S05.E13: The Soviet Division

[Bannon]

4 minutes ago, SlovakPrincess said:

Oh, Paige is already there.  I think the writers think Paige is coming into her own ... but I see a girl who shut off her brain and any natural skepticism, and now just accepts whatever Elizabeth tells her without question.

I hate that Elizabeth ended up being right about this, for some reason.  Maybe because I find Elizabeth insufferable when she's going on about how great "the cause" is, when she clearly knows by now it's got a lot of problems.  Also, 'cause they totally lied to Paige about that frickin' wheat.  

Yeah, Paige has been written nearly as poorly as Stan. A real missed opportunity to do something interesting.

[SlovakPrincess]

There was that one time Paige flipped out and pushed Matthew, and ... no, that's it, I guess.

Stan's most interesting moment all season was when he was like "hey, I'm gonna tell the world I murdered someone if you blackmail Oleg."  And even that was underwhelming, because his boss was just like "ugggghhhh.  Fine."  

Edited May 31, 2017 by SlovakPrincess

[scrb]

3 hours ago, dubbel zout said:

That was hilarious, as was Philip and Elizabeth's reaction.

The scenes with Kimmy always give me the creeps. Even when she turns 18, they'll be creepy. Philip/Jim is still more than 20 years older. Eew. I was also slightly surprised the guys in that group, who seem older than the girls (and they are girls), weren't a bit more circumspect toward Philip. He's encroaching on their territory, after all, good weed or no. Given what this story is setting up for next season, I'm looking forward to seeing how it works out. There are a lot of ways it can quickly go south.

Only reason they didn't have these characters have a sexual relationship is that it would have made Philip completely unsympathetic.

Viewers would have been turned off by Elizabeth for going along with it.

And his regret about ruining Martha's life would not be a viable plot.

[MisterBluxom]

1 hour ago, Bannon said:

I just don't know. It would have made a lot more sense to have P&E grasp early on that the wheat thing was benign, but have the stupid bureucracy (and all bureaucracies are stupid) of The Center push them to go forward. Then, when innocents are harmed (and it would not have to be yet another homicide when somebody stumbles upon them), they would have their noses rubbed into the pointlessness of the harm, while it was happening  followed by disgust when they proved the wheat thing wss benign.

Same thing with the Nazi hunt. Why not have P&E be smart, put the Nazi in a secure location, but have the likely outcome play out, it being ambiguous whether she was being truthful? I think the writers decided to kill off the innocent husband, to heighten internal conflict, so they contrived yet another murder.

Eh, the show's just likely not for me any longer. It happens with almost all shows I watch eventually.

I understand. It happens to me as well and I think it happens to lots of other people as well.

However, on a different note (not specifically directed at BANNON), it occurs to me that Nazi incident was so tiny and so seemingly unrelated to anything else (at the time it happened), that it might very well have some important parallel to the destruction of Pasha's family.

At this time, it appears Pasha's family will be permanently destroyed as was the Nazi woman's and her husband were both killed.  I don't recall if they had any children, but regardless, the Center was responsible for destroying that family as well.  Maybe P & E will think about these two cases as they contemplate getting out of the spy business.  Maybe they will see just how easy it is for the Center (and for some of their lesser agents - meaning Tuan) to cause the destruction of families without ever much caring about the rightness or wrongness of it.

Tuan was certainly not sufficiently experienced or knowledgeable to make the right call about Pasha's family and I think E may have thought about that when she decided this job was not suitable for Tuan.  Maybe these two cases will help P & E think about those families or discuss them with each other and maybe that will help them make their ultimate decision.  If  not ... why would the show runners show us the case with the Nazi lady and her husband? What purpose did that case serve?

Edited May 31, 2017 by MissBluxom

[Chaos Theory]

1 hour ago, Eulipian 5k said:

A KGB illegal would have moved out by Episode 2 of Season 1 as soon as they realized they were living across the street from an FBI Counter Intelligence Officer. But that's TV, and we've been buckled in for the ride.

Some things annoy some people and others can overlook without any problem at all.  I never had a problem with the Jennings living across the street from Stan.  He made for good intel.  Even when just talking about nothing.    Plus P&E are good about steering conversations in the direction they need it to go.

I also don't have a problem with the Kimmie storyline.  A friend of mine's daughter knew about a girl who had a thirty year old friend who did sell her pot and showed up at parties. No one thought anything of it until it got super weird.  And even then parents and teacgers didn't find out until it nearly became a Lifetime movie.  I've learned that real life teenagers can go either way.  Super blabby or super secretive and often at the same moment.  So I have zero problem that Philip is able to manipulate the situation to his benefit.   

Be the last to arrive.  Ask Kimmie who is there. Do a circle of the neighborhood.  Make damn sure everyone is more drunk/high then you are.  Plus who knows who Kimmie's friends are.  They may have fathers in major positions of power too.

Edited May 31, 2017 by Chaos Theory

[Bannon]

5 minutes ago, Chaos Theory said:

Some things annoy some people and others can overlook without any problem at all.  I never had a problem with the Jennings living across the street from Stan.  He made for good intel.  Even when just talking about nothing.    Plus P&E are good about steering conversations in the direction they need it to go.

I also don't have a problem with the Kimmie storyline.  A friend of mine's daughter knew about a girl who had a thirty year old friend who did sell her pot and showed up at parties. No one thought anything of it until it got super weird.  And even then parents and teacgers didn't find out until it nearly became a Lifetime movie.  I've learned that real life teenagers can go either way.  Super blabby or super secretive and often at the same moment.  So I have zero problem that Philip is able to manipulate the situation to his benefit.   

Be the last to arrive.  Ask Kimmie who is there. Do a circle of the neighborhood.  Make damn sure everyone is more drunk/high then you are.  Plus who knows who Kimmie's friends are.  They may have fathers in major positions of power too.

Yes. They can go either way. That's the point. If your goal is to not get caught, Phil, you need to have some confidence that they will all, 100% , go the way you want them to. You can't have any confidence that they will do so.

If somebody thinks this is non-stupid behavior by a KGB illegal, that's fine, but I differ, obviously

 

.

[Umbelina]

5 hours ago, SlovakPrincess said:

While I doubt Kimmie's friends will run home and tell their parents about the friendly pot supplier, I do think it's likely a rumor would spread around her school: "Kimmie hangs out with this random older guy who likes to hang out at her house when her dad is away and gives her friends neck rubs and pot ... creepy!  But I wouldn't say no to the pot, ha ha!"  And if the CIA periodically does surveillance around Kimmie's family, as I assume they would, they are likely to catch wind of the rumor.  

In some ways, Tuan is just being more honest than P and E.  There was always a chance Alexei, Evgania, or Pasha ended up dead or destroyed or hurt -- suicide attempt or no.  They are sending Evgania back specifically to get blackmailed.  If Alexei went back, as was their plan, he was at risk for imprisonment.  Now Pasha gets to go back to Russia, but his family is torn apart and who knows what will end up happening to his mom.  

Kids do talk, and Kimmie lives in DC, where the odds of having Intelligence connected parents are pretty good.  However, there is so much else wrong with this season that I let that slip to the bottom of my annoyances.  However, as one poster said, if they were scanning for recording devices in the seventies, then what the hell?  His briefcase recorder would have been found.  More importantly though, why big shot in the CIA has no security about his kid or home?

Tuan is much more honest than either P or E.  His plan worked, but things could have gone wrong as well.  I think the KGB needed Pasha in the USSR as well, especially since daddy isn't going.  Using Pasha is how they will keep his mother in line.  Pasha may be in for a world of much more trouble now.

5 hours ago, Bannon said:

All I can tell you is that I was narced on in the era, at about that age. There's a reason the term "narc" exists, and it's because some people drop dimes. You get a group of people approaching 10, and you can have strong confidence that somebody will get into a situation where doing so is highly likely, as opposed to strong confidence that the secret will be kept.

Especially any speed freaks, or people using hallucinogens which leave them less reliable to keep secrets.  While I agree, someone would blab eventually, likely a guy like the one who challenged Philip at that first party?  Meh, don't care.  Her father being oblivious though?  Bugs.

5 hours ago, SlovakPrincess said:

I think it just goes to show that both P and E are getting a little soft, and having been parents for so long is probably part of it, along with the wisdom of being older.  

They are kidding themselves in a way, because they are wrecking this family whether Pasha lives or dies -- as Alexei said, Pasha's problems may now go deeper than bullying and homesickness (and he may get depressed again from being separated from his father), and if he attempts suicide in Russia he may not receive as good medical care.  

But actually risking teen Pasha's death was a line in their head they could no longer cross -- although Philip reacted more strongly (seems like on her own Elizabeth would've yelled at Tuan and felt bad, but would'nt have rushed over, FBI surveillance be damned, the way Philip did, to save Pasha).

They are well aware they were wrecking Pasha's life and family.  They know Pasha will be used to keep his mother in line back in the USSR. 

I think if Philip hadn't been there to witness her reaction, she would have been completely chill about it all.

2 hours ago, PamelaMaeSnap said:

I noticed it right away and wondered if indeed it's Sophia's boyfriend (Gennady, is that his name?)

Also, crazy question, but does anyone here happen to know if all of the Moscow-based scenes are actually filmed there? I only wondered because the scene with Martha and the child looks SO EXACTLY like where my grandparents used to live that it made me wonder (I know some scenes that allegedly take place in DC are actually filmed in Brooklyn ... my grandparents lived in Riverdale, which is a neighborhood in the Bronx where there were a TON of Russian immigrants, not that that matters in this case). 

I know they filmed a bunch of stuff in Moscow this year.  Oleg for sure, so probably some of the other Russian scenes as well.

Edited May 31, 2017 by Umbelina

[Erin9]

I found it interesting that, according to Elizabeth, what Henry felt was worth telling her was that: his dad said he couldn't go, and his dad yelled at him. Philip rarely yells at his kids, but I liked that Henry found that noteworthy too. He does pay attention sometimes. 

Oh and he didn't run to Stan to complain. Sure, Chris makes more sense in this context anyway,  but still it reminds me of what his relationship with Stan is and is not. 

And I truly hope this is the end of Henry going away. Yeah, they're not leaving so he could go, but Henry has plenty to do and discover at home. 

[Fouts]

I liked the juxtaposition of Elizabeth and Phillip taking last longing looks at their worlds as they prepared to check out of town:

Elizabeth's eyes locked on her modern dishwasher and her fashionable boot collection.

Phillip joined Stan for one final male-bonding game of racquetball, then stuck around to watch his buddy through the glass--he didn't want to leave.  Then Phillip spent extra time to build Kimmie up as part of his goodbye, above and beyond what he needed to do, spy-wise.  

So...  Elizabeth cares about the trappings of American life  (something she'd never admit, even to herself) and Soviet ideals.  Phillip cares about people--his wife, his children, his father-figure Gabriel, and the closest thing to a real friend he's probably ever had--Stan.  

[SunnyBeBe]

3 hours ago, jrlr said:

I thought he looked like Jim Jones.

This cracked me up!  Too funny.  I would never have thought of this, but, now that you mention it.......lol.  Now, I'll have to get that thought out of my head.  

[AllyB]

18 hours ago, SlovakPrincess said:

I thought it was U.S. government protection for Alexei, and that the nod between walkie talkie man and Philip was just "hey, I acknowledge you are also helping these poor people right now."   Philip worried that the guy would suspect them of something, but later told Claudia the guard seemed to be chill in his usual parking spot near Alexei's house.  

That's the thing though. There seemed to be some deleted scenes in the first minutes post credits regarding the look the Fed who was watching Alexi gave Philip. It seems the fed did in fact find something suspicious about 'Brad' as surveillance on Alexi was increased. Twice in the episode Philip detailed meetings with Alexi, first with Elizabeth and then later with Claudia where he described the extra measures he undertook before the meeting. Then he told Claudia that the extra surveillance seemed to be waning so maybe the Feb has decided that 'he didn't see what he thought he saw.' I kept on waiting throughout the episode for this plot point to come back up. And maybe it will next season but I thought it was frustrating to get told that Brad's cover might not have held up, practically in retrospect while the immediate post-credit scenes seemed to skip ahead days or weeks at a time. It would have worked better if last week had ended when Pascha was shipped off in the ambulance and the Fed gave Brad a funny look. Then the first few minutes of the episode could actually have concerned P&E worrying that their operation was blown right at the end.

[Erin9]

1 minute ago, Fouts said:

I liked the juxtaposition of Elizabeth and Phillip taking last longing looks at their worlds as they prepared to check out of town:

Elizabeth's eyes locked on her modern dishwasher and her fashionable boot collection.

Phillip joined Stan for one final male-bonding game of racquetball, then stuck around to watch his buddy through the glass--he didn't want to leave.  Then Phillip spent extra time to build Kimmie up as part of his goodbye, above and beyond what he needed to do, spy-wise.  

So...  Elizabeth cares about the trappings of American life  (something she'd never admit, even to herself) and Soviet ideals.  Phillip cares about people--his wife, his children, his father-figure Gabriel, and the closest thing to a real friend he's probably ever had--Stan.  

While I agree with what you said, I do think Philip would miss certain things, like his car. It's just that Philip's enjoyment of American things has been well documented and Elizabeth has totally fought admitting to liking anything.   And I do expect that in the end he'd focus more on people than things anyway. He's much more people oriented than she is. So the focus was where it needed to be imo. 

[SunnyBeBe]

Yeah, I thought that when the Fed officer was standing by the ambulance when Pasha was being loaded, that he gave a "Where do I recognize this guy from" look at Philip.  Based on my memory from the FBI sketch Brad didn't look too much like that sketch that night, imo.  Still....all it would take is for the Fed to ask Alexi what's your friend's name? Brad who? Where does he work?  Short time to find it's a sham.

Also, I thought the way Alexi hung back from the hospital was odd.  People who are used to going to a hospital know to go gather a bag, like when you have taken seniors to the ER multiple times over the years.  You have experience and know to go prepared, but, in their situation, which was rather life or death.......staying back and packing a bag seemed rather odd, imo.  

Edited May 31, 2017 by SunnyBeBe

[SunnyBeBe]

Thanks to someone upthread who answered my question about how Jimmy gets to switch out the recordings  in the brief case.  Someone said that he shows up when the dad is out for the evening. (That's why the brief case is not with dad.  I can accept that, but, then that means that Jimmy goes into the house, smokes it up with weed, gets Kimmy all excited, all the while risking that dad could return home for something he forgot or suddenly feels ill, etc.  It sure is a risk.  Eventually, wouldn't dad return home unexpectedly to find Jimmy?  I swear, I have no idea why P & E don't have ulcers,  inflammatory bowel or something. 

[Bama]

I was a teenage girl in the late 80s.

If one of my friends had a "Jim" hanging around our parties, passing out weed and rubbing on the girls, that totally would have been super hot gossip.  If the party had happened on a Friday, by Monday the whole school would be talking about the 50 year old creepo who was handing out cocaine and heroin and who tried to rape someone.  

The teenage telephone gossip game is powerful.  

And don't put the gossip just on the other girls.  The teenage boys would have been wagging their tongues just as much.  "Jim" is poaching their territory.

The kids that are at the parties and benefiting from "Jim's" party favors wouldn't want to rat him out.  But they would 100% brag about it to other friends who weren't there and then the gossip would spread all over the place.  In the real world, I would give it two weeks before a parent or teacher got wind.

So, yeah, Philip is taking a SUPER unnecessary risk by being "Jim" in front of Kimmie's friends.

Now, that could be shitty writing or it could be showing the audience that Philip's burn-out is making him sloppy and showing us the beginning of Philip's downfall.  I'll withhold judgement until I see how the Kimmie deal turns out.

[sistermagpie]

2 hours ago, SlovakPrincess said:

Oh, Paige is already there.  I think the writers think Paige is coming into her own ... but I see a girl who shut off her brain and any natural skepticism, and now just accepts whatever Elizabeth tells her without question.

I’m not clear exactly where Paige is. She seems to have dropped the church stuff to just focus on good works, but is she thinking of following in Elizabeth’s footsteps or does she just see herself as doing that and learning self-defense so she’s not afraid? People take it as a given that she’s becoming a willing junior spy but I don’t know exactly where she’s supposed to be politically. Like without her spelling out that she actually has decided that all the problems that would be common knowledge in the US are just lies.

Really if she is considering it Pastor Tim is probably just as much a role model there as her parents. He’s the one adult in her life that knows the truth and doesn’t seem to have ever wanted to chat with her about the potential dark side—and not just in terms of Philip and Elizabeth themselves doing bad things. I think you can be critical of US policy without being totally okay with the USSR. He didn’t bring up any practical concerns when P&E asked him for his thoughts. He had his chance to give her some straight talk about the USSR.

39 minutes ago, Erin9 said:

Oh and he didn't run to Stan to complain. Sure, Chris makes more sense in this context anyway,  but still it reminds me of what his relationship with Stan is and is not. 

As far as we know Stan doesn’t even know about the boarding school plan. He found out about the math stuff from Philip. Not sure what Henry knows or cares about Stan's new girlfriend--she impacted Matthew's life but not Henry's.

It seems a much better use of Henry for him to discover that his parents are Russian spies than for him to successfully get to go to boarding school so we can have someone name check him every few eps until he comes home on break and everything hits the fan. (Can’t come home for Christmas since in the Jennings’ world it’s always winter, but never Christmas. It’s like Narnia.) He's always categorized Stan's job as cool and exciting; it's probably not a coincidence that his first actual trip to the place coincided with his being in a "boarding school ticket to the elite career" phase of his life. He's very attracted to that world and doesn't realize his parents are part of it.

58 minutes ago, Erin9 said:

I found it interesting that, according to Elizabeth, what Henry felt was worth telling her was that: his dad said he couldn't go, and his dad yelled at him. Philip rarely yells at his kids, but I liked that Henry found that noteworthy too. He does pay attention sometimes. 

Also that Philip started out apologetic knowing that Henry would be upset but finally found strength enough to have some authority when he vowed the family would stay together. It reminded me a little of the "You respect Jesus" moment. It would be nice if they gave us some context for his life so I could see if this stuff was related in an interesting way.

44 minutes ago, SunnyBeBe said:

Also, I thought the way Alexi hung back from the hospital was odd.  People who are used to going to a hospital know to go gather a bag, like when you have taken seniors to the ER multiple times over the years.  You have experience and know to go prepared, but, in their situation, which was rather life or death.......staying back and packing a bag seemed rather odd, imo.  

I think he was using it to have a moment alone or with Brad before driving off to the hospital.

Btw, I thought it was interesting that Philip mentioned that he still wasn’t sure he liked the guy. I have no idea exactly how Philip relates to the stuff Alexei says. It’s always so tempting to cast Philip in the role of whatever an American would think but he’s not.

2 minutes ago, Bama said:

Now, that could be shitty writing or it could be showing the audience that Philip's burn-out is making him sloppy and showing us the beginning of Philip's downfall.  I'll withhold judgement until I see how the Kimmie deal turns out.

Since Jim has always been with Kimmy fairly openly, it's probably not Philip getting sloppy. Jim seems to be known to all the kids there beforehand and nobody seemed to see him as hitting on anybody. The boys looked older too. He wasn't out of place because he's not a surprise.

[Bannon]

5 hours ago, scrb said:

OK, Kimmee's father would really have to be oblivious not to know about Philip.  So he spends hours at their home and the father, who's a spy, leaves his briefcase which Philip bugged in there?

And he can walk into the CIA offices without it being checked?  If anyone has seen The Conversation, which takes place in the '70s, they were using electrical scanners to detect EMI which could be coming out of small recording devices or microphones back then.

You would think CIA would check that briefcase, which is unattended for hours at a time.  Especially after the FBI discovered the bugged mail robot.

But of course, the FBI and CIA didn't have their headquarters bugged in real life, so they really have to take dramatic license.

To give the writers a break, there is an inherent difficulty in making a show about illegals that passes the eyeroll test, and making one that people will watch. No, they weren't a bunch of Jason Bourneskis who were fabulous at recruiting and running agents. The most significant Soviet espionage triumphs had nothing to do with KGB skill. They happened when an American (Walker. Ames,Hanssen, etc.,) with money and/or booze problems walked into a Soviet consulate somewhere, and offered, unprompted, to trade secrets for money. Maybe the writers could have bent truth a little here, and had illegals running such an asset, but such a show would have tended to focus on thereal Americans, and not the secret Soviets. Anyways, the best arc in this show was Martha, and it was great, and mostly credible to me.

[TheBride]

7 hours ago, Sarah 103 said:

Why? It's 1984. A home computer in 1984 would have been expensive and a luxury, but not unheard of or out of the question. WarGames came out the year before. 

I think it was an anomaly. Command line, unix....nah. It happens.

[EtheltoTillie]

4 hours ago, PamelaMaeSnap said:

 

Also, crazy question, but does anyone here happen to know if all of the Moscow-based scenes are actually filmed there? I only wondered because the scene with Martha and the child looks SO EXACTLY like where my grandparents used to live that it made me wonder (I know some scenes that allegedly take place in DC are actually filmed in Brooklyn ... my grandparents lived in Riverdale, which is a neighborhood in the Bronx where there were a TON of Russian immigrants, not that that matters in this case). 

You are probably right.  I'm sure they don't film in Russia.  The show is filmed in NYC (I live here too).  For me, it was obvious last night that the scene where Paige was walking to the car was filmed at a NYCHA (NYC Housing Authority) project.  Could be Brooklyn or Manhattan.  They all look exactly like that.

[Umbelina]

They did film in Russia.

No interiors, but all exteriors.

Edited June 1, 2017 by Umbelina

[EtheltoTillie]

3 minutes ago, Umbelina said:

They did film in Russia.

No interiors, but all exteriors.

How do we know this?  Have there been articles?  I'm very curious! 

[Umbelina]

1 hour ago, GussieK said:

How do we know this?  Have there been articles?  I'm very curious! 

It was both on the podcasts and also in the latest interview posted in the media thread.

[RazzleberryPie]

22 hours ago, chick binewski said:

Nearly 50 minutes of the finale spent on Tuan and Elton John. Also, the spy camp Renee went to didn't teach her how to make garlic chicken properly.

Again, I thought the season lost a lot by not having the Rezidentura, considerably less Frank Langella and hardly any Allison Wright.  But the one scene Wright had with her going through 17 different emotions? That's the show I miss.

Also because I am a glass half empty kind of gal I read Martha's reaction as having very mixed feelings about taking a child the KGB was offering. Like she thought the KGB would eventually expect something from that child. Or that she (Martha) was too far gone to bring anyone into her life.

They're going to use her to teach the kid to be An 'American'. Too bad it won't matter after 1989 anyway. 

20 hours ago, solea said:

Am I the only one that thinks the KGB wants Martha to teach the little girl good, authentic English and culture so that she can be a spy?

In fact, I've been wondering whether they intend to use Martha as a instructor of American cultural mores, etc? I highly doubt her life in the USSR is going to be one with no strings attached. 

Absolutely - and I think Martha sort of knows that. 

14 hours ago, Bannon said:

The character of Stan has been so poorly written from early on in the show, and/or so poorly acted, that I can barely stand to watch any extended scene with Stan in it. On top of that, we get some scenes in which the direction is problematic. Who knows, maybe the FBI really does do polygraphs in the way it was portrayed last night, with the Special Agents standing behind the subject, changing expressions as the polygraph expert elicits responses, occasionally getting up to whisper stuff to the Special Agents, but I sure hope not.

Stan didn't start off too bad, but they herp, derp, dumbed him down way too much. At first, he was all 'aw, shucks, I'm just the neighbor Stan,' but very suspicious. I hope they bring some of that back.

10 hours ago, Joimiaroxeu said:

I'm choosing to go stand in the Stan Just Bought a Clue line. But knowing Stan he'll convince himself that he's overreacting because wow, now she lives with him and he can get it every day! It'd be nice though if he was suspicious enough to look into her story a bit more.

I was so hoping Elizabeth would kill Tuan. What an ungrateful little twerp. He really  has no idea who he's been working with. E & P have taken people out for a lot less than being called petty bourgeoisie.

Me, too. I want Stan to have a clue again, instead of just being Barney Fife.

[sistermagpie]

9 minutes ago, RazzleberryPie said:

They're going to use her to teach the kid to be An 'American'. Too bad it won't matter after 1989 anyway. 

I think that’s a stretch. The kid’s not going to be American being raised by Martha any more than kids of Russian immigrant parents turn out Russian. Gabriel’s arranging for her to have someone to love, not expecting to produce a Directorate-S agent just via proximity to an American.

Gabriel’s out of the game and trying to make amends. He thinks Paige was a mistake. He’s not hatching even more kiddie spy plots.

[RazzleberryPie]

21 minutes ago, sistermagpie said:

I think that’s a stretch. The kid’s not going to be American being raised by Martha any more than kids of Russian immigrant parents turn out Russian. Gabriel’s arranging for her to have someone to love, not expecting to produce a Directorate-S agent just via proximity to an American.

Gabriel’s out of the game and trying to make amends. He thinks Paige was a mistake. He’s not hatching even more kiddie spy plots.

I don't think it's a stretch at all to have Martha earn her keep by raising this Russian kid to speak American English, be familiar with American customs, etc. Why else wouldn't they just shoot Martha, if they can't get something from her? Of course the kid will be Russian, but will also have a better opportunity to learn to be "An American" than Philip or Elizabeth, if they grow up with a real, no quotes, American mother. If they're arranging for her to have someone to love, it's so they can use it against her. I do think Martha had some hope of being a mother, but also realizes that she'll be at least inadvertently familiarizing this kid with a whole lot of American culture, whether or not she actually sets up a Soviet Spy Homeschool in her apartment.

Also - if Henry gets sent anywhere, it will be to Russian Spy boarding school. Perfect excuse to immerse him, if he's already earned some scholarship to a legit school. If they don't turn Henry before this show ends, and knock Paige off, I'll be disappointed. 

[Macbeth]

8 hours ago, SunnyBeBe said:

Alison Wright carried this episode for me.  She conveyed a story with only using her facial expressions and look in her eyes for a few seconds.  Thanks to her and Gabriel, I have a little something great to take away from the season.  

Me too.  I really miss Gabriel.  And I like the solution they came up with for Martha.  She really does need a purpose.  It was a wonderful scene.

I also loved the shock on Philip's face when Elizabeth suggested taking Tuan with them.  Ah No.

Poor Henry.  No idea what is going on.  Run Henry run.

[Sarah 103]

10 hours ago, SlovakPrincess said:

Keeping her isolated and estranged from her dad was essential to the plan.

I didn't get that at all. I thought she was already having problems with her father. I wouldn't say Kimmee is isolated. Jim doesn't mind that Kimmee has friends and a social life. Jim was never a controlling borderline abusive type. Isn't Jim supposed to be someone in the entertainment industry (or at least the edges of it) who's in DC for work a few times a month? 

10 hours ago, sistermagpie said:

Kimmy is perfectly free to date boys her own age. I think she already has. I think they had a scene where Jim was talking about some boy she was going out with or thinking of going out with. She's not denying other boys to save herself for him. If she wasn't interested in the platonic relationship they have then he would have had to have gone there, but she likes him being a dad/older brother type too.

This sums up the relationship perfectly. 

9 hours ago, scrb said:

And he can walk into the CIA offices without it being checked?  

My guess (and this is more fan theory than anything else) is that it's a super high-tech bug that the Soviets have but cannot yet be detected by the CIA's technology. 

5 hours ago, SunnyBeBe said:

Also, I thought the way Alexi hung back from the hospital was odd.  People who are used to going to a hospital know to go gather a bag, like when you have taken seniors to the ER multiple times over the years.  You have experience and know to go prepared, but, in their situation, which was rather life or death.......staying back and packing a bag seemed rather odd, imo.  

Only one parent could go in the ambulance. My guess is that Alexi wasn't ready to go and face his family, so packing a bag was a delaying tactic. It was something he could do that would appear useful and helpful, but also buy him time. 

[rhys]

Glad to read someone else is mystified by P&Es home (& Stan's too). I wonder if the houses are quads. Two in front with a shared driveway connected at the back wall to a mirror image. If not, the outside seems enormous.

[Bretton]

As slow as this season was, I was still surprised by how slow and relatively uneventful the finale was. I really thought they were going to turn it up in this episode, to whet people's appetites for next season. But, alas, twas not so!

- The "Yellow Brick Road" sequence of long gazes kind of felt like a slightly misplaced play on the "Under Pressure" sequence from a few seasons ago. It was like the writers were quoting themselves, just not all that effectively.

- The Oleg plot resolution was at least something to really chow down... oh wait, never mind.

- Stan's facial expression after his roomie gf suggested he stay on at his job, while meant to appear ambiguous, I'm sure... to me came off like he definitely recognized what looked like a textbook play. So much so that I was left wondering if a spy, spying on a spy, would really attempt such a blatant ploy. I mean, really?

- Lastly, I really wanted the Kimmie storyline to go away. Alas, that's not happening anytime soon it would appear.

While I'm definitely looking forward to next season, I'd have to say that, unlike some on here, I'm not prepared to say I have faith that next season will really sizzle. One can hope. But after this season, one cannot know, nor even reasonably assume. But where there is life and a guaranteed next season, there is hope!

Finish ye well, showrunners!

Edited June 1, 2017 by Bretton

[Dev F]

14 hours ago, Umbelina said:

Kids do talk, and Kimmie lives in DC, where the odds of having Intelligence connected parents are pretty good.

Actually, Kimmy lives in Frederick, Maryland, which isn't exactly a DC suburb. It's about an hour to the north, and especially in the 1980s it was more rural and small-towny than the Maryland suburbs right outside DC. Kimmy's dad works at Fort Detrick, which is a big employer in the area, so it's certainly possible that she knows other families with intel connections (after all, she babysat for a guy in her dad's CIA group), but it's not like the District where half the people you meet work for the feds. The middle-class families I knew from Frederick growing up were farmers and small business owners and folks in local government.

Edited June 1, 2017 by Dev F

[J-Man]

Quote

And don't forget that Martha was his secretary.  Poor old Stan is just a spy magnet!  

I thought Martha was Gaad's secretary.

So when Elizabeth sits down for her heart-to-heart with Tuan, she starts out a sentence with "Philip and I ... " Was this the first time it's been acknowledged that Tuan knows their other names? (I was going to say REAL names, but of course that would have been inaccurate.) All along, I wondered why he always saw them in disguise, and only used the "Brad" and "Dee" names with them -- and I finally decided that that was all of the information about them that the respective handlers were going to share with them. So it was really out of the blue when Elizabeth referred to "Brad" as Philip.

[VCRTracking]

Half way through episode.

I hope Martha adopts that little girl.

"Petty Bourgeois"?! Fuck you Tuan. Fuck YOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUU.

[VCRTracking]

9 hours ago, MissBluxom said:

At this time, it appears Pasha's family will be permanently destroyed as was the Nazi woman's and her husband were both killed.  I don't recall if they had any children, but regardless, the Center was responsible for destroying that family as well.  Maybe P & E will think about these two cases as they contemplate getting out of the spy business.  Maybe they will see just how easy it is for the Center (and for some of their lesser agents - meaning Tuan) to cause the destruction of families without ever much caring about the rightness or wrongness of it.

They had children and grandchildren. I also feel uncomfortable after her story calling her a Nazi, when at best she was a collaborator.

Reading an old GI JOE comic from the 80s, this bit made me think of P&E and The Americans:

[RedHawk]

17 hours ago, Bannon said:

Phil, just being known as Jim, the guy with the large supply of great weed (which was a much, much, bigger deal 30 plus years ago) who generously shares it with the teenagers at Kimmie's house, would make him the talk of the high school. Guess what teenagers who smoke pot tend to do? Drink . Guess what teenagers who are high and/or drunk do? Get in car accidents. Guess what teens who get in car accidents do? Rat out everybody.

We simply aren"t going to agree if you don't think Phil is acting exactly like 3 or 4 nitwits whose mugshots i've seen in my local news in the last few months.

Nope, not what happened in the early '80s. Your scenario is how teens today may be but not teens back then. Guys like Jim, even younger high school teachers, would party with older teens and it didn't get blabbed about to the nearest "adult" nor was it "the talk of the school". 

Edited June 1, 2017 by RedHawk

[RedHawk]

13 hours ago, Bannon said:

If you think it is considered normal, by teenagers, to have an old dude sitting around with the teenagers in a parent's living room, smoking pot, giving a teenage girl a backrub, you have had different experiences with teenagers than I.

Some of us have no trouble buying this story line because we were those teens back in that era. You could drink legally at 18, and didn't Kimmy just turn 17? These are not 14 year olds. Teens then were more mature and independent than a lot of young people are today. 

Henry seems to me like a normal teen of that time, while Paige seemed to regress and become LESS independent after she joined the church. 

To me, the Jim character is much more realistic than the way Paige has been written.

[RedHawk]

21 hours ago, benteen said:

The LONG Paige scene was to show that she wasn't scared anymore after the mugging attempt from the previous season.

Then why did they have her "act" like she was terrified? If she felt at all more confident that she could handle being alone in that parking lot, then the director did not have her show it by body language. Elizabeth should have taught Paige what we back then called "street smarts" which included how to walk through stetchy areas and NOT look like a frightened little bunny rabbit.

Edited June 1, 2017 by RedHawk

[Gella]

  4 hours ago, GussieK said:

How do we know this?  Have there been articles?  I'm very curious! 

It was both on the podcasts and also in the latest interview posted in the media thread.

They filmed a lot of exterior Moscow shots in New York. Last night's Park scene with Martha for instance.
The scene where Oleg and his colleague are spying on the secretary was also not Moscow.

[Bannon]

2 hours ago, RedHawk said:

Some of us have no trouble buying this story line because we were those teens back in that era. You could drink legally at 18, and didn't Kimmy just turn 17? These are not 14 year olds. Teens then were more mature and independent than a lot of young people are today. 

Henry seems to me like a normal teen of that time, while Paige seemed to regress and become LESS independent after she joined the church. 

To me, the Jim character is much more realistic than the way Paige has been written.

The legal age of alcohol consumption was nearly universally turned back to 21, by the early 80s, under pressure from the Federal Government. The situations where I have seen it be much more common for old people to supply the drugs/alcohol for teenagers, and then sit around and get high with them, have been small town/rural settings, where the fact that there so fewer people to socialize with to begin with leads to less segregation by age.

Facilitating the intoxication of groups of teenagers was a dumb, dumb, way to avoid law enforcement's attention in 1984, even if the arrest rate for DUI was lower. I know teenagers in the early 80s who were arrested for it. They all gave up their suppliers of booze, weed, coke, what have you. Teenagers are really shitty at omerta.

[EtheltoTillie]

7 hours ago, J-Man said:

I thought Martha was Gaad's secretary.

So when Elizabeth sits down for her heart-to-heart with Tuan, she starts out a sentence with "Philip and I ... " Was this the first time it's been acknowledged that Tuan knows their other names? (I was going to say REAL names, but of course that would have been inaccurate.) All along, I wondered why he always saw them in disguise, and only used the "Brad" and "Dee" names with them -- and I finally decided that that was all of the information about them that the respective handlers were going to share with them. So it was really out of the blue when Elizabeth referred to "Brad" as Philip.

Good catch. I didn't notice that. I wonder if it was intentional or a mistake. 

[Clanstarling]

On 5/30/2017 at 8:58 PM, kay1864 said:

I can't see Martha raising an orphan, when she's barely literate herself.  (although maybe they would both be learning Russian together?)

Alison Wright in the close-up: *amazing* playing of emotions on her face.

Damn, I thought Renee might be a legitimate girlfriend--until she played Stan.

What did E mean at the end by "I can't "?

A toddler wouldn't be particularly fluent either. So a perfect setup. I was happy to see Martha get a child, which she's wanted all along. And if that's the last we see of her, I'm content. She got a piece of happiness out of this miserable mess.

I think E meant that now that she knows they've struck the motherload, she can't retire and go back home. The work here is too important.

On 5/31/2017 at 4:50 AM, Chaos Theory said:

I agree with you. I don't understand the hate for this season at all.  Maybe because this season felt like a filler season and I know how people feel about filler episodes so an entire season would probably drive some people nuts.  I however found the episode and season itself incredibly interesting.  Elizabeth and Philip are both just done.  Paige is trying to figure out who she is in a changing dynamic.  Stan personal and professional live are closing in on him.  All these things are intriguing stories but they are playing out like filler episodes so I can see how a large portion of people wouldn't like them.  

Still it isn't nothing.  This show has never been about nothing.  It's about a lot.  A very lot.  Allot all the time.  Too much. That's why everyone is so damn tired of it all.  That's why P&E want to go home but can't.

I agree. Sure, it hasn't been as exciting, and it is different in tone. It is different - but I've found the development of the characters, and the peek into the Soviet Union, fascinating. I was surprised this was the finale though.

18 hours ago, izabella said:

I read his look as confused and disapointed.  He was excited about his decision, and he knows his ex-wife would have loved it if he had made that decision when they were married, so it was unexpected that this woman was encouraging him to stay on the job even though he felt like crap doing it.  He probably thought she would be excited, too, and is disappointed that she's not supportive of his decision.  He might not trust anyone, but I'm not convinced he's suspicious of her yet.

That's what I read as well, though it didn't even occur to me that he might compare her reaction to his ex-wife's. He's disappointed that she's not on board with the life changes he wants to make, that his feeling shitty doesn't seem matter to her. I think he's in the per-suspicious phase. The pennies will start to drop and he'll start to put it together.

But I love that we all have so many different interpretations of Stan's reaction.

17 hours ago, Razzberry said:

I was actually disgusted by Philip's plan to tell his children only at the last minute that they would now be living in Russia and their life as they'd known it was essentially over.   Especially since they didn't need to go back, they were choosing to, because of...job stress, I guess?   His chest-pounding "This family will stick together!" is serving his needs, not theirs.   Tough it out for a couple more years and let the kids decide for themselves.

My husband and I laughed out loud when she said they could tell Paige ahead of time. Yeah, they're showing her growing more accustomed to it - but moving to the Soviet Union with no option to return (so far as they know) might be a bridge to far.

16 hours ago, Bannon said:

My experience with teenagers is they are frequently very gossip prone, and an old guy supplying the weed, giving backrubs, possibly being Kimmie's lover, is prime fodder for gossip. KGB illegals would not wish to be prime fodder for gossip. Maybe the teenagers you have been around have been circumspect in their indulgence of gossip, and would not have thought 40 year old lovers to be a worthy topic of much gossip. That hasn't been my experience

And mine, as a teenager and a parent, has been that the gossip stays within their peer group - it doesn't get to the parents. But as someone (maybe you) said, we've all had a wide variety of experiences.

12 hours ago, TheBride said:

I think it was an anomaly. Command line, unix....nah. It happens.

I had a PC in 1984, and the Center bought the PC for them. So it doesn't stand out to me.

[SunnyBeBe]

I got no impression that the child for Martha had anything to do becoming a spy.  This was a gesture of good will from Gabriel. 

I also don't think there are immediate designs on Henry by the Center and I do pray that he will be in boarding school when they return next season.  There's nothing good that can come from Henry staying in that household, UNLESS, Philip does cut back to only working the Kimmie mission and running the travel agency.  Then, he could really be a full time dad.  But, Henry will still be problematic for when there are crisis with E.  It's just so much easier for the writers to have Henry safely tucked away at boarding school, so the intensity, danger and intrigue can come out full force next season in the Jenings home.....well, at least that's what I'm hoping will happen.  lol  Who knows with this show lately.  

Recall how E told Tuan that he needed a partner?  If P cuts back, maybe, Paige can assist E on some of her work........I know, it sounds crazy, but, based on what we are now getting.....why not? 

[sistermagpie]

11 hours ago, RazzleberryPie said:

I don't think it's a stretch at all to have Martha earn her keep by raising this Russian kid to speak American English, be familiar with American customs, etc. Why else wouldn't they just shoot Martha, if they can't get something from her?

First, I don’t see what else the show has to do to dismiss this idea that everyone in the USSR is barely containing themselves from shooting Martha in the head if she doesn’t keep proving herself an incredibly vital source of intel. She’s a single woman who provided a lot of good work for them that they agreed to take care of. It’s not that a big sacrifice.

All Gabriel’s actions since getting to the USSR have been about him trying to make amends and do things for these people he hurt. He left the US because he was burnt out at all the stuff he did that "adds up." It goes directly against that to have him scoping out orphanages for future Philips and Elizabeths and thinking Martha’s going to do it for him. It’s not a sci-fi show where everybody’s part of the never-ending cool conspiracy.

Yes, Olya will probably grow up learning English (and translating for her mother like many first-gen kids) and she’ll hear about America. That does not mean she’s expected to be an Illegal and that Martha knows it’s her job to train her to do that. The scene was played for sentiment, not the ominous threat of Olga and Martha being fed back into the exact same ringer that Gabriel left with his last words saying how he didn’t want to put any more kids into it. 

1 hour ago, SunnyBeBe said:

There's nothing good that can come from Henry staying in that household, UNLESS, Philip does cut back to only working the Kimmie mission and running the travel agency.  Then, he could really be a full time dad.  But, Henry will still be problematic for when there are crisis with E.  It's just so much easier for the writers to have Henry safely tucked away at boarding school, so the intensity, danger and intrigue can come out full force next season in the Jenings home.....well, at least that's what I'm hoping will happen.  lol  Who knows with this show lately.  

Which is everything good that would come out of it. The whole point is to get Henry closer to finding out about his parents and dealing with it. If he’s at boarding school to get him out of the way what’s the point of having him as part of the show?

1 hour ago, SunnyBeBe said:

Recall how E told Tuan that he needed a partner?  If P cuts back, maybe, Paige can assist E on some of her work........I know, it sounds crazy, but, based on what we are now getting.....why not? 

This is exactly the kind of crazy the show’s never had any interest in. There’s never been any hint of Paige being ready to be any kind of professional and they don’t put characters together just because they exist on the same show. Elizabeth is telling Tuan to ask Vietnamese intelligence to send him a partner. They don’t even work for the same country. And the only kind of helping out Paige would be suitable for would be if Philip had her filling out forms at the travel agency.

[RedHawk]

One more comment about the Jim character: He's supposed to be vaguely age 27-32, not 40 or "middle-aged".  He's set himself up as that "cool older guy" a lot of older teens and 20-somethings used to have in their circles or more on the edge of them. He doesn't have to "get back into" Kimmy's life, we see he's very much a part of it. 

[RazzleberryPie]

9 minutes ago, sistermagpie said:

First, I don’t see what else the show has to do to dismiss this idea that everyone in the USSR is barely containing themselves from shooting Martha in the head if she doesn’t keep proving herself an incredibly vital source of intel. She’s a single woman who provided a lot of good work for them that they agreed to take care of. It’s not that a big sacrifice.

All Gabriel’s actions since getting to the USSR have been about him trying to make amends and do things for these people he hurt. He left the US because he was burnt out at all the stuff he did that "adds up." It goes directly against that to have him scoping out orphanages for future Philips and Elizabeths and thinking Martha’s going to do it for him. It’s not a sci-fi show where everybody’s part of the never-ending cool conspiracy.

Yes, Olya will probably grow up learning English (and translating for her mother like many first-gen kids) and she’ll hear about America. That does not mean she’s expected to be an Illegal and that Martha knows it’s her job to train her to do that. The scene was played for sentiment, not the ominous threat of Olga and Martha being fed back into the exact same ringer that Gabriel left with his last words saying how he didn’t want to put any more kids into it. 

 

I doubt it more than a handful of people in the USSR have a clue as to who Martha is, or that she's American, and if they know, they're not going to say or do a thing to keep themselves from ending up in a prison somewhere. I absolutely disagree with you that Gabriel isn't still at least in part still working for his country at a small capacity, even in his retirement, even though he's trying to make some amends for his previous actions. 

I also don't think they're going to set up an Xavier's Academy type deal with Martha mentoring a bunch of super spies, but having a daughter who can speak perfect English and know smaller nuances in customs, yeah that will be a reason not to just knock off Martha. When millions of native born Russians at the time were pretty much starving, it's not a stretch to think they'd just get rid of an American, unless she has some sort of purpose to keep her there.

We're not going to agree on this, and that's okay.

[SunnyBeBe]

I've never had the impression that Henry would find out, be told, be involved at all in the spy thing. To me, it's too much and not remotely conceivable for a child his age to work out this cluster  and come to terms with it, within the time allotted before the series end.  That's just my expectation.  Goodness knows, I've been wrong before, but, I just think that boarding school was an out for the writers to get him out of the way, so the real stuff can hit the fan, without him being in hearing range.  To me, allowing him to go, is the loving thing.  Keeping him there is the selfish....considering their situation.  On this matter, PAIGE was right, imo.

 If I'm wrong and Henry becomes a focal part of the show as he joins his family of spies, maybe, it'll be fun....lol.  If the writers continue to delegate and not take their job seriously, who knows what will happen.  I'll be prepared for anything at this point. 

[PamelaMaeSnap]

11 hours ago, Dev F said:

Actually, Kimmy lives in Frederick, Maryland, which isn't exactly a DC suburb. It's about an hour to the north, and especially in the 1980s it was more rural and small-towny than the Maryland suburbs right outside DC. Kimmy's dad works at Fort Detrick, which is a big employer in the area, so it's certainly possible that she knows other families with intel connections (after all, she babysat for a guy in her dad's CIA group), but it's not like the District where half the people you meet work for the feds. The middle-class families I knew from Frederick growing up were farmers and small business owners and folks in local government.

True ... I live halfway between Frederick and DC and even in the late '80s/early '90s Frederick was incredibly hickily exurban at best ... I had to go up there a lot between '89-92 (when I lived/worked in northern Virginia) and we referred to it then as "Fredneck." I can see it would have been an outpost for people who worked at Fort Meade, I guess, Fort Detrick, and maybe some other western outposts of Baltimore (if my sense of direction is right) but I don't think most people would have really thought of it as a "DC suburb." Plus, getting there from northern VA was a schlep.

The degree to which it has changed since then is stunning ... at least they've done a ton with the "downtown" to try to make it a destination and there are a lot of good restaurants, etc. And the whole corridor from DC, once you get to northern Montgomery County up to Frederick (270) has become the "tech corridor" so now it's very much for the computer wonks. 

But I bet it sucked to be a teen there in Kimmie's day unless you wanted to be a 4H queen or join Future Farmers of America. The ONLY other thing to do would have been to ... well, find older guys to bring you lots of good weed.

[sistermagpie]

Just now, RazzleberryPie said:

I doubt it more than a handful of people in the USSR have a clue as to who Martha is, or that she's American, and if they know, they're not going to say or do a thing to keep themselves from ending up in a prison somewhere. I absolutely disagree with you that Gabriel isn't still at least in part still working for his country at a small capacity, even in his retirement, even though he's trying to make some amends for his previous actions. 

 

There’s a huge difference between working for his country in some way in his retirement and heading up a plot to raise an Illegal from birth using Martha that he probably won’t live to see happen.. There’s a ton of stuff that’s onscreen to support Gabriel trying to make Martha happy, and a child being something Martha always wanted and was denied, and absolutely zero evidence of anybody making up this plan. Or anybody worried about going to prison because of what they know or don’t know about Martha. I’m not sure what that refers to exactly.

3 minutes ago, SunnyBeBe said:

 

I've never had the impression that Henry would find out, be told, be involved at all in the spy thing. To me, it's too much and not remotely conceivable for a child his age to work out this cluster  and come to terms with it, within the time allotted before the series end.  That's just my expectation.  Goodness knows, I've been wrong before, but, I just think that boarding school was an out for the writers to get him out of the way, so the real stuff can hit the fan, without him being in hearing range.  To me, allowing him to go, is the loving thing.  Keeping him there is the selfish....considering their situation.  On this matter, PAIGE was right, imo.

 

I don’t mean to imply that I know their plans for Henry at all. I just honestly don’t get the idea that they’d want him out of the way so that the real drama can happen. The show’s about the family. Why create one member of the family and then be surprised at having to deal with him? In fact, the only people who have any really passionate feelings about this boarding school are Henry himself and his father. Elizabeth just doesn’t seem to have the same expectations or connection to Henry as she did/does on Paige, and Paige just as ever speaks about Henry as a way of expressing her own position and emotions. The only person who really does seem to be concerned about Henry’s development wrt the boarding school is Philip, even if his feelings have to do with projection. (Elizabeth projects onto Paige all the time but is also caring about her future, imo.)

If the show did just decide that it was better to get rid of Henry for more and more Paige and more and more Paige and Elizabeth I would have to accept it but I’d feel pretty ripped off. Paige found out about her parents in ep 10 and had done plenty of dealing with it even by the finale of ep 13. Ten episodes is plenty of time to play out an interesting story with Henry. This is the first time he’s had any real drama with anybody in the family since S2 with him and Philip. The showrunners seemed to think that this boarding school stuff was “a story” for Henry rather than just some business to get him off the show. Then they even set it up so it’s something that wouldn’t happen until the next season. And they’ve never needed Henry to be away from home to have stuff go down without him knowing. It’s not like they’ve had shoot outs in the house, and if they were planning a shoot out in the house why not toss in the kid? It’s not like being at boarding school would keep him from being affected if his parents actually died or got caught or ran away.

Really, it seems significant that so many viewers have reacted to the boarding school story by thinking it’s a way of getting Henry off-screen or imagining scenarios where the  actor isn’t available or has gotten too tall to be on camera. That doesn’t say much about the Henry at boarding school working as any kind of organic plot if it’s reading like some random, arbitrary excuse for getting the actor and the character off-screen. So it seems like if that’s how it played out it would always just play like a glaring “oopsie” from the writers that’s smack in the middle of their family drama show.

[gunderda]

So why can't they just wait until Paige and Henry are in college and THEN move back?? Would the kids not be allowed to stay? They are true American citizens right??

I also don't get why Elizabeth and Philip couldn't 'retire' and stay in American.  Why can they not just keep running the travel agency? To dangerous to stick around? 

I don't think either of them wants to leave. I think Philip didn't destroy the tape as a hope that Elizabeth would now want to stay.  But I think he's torn about still having to do their missions.  

[sistermagpie]

27 minutes ago, gunderda said:

So why can't they just wait until Paige and Henry are in college and THEN move back?? Would the kids not be allowed to stay? They are true American citizens right??

 

Seems like the best plan to me. I assume that used to be the plan, in fact. Philip used to talk about getting the kids out of the house and into college like that would make them safe. Of course, now he's seen that the Centre wants them involved and Paige is devastated by the secret.

27 minutes ago, gunderda said:

I also don't get why Elizabeth and Philip couldn't 'retire' and stay in American.  Why can they not just keep running the travel agency? To dangerous to stick around? 

 

Because the Centre would have to let their agents retire happily in the US. Would any intelligence agency be okay with someone choosing to retire in the hostile country they were spying on? It seems a bit suspicious. 

27 minutes ago, gunderda said:

I don't think either of them wants to leave. I think Philip didn't destroy the tape as a hope that Elizabeth would now want to stay.  But I think he's torn about still having to do their missions.  

I think it's a given they don't want to leave--they don't want to put the stress on the kids or themselves. But they want to retire, and they can't just tell the Centre not to give them any missions any more because they're just going to be Americans now. So retiring means leaving. I think Philip didn't destroy the tape because ultimately he does see how important it is and he couldn't see making that decision on his own without talking to Elizabeth. He knew she'd say they had to stay, but he accepted that.

Edited June 1, 2017 by sistermagpie

[Inquisitionist]

3 hours ago, Clanstarling said:

A toddler wouldn't be particularly fluent either. So a perfect setup.

My immigrant mother really advanced her learning of English when I started grade school.  She would do my first-grade phonics homework with me.

16 minutes ago, gunderda said:

So why can't they just wait until Paige and Henry are in college and THEN move back?? Would the kids not be allowed to stay? They are true American citizens right??

This certainly seemed to be the path that Emmett and Leanne were on at the start of S2.  They were so proud that their son had gotten into some first-rate American universities.