S05.E05: Lotus 1-2-3

[MaryPatShelby]

On ‎4‎/‎5‎/‎2017 at 11:46 AM, Ina123 said:

I think I noticed that the name on the school said Falls Church middle school but in that day (I think) most schools for Henry's age would be called Junior High (7-9). I can't remember if 1984 was in the era of the great school consolidation movement or not. Probably the production people got it right and I'm just not remembering correctly.

 

I don't know about Virginia, but in Madison WI I went to a brand new middle school (grades 6-7-8) in 6th grade, approximately 1970.  And my dad's school (he was a teacher) got changed from a Jr High (grades 7-8-9) to a middle school around that same time.  So I didn't find it odd at all that Henry was in a middle school in the 80's.

An another topic, I'm curious as to why so many people think that P and E were "dumb" and "stupid" to think that America was messing with Russia's grain.  They were told this by Gabriel, who presumably got his information from the Centre, and P & E were given the mission (including the people they should cozy up to) and basically told, when they tried to get out of it, that they were the only ones who could do it.  This wasn't some random thing that P & E thought up and got wrong; it started at a level way higher than theirs.

[Clanstarling]

35 minutes ago, MaryPatShelby said:

This wasn't some random thing that P & E thought up and got wrong; it started at a level way higher than theirs.

To me, this was an element of their shock and devastation  - the people whose orders they follow got it wrong, and they have to start wondering how many times the higher-ups have gotten it wrong, and how many people they might have killed for no good reason.

Edited April 10, 2017 by Clanstarling

[Eulipian 5k]

On 4/8/2017 at 9:42 AM, Clanstarling said:

Thank you for confirming that was bread. They didn't resemble anything I'd ever seen.

I still say they were Truffles and Misha's Dad was a decadent, bourgeois traitor to the Party!

[MaryPatShelby]

1 hour ago, Clanstarling said:

To me, this was an element of their shock and devastation  - the people whose orders they follow got it wrong, and they have to start wondering how many times the higher-ups have gotten it wrong, and how many people they might have killed for no good reason.

Exactly my thoughts! Yet so many commenters were saying this is P & E's fault, and they were idiots for chasing after something so wrong.

[Hanahope]

I too was trying to figure out what it was that Misha's dad brought home to eat,  bread or potatoes.  Either way, it looked awful and clearly wasn't sufficient susentence for them.

I really feel for Paige.  She just has no one to turn to that she can talk about her life.  She can't even feel comfortable talking to Pastor Tim and wife because of their threat to turn in her parents.  Even knowing they are spies, they are still her parents and she loves and depends on them.  She wouldn't know what to do if they were taken, or if she would be taken away too.  She can't talk to Elizabeth because E is just in "party/country/spy" mode all the time and never really in "parent" mode.  Phillip is possible, but a dad would never really get what a daughter goes through.

The Center just had no clue what this type of arrangement would do to the children (not that it would care really).  Not everyone is cut out to be a spy, even if their parents were spies.  Its easy now to see why the son of the other spy family shot his parents up.  You get depressed enough about how your parents ruined your life and there you go.  Not that I think Paige would do that, but I could see her going the other direction, which is just as bad.

So part of me doesn't really understant why P&E are against Paige dating Matthew.  Wouldn't it be a good thing for her to date the son of an FBI agent and thus have the ability for an "in" with the FBI once she goes to college and such?  Or do they think that chances are the eventual break up will be bad and that will turn her off the FBI because of Stan/Matthew?

So I presume the reason Oleg's "blackmailer/handler" didn't show up at the meeting was because of Stan's threat?

[sistermagpie]

4 minutes ago, Hanahope said:

So part of me doesn't really understant why P&E are against Paige dating Matthew.  Wouldn't it be a good thing for her to date the son of an FBI agent and thus have the ability for an "in" with the FBI once she goes to college and such?  Or do they think that chances are the eventual break up will be bad and that will turn her off the FBI because of Stan/Matthew?

 

They know Paige is a terrible liar and has already cracked and spilled the beans to one confidante. They're worried she's going to start saying things Matthew will repeat and will make Stan suspicious. Also I think from Philip's pov the relationship is extra stressful because Paige is so aware that Stan being FBI makes him a danger, so she's tempted to try to get info from Matthew. This not only gives him another reason to be suspicious, but is also mixing her relationships with spying, which Philip knows is unhealthy.

[Hanahope]

I guess that makes sense.  As I said, not everyone is cut out to be a spy and clearly Paige is not.  P&E and the Center have to realize that Paige did not have the upbringing they had, something that would make them so fiercely loyal to Russia for E or desire to make a better life for the people (and himself) like P.  I know we've never really seen how/why P becamse a spy, but from all the flashbacks we're seeing its looking more like it was mostly a desire to get out of the shit life he had.

[Solnichka]

On 4/8/2017 at 8:23 PM, SlackerInc said:

Yeah, I was curious to check it out when I was in Moscow in summer 1990.  It had opened about five or six months earlier, but it was still a phenomenon: the line stretched out the door and 3/4ths of the way around a city park across the street!  No exaggeration.  It was hard for me to imagine that everyone in that line was actually going to get served.  I said "forget this" and went and ate at a mostly empty Russian cafe instead, where the food was really good (certainly much better than any McDonald's I've been in), and super cheap.  I think I spent about five or six cents in U.S. currency, if I remember right.

 

Hey I was in that Moscow McDonald's in the summer of 1993! Had been eating awful dorm food for 6 weeks (lots of grey mush & everything was swimming in oil) & a bunch of us spent hours at the McDonald's, eating I think 3 rounds of food. We were so hungry for familiar foodstuffs! Fun fact: I don't think McD's did this, but early french fry makers in at least St. Petersburg served their fries with little wooden fork-thingys. They were a cross between a toothpick & one of those wooden spoon-stick ice cream utensils from way back. It was this short wooden stick with 2 prongs at the end to stab your fries so you didn't get greasy hands. Folks were fancy with their french fries in Russia back then! :)

On the rationing, Wikipedia tells me there was only widespread bread rationing until 1935 & in the 1980s under Perestroika. So call me confuzzled (when do we think P was born? Though I think it's fair to think it lasted longer than official reports), though thank you @Umbelina for the great info/resources!

[methodwriter85]

6 minutes ago, Solnichka said:

Hey I was in that Moscow McDonald's in the summer of 1993! Had been eating awful dorm food for 6 weeks (lots of grey mush & everything was swimming in oil) & a bunch of us spent hours at the McDonald's, eating I think 3 rounds of food. We were so hungry for familiar foodstuffs! Fun fact: I don't think McD's did this, but early french fry makers in at least St. Petersburg served their fries with little wooden fork-thingys. They were a cross between a toothpick & one of those wooden spoon-stick ice cream utensils from way back. It was this short wooden stick with 2 prongs at the end to stab your fries so you didn't get greasy hands. Folks were fancy with their french fries in Russia back then! :)

On the rationing, Wikipedia tells me there was only widespread bread rationing until 1935 & in the 1980s under Perestroika. So call me confuzzled (when do we think P was born? Though I think it's fair to think it lasted longer than official reports), though thank you @Umbelina for the great info/resources!

They have those little wooden fork things with the cheese fries at an American burger chain called Shake Shack.

I really hope it's starting to dawn on Elizabeth that this isn't something for Paige. I think Phil already gets it.

Edited April 10, 2017 by methodwriter85

[Umbelina]

Some people think that Elizabeth and Philip were stupid about the grain poisoning for several reasons, which most detailed in their posts.  I can't remember all the reasons stated. A few were things like nearly total lack of security at both places, we had just lifted the grain embargo a few years earlier, much to the delight of our farmers who wanted to sell, IF we sent bad grain we would lose other customers around the world as well, probably for more products than just grain, so it made terrible economic sense, etc.  I think @Bannon stated several reasons in their posts.  ??

Edited April 10, 2017 by Umbelina

[sistermagpie]

32 minutes ago, Solnichka said:

(when do we think P was born? Though I think it's fair to think it lasted longer than official reports), though thank you @Umbelina for the great info/resources!

Presumably the same time as Elizabeth, so he should have been born around 1942--during the war. That flashback would have been post-war, 6 years later. Definitely post-war.

[Umbelina]

In one of the early episodes Philip tells (I think Paige) that his father died when he was 6. 

[Bannon]

1 hour ago, Umbelina said:

Some people think that Elizabeth and Philip were stupid about the grain poisoning for several reasons, which most detailed in their posts.  I can't remember all the reasons stated. A few were things like nearly total lack of security at both places, we had just lifted the grain embargo a few years earlier, much to the delight of our farmers who wanted to sell, IF we sent bad grain we would lose other customers around the world as well, probably for more products than just grain, so it made terrible economic sense, etc.  I think @Bannon stated several reasons in their posts.  ??

Well, yes, besides the fact that actually sending bad grain/seeds to a major foreign customer would ruin American grain exports for decades, if the plan was to develop a Super Midge to attack Soviet wheat plants, you don't develop a program to attack the food supply of a foreign country, with thousands of nuclear weapons, in an unguarded Illinois greenhouse, secured by a padlock better suited for protecting a 6th graders ten-speed. Nor do you have said Super Midge in such a greenhouse, when a strongish Illinois summer thunderstorm could easily damage such a structure sufficiently to unleash the Super Midge on the the American Midwest. If P & E hadn't had their intellects temporarily removed by the writers, for purposes of plot advancement, they would have said to the Centre, "Ya know, there isn't a single thing about this program that looks anything like a clandestine program to harm the Soviet food supply. This is a waste of our time". Then, the big, dumb, bureaucracy of Soviet Intelligence, like all big, dumb bureaucracies, could have ignored expertise on the ground, and forced them to run the operation anyways. In other words, credible conflict in a manner that really happens frequently. Errors in writing are always worse when they could have been so easily avoided.

If the writers now double back, and have Midge-a-palooza actually be a plot to harm Soviet food supply, that'll be really dumb shark-jumping. Hope that doesn't happen.

[MaryPatShelby]

3 hours ago, Umbelina said:

Some people think that Elizabeth and Philip were stupid about the grain poisoning for several reasons, which most detailed in their posts.  I can't remember all the reasons stated. A few were things like nearly total lack of security at both places, we had just lifted the grain embargo a few years earlier, much to the delight of our farmers who wanted to sell, IF we sent bad grain we would lose other customers around the world as well, probably for more products than just grain, so it made terrible economic sense, etc.  I think @Bannon stated several reasons in their posts.  ??

All these things are true, and I understand.  But the "job" wasn't their idea.  They didn't go to the Centre, or to Gabriel, and say "hey, maybe the US is sending bad grain to Russia, sounds like something they'd do, we'll check it out."  They were told to do it, by their superiors who presumably researched the issue and determined that it needed investigating. If anyone missed all these points you all are making it was the Centre, and/or Gabriel.  P & E were following orders and doing what needed to be done.

[sistermagpie]

42 minutes ago, MaryPatShelby said:

All these things are true, and I understand.  But the "job" wasn't their idea.  They didn't go to the Centre, or to Gabriel, and say "hey, maybe the US is sending bad grain to Russia, sounds like something they'd do, we'll check it out."  They were told to do it, by their superiors who presumably researched the issue and determined that it needed investigating. If anyone missed all these points you all are making it was the Centre, and/or Gabriel.  P & E were following orders and doing what needed to be done.

I believe the idea is that whatever the Centre said, P&E should have realized it made no sense. What doesn't bother me about it is that Elizabeth is already primed to believe anything they say until proven otherwise, so I don't expect her to react to this stuff by saying the Centre is nuts. It's Philip that does that, and in this case he's not objective because hunger and starvation is something that makes him act on emotion. He's not able to step back and be logical like he was when Reagan was assassinated. He comes from a country with a leader that starved its own people, so it's maybe believable that he'd think anything was possible.

[AllyB]

9 hours ago, sistermagpie said:

I believe the idea is that whatever the Centre said, P&E should have realized it made no sense. What doesn't bother me about it is that Elizabeth is already primed to believe anything they say until proven otherwise, so I don't expect her to react to this stuff by saying the Centre is nuts. It's Philip that does that, and in this case he's not objective because hunger and starvation is something that makes him act on emotion. He's not able to step back and be logical like he was when Reagan was assassinated. He comes from a country with a leader that starved its own people, so it's maybe believable that he'd think anything was possible.

Philip was also very badly affected when he and Elizabeth stole the fake submarine plans that were deliberately left for the KGB to steal and designed to kill the crew of the sub if it was built. He lost the respect that he had found for America when that happened as it was such a repulsive act to him. I think that had that not happened he'd have been less inclined to believe the American would stoop so low as to starve an entire country.

On the McDonald's thing, a friend of mine was a teenager visiting Moscow the day the first McDonald's opened. (She was in the amazing position of visiting Moscow quite regularly on the lead up to, during and after the fall of communism because he father was working there.) She and her family were out exploring that day when they came across a huge, incredibly excited queue and when they found out what it was for they decided to join it because it was just such an amazing buzz. She said they waited about 4-5 hours for food. And that in the last hour or so of the queue the McDonald's staff were out in the line handing out menus and taking orders. Supposedly to speed things along but she suspected it was really just to keep up the excited atmosphere. I'll be honest, I can't imagine having the patience to stay so long in a line for food I could have gotten at home at any time but she says it was just an amazing experience because of the atmosphere.

[SlackerInc]

16 hours ago, Solnichka said:

Hey I was in that Moscow McDonald's in the summer of 1993! Had been eating awful dorm food for 6 weeks (lots of grey mush & everything was swimming in oil) & a bunch of us spent hours at the McDonald's, eating I think 3 rounds of food. We were so hungry for familiar foodstuffs! Fun fact: I don't think McD's did this, but early french fry makers in at least St. Petersburg served their fries with little wooden fork-thingys. They were a cross between a toothpick & one of those wooden spoon-stick ice cream utensils from way back. It was this short wooden stick with 2 prongs at the end to stab your fries so you didn't get greasy hands. Folks were fancy with their french fries in Russia back then! :)

That's cool.  I wonder how those "forks" got spread so far and wide, yet scattered?  Because I grew up going to this ice cream stand in Maine, which also serves hot food including the best (super bright red) hot dogs I've ever had...and french fries in a basket with those very wooden two-pronged forks.  But I've never seen them anywhere else.

[mostlylurking]

On McDonalds:  I used to spend the summer in Portugal with my grandparents when I was a kid.  When McDonald's opened there for the first time, it was a very big deal.  I remember the line literally being around the block.  We didn't wait because I frequented McDonald's probably way too much in those days but I just couldn't believe how excited people were.  And yes, they did have menus and little forks to eat the fries!

On Henry:  He may have been made a better "recruit" than Paige looking at it now.  Also E&P could have dialed back the surprise at him not being a total dumbass Just A Little.  Jeeze.

On the "bread":  I too thought it was coal.  I guess it's better than nothing?

Random:  I hope Stan is able to help Oleg.  I would like to see Martha again.  I am old enough to remember Lotus 123 (actually my company still used Lotus Notes until LAST YEAR).  Really great season so far.

Edited April 12, 2017 by mostlylurking

[Clanstarling]

3 hours ago, mostlylurking said:

Also E&P could have dialed back the surprise at him not being a total dumbass Just A Little.  Jeeze.

I know, right? I mean they are professional liars, you'd think they'd have better game at home.

[SWLinPHX]

18 hours ago, mostlylurking said:

On McDonalds:  I used to spend the summer in Portugal with my grandparents when I was a kid.  When McDonald's opened there for the first time, it was a very big deal.  I remember the line literally being around the block.  We didn't wait because I frequented McDonald's probably way too much in those days but I just couldn't believe how excited people were.  And yes, they did have menus and little forks to eat the fries!

LOL, as I kid I lived in Europe for a bit and although we saw such fantastic sights and museums and exotic locales that I was appreciative of then and absorbed and am grateful for today, at that time as a little kid I remember missing American things like root beer, etc.  I was excited to go to Madrid because we heard a restaurant there had root beer, LOL.  And I remember one of the very first McDonald's opening -- it was in France and was a major big deal!

[Milburn Stone]

On 3/30/2017 at 6:39 AM, Ellaria Sand said:

Regarding the past operation: since the news received is termed "shattering," it has to be something that would deeply affect P or E. It could be Young Hee/Don...or Martha, of course.

Can someone remind me when the existence of "shattering" news regarding a past association was mentioned in the episode? I don't recall it, and definitely don't recall the word "shattering" being used. Thanks.

Edited April 13, 2017 by Milburn Stone

[Inquisitionist]

"shattering" was a promo/preview word, but wasn't used in the episode.  It seems to have referred to E&P learning that the Iowa green house they had stalked was not being used to develop midges to destroy the Russian wheat crop, but rather to develop wheat strains that would resist pests.  Hence, the "shattering" news that their operation, which resulted in killing yet another innocent bystander, was based on a false premise.

[Clanstarling]

1 hour ago, SWLinPHX said:

LOL, as I kid I lived in Europe for a bit and although we saw such fantastic sights and museums and exotic locales that I was appreciative of then and absorbed and am grateful for today, at that time as a little kid I remember missing American things like root beer, etc.  I was excited to go to Madrid because we heard a restaurant there had root beer, LOL.  And I remember one of the very first McDonald's opening -- it was in France and was a major big deal!

I went the other way - after having lived overseas for six years as a kid, going from military posting to military posting (very unusual circumstances), when we returned to the US I missed all the German food. It is surprisingly hard (in some places) to find authentic bread (broetchen and black bread in particular), wurst and cold cuts, and sodas. I was overjoyed when I saw Fanta in the US for the first time, bought one, and nearly spit out that cloying orange syrup. It is nothing like the Fanta I grew up on.

[Milburn Stone]

6 hours ago, Inquisitionist said:

"shattering" was a promo/preview word, but wasn't used in the episode.  It seems to have referred to E&P learning that the Iowa green house they had stalked was not being used to develop midges to destroy the Russian wheat crop, but rather to develop wheat strains that would resist pests.  Hence, the "shattering" news that their operation, which resulted in killing yet another innocent bystander, was based on a false premise.

Thanks, Inquisitionist. I stopped reading your reply the instant I saw "promo/preview," since I hate being spoiled. I had a feeling it must be something in the preview, because I sure didn't remember it from the episode.

[Inquisitionist]

Actually, it was in the episode description posted at the top of this thread.  If you manage to avoid even those, I applaud you!

[SWLinPHX]

22 hours ago, Clanstarling said:

I went the other way - after having lived overseas for six years as a kid, going from military posting to military posting (very unusual circumstances), when we returned to the US I missed all the German food. It is surprisingly hard (in some places) to find authentic bread (broetchen and black bread in particular), wurst and cold cuts, and sodas. I was overjoyed when I saw Fanta in the US for the first time, bought one, and nearly spit out that cloying orange syrup. It is nothing like the Fanta I grew up on.

Yeah, well I was 7 at the time and this was in the 1970's and we suddenly lost out on so many things we had grown to love at home.  However, as an adult the one thing I missed in Europe was having ice in drinks.  So hard to get -- and as far as slushy drinks, there are none.  Even when hot outside.

Edited April 14, 2017 by SWLinPHX

[Milburn Stone]

15 hours ago, Inquisitionist said:

Actually, it was in the episode description posted at the top of this thread.  If you manage to avoid even those, I applaud you!

I do! I mean, of course I "see" them, but don't actually read them. The reason is different than with my avoidance of previews. I avoid previews (and try to avoid inadvertently reading about them) so as not to be spoiled. I skip over the episode descriptions because I've already seen the episode, and I'm interested in reading the discussion, not a description of an episode the contents of which I already know. But you provide me an additional reason, which is that apparently sometimes the episode descriptions can errantly contain information not actually in the episodes, which we're not meant to know yet.

[kokapetl]

Elizabeth's blond Kansas guy explained the wheat project to her. Nothing about the wheat project itself prompted the Jennings to report back to Gabriel that it wasn't a bioweapons program. 

[Nash]

True - up to that point it could have been exactly what they were told it was. 

P's flashbacks succeed in two things - they give backstory without exposition (avoiding the "we ate one lump of ration bread a day" lecture to Paige & Henry) but also show how P is edging closer to break down. You could compare him to the Afghansty - they go up a ridge, through a valley and clear it. Then they withdraw and do it again somewhere else; three months later they clear the same damn ridge. P is a trained, instinctive, killer but he needs those killings to mean something - not to have to kill people because they got in the way of a pointless mission. 

E is a true daughter of the revolution and would fight and die for the cause, her last breath would be "in the name of the people" - P is less blinded by the cause; he'd die silently using his last breath to put another round downrange so a comrade could take the objective. But with less fanaticism to propel him he could crack first; that said, if he cracks he can recover- if E loses her faith in the cause, she may fall further and harder. 

[Roseanna]

On ‎5‎.‎4‎.‎2017 at 3:33 PM, icemiser69 said:

I never thought in a million years that Elizabeth would have been honest with Philip about the wheat.  She had to know that it would continue to expose whatever humanity Philip has and make him further question his "job".  

Elizabeth has to tell Gabriel the truth that their task was based on the wrong assumption about the laboratory in Kansas, so how can she keep it a secret from Philip? He would smell the rat if the wasn't told the real reason why their mission there would be aborted.

Before all, Elizabeth knows that their relationship is based on the truth and always when there had been lies or even acting behind the other's back, there would be far greater problems.  

Edited September 12, 2017 by Roseanna

[Roseanna]

On ‎5‎.‎4‎.‎2017 at 10:47 PM, whiporee said:

It is new. When Phillip starts to waver in his commitment, Elizabeth fucks him. Not when he's feeling blue or sad or whatever, but those times he starts to sincerely question what they do. There may have been times it hasn't been shown on TV that she's held his hand and tried to make nice, but a) Phillip is clearly distressed about Martha. E aggressively seduces and fucks him. b) Phillip is wondering why they can't grow their own wheat in the USSR. E aggressively seduces and fucks him. We've seen them have sex before, but the only times we're shown E taking charge like that is when P is losing faith. That's got to be a writer/showrunner's choice. It's not the totality of their relationship, but it is the pattern she's shown whenever he starts to lose faith in the cause. I would not be at all surprised to know that was one of the things she was told and taught very clearly at spy school. 

Last night's phone call was the first time I can remember that E's reached to Phillip as a real spouse. I don't think there's tons of evidence she's seen him as anything other than her spy partner for most of the show's duration (hell, didn't she narc on him once?), but I do think that's changing now. But I also think she went to their house with Luan with the intent of doing more of the same, but she either changed her mind or decided it wouldn't work. 

 

On ‎5‎.‎4‎.‎2017 at 11:23 PM, sistermagpie said:

Did they realize it? I'm not sure they did. The teacher said Henry had just recently gotten serious about it, so it's not like they just found out anything that had been going on for years. Other than that they seem to think he's kind of ignoring them with his busy social life.

Yes, that's two times when Elizabeth sees Philip being upset and they have sex. I would add a third time in Yousef. But the only one of those three that's even specifically Philip questioning some aspect of the cause and Elizabeth distracting him with sex is in Kansas.

In Yousef he's just generally bummed out by the killing (and she herself has just angrily told him that this is hard for her too) and she says right before that that she wishes she could be there for him like he was for her when she was injured. With Martha she seems to be more jealous about Martha than she is worried about Philip's loyalty to the cause. 

There are also other times where she takes his hand to provide comfort--off the top of my head she does it in Comrades and in The Clock and in Gregory. So no, I think it's inaccurate to say that it's some new thing for Elizabeth to  be able to want to comfort Philip's distress like a friend or a wife or that any time she provides comfort through sex it's like she's honeytrapping to make him loyal to the USSR. The Mission is always part of their relationship, but her feelings around him go far beyond that, imo. Yes, Philip is often upset because of the things he has to do for the job, but it's circular to say that therefore Elizabeth only comforts Philip to make him loyal to the job. 

Elizabeth made almost the same phone call in Duty and Honor. She narc'd on Philip before the start of the show, not during the show. Off the top of my head other times when I would say Elizabeth has been shown explicitly dealing with Philip as a spouse and not just a partner she needs to keep loyal to the cause:

When she tries to get him to invite himself back home during their separation

When she asks him to come home after their separation

The phone call to him in Duty and Honor

Her telling him she's starting to fall in love with him in Gregory

Her breaking up with Gregory because she's falling in love with Philip now

Her throwing Philip out of the house for hurting her by sleeping with Irina and lying about it

Her telling Karen how she feels guilty about him being so upset because she'd wished for a chance to care for him the way he'd cared for her

Her being jealous and insecure on the subject of Martha

Her asking him if he would rather be with Martha

Her apologizing to him for taking steps to tell Paige the truth on her own

Her telling the sailor that she'd stopped feeling things after her rape and is now starting to feel again

Her asking Gabriel to get Mischa Jr. out of Afghanistan

When the two of them just have sex because Elizabeth's into it, like in the hotel room or their bedroom

When Elizabeth desperately tries to get Philip to have sex with her as Clark 

Elizabeth bursting into tears upon being turned on by sex on the job and giving Philip a blow job he himself isn't even that into in response to it

 

It seems to me the whole first season was explicitly about Elizabeth coming around the truth that she loved Philip and wanted to have a real relationship with him. She has seen him as more than simply her spy partner for the entire run of the show. *Before* the events of the show she saw him as a spy partner, and the biggest signal of her changing views was in the pilot, which was the first time she crawled on top of him and initiated sex in a moment. Before that, when she saw him as a partner, they may not have had sex much at all. (First time was to have a baby.) Elizabeth is actually usually the one in control of their sex scenes because, imo, she has issues with consent. That's why the moment she took that step with Philip came after he killed the man who thought he was entitled to her sexually because it was part of her job.

In this ep she obviously goes to him to comfort him, but it seems like stretching it to say that she's specifically there to fuck him back to loyalty and then deciding otherwise for unknown reasons. Philip goes over to Tuan's because he told him he'd go over there--he's doing his job, not denouncing anything. She knows he's going to be with Tuan, not alone as he would be later when he got home. It just seems almost comical that she walks into that kitchen where Philip is munching on McDonalds with Tuan and only then thinks it would be awkward to start stripping.

 

On ‎5‎.‎4‎.‎2017 at 11:27 PM, stagmania said:

In order to buy your theory of Elizabeth here, we have to completely disregard the actual text of the show. How can one reasonably interpret her smiling and slow dancing with Phillip as her "aggressively seducing and fucking him"? We don't even know that they had sex in that interaction. As for seeing him as something other than her spy partner, that has literally been the basis of her entire emotional arc from the start of the show, and was more pronounced than ever during the Martha arc that you also referenced as another time she supposedly honey trapped her husband. I'm honestly trying to understand your perspective here, but it doesn't make any sense. 

ETA: thank you @sistermagpie for laying out so many clear examples from the history of the show, which I definitely did not have the energy to do. :)

Especially in the Martha scene, I find very odd the description that Elizabeth "aggressively seduces and fucks" Philip. I saw no aggression, instead I saw that she wanted to strengthen their bond by making love. 

I have never seen them fuck which I consider sex without emotional intimacy. They fuck others (also Martha), but with one another they always make love. The only exception was when E asked Pto be "Martha's husband" with her.  

[Roseanna]

On ‎6‎.‎4‎.‎2017 at 9:50 PM, Umbelina said:

People who tried to escape the Soviet Union were routinely shot, specifically at the Berlin Wall, their bodies left out to rot as an example to others.  It was a crime to escape, it was a crime to speak against the government, as Misha did when protesting the war.  Why in the world would you think KGB agents, the most strident and loyal citizens of the Soviet Union wouldn't kill him?  More importantly, why would Misha?

Why would the Soviet citizens try to escape through the Berlin Wall? See the map, so you see the better alternatives.     

That those who were caught on the Berlin Wall were shot in order to stop their escape, doesn't mean that all were executed. Even those who hijacked the airplane to Finland only got a long sentence.