set up and can't wait to see where it goes.

[maraleia]

2 hours ago, sistermagpie said:

Why do they have to show that? They don't particularly have to show anything.

It will be the backdrop for how they interact with the world. They've always shown notable events and people since it began.

[sistermagpie]

2 minutes ago, maraleia said:

It will be the backdrop for how they interact with the world. They've always shown notable events and people since it began.

They've shown some notable events that they wanted to use for their story but they've skipped plenty others--even biggies. Big events don't always impact the guys in the trenches who are being handed different assignments. It's 1984 now so there's a good chance Gorbachev will come to power within the timeframe of the show (so far 4 seasons taking place from 1981-1984), but showing the effects of Glasnost seems like it would take years and wouldn't necessarily affect how two people undercover in America would operate. It wouldn't necessarily be central to what the show needed to show. I'd more expect them to center some sort of metaphorical glasnost for the family that we know sort of relates without making a story about that real system.

[misstwpherecool]

1 hour ago, DrSpaceman73 said:

I thought the same thing, that they'd take the whole body.  Then it made sense they just took a "sample", obviously easier.

A bit surprised they had so little trouble breaking in there to steal the sample and dig up the body.  They had to be there for hours. 

At night in the 'woods' away from lots of artificial light with a moon or stars one would show up or stand out especially if moving. Then when they lit the torch no matter how brief again with no artificial light that would show like a lighting bolt. They took great pains not to talk yet the noise of digging and lighting of the torch could've gave them away in a heart beat.

I'm wondering if one of the reasons they brought so much help is it was setting the table because one might get picked up for something else and wind up using that mission & others as a bargaining chip. Also what if they need the body exhumed later for what ever reason later on?-Perhaps that's why not burned.

[dubbel zout]

There's no way three people (Philip, Elizabeth, and Hans) could have dug up the body by themselves in the alloted time. They had to have help. I can't quite believe security was so lax they could cut through the fence and nothing happened. I at least expected it to be electrified. 

[Chaos Theory]

5 minutes ago, dubbel zout said:

There's no way three people (Philip, Elizabeth, and Hans) could have dug up the body by themselves in the alloted time. They had to have help. I can't quite believe security was so lax they could cut through the fence and nothing happened. I at least expected it to be electrified. 

They had help.  There was the guy in the car keeping watch.  And at least a few nameless minions who probably got a step closer to getting their SAG card or at least bragging rights to friends at home.  "hey Pete I had a non speaking roll on a tv show.  'Guy holding shovel'"

Edited March 8, 2017 by Chaos Theory

[kokapetl]

15 minutes ago, dubbel zout said:

There's no way three people (Philip, Elizabeth, and Hans) could have dug up the body by themselves in the alloted time. They had to have help. I can't quite believe security was so lax they could cut through the fence and nothing happened. I at least expected it to be electrified. 

They also had two generic burly men helping. But it's absurd they didn't use machinery to dig a small diameter shaft much more quickly. 

[misstwpherecool]

17 minutes ago, dubbel zout said:

There's no way three people (Philip, Elizabeth, and Hans) could have dug up the body by themselves in the alloted time. They had to have help. I can't quite believe security was so lax they could cut through the fence and nothing happened. I at least expected it to be electrified. 

I can't believe that's how bio hazardous waste would be handled. Unless they think it's inhumane to put  a human body in a toxic waste dump.

[dubbel zout]

15 minutes ago, Chaos Theory said:

They had help.  

I know they had help. I was replying to the comment wondering why they brought so many people; the poster speculated it might be so that there's leverage to be used against Philip and Elizabeth later on.

[Bannon]

3 hours ago, maraleia said:

From wiki- Konstantin Ustinovich Chernenko was a Soviet politician and the fifth General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. He led the Soviet Union from 13 February 1984 until his death thirteen months later, on 10 March 1985.

The Winter Olympics went from Feb. 9-19.

So the timeline works out. Fields and Weisberg are sticklers for this part of the story to be exact.

I do believe your theory about where they will finish the season is correct because they have to show Gorbachev's glasnost and perestroika programs and how they effect the Jennings' and their work.

Then they made a mistake by having a rainstorm taking place in February in Moscow, with a magazine touting the Olympics (which would not have been the case with the boycotted summer olympics) on an end table. It isn't a big deal, but I couldn't quite figure out which olympics they were referring to, given the summer weather in Moscow, and the winter weather in Maryland, which was partly due to my confusing the date Chernenko becoming head of the Communist Party in February, and becoming President of the Presidium in April.

[Bannon]

6 minutes ago, misstwpherecool said:

I can't believe that's how bio hazardous waste would be handled. Unless they think it's inhumane to put  a human body in a toxic waste dump.

I'd like to see someone with knowledge of the subject confirm that bioweapons aren't destroyed via incineration.

[maraleia]

10 minutes ago, Bannon said:

Then they made a mistake by having a rainstorm taking place in February in Moscow, with a magazine touting the Olympics (which would not have been the case with the boycotted summer olympics) on an end table. It isn't a big deal, but I couldn't quite figure out which olympics they were referring to, given the summer weather in Moscow, and the winter weather in Maryland, which was partly due to my confusing the date Chernenko becoming head of the Communist Party in February, and becoming President of the Presidium in April.

Showrunners make mistakes about the weather all the time. It used to be worse before people could voice their opinions online.

[Bannon]

16 minutes ago, Kokapetl said:

They also had two generic burly men helping. But it's absurd they didn't use machinery to dig a small diameter shaft much more quickly. 

 

35 minutes ago, dubbel zout said:

There's no way three people (Philip, Elizabeth, and Hans) could have dug up the body by themselves in the alloted time. They had to have help. I can't quite believe security was so lax they could cut through the fence and nothing happened. I at least expected it to be electrified. 

It's been a weakness on the show, the way they make the cloak and dagger stuff absurdly easy. It's like they don't trust the audience to enjoy the show without the "Mission Impossible" element. The show is great, in my view, when it focuses on the psychological cost of living one's life as a monumental lie, which is why I've never understod the frustration with Paige as a character. Good grief, she's a teenager forced against her will to be a complete fraud to everyone outside of her family.

I've mostly been frustrated with the show when they fall into using tired action-movie tropes.

[sistermagpie]

48 minutes ago, Gabrielle Tracy said:

I wonder if he is a second-generation illegal?

He's got a slight accent so, no. More importantly, there are no Vietnamese Illegals. It's strictly a KGB thing.

ETA: That is, there are no Illegals in the sense of people passing as Americans. Any spy without diplomatic cover could also be called Illegal so he could definitely be that. But he's presenting himself as Vietnamese by birth.

Edited March 8, 2017 by sistermagpie

[SWLinPHX]

8 hours ago, Ina123 said:

By the way. Martha, Alison Wright, has a small part in the AMC series, "Feud".

LOL, yeah.  I noticed her as a studio secretary or something.

[Chaos Theory]

21 minutes ago, Gabrielle Tracy said:

 

I wonder if he is a second-generation illegal?

There was a tv show I watched a while back called Alien Nation any way.  Parents assimilate fairly well but their kid resents it and decides to follow his own culture almost fanatically so. It could be that way with Tuan.  His family failed to assimilate or assimilated too well and he resented it.  An angry teen or more likely college student is prime pickings for the KGB.

[misstwpherecool]

Stan and the 6 pack of beer. Product placement gone wild?

Just a trivial  observation but did anyone else notice the splash made when Philip moved his beer talking to Stan?

[SWLinPHX]

6 hours ago, vb68 said:

I just hope Claudia and Gabriel don't get to him first. They know he's on the way.

I fear that may happen, in order for the show not to have to have Rhys learn to speak fluent Russian or pronounce correctly.

[sistermagpie]

Just thought something I'd forgotten during the ep. We see Elizabeth looking not exactly happy when Tuan says Pasha's father ought to be executed, that he's a traitor.

Elizabeth's father was shot for being a traitor for running away in battle.

[kokapetl]

41 minutes ago, Gabrielle Tracy said:

Did you see an eighties movie called "No Way Out" in which Kevin Costner played a deep cover Russian spy?  When he was called in at the end his handler started speaking to him in Russian and Kev asked him to speak English because it had been a long time and his Russian was no longer very good.  Maybe that's the tack Phillip will take with Mischa.  ETA:  Wait, does Mischa speak ANY English?

I wonder if he is a second-generation illegal?

Why couldn't he just be first generation illegal? Part of a Soviet-Vietnamese plan to use young looking asians to infiltrate school and youth groups. 

[RedHawk]

1 hour ago, maraleia said:

Showrunners make mistakes about the weather all the time. It used to be worse before people could voice their opinions online.

I've noticed that although this series is mostly set in the fall and winter months into early spring they will have an episode in February with all the trees full of brown leaves. Or they have trees in full bloom when it's supposed to be December. So yes, sometimes they make obvious mistakes with weather. 

Edited March 8, 2017 by RedHawk

[crgirl412]

15 hours ago, PinkRibbons said:

Well, last things first, watching this I remembered that tomorrow marks my family's 32nd anniversary of Exodus from the Soviet Union (and I'm not being hyperbolic; this is literally something we talk about during Seder). Apparently Chernenko dropped dead right after they got out and they just avoided the borders closing behind them.

Pasha's dad reminds me of my own, only less profane and a bit more simplistic than my Papa's complaints about the old USSR. My folks talk about it like they left something that had been dead and rotting around them for years while they were supposed to ignore it happening and pretend the smell wasn't there.

Speaking of which, man did those food shortages hit a nerve with me. To this day the biggest fights we have in our household is me insisting on throwing away uneaten food. My mother always feels like she'll find some use for everything, and it can sit there for ages. A cleaning lady we had once observed that all her former-Soviet clients had incredibly full pantries -- we have enough to feed a family of four for a month in dry goods alone. Honestly I'm surprised Elizabeth and Philip aren't compulsive food hoarders after their childhoods. I work with people their age (people who were kids during WW2), and now whenever our establishment gets its monthly food program delivery, not only to we get full turnout, but the fact that there was a line started panic the first few times. Walkers were used as weapons among the elderly. Seriously.

I'm not relishing the idea of Mini-Misha making his way to Philip, possibly because he represents a common fear a lot of us first-generation kids have: that our parents had other kids they left behind and kept secret. This kind of shit happens more than we like to think. His existence is going to be a nasty shock to Paige and/or Henry if they find out. I did think it was interesting that Henry actually kind of looks like Misha, or I think they're styling the two actors' hair similarly.

I could have done with about five minutes less of digging.

I can't wait to try out that Russian America The Beautiful on my parents.

I was going to ask you about that!!!  It was beautiful and haunting at the same time.  Keep us posted!!  

[RedHawk]

43 minutes ago, misstwpherecool said:

Stan and the 6 pack of beer. Product placement gone wild?

Just a trivial  observation but did anyone else notice the splash made when Philip moved his beer talking to Stan?

Also an inside joke referring to "The Truman Show".

[gwhh]

6 hours ago, attica said:

I found myself wondering what the SAG-AFTRA rate is for using your likeness for a lassa-virused, decomposing-body dummy. Dylan Baker, call your agent!

Hearing "America the Beautiful" in Russian kind of made me nervous. I was picturing Putin singing it, rubbing his hands together in glee.

Me too. I just imagine Putin watching this in the kremlin. Thinking about the good old days. 

At first I throughly it was the Soviet National Athema.  But it was the USA athema in Russian. I wonder where they got that from??

 

 

Edited March 8, 2017 by gwhh

[gwhh]

On ‎3‎/‎8‎/‎2017 at 8:43 AM, GussieK said:

Tuan reminds me of a story we did when I used to work at a magazine.  We sent one of our younger editors to spend a week undercover at a Philadelphia area high school.   She managed to pull it off. 

In PA no student may be over age 21 and still be in public school!!  

Edited March 14, 2017 by gwhh

[EtheltoTillie]

7 minutes ago, gwhh said:

Is that even legal?

Because! 

In PA no student may be over age 21 and still be in public school!!  

Well, this was 30 years ago.  Anyway, the school was aware of the story and allowed it.  She wasn't really admitted to school.  

[SlackerInc]

Technically it is not the national anthem which is the "Star-Spangled Banner". This song was "America the Beautiful."

 

7 hours ago, operalover said:

Why would a Soviet citizen be allowed to go to Yugoslavia to visit family?

 It's actually quite clever. Yugoslavia was not part of the West, it was a communist country and mostly a Slavic one like the Soviet Union.  So it wouldn't be that strange for a Russian to go there to visit family.    But as someone pointed out upthread, it was also not aligned with the Warsaw Pact, did not have Soviet troops and once a Soviet citizen is there it should be easier to get to Western Europe. 

5 hours ago, scartact said:

The moment of William's body reveal also made me think about so much of the futility of all this KGB spying and how his sacrifice for the Jennings, and also on some level his reluctance to be successful in bringing bio weapons back to the USSR, will be all for naught when the Soviet Union falls.

Did it really fall though? Maybe it stumbled but then got back up. Putin was a long time KGB guy, and has said "once KGB, always KGB". He also said the dissolution of the Soviet Union was the worst thing ever to happen. 

5 hours ago, attica said:

I found myself wondering what the SAG-AFTRA rate is for using your likeness for a lassa-virused, decomposing-body dummy. Dylan Baker, call your agent!

I thought it was actually him. It did not look fake and I don't know that this show has the budget to make such an elaborate dummy as opposed to just getting the actor to quickly pose as a corpse. 

4 hours ago, dubbel zout said:

I wondered about that, too, and then hand waved it. I also wondered why they put the dirt on tarps. There was so much of it at the end that they didn't seem to be that useful.

 How do you mean? I assumed the point was to avoid having giant patches of dirty grass, and it seems like it was probably effective for that purpose. 

4 hours ago, Ina123 said:

In the trailer or promo Phillip is saying something like,

 Please don't talk about the trailers and promos in the episodes threads. Some of us like to be completely unspoiled. 

4 hours ago, Tetraneutron said:

We're still years away from when Gorbachev takes over. While major time jumps are possible, I don't think it's likely since you can't do that believably with child actors. Even though the kid playing Henry grew up a lot in the offseason. 

Although certain real-world recent events has changed the show from one where the protagonists are devoting their whole lives to a country and a system that gets roundly defeated to one that gets defeated for awhile and then does end up inflitrating the American government. That makes the dramatic irony a bit different. 

We are not years away from Gorbachev, less than a year in fact. But I am 100% with you on that last paragraph. 

2 hours ago, maraleia said:

It will be the backdrop for how they interact with the world. They've always shown notable events and people since it began.

Although they expected to talk about the downing of the Korean airliner with Americans aboard, which was the greatest level of tension during the Reagan era of the Cold War depicted here. Yet they ended up having so many other things to cover in that same time span that they didn't even mention it. I think that was a shame, as it's just seems like it would have caused major activity, but they still made a great season of TV  despite skipping over it. 

14 minutes ago, RedHawk said:

I've noticed that although this series is mostly set in the fall and winter months into early spring they will have an episode in February with all the trees full of brown leaves. Or they have trees in full bloom when it's supposed to be December. So yes, sometimes they make obvious mistakes with weather. 

 A lot of it is also just an insufficient budget to show anything but whatever weather they are given for their shooting schedule. 

[dubbel zout]

25 minutes ago, SlackerInc said:

I assumed the point was to avoid having giant patches of dirty grass, and it seems like it was probably effective for that purpose. 

Ah, I didn't think of that. I was thinking they'd use the tarps to pour the dirt back in, which of course after a certain point would be impossible due to the amount of dirt. 

27 minutes ago, SlackerInc said:

A lot of it is also just an insufficient budget to show anything but whatever weather they are given for their shooting schedule. 

Yeah, they have to work with what they have while they're shooting. Sometimes it matters, sometimes it doesn't.

[JennyMominFL]

4 hours ago, jjj said:

Well, it had to be somewhat loosened, because William had been put in there fairly recently.  They were clearly working strenuously.  I am surprised, though, that the military/FBI had not put a layer of concrete or metal over and under the coffin, to assure that it would stay far underground and not contaminate surrounding earth.  This was at the bottom of a hill, so where water runs to.

About Elizabeth's ice-coldness:  you know that part of her was thinking, "huh, this is convenient" when they rolled Hans into William's coffin.  No clean-up.

I thought that it did look metal or concrete, which does change the rate of decomp

33 minutes ago, SlackerInc said:

 

 It's actually quite clever. Yugoslavia was not part of the West, it was a communist country and mostly a Slavic one like the Soviet Union.  So it wouldn't be that strange for a Russian to go there to visit family.    But as someone pointed out upthread, it was also not aligned with the Warsaw Pact, did not have Soviet troops and once a Soviet citizen is there it should be easier to get to Western Europe. 

 

I had to read a book called Soviet Baby Boomers for a recent cold war class. These were upper class kids but they went to Yugoslavia on vacation frequently

[chocolatine]

7 hours ago, sistermagpie said:

His mother spoke perfect English (and bad Russian--though it had improved, of course, in her voiceover!). No reason they can't just say he speaks English. The actor emigrated to Canada at 13 and speaks it perfectly.

His mother didn't raise him; his grandparents did. Whether the actor speaks English is beside the point. The character is very unlikely to speak English fluently, he at most had a few years of high school English, or no English at all if he took German or French instead.

12 minutes ago, JennyMominFL said:

I thought that it did look metal or concrete, which does change the rate of decomp

The coffin was metal. One of the "helpers" used a cutting torch to open it.

Edited March 8, 2017 by chocolatine

[SlackerInc]

18 minutes ago, dubbel zout said:

Ah, I didn't think of that. I was thinking they'd use the tarps to pour the dirt back in, which of course after a certain point would be impossible due to the amount of dirt. 

Yeah, they have to work with what they have while they're shooting. Sometimes it matters, sometimes it doesn't.

A season or two back there was a ton of snow everywhere because they shoot in New York and there was a big blizzard that year. I'm sure it was inaccurate for DC in the time period portrayed. And I'm sure deep down the OCDness of Joe and Joel was making them grit their teeth, but they just can't do anything about it.  It would be cool to see what they would do with a huge budget though.

[sistermagpie]

We really have no idea how much time Mischa Jr. and his mother spent together because her character's never made much sense bur regardless we've got plenty of Russian characters who speak English so there's no reason they can't just write this guy as one of them and let MR speak English most of the time. Why assume they're locked into him only speaking Russian? The audience would probably accept many different levels of English from hom. He knew his dad was in the US and put in the effort.

[chocolatine]

16 minutes ago, sistermagpie said:

Why assume they're locked into him only speaking Russian?

Because it's not realistic for someone who grew up in the Soviet Union, has never been out of the country until now, and had no special training, to be fluent in English.

Edited March 8, 2017 by chocolatine

[Cosmosgravitation]

Just now, chocolatine said:

Because it's not realistic for someone who grew up in the Soviet Union, and has never been out of the country until now, to be fluent in English.

His mother, Irina, spoke perfect English.  There's no reason they can't just say she taught him while raising him.

[chocolatine]

4 minutes ago, Cosmosgravitation said:

His mother, Irina, spoke perfect English.  There's no reason they can't just say she taught him while raising him.

She did not raise him. She left him with her parents in Russia. She lived in Montreal as a spy in deep cover, much like Philip and Elizabeth did in DC. She and Philip met and conceived their son while they were both in the KGB training program. They were coupled up at first, but then Philip was "assigned" to Elizabeth. 

Edited March 8, 2017 by chocolatine

[ajsnaves]

How much does Misha know abut his father? He knows he is a travel agent in the US.  Does he know Phillip is a spy? Or does he think Phillip got out and defected?  Does he know where in the US? Or is he just going to start on the east coast and work his way west asking random travel agents if he's his dad?  I imagine in 1984 that would take a little more than a few days.

Anyone else surprised at Phillip's disgust at Pasha's father's criticism of the Soviet Union?  Phillip always seems to have level headed, "hey both have their good points and bad points" attitude.  But he seemed to take real offense at that the talk of the food lines.  I almost wonder if the William affair made him realize that they may have to go "home" sooner rather than later, and he is steeling himself up for that.

[chocolatine]

8 minutes ago, ajsnaves said:

How much does Misha know abut his father? He knows he is a travel agent in the US.  Does he know Phillip is a spy? Or does he think Phillip got out and defected?  Does he know where in the US? Or is he just going to start on the east coast and work his way west asking random travel agents if he's his dad?  I imagine in 1984 that would take a little more than a few days.

In her letter, which we heard via voiceover, Irina told Misha Jr to "follow the instructions". So she's given him some information, we just don't know how much.

[operalover]

26 minutes ago, ajsnaves said:

How much does Misha know abut his father? He knows he is a travel agent in the US.  Does he know Phillip is a spy? Or does he think Phillip got out and defected?  Does he know where in the US? Or is he just going to start on the east coast and work his way west asking random travel agents if he's his dad?  I imagine in 1984 that would take a little more than a few days.

Anyone else surprised at Phillip's disgust at Pasha's father's criticism of the Soviet Union?  Phillip always seems to have level headed, "hey both have their good points and bad points" attitude.  But he seemed to take real offense at that the talk of the food lines.  I almost wonder if the William affair made him realize that they may have to go "home" sooner rather than later, and he is steeling himself up for that.

Phillip didn't seem disgusted to me at all. Elizabeth was the one who took major offense. It seemed to me that he was agreeing with her so she won't suspect how he really feels...which is that he does not want to ever go back there and loves the lifestyle in the US of A. 

[JennyMominFL]

3 hours ago, chocolatine said:

Because it's not realistic for someone who grew up in the Soviet Union, has never been out of the country until now, and had no special training, to be fluent in English.

Once again, My Soviet baby Boomers book comes in handy. They interviewed around 30 kids,  some from a school in Moscow and the other from the "closed" city of Saratov. And I must once again reiterate that these were kids who were a bit better off, but most of them took English classes from childhood. On graduation night the kids in Saratov sang 16 Tons in English. According to other  academic sources I've read, in the 1960's  kids spent, from middle school on 4 hours a week on foreign language. English and French were the most popular. English and French literature were also commonly taught, in those languages. Leningrad actually had 26 English Language schools in 1987

Edited March 9, 2017 by JennyMominFL