S05.E07: The Committee on Human Rights

[dubbel zout]

47 minutes ago, Juliegirlj said:

No music?! No tv?!

That's probably a rights' issue (i.e., money) more than anything else. The show is really specific about pop culture.

Edited April 25, 2017 by dubbel zout

[Umbelina]

38 minutes ago, Juliegirlj said:

As irritating as it is that Henry is never home, it is just as bad that Paige is always home!! Sitting serenely on the couch or her bed, quietly reading a book....No music?! No tv?! No friends other than Matthew?! Come on, even nerds have friends....

Plants through customs is a big no no. Was it allowed back then?

I really doubt Gabriel is flying TWA or United.

If the KGB can get a biotoxin filled rat to the USSR, I'm sure they can get the wheat plant there.  Soviet customs is hardly going to object.  He may be making a Martha-like trip, or could easily be traveling by boat as well. 

Edited April 25, 2017 by Umbelina

[dubbel zout]

The plant could go back in the diplomatic pouch.

[Juliegirlj]

If I'm not mistaken, Gabriel was disguising the wheat in a potted plant. Why do that if he were indeed journeying in an off the grid way. 

For some reason I am starting to wonder if there is a connection between Oleg and Phillip. Oleg' mother seems to have had a previous life before she married current husband. Was the woman that Oleg was investigating Phillip's mother, or perhaps they are brothers from a different father? 

[Umbelina]

He wasn't disguising the plant.  He commented about the detailed instructions he got from Center for the care and feeding of the wheat, potting it was simply part of that.

Oleg and Phillip being related would be pure daytime soap opera.  As I detailed elsewhere, Oleg's mother was in Kansk, Phillip's dad was in Tobolsk.  That's more than 3000 km away.  Siberian Gulags, prisons, work camps were all over the place, especially in Siberia.  Phillip's dad hardly looked important enough to be traveling to other camps.

I do think Oleg might have a different father though, but the show hasn't mentioned his character's age.  We know his mother was in prison after the war though '47-'51 I think, can't remember the exact dates, but I know I put in in another post.

[sistermagpie]

1 hour ago, dubbel zout said:

2 hours ago, Juliegirlj said:

No music?! No tv?!

That's probably a rights' issue (i.e., money) more than anything else. The show is really specific about pop culture.

Actually, she often is watching TV. Quietly staring at it in the living room. We've seen her watching MASH and WKRP and Fantasy Island.

1 hour ago, Juliegirlj said:

For some reason I am starting to wonder if there is a connection between Oleg and Phillip. Oleg' mother seems to have had a previous life before she married current husband. Was the woman that Oleg was investigating Phillip's mother, or perhaps they are brothers from a different father? 

There's no reason to think so. Oleg's mother was married to Oleg's father when she went to the camp iirc, since that's why she was sent--it was a punishment for her. The woman Oleg was investigating was his own mother. Oleg grew up in Moscow and his mother was in a camp in Kansk. Philip grew up in Tobolsk and his father was a guard in Tobolsk.

[Inquisitionist]

13 hours ago, skippylou said:

My speculation about this episode is that when it was written the writers didn't have a clue where they were taking this season so they dropped  a lot of breadcrumbs and characters with open ended stories that they could pick up on later when they get inspired. 

I'm of the impression that each season is carefully plotted from the outset.  I've no doubt most things will tie together in the end; the set-up just seems to be taking an unusually long time.

[dancer]

20 hours ago, Umbelina said:

Agree with you guys that the Gabriel switch was jarring and important.

I have one theory about it, or feeling about it.  With Elizabeth and Philip together, and speaking directly to Elizabeth he was still handling them, doing his job.  As much as he might care about them in some ways, he was still in "handler" mode, still doing his job.

Philip alone though?  Their conversation about his dad being a low level KGB prison guard and Philip's subsequent questions prompted Gabriel into devastating memories of his own.  Gabriel got angry at one point as well, and in some ways was giving Philip his confession, or at least trying to dump it all out because he was quitting, and God knows he couldn't do it in the USSR, where he was headed. 

It became a life reflection breakthrough moment for Gabriel.  Or an EST session, with Philip as the one asking pertinent questions, prompting more conversation and emotion to get at the truth.  The truth poured out, and it was ugly, and horrifying, and Gabriel's take away became that the real reason he'd done all of those "sins" was simply trying to stay alive himself.  He saw it, on some level, for what it really was all along, not some glorious cause, but a fucking mess where he was trapped by his own desire/need to simply survive.

Gabriel just met Paige, someone he's heard about for 16 years, but in many ways she was an abstraction.  Now?  She's real.  His trip down "real" memory lane with Philip, things he's buried for years as just doing his job, or doing what he had to do all came back in all their gory reality.

Did he want that for Paige?

No.

This is exactly how I took the G/P scene.  When I was watching, I thought Gabriel was telling Philip "you are right not to want Paige to have this kind of life".  But when I read here, it seems many others interpreted the scene as "you are right that Paige is not cut out for the spy business" making me question whether I missed something - good to know I am not the only one who took it that way!

[JasmineFlower]

On 4/19/2017 at 4:31 PM, jjj said:

Mine, also!  I actually thought there was a clue in the girlfriend's remark about the film location, because she referred to "the U of I", meaning Indiana University, where it was filmed.  But no one calls it "U of I" -- just "IU".  I thought the perturbed look on Stan's face was "dang, she's a spy, she does not know our lingo!"  (joking, but I thought that was significant.  I guess it means the writer don't know it is "IU".) 

I was coming here to say this. That was a huge clue to me as well. "U of I" is in the next state over (Univ. of Illinois, which I know as a grad), and IU is in Bloomington. Knowing plenty who attended both, that's just not a mistake people make, so that right there was a major red flag. It's easy to keep them straight, as it's not University of Indiana, it's Indiana University Bloomington. I'm unwilling to write this off as the writer not knowing the difference. This show is too sharp for that.

And I also thought Stan had made her in that moment. Especially since I'm pretty sure he was in the Midwest in his prior undercover assignment, but given what it was, I doubt college was a topic of conversation so I get him not picking it up then.

[White Sheep]

On 4/21/2017 at 1:01 AM, Cthulhudrew said:

We never did find out what it was that the KGB wanted with Gaad, did we? It was pretty clear that his death wasn't their intent, but whatever they had in mind was pretty heavy handed nonetheless. Could a plant working Stan be connected to that? Or maybe it is something to do with seeking retaliation over the death of Kosigyn.

First time I heard the payback option on Stan from the KGB.

[White Sheep]

On 4/19/2017 at 5:54 PM, Umbelina said:

Some more about what Elizabeth stole:

http://www.sras.org/snezhnevsky_schizophrenia_soviet_psychiatry

So Misha was in prison, disguised as a psychiatric unit.

It's a long article and very thorough, with footnotes, and spans the early 1900s through modern days.

How the Soviets used their own twisted version of psychiatry to suppress political dissent http://io9.gizmodo.com/5940212/how-the-soviets-used-their-own-twisted-version-of-psychiatry-to-suppress-political-dissent

This one is even better, since it was written in 1986 and published in the British Medical Journal.

http://www.bmj.com/content/293/6548/641

Dang, I hope Philip or Elizabeth look at what they stole!

Seriously, and by the way, I hated that movie.

Those communist took "junk and semi" science to a whole new "bad" level.  The world still recovering from it. 

Edited July 9, 2017 by White Sheep

[Nash]

I think Gabriel, brilliantly acted by Mr Langella, is (Connie would say in "Tinker Tailor") a "24 carat Moscow Centre trained hood"; he's an old school chekhist who survived the purges and went illegal as a handler longer than many real world illegals.

I quite like him but I don't trust a word he says; he is focused on keeping P&E on mission. He is experienced enough to know that a velvet glove is better than an iron fist. I think we have now seen him finally drop his guard - he is tired and tells P that Project Paige is madness. It's a fine idea in theory but while you can choose and train your illegals, you have zero control over the suitability of their kids. 

The loyalty of those kids is a massive issue - they've grown up Americans so why would they embrace working for an agency that was pretty much seen Soviet Murder Inc (SMERSH anyone?). 

I'll leave the rest for now except to say that - without being able to articulate the how, I have a sense that even if this series ends with no great changes, the entire show going to end very very badly for most of the characters. In fact I'll bet that the two who get out relatively unscathed are Oleg and Henry. 

[Clanstarling]

2 hours ago, Nash said:

I'll leave the rest for now except to say that - without being able to articulate the how, I have a sense that even if this series ends with no great changes, the entire show going to end very very badly for most of the characters. In fact I'll bet that the two who get out relatively unscathed are Oleg and Henry. 

I agree. I've said before that I don't think it ends well for anyone. Sadly, I put Oleg in that category. As for Henry, he does seem like a survivor.

[Nash]

I think a lot depends on how much impact people like Ames or Gordievsky have on the plot. 

[RachelKM]

Oh my fucking God!  I'm finally watching this season and after watching 7 episodes over 2 days, I have never hated wheat more.  I'm actually enjoying much of the season and how everyone is showing the effects of lives these people have led and the toll of living lies and holding secrets has taken.  But for fuck's sake, I don't want to hear any more about the wheat.  Is it possible to develop emotional Celiac disease? 

Edited July 27, 2017 by RachelKM

[Roseanna]

On ‎21‎.‎4‎.‎2017 at 4:25 PM, curbcrusher said:

I find it interesting that most of the discussion of the episode has been about Paige, Ben and the wheat,   and not a lot on the report that Elizabeth stole from the office. I believe @Umbelina is the one that looked into the Committee On Human Rights a bit and said the real report had to do with Soviet psychiatrist diagnosing dissidents with mental diseases. During the episode, when Phillip asked Elizabeth what she lifted from the office, she said it was just a report with a bunch of names in it. My speculation: If the report is about people that have recently been diagnosed with the mental illness of being opposed to the Soviet government, Mischa's name is in the report.  He was "treated" before he made his escape, so I think it might be a possibility. And his name is about all Phillip know about him. If Phillip reads the report or has to go through it to transmit it, the fact that his son was a dissident will be revealed to him.

 

On ‎21‎.‎4‎.‎2017 at 5:57 PM, sistermagpie said:

I'm not sure the report would contain the name of every person ever diagnosed with this fake mental illness. I think the addresses that Elizabeth was after were names of the people on the actual Committee for Human Rights, which was a dissident group in the USSR--those are presumably people the USSR would be more interested in, since they already have the ones in the mental hospitals. If Mischa was part of that group it would be in there. It's possible they might have his name in it--the connection is pretty clear! And I wouldn't put it past the Centre to forget that Elizabeth isn't the best person to send after a report that would have Mischa's name in it. So it's certainly something that might somehow bring Mischa back into it. Or else it might be another sad irony of which our protagonists are never aware.

 

On ‎21‎.‎4‎.‎2017 at 11:58 PM, Umbelina said:

http://www.nytimes.com/1987/05/14/us/psychiatric-abuse-in-soviet-assailed.html

1987

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatoly_Koryagin

 

http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1482&context=yjil

On page 3, beginning with "Introduction" it talks of leaked stories to the West from the Soviet Union about psychiatric abuses of political prisoners, including the mid eighties.  I'm really beginning to wonder if those doctors who leaked case histories proving abuse are the names Elizabeth is turning over. 

There must be one solid source of this information out there, but so far I keep finding bits and pieces in various medical PDFs, etc. 

So she's betraying the very people who are doing their best to help innocent soviet people imprisoned, experimented on, and basically tortured for having independent ideas.  How will this play out in our little TV show though?  How would she know, or Philip, if it's just names on a list?  Hopefully it's more than that.

http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/appi.ajp.2010.10111651

Interesting, so if dissidents, not psychiatrists are the names on that list Elizabeth stole, then they are in for even more hell in the USSR.

There were a label "Helsinki Group" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_Helsinki_Group) but it seems worked in the late 70ies.

I don't think it makes sense to steal the the names of dissidents that that had been diagnosed with mental disorder - the Soviet Union naturally know who they were. And Mischa wasn't actually a dissident, meaning a member of some group that protested, but only a soldier who had spoken inside the army about his views.

It would make more sense to steal a report of Soviet misuse of psychology before it was published. But why on earth would the doctor have put it among the ordinary patients' files? 

[Roseanna]

On ‎19‎.‎4‎.‎2017 at 5:55 PM, sistermagpie said:

LOL! Exactly. What's also bizarre is that she's all incredulous and sad about this thing her parents told her the US government is doing, despite knowing that as Soviet spies they actually do not have an inside track on what the US government is doing, yet it never occurs to her to ask anything about what the Soviets are doing. I mean where I grew up there wasn't any big anti-Russia sentiment but there was still the general understanding of bad things about it. If she was researching this stuff this might have been a good time to bring up, say, Stalin starving people. She managed to come up with Watergate, which yes, is an example of the free information in the US being helpful. Meanwhile she has not a single question about the not-a-secret crimes of the USSR for whom her parents are working? 

Maybe Paige is one of those people who feel guilty about what "we" do to "them" because to her, "we" must be lily-white (whereas most people can always find excuses for what "we" do).

Before all, as her discussion with Pastor Tim shows, she longs for a cause greater than she. He spoke to her that Jesus sacrificed himself - he hasn't realized that Lenin and Stalin didn't sacrifice themselves but others.   

[Roseanna]

On ‎26‎.‎7‎.‎2017 at 12:00 AM, Nash said:

I think Gabriel, brilliantly acted by Mr Langella, is (Connie would say in "Tinker Tailor") a "24 carat Moscow Centre trained hood"; he's an old school chekhist who survived the purges and went illegal as a handler longer than many real world illegals.

I quite like him but I don't trust a word he says; he is focused on keeping P&E on mission. He is experienced enough to know that a velvet glove is better than an iron fist. 

Gabriel said to Claudia that he had never before lied to P&E, meaning that keeping Mischa's visit secret was the first time.

The worst liars are those who lie all the time. So even when using lies, it's best to lie so little as possible and only when necessary. 

Because Gabriel is so experienced, he knows that the best way to motivate P&E is to tell the truth. After all, they share basically the beliefs as him - also Philip wants to protect Russia - and they volunteered to stay in the US.

That's not saying that Gabriel can't left some things out, or that his superiors haven't done the same the same, or even lied to him. 

Actually, Stan and Adelholt when trying to get Sofia to betray her country, probably lie much more to her.  For the truth would be something like this: "It's only a small chance that we can keep our romises to you. The most probable result is that you are caught and then you are lucky if you only get a sentence. Think closely whether the risk is worth taking." 

.