S06.E05: The Great Patriotic War

[PamelaMaeSnap]

2 minutes ago, Umbelina said:

Honestly, I think they did.  It was from Top Gun, which came out in 1986.  I agree it became MUCH more popular and common later, maybe SNL did a skit or something...I can't remember.  However, a friend did ask me to be her "wingman" one evening in the late eighties, after a particularly infuriating breakup.  I specifically remember that, because for a moment I puzzled at the word, then remembered Top Gun, and laughed.

I was an excellent "wingman" for her that night, if I do say so myself.

Thank you for doing the homework, Umbelina ... I get the rare opportunity to tell hubby he was wrong about something (film-related, no less!)

[Miles]

Don't the soviets have some other operatives who can kill some low level traitors? Why would they risk their deeply imbedded agent, who has been living under a false identity for decades, who is overworked as it is and is working on a very important summit between the sovjets and the americans? That doesn't make much sense.

Or was Elizabeth just having murder blue balls and called the center "Come on guys, you got to give me somebody to kill! I need it! Come on, just a little hit. If you won't give it to me I'm going to kill some rando on the street, I tell you!"

 

On 26.4.2018 at 4:08 AM, crgirl412 said:

27 million Russians lost in WW II????  Fact check time!! 

Probably about right. Though back then the official sovjet stance was 20 million. So Claudia wasn't towing the party line here, which seems a bit unlike her.

Edited April 27, 2018 by Miles

[becauseIsaidso]

I am so emotionally overloaded by this season, all I can think of is Keri's Elizabeth doing such an incredible job of portraying someone so completely ground down to the bone by the obligations and demands of the job she really, really wants to do successfully that she can not see how it is killing her, inch by inch, moment by moment, assignment by never-ending assignment.

And, that there is, also inch by inch, no way she will come out of this intact - whether that means death of the spirit (and her devotion to the cause that first brought her into the KGB) or physical death is, so far for me, up for grabs.

I really wanted to see Elizabeth and Philip together (and happy, altho that could be much too much to ask) at the end, but, especially as regards events of this most recent episode, I have to think that my fairy tale ending of them all together in witness protection(?)or welcomed home to the USSR as heroes will most likely be them instead reaching separate endings. I can see Philip having the wherewithal and common sense to cut his losses and return to Russia (perhaps with at least Henry), although I have NO idea why I think Henry instead of Paige (other than my overriding aversion to Paige and that IMO Henry has given hints of resilience that could lead to success in any venue), but unless Elizabeth does a complete turn-around, I see her going down in flames, desperately trying to complete that last/most recent/utterly and overridingly stupidly, pseudo-important(?)fatal mission for the Centre or the others she can't realize are just using her, and probably taking Paige down with her - or even worse, Paige takes the suicide pill (cuz mom says so, dontchaknow) and Elizabeth faces her inquisitors alone. No great loss on the Paige part since I have REALLY come to hate her character - all bad acting aside. But....DAYAM! I really wanted as much of a happy ending as possible for P&E...Even if Liz were to escape initially, she'd probably not make it out - real pity, that.

[dr pepper]

On 4/26/2018 at 9:26 AM, Sarah 103 said:

I want to see where everyone ends up too. I hope it happens. 

My current thought on how it should end would be:

Phillip tells Henry that they're going to take a vacation in Europe. To forstall any reluctance he says that he's cashing in all the favors and discounts he's accumulated and this might be the last chance, given the problems the business has been having. They go to Austria. From there, they take a "special charter" to Hungary, then get on a train for a scenic trip east.

 

Meanwhile, Stan gets a package from Phillip. It's something sentimental and sports related. There's a short note. "I was great meeting you, have a nice life." What? Stan races over to the Jennings's house finds a sign indicating it's been sold to a broker. The door is ajar. Inside he finds Claudia sitting at the kitchen table, drinking vodka and watching the news about the coup against Gorbachev. He demands to know she is and she just says, in a heavy accent "no one, now". Then she shoots herself.

[Dowel Jones]

1 hour ago, Miles said:

Don't the soviets have some other operatives who can kill some low level traitors?

https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/25/politics/expelled-spies-russians-tracking-defectors/index.html

A rather timely article.

[Dev F]

I think the reason why I haven't been bothered by anything that's happened with Paige this season is that to me it all seems consistent with the story they've been telling all along -- which is about how profoundly, perhaps irreversibly damaged she is. It's not about her having a particularly strong ideological bent or aptitude for spycraft; it's about her feeling broken and helpless and embracing something she thinks will make her purposeful and strong.

It's significant, I think, how she misremembers the incident in the bar when recounting it to her parents. "These two assholes started a fight with me," she says. But one of those guys was in fact being perfectly nice and just wanted to see if she was okay. It's one thing to have decked him accidentally in the heat of the moment, but for Paige the moment was apparently so heated that even when she's safely back at home, she remembers an enemy who didn't actually exist. That's full-on PTSD shit, and it suggests to me that Paige is far from being okay with the death and mayhem to which her mom is exposing her.

It's telling, too, that her response to the bar freakout was to run home and ask for more combat training. That suggests that the training is not about Paige wanting to be a cool, kick-ass spy, but about how she leans on those lessons in an unhealthy way to alleviate her feelings of helplessness. Heck, it was pretty clear to me last season that we weren't meant to see the sparring as a genuinely positive force in her life, after the scene in the second-to-last episode where Paige goes into the garage alone, throws a rope over the ceiling struts to set up her punching bag -- and then we immediately cut to the scene where Tuan tells P&E that Pasha is going to attempt suicide. She's not improving herself; she's destroying herself.

Edited April 28, 2018 by Dev F

[Anela]

7 hours ago, SusanSunflower said:

A few years ago, the Jennings were "in love" in a way they had never been before (despite more than a decade of marriage) ... maybe it was the freedom and feeling of success that comes with having "good kids" turn into "good teenagers", I don't know. 

That was because Elizabeth realized the depth of Philip's feelings for her, from what I remember. He didn't want to kill the man in the first episode, until he found that he had raped Elizabeth - then he turned around and killed him. She might have known he felt something for her before, even though she appeared to feel nothing, and was just there for work, but I didn't have the impression that they'd slept together for any reason before, except to have their kids. Elizabeth had her boyfriend, that she cut things off with physically, when she and Philip really became a couple. 

[Kathemy]

6 hours ago, sistermagpie said:

I do wonder how the Philip/Paige stuff might come into play. Paige is obviously mirroring her mother's disrespect for her father. She's being almost comically condescending, lecturing the guy and practically telling him that whatever he's been doing for the past 22 years, it's not the important, difficult work that Paige and her mother do. It seems like Elizabeth, at least, has to eventually realize that she's taken for granted the person she should have valued most, but will Paige have a similar realization? 

I'm a bit reluctant to bring this up (for obvious reasons) but did anyone else catch a quite disturbing undertone to the way that fight scene was shot? An undertone only strengthened by the show going out of its way to model Paige into a younger and a zillion times more naïve version of her mother, to the point of ever-increasing physical resemblance?

[MisterBluxom]

4 hours ago, becauseIsaidso said:

I am so emotionally overloaded by this season, all I can think of is Keri's Elizabeth doing such an incredible job of portraying someone so completely ground down to the bone by the obligations and demands of the job she really, really wants to do successfully that she can not see how it is killing her, inch by inch, moment by moment, assignment by never-ending assignment.

 

Yes. But it's killing her family even more. It is so hard - almost impossible - for me to believe this lovely woman can engage in a plan that means she will watch her family die of some emotional disease. How can she behave that way? Is it due to brainwashing?

[MisterBluxom]

49 minutes ago, Kathemy said:

I'm a bit reluctant to bring this up (for obvious reasons) but did anyone else catch a quite disturbing undertone to the way that fight scene was shot? An undertone only strengthened by the show going out of its way to model Paige into a younger and a zillion times more naïve version of her mother, to the point of ever-increasing physical resemblance?

The thing that struck me the most was that Phillip maintained a "stoned-face" appearance throughout. The audience had no idea what he was feeling.

I thought he may have been feeling that he was "teaching" his daughter a lesson - insofar as she should now realize that she is not anywhere close to being as tough as she thought she was.

Someone upthread (I apologize for forgetting your name) made this point much better than I. But it will do Paige a world of good to realize that if she goes up against a "real" agent, she will have her head handed to her. She may be able to put down some drunken college boy. But she is a long long way off from defeating a real agent.

I though Phillip was trying to teach her several lessons as a result of that sparring session and I hope she will think twice before mouthing off to either P or E in the future.

Paige needs to listen to her mother and understand that a little self-defense is a great thing. But she needs to focus on working in the CIA or DOJ where she won't get ahead by kicking ass. She should probably focus on kissing ass instead.

3 hours ago, Dev F said:

I think the reason why I haven't been bothered by anything that's happened with Paige this season is that to me it all seems consistent with the story they've been telling all along -- which is about how profoundly, perhaps irreversibly damaged she is. It's not about her having a particularly strong ideological bent or aptitude for spycraft; it's about her feeling broken and helpless and embracing something she thinks will make her purposeful and strong.

It's significant, I think, how she misremembers the incident in the bar when recounting it to her parents. "These two assholes started a fight with me," she says. But one of those guys was in fact being perfectly nice and just wanted to see if she was okay. It's one thing to have decked him accidentally in the heat of the moment, but for Paige the moment was apparently so heated that even when she's safely back at home, she remembers an enemy who didn't actually exist. That's full-on PTSD shit, and it suggests to me that Paige is far from being okay with the death and mayhem to which her mom is exposing her.

It's telling, too, that her response to the bar freakout was to run home and ask for more combat training. That suggests that the training is not about Paige wanting to be a cool, kick-ass spy, but about how she leans on those lessons in an unhealthy way to alleviate her feelings of helplessness. Heck, it was pretty clear to me last season that we weren't meant to see the sparring as a genuinely positive force in her life, after the scene in the second-to-last episode where Paige goes into the garage alone, throws a rope over the ceiling struts to set up her punching bag -- and then we immediately cut to the scene where Tuan tells P&E that Pasha is going to attempt suicide. She's not improving herself; she's destroying herself.

 

Excellent point. Well worth keeping in mind in any future discussion. Well Done!

Edited April 28, 2018 by MissBluxom

[scowl]

The only thing I want to know is why the scripts have Elizabeth kill some guy near the hour mark. This is fourth time this season.

[Darrenbrett]

I really enjoyed this episode. For me it was right up there with the season premiere in terms of quality. A few notes:

- Someone mentioned the Martha story-line. That made me think back to how well that character was played. The acting was stellar. That's what made that story arc so interesting. And it's the lack of that that's really making the Paige arc drag. Writing matters, but if the actors can't pull it off, it's kind of a moot point.

- I considered/imagined various endings for this show, but, honestly, P & E being on opposite sides was not one I expected, nor considered (especially them being on opposite sides within the unravelling geopolitical drama of the Soviet Union itself!). I figured E would, over time -- grudgingly -- in fits and starts, begin to see things more from P's perspective. That CLEARLY hasn't happened. They've never been ideologically further apart. Tragic for the marriage. Golden for plot interest. And perhaps this was inevitable the moment Philip stopped being intimately involved in "the work". After that he could no longer serve as Elizabeth's moderating influence. Now we're seeing the implications of that, three years on.

- To see Philip tell Kimmie, "you're going to be alright" was one thing. Already he was stepping out of line there -- the line of their training I mean. But to then hear him give specifics about not going to a Communist country, I mean, WOW!, that's potentially the whole ballgame. What a risk. What a moment. What a turn of events. This is a turn that the arc has been building towards ever since Philip's resolve went south after the Martha "operation". Up until now, while he's been emotionally divided, he's always acted based on his commitment to (and in total surrender to) his love for Elizabeth. This episode saw him finally draw a line in the sand -- not just emotionally, but practically. There really is no turning back now. All the final elements are now in play. Should be fascinating (and horrifying) to see it all play out.

Edited April 28, 2018 by Darrenbrett

[duVerre]

11 hours ago, Kathemy said:

I'm a bit reluctant to bring this up (for obvious reasons) but did anyone else catch a quite disturbing undertone to the way that fight scene was shot? An undertone only strengthened by the show going out of its way to model Paige into a younger and a zillion times more naïve version of her mother, to the point of ever-increasing physical resemblance?

I’m not sure if this is what you mean, but I felt that Philip was experiencing a LOT of things that I found disturbing. It's all interpretation, with no real evidence to back me up. I have to emphasize that! Still... 

Philip has to show Paige that she’s not invincible, that in fact she knows nothing of the espionage world. So of course, he has to show her his, um, killer chops.

When he did that, I saw New Philip—travel agent, line dancer, good neighbour, hockey dad, PASSIVE GUY—disappear, and the Real Philip, or “Killer Philip,” man of action and violence, emerge alongside him. And it scared me to death.

He came within seconds of killing Paige. That was intentional, of course, and he had a reason. But I think—God, how to put this—I think he sort of enjoyed bringing her to the point of fearing death. (I can't believe I'm writing this.)  He enjoyed it because he was showing authority (he’s been forbidden to have anything to do with her parenting). He also got to be the alpha-male after suffering humiliation at the office, with the head of the prep school, from his wife and then from his daughter’s self-satisfied remarks. I think the last two are at the top of his mind, and so I think he also used the fight to vent his absolute rage at Elizabeth as well as to make a point with Paige. (The fact that they look a bit like each other helps that along.) And finally--can't believe I'm writing this--part of him takes pride in his technical proficiency in these things. I didn't say he enjoys it sadistically... I just mean that he likes being a professional about this. He hasn't been able to shine at anything he's done for a while--so it was good to show his daughter he's battle-tested.

In other words, I think the Real Philip came alive during that fight. The guy who has an empathic streak alongside a psychopathic one has been kicked back into gear again. And he’s more than capable of not only daring choices but following through in any way the plan demands.

Now there's no way I can prove this part, especially, but to me, it's because he "refound" his old self--because he fought with Paige--that he was able to end it with Kimmie. I think he passed through a psychological wall after slamming Paige around. He's already betrayed Elizabeth, of course, by talking to Oleg, but the phone call doubles his exposure. It's a high-risk action. But the fight with Paige sort of set him free.  

Well, that's what I got from it. Undertones.

Edited April 28, 2018 by duVerre

[sistermagpie]

4 hours ago, Dev F said:

It's telling, too, that her response to the bar freakout was to run home and ask for more combat training. That suggests that the training is not about Paige wanting to be a cool, kick-ass spy, but about how she leans on those lessons in an unhealthy way to alleviate her feelings of helplessness.

That makes me think how Elizabeth told her she'd been raped and got over it by learning to defend herself, rejecting the hug Paige was going to give her. But we know that in fact beating Timoshev to death wasn't the thing that really helped her move forward in a positive way, it was Philip caring about it. Elizabeth this season tells Paige that all that matters is that she "doesn't have to be afraid" if she tells herself it's all for the cause. This is also exactly what Philip was there to address. He understands that rush of "being able to do that" to someone, but it isn't some real solution because there's always someone bigger than you are.

I hadn't thought of it as Paige genuinely misremembering the incident until you said that--I thought she was just covering for herself. (She did later say promise that she wouldn't fight again unless she was being attached which said she at least knew she wasn't being physically attacked but the first version could still feel true when she said it.) But now that you say it I remember that scene of Elizabeth telling her about the rape again and wonder if she was quasi-misremembering as well. She looked at the place in the garage where she'd broken the wall with Timoshev's head, iirc, but it didn't seem like that fight ended in a big triumph for her.

1 hour ago, Kathemy said:

I'm a bit reluctant to bring this up (for obvious reasons) but did anyone else catch a quite disturbing undertone to the way that fight scene was shot? An undertone only strengthened by the show going out of its way to model Paige into a younger and a zillion times more naïve version of her mother, to the point of ever-increasing physical resemblance?

What was the disturbing undertone in the fight scene?

Quote

In other words, I think the Real Philip came alive during that fight. The guy who has an empathic streak alongside a psychopathic one has been kicked back into gear again. And he’s more than capable of not only daring choices but following through in any way the plan demands.

I'm not sure what all he was feeling there but I really do like this idea. Philip isn't just the travel agent guy. He's healthier, imo, when he can be both parts of himself together. For so long he's been super passive because he honestly didn't know what to do. Elizabeth always had more back up (still does) but now having direction he's more like himself.

The thing about the fight, too, is that whatever satisfaction he was feeling, it was very clearly not played as him losing control or acting out of anger. His movements are very deliberate, he's not even breaking a sweat. He's not goading her or getting more violent as she gets more frustrated. In the end he just picks up his jacket and leaves. There's no moment of surprise regret or horror at his actions. Regret, maybe, but not a surprising regret like he can't believe he did it. Like you said, he made the choice and he followed through.

I also really like the idea above that he's not acting out of love for Elizabeth above all. For so long he looked to her to guide him about what was right because he had so many doubts about the work but not about her. Now he'd broken out of that automatic pattern of wanting to be needed by her.

Edited April 28, 2018 by sistermagpie

[duVerre]

Can someone tell me how to edit out that insane double-block of text in my post (two above)? I have no idea why it's there or how to get rid of it. 

[duVerre]

1 hour ago, sistermagpie said:

The thing about the fight, too, is that whatever satisfaction he was feeling, it was very clearly not played as him losing control or acting out of anger. His movements are very deliberate, he's not even breaking a sweat. He's not goading her or getting more violent as she gets more frustrated. In the end he just picks up his jacket and leaves. There's no moment of surprise regret or horror at his actions. Regret, maybe, but not a surprising regret like he can't believe he did it. Like you said, he made the choice and he followed through.

I also really like the idea above that he's not acting out of love for Elizabeth above all. For so long he looked to her to guide him about what was right because he had so many doubts about the work but not about her. Now he'd broken out of that automatic pattern of wanting to be needed by her.

Yes, perfectly said. I believe he still loves Elizabeth, but sees that they no longer share that bred-in-the-bone idealogical bond. I think he is going to apply all his new focus, his new quickness to action, toward working with Oleg, and of course she will never join him there. He's grown; she hasn't. Now he has to love her but not include her, work to destroy her and miss her, all at once. I'm sure things feel very clear to Philip right now, and very lonely.

[Kathemy]

2 hours ago, sistermagpie said:

What was the disturbing undertone in the fight scene?

Okay, I'll just come clear. This was the episode where Philip slept with Kimmy, a line he thought he'd never cross, a girl who "could be his daughter". And I felt what I can only describe as a sadistic sexual undertone to the fight scene between him and Paige. The way it was shot seemed to mirror Elizabeth "sparring" with her trainer in the pilot. Not that Philip raped his own daughter, of course, but.

And thanks to @duVerre for the reply, very good one.

[CaliCheeseSucks]

3 hours ago, duVerre said:

Can someone tell me how to edit out that insane double-block of text in my post (two above)? I have no idea why it's there or how to get rid of it. 

It looks like they are images - I would open up the edit button on the post and just zap one of the files.

[Milburn Stone]

On 4/25/2018 at 11:04 PM, Dev F said:

And that's what the whole episode was about, I think -- how you can't hope to triumph on someone else's territory; you have to make your stand where you live, not where they do.

That really hit home for me in the final telephone booth scene. Philip finally faces, head on, the immorality of spying. Not the immorality of working for his mother country--that can be an honorable thing, if you love your mother country. But if you do love your mother country, put your body where your mouth is and live in your mother country, and work to make it the best mother country it can be. Don't live a lie in someone else's.

[kay1864]

Did Elizabeth go to the apartment to kill Gennadi, or just to recon?  To me it looked like after she realized Sofia was there, she was heading back for the window. Then when Gennadi came into the kitchen, she hid behind the door. Only when he realized something was amiss, did she kill him. (and what did he detect? She didn't make a sound.)

[Inquisitionist]

16 hours ago, Sarah 103 said:

That doesn't make sense because I thought the Centre was going to recuit both children eventually. 

The sense I'm getting this season is that E&P have reached a pact:  the Centre can have Paige but Henry is off-limits.

16 hours ago, sistermagpie said:

Also I doubt the Centre wants to be footing the bill for anybody's tuition so I don't think we're supposed to think they're paying for Paige. I do think Inquisitionist's larger point is correct that it's just that Paige and Elizabeth don't think about money but Henry and Philip do. 

I'm not sure why the Centre wouldn't be funneling money to E&P to cover Paige's tuition, since her college path is critical to their plan for her, and the Centre most likely pays (indirectly) for a lot of other things (like the wig supply).  But as I said, the details here don't matter to me. Getting hung up on them can obscure the larger point.

15 hours ago, Miles said:

Don't the soviets have some other operatives who can kill some low level traitors? Why would they risk their deeply imbedded agent, who has been living under a false identity for decades, who is overworked as it is and is working on a very important summit between the sovjets and the americans? That doesn't make much sense.

But this has been going on since the first season.  It's part of what we're asked to buy for this particular TV series.  

14 hours ago, dr pepper said:

My current thought on how it should end would be:

There is a separate thread for speculation.  Please use it -- thanks!

[Milburn Stone]

On 4/26/2018 at 10:57 PM, MissBluxom said:

I hope you won't mind my asking. I know the actress isn't very good. But I'd really like to know what it is about the character that causes you to hate her?

I'll step back from that question and ask another. Why do we think the actress isn't very good?

It seems to me that every irritated thought that people have expressed about Paige is a result of the show wanting us to feel that way about Paige. We are meant to think she's a lightweight, a not-very-deep-thinker, way out of her depth, a good-hearted but lost and confused soul, a victim of expectations she can't possibly meet and agendas she can't possibly carry through. The character is written that way, and if we come out feeling those things about the character, it can only be because Holly Taylor is portraying her adequately. (Adequately not in the sense of faint praise, adequately in the sense of "her performance is everything it needs to be to realize the writers' intentions." It doesn't need to be more than that, and in fact that's quite a lot.)

Edited April 28, 2018 by Milburn Stone

[Miles]

50 minutes ago, Inquisitionist said:

But this has been going on since the first season.  It's part of what we're asked to buy for this particular TV series.  

Usually it has been way more high level targets. Also the murders used to be far and between. Elizabeth's murder spree makes it seem ridiculous.

[PamelaMaeSnap]

Please forgive if either this has already been addressed or I am misremembering the scene, but re: Paige going ballistic in the bar scene and having that fight, it seems what "set her off" was the guy's friend's comment that "she's not even that hot" or something along those lines (and not sure if she beat up the guy she'd been flirting with to start with because he didn't defend her hottitude or because she was just on a roll).

In other words, poor widdle Paigie's feelings were hurt (because how could everyone not find her absolutely fabulous) and thus she beat the shit out of them.

NOT a really good attribute for a would-be spy (regardless of how much she drank) and I noticed she didn't tell Elizabeth what the guys said to set her off.  I'm guessing Liz wouldn't have been pleased.

[duVerre]

6 hours ago, CaliCheeseSucks said:

It looks like they are images - I would open up the edit button on the post and just zap one of the files.

Thank you! Obviously, I am not, shall we say, adept, with some forum functions. The more obvious the solution, the less likely I am to see it!

[Dev F]

1 hour ago, PamelaMaeSnap said:

Please forgive if either this has already been addressed or I am misremembering the scene, but re: Paige going ballistic in the bar scene and having that fight, it seems what "set her off" was the guy's friend's comment that "she's not even that hot" or something along those lines (and not sure if she beat up the guy she'd been flirting with to start with because he didn't defend her hottitude or because she was just on a roll).

No, she's actually pretty chill through all the insults. She just rolls her eyes and gets up to leave. She's not even particularly insulting to the guy she was chatting up, telling him, "Hey, Vince, if you ever want to get laid again, get a better wingman," -- in other words, I probably would've considered going home with you if your friend weren't such an asshole. It's only when the asshole actually grabs her and tries to stop her from leaving that she flips out. Which makes me think it was a genuine panic reaction, not just a matter of bruised feelings.

It also occurred to me why Paige might've gotten it stuck in her head that "These two assholes started a fight" even though Vince wasn't doing anything aggressive: because in the traumatic event she was clearly flashing back to in that moment, she and her mom were attacked by two muggers.

[dubbel zout]

There's a separate thread to discuss Paige, in case anyone wasn't aware.

[sistermagpie]

10 hours ago, Kathemy said:

Okay, I'll just come clear. This was the episode where Philip slept with Kimmy, a line he thought he'd never cross, a girl who "could be his daughter". And I felt what I can only describe as a sadistic sexual undertone to the fight scene between him and Paige. The way it was shot seemed to mirror Elizabeth "sparring" with her trainer in the pilot. Not that Philip raped his own daughter, of course, but.

I wondered if it was something like that, but I honestly didn't see anything in the way it was shot that made it sadistic or sexual. You can't help but remember Elizabeth's fight with her trainer when she's unexpectedly overpowered, and male/female wrestling is always going to call that to mind, but I didn't think the show or the actors were playing that up at all. Philip, especially, doesn't even seem to have raised his heart rate by the end. (Of course, we later see Philip having pretty unconnected sex as well!)

4 hours ago, Milburn Stone said:

But if you do love your mother country, put your body where your mouth is and live in your mother country, and work to make it the best mother country it can be. Don't live a lie in someone else's.

But doesn't that sort of imply that foreign service is less moral than domestic service. I mean, Philip's job is kind of unique.

3 hours ago, kay1864 said:

Did Elizabeth go to the apartment to kill Gennadi, or just to recon?  To me it looked like after she realized Sofia was there, she was heading back for the window. Then when Gennadi came into the kitchen, she hid behind the door. Only when he realized something was amiss, did she kill him. (and what did he detect? She didn't make a sound.)

She went there to kill him but didn't want to be seen by anyone else.

3 hours ago, Inquisitionist said:

The sense I'm getting this season is that E&P have reached a pact:  the Centre can have Paige but Henry is off-limits.

But Philip has no say in whether Henry is off-limits or not, just like he had no say in whether Paige was. From what we've seen Henry's just ignored because the Centre has lost interest in him and so has Elizabeth.

3 hours ago, Inquisitionist said:

I'm not sure why the Centre wouldn't be funneling money to E&P to cover Paige's tuition, since her college path is critical to their plan for her, and the Centre most likely pays (indirectly) for a lot of other things (like the wig supply).  But as I said, the details here don't matter to me. Getting hung up on them can obscure the larger point.

The reason it seems unlikely to me is that Centre doesn't have unlimited funds. Money shortages are an issue in the USSR. Philip and Elizabeth have been being paid a good salary for years while also running a successful business so why should they need the Centre to be footing the bill for college tuition? For me it's easier to not get hung up on the detail by just assuming Paige is like every other kid with middle class parents who pay her tuition--just as they've been paying Henry's. I get more hung up thinking about the Centre imagining Paige's college as being so central to their plans for her when we're not seeing any effort whatsoever going into that part of it. Paige was thinking about going to GW before she was recruited. I think she's just going to college.

3 hours ago, Milburn Stone said:

I'll step back from that question and ask another. Why do we think the actress isn't very good?

Because we've (really I've, speaking for myself) watched her perform scenes for 6 years and rarely bring anything to them except the most obvious things or hit difficult emotional beats and can often see her trying to act. Honestly, for me the performance is separate from whatever issues I have with the writing. It's just there and surrounded by lots of other ones to compare it to.

2 hours ago, PamelaMaeSnap said:

In other words, poor widdle Paigie's feelings were hurt (because how could everyone not find her absolutely fabulous) and thus she beat the shit out of them.

I think it was that he grabbed her. She did the same thing to Matthew. Self-defense training I think often conditions that kind of response--which is a good thing. But Elizabeth isn't just training her to get away from those situations. She's encouraging her to react to them by violently lashing out. That's how to not be afraid.

20 minutes ago, dubbel zout said:

There's a separate thread to discuss Paige, in case anyone wasn't aware.

Paige was pretty central to this episode in a way that brought in her whole history.

[PamelaMaeSnap]

1 hour ago, Dev F said:

No, she's actually pretty chill through all the insults. She just rolls her eyes and gets up to leave. She's not even particularly insulting to the guy she was chatting up, telling him, "Hey, Vince, if you ever want to get laid again, get a better wingman," -- in other words, I probably would've considered going home with you if your friend weren't such an asshole. It's only when the asshole actually grabs her and tries to stop her from leaving that she flips out. Which makes me think it was a genuine panic reaction, not just a matter of bruised feelings.

It also occurred to me why Paige might've gotten it stuck in her head that "These two assholes started a fight" even though Vince wasn't doing anything aggressive: because in the traumatic event she was clearly flashing back to in that moment, she and her mom were attacked by two muggers.

Thanks for clarifying that, Dev ... I was definitely inferring and figured it might have been incorrectly or incompletely since no one else had mentioned it!

[Erin9]

7 hours ago, Milburn Stone said:

That really hit home for me in the final telephone booth scene. Philip finally faces, head on, the immorality of spying. Not the immorality of working for his mother country--that can be an honorable thing, if you love your mother country. But if you do love your mother country, put your body where your mouth is and live in your mother country, and work to make it the best mother country it can be. Don't live a lie in someone else's.

I don’t see it that way at all. That somewhat implies that domestic service is superior to all foreign service. Which includes much more than spying alone. Both are valuable and absolutely necessary. 

Spying is a dark world, but it exists for a reason. And it has certainly proven to be more than a little helpful over the years. And that involves lying in other people’s countries. 

Philip has understood the morality issues imbedded in spying- any kind of spying not just the extreme of pretending to be American for life-  for a long time. 

And Philip is STILL spying. With Oleg. They both see it as a dirty job, but a necessary one to help their homeland and US/USSR relations. Philip has turned a corner in what he’ll do and why, but he still sees spying as useful and important. Which it is. 

Edited April 28, 2018 by Erin9

[SusanSunflower]

I think Philip has lost the confidence both that the Centre knows what they're doing and acts with some moral cost/benefit authority  and, secondarily, are truthful in their presentation of missions.   Elizabeth steadfastly remains blinkered about questioning anything (even the traitorous ultrasecret assasination plot she got roped into).  I agree totally that this does NOT make Philip less patriotic (to the USSR) than Elizabeth (whose "like a good girl" following orders may be part of the catastrophe to come). 

I've read several depictions of the last days of the USSR that suggested that the happy-face bullshit propaganda was believed by no one but everyone was forced to pretend to believe it and act accordingly. 

Edited April 28, 2018 by SusanSunflower

[sistermagpie]

56 minutes ago, Erin9 said:

And Philip is STILL spying. With Oleg. They both see it as a dirty job, but a necessary one to help their homeland and US/USSR relations. Philip has turned a corner in what he’ll do and why, but he still sees spying as useful and important. Which it is. 

This is one of the things I love about this story, that it's like going back to the roots of spying, old-school.

[BetyBee]

When Paige let herself into Claudia's place, after the barfight and after sparring with both of her parents, I thought she would be fired from the spy biz by Claudia and Liz.  I was disappointed that they just wanted to teach her how to get drunk with a mark.  Liz had just admitted to Philip that maybe Paige wasn't cut out for spying.  I really think that drunk scene was a step backward and that it negated what she should have learned from battling so ineffectively with Philip. 

[dr pepper]

On 4/26/2018 at 1:36 PM, MissBluxom said:

1) The Travel Agency going broke and maybe Phillip losing that business. Few things are more devastating to a man than going broke. How will he face his family?

 

The travel agency is losing to a new generation of franchise building. This will lead to Orbitz, Travelocity, and a couple more dominating the industry. However, at this point there is a window of opportunity. Phillip could either sell the business outright to one of the budding giants, or else join one as a franchisee. If he does the first, he might even make enough to retire. But i don't think he would go for either because he wouldn't want to betray his employees. They are, after all, the working class people whose liberation he's supposed to be championing.

[AllyB]

2 hours ago, BetyBee said:

Liz had just admitted to Philip that maybe Paige wasn't cut out for spying.  I really think that drunk scene was a step backward and that it negated what she should have learned from battling so ineffectively with Philip. 

It's why I wish that instead of just walking out Philip had stayed and told Paige a few home truths to go along with the practical lesson. "As it happens Paige, I'm a top class spy better than you can imagine. But after more than 2 decades of constantly killing people or manipulating them into situations that ruined their lives or led to their deaths I was ready to move on."

[Sarah 103]

7 hours ago, sistermagpie said:

But Philip has no say in whether Henry is off-limits or not, just like he had no say in whether Paige was. From what we've seen Henry's just ignored because the Centre has lost interest in him and so has Elizabeth.

Agreed. I'm not sure Elizabeth was ever interested in him. I think she was so focused on Paige she just forgot Henry existed (except as part of thier cover as a normal family) and never even saw his potential as a spy. I wonder if Philip saw it and was living in fear that the Centre would see in Henry what he saw. 

Edited April 29, 2018 by Sarah 103

[TimWil]

Wouldn’t Paige have been aware of details of The Great Patriotic War long before 1987? This is one of the reasons the time jump is so problematic for me-Paige should be far further along in her knowledge of Soviet history three years after agreeing to join the “family business.”

 

Anyway, I really wish in this episode that Claudia had shown Paige the film At 6 PM At The End of the War-a clip from it begins at around five and a half minutes into this fascinating documentary called East Side Story about musicals produced in communist Europe. I think it would have been far more preferable and effective to their grrl talk and would have served as a useful counterpoint to the relatively light hearted Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears. And I could see the sequence leaving us with  a visibly shaken, sobbing Elizabeth.

 

Edited April 29, 2018 by TimWil

[kay1864]

8 hours ago, sistermagpie said:

She went there to kill him but didn't want to be seen by anyone else.

Okay, E was heading back out the window (just re-watched it).  I wonder if she figured she'd come back later to take care of Gennadi?  If she had left, I wonder how that choice would be seen by Claudia--a missed opportunity?

And weird reaction by Gennadi, as if he sensed someone was in the kitchen. After he spotted E, I guess she figured now or never. 

[willco]

I'm a little late in commenting because I just had a chance to watch the episode this evening. I agree that it's easy to hate Elizabeth right now and to love how Phillip has become, I guess, the better man. But you have to admit that Keri Russell is acting the hell out of the part-- she basically acting like any zealot for any cause does, when they really & truly believe in that cause- she's doing whatever is necessary to obtain the desired outcome. I think any chance for redemption for her is gone. Phillip still has a chance, but probably not with Elizabeth.

 

Paige is acting like most teenagers do, thinking she knows it all already. Annoying, yes, but not that unusual.

Edited April 29, 2018 by willco
spelling

[millennium]

It's funny.  Whether she's drinking the Christian kool-aid or the Kremlin kool-aid, Paige is still a fucking brat.   In the first couple episodes it almost seemed she had matured.   You can almost overlook the little spy outfits from the juniors department, but then she opens her mouth and lets everybody know she's still a bitchy, self-absorbed tween who looks at everybody else including mom and dad as supporting cast.  

Thank God for Philip's arc.

Regarding Elizabeth, damned if she isn't bathing in bodily fluids almost every episode this season.

[CaliCheeseSucks]

14 hours ago, Miles said:

Usually it has been way more high level targets. Also the murders used to be far and between. Elizabeth's murder spree makes it seem ridiculous.

Exactly. She's become this cartoonish serial killing machine. 

[hellmouse]

6 hours ago, BetyBee said:

When Paige let herself into Claudia's place, after the barfight and after sparring with both of her parents, I thought she would be fired from the spy biz by Claudia and Liz.  I was disappointed that they just wanted to teach her how to get drunk with a mark.  Liz had just admitted to Philip that maybe Paige wasn't cut out for spying.  I really think that drunk scene was a step backward and that it negated what she should have learned from battling so ineffectively with Philip. 

I agree that it was a step backwards. It let Paige off the hook for making such a poor decision. It became about handling your liquor rather than about making smart decisions in the moment. She won't be drinking all the time but she needs to be more aware ALL  the time. Even though she thinks Elizabeth is "on her back" about it - that is the reality that she has signed up for. She doesn't seem to realize that. Think about Jared's handler, and how she realized someone was in her apartment. It didn't save her but it gave her time to send a message. Could Paige do that? No.

I thought she was shaken by the experience fighting with Philip. She hesitates before opening the door. Is she thinking about how she was no match for Philip, yet overreacted with the guys in the bar? Or just anticipating being lectured? Either way, none of that happens. They just set up shot glasses. And she goes along, doesn't even bring up the visit from Philip. It was a missed opportunity. 

[Umbelina]

12 minutes ago, hellmouse said:

I agree that it was a step backwards. It let Paige off the hook for making such a poor decision. It became about handling your liquor rather than about making smart decisions in the moment. She won't be drinking all the time but she needs to be more aware ALL  the time. Even though she thinks Elizabeth is "on her back" about it - that is the reality that she has signed up for. She doesn't seem to realize that. Think about Jared's handler, and how she realized someone was in her apartment. It didn't save her but it gave her time to send a message. Could Paige do that? No.

I thought she was shaken by the experience fighting with Philip. She hesitates before opening the door. Is she thinking about how she was no match for Philip, yet overreacted with the guys in the bar? Or just anticipating being lectured? Either way, none of that happens. They just set up shot glasses. And she goes along, doesn't even bring up the visit from Philip. It was a missed opportunity. 

I don't know if Jared's handler sent that message or if Larrick did.  After all, we saw Larrick find her code book, and he was trying to lure out Philip and Elizabeth to kill them, and also lay in wait for one of them to show up at Jared's.

I think he left the note on the toilet paper roll.  At the very least, he read it, and was able to trap the Jennings by using it.

3 hours ago, TimWil said:

Wouldn’t Paige have been aware of details of The Great Patriotic War long before 1987? This is one of the reasons the time jump is so problematic for me-Paige should be far further along in her knowledge of Soviet history three years after agreeing to join the “family business.”

 

Anyway, I really wish in this episode that Claudia had shown Paige the film At 6 PM At The End of the War-a clip from it begins at around five and a half minutes into this fascinating documentary called East Side Story about musicals produced in communist Europe. I think it would have been far more preferable and effective to their grrl talk and would have served as a useful counterpoint to the relatively light hearted Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears. And I could see the sequence leaving us with  a visibly shaken, sobbing Elizabeth.

 

 

 

Why would they watch a film that is mostly in German and mostly about the very old days in East Germany?  The movie they watched was recent and had won awards, as well as being in Liz and Granny's native tongue.  They weren't going to show Paige and anti-soviet movie.  It also wasn't released until 1997, long after the fall of the USSR, so they would have to time travel to rent it.

Elizabeth explained why Paige wouldn't know, she looked through her history books.  Mine were the same, barely a mention.

Edited April 29, 2018 by Umbelina

[TimWil]

7 minutes ago, Umbelina said:

Why would they watch a film that is mostly in German and mostly about the very old days in East Germany?  The movie they watched was recent and had won awards, as well as being in Liz and Granny's native tongue.

Elizabeth explained why Paige wouldn't know, she looked through her history books.  Mine were the same, barely a mention.

 

The film I’m specifically referring to, At 6 PM At The End Of The War, is a Russian film released in 1944. The other clips from the documentary are from East German films.

I really don’t see why Paige wouldn’t have heard the statistics and details about the war from Elizabeth and/or Claudia early on. What have they been discussing for the past three years, how to make borscht? Nope, it’s totally unrealistic.

Edited April 29, 2018 by TimWil

[dr pepper]

On 4/27/2018 at 1:43 AM, ElectricBoogaloo said:

Philip was MVP this week! Not only did he show Paige that she still doesn't know shit about fighting but he tried to save Kimmie. The latter may come back to bite him in the ass. Talk about a very specific warning to give her - I know he was doing everything within his power to keep her out of harm's way but the way he blurted that out without any further explanation like "those communist countries are really dangerous and I don't want you or your friends getting kidnapped/robbed/hurt there" had to sound really weird to her.

He could have done it better. Something like: i've done a lot of travelling and i've seen a lot of things, and there's one thing i really need to share with you, namely that there are some bad people out there looking to catch american kids off their guard and kidnap them. So, please. If you meet anyone new there, no matter how nice they seem, and they ask you to come with them to another country, just don't!

[MisterBluxom]

2 hours ago, dr pepper said:

He could have done it better. Something like: i've done a lot of travelling and i've seen a lot of things, and there's one thing i really need to share with you, namely that there are some bad people out there looking to catch american kids off their guard and kidnap them. So, please. If you meet anyone new there, no matter how nice they seem, and they ask you to come with them to another country, just don't!

Excellent point. I wonder if the writers were given some last-minute change they had to make. The text that P spoke to Kimmie now sounds like it was written in a hurry - without sufficient thought. Too bad they don't have someone with your POV on staff to help they with the writing. You would clearly be better at it than the writers they have - unless of course, there was some last minute emergency which caused them to write that text in a big hurry without sufficient time to think it through.

[anonymiss]

3 hours ago, dr pepper said:

He could have done it better. Something like: i've done a lot of travelling and i've seen a lot of things, and there's one thing i really need to share with you, namely that there are some bad people out there looking to catch american kids off their guard and kidnap them. So, please. If you meet anyone new there, no matter how nice they seem, and they ask you to come with them to another country, just don't!

I think a teenage girl could easily shrug that off as overprotective nagging. Like, "Thanks, Dad. You're being a little paranoid." What he said was much more unsettling and to the point.

I liked the scene, and it recalled when Philip showed himself to Martha because it was what she needed.

[Natalie25]

On April 26, 2018 at 8:31 PM, hellmouse said:

I was really struck by the fact that Paige has just fought her father, out of the blue, and he's demonstrated that he literally could have killed her with his bare hands. The next time she shows up to see Elizabeth and Claudia, the experience with Philip isn't even discussed. I don't even think Paige is trying to protect Philip in any way by not bringing it up. It's just more fun to drink and talk about sex. And of course Paige is naive enough to believe everything Claudia and Elizabeth tell her, doesn't question whether they're manipulating her, and of course they are. But they are wasting their time, IMO. She's not really committed to the cause, not seriously. Do they realize that yet? IDK.

I'm glad you brought this up because I was really hoping for more of a reaction from Paige after their fight. She seemed to hesitate before entering the safe house, and I honestly expected her to bring it up to Elizabeth. At the very least, asking for more/better training, because Elizabeth really has been holding back. If they've been doing this for 3 years, I'd think she should have taken the "training pads" off, maybe even had her practicing with different people/fighters.

[Bannon]

23 hours ago, Milburn Stone said:

I'll step back from that question and ask another. Why do we think the actress isn't very good?

It seems to me that every irritated thought that people have expressed about Paige is a result of the show wanting us to feel that way about Paige. We are meant to think she's a lightweight, a not-very-deep-thinker, way out of her depth, a good-hearted but lost and confused soul, a victim of expectations she can't possibly meet and agendas she can't possibly carry through. The character is written that way, and if we come out feeling those things about the character, it can only be because Holly Taylor is portraying her adequately. (Adequately not in the sense of faint praise, adequately in the sense of "her performance is everything it needs to be to realize the writers' intentions." It doesn't need to be more than that, and in fact that's quite a lot.)

I don't think she is competent because every emotional note she conveys seems to  be,  to me, an actor signaling.  I never cross the threshold with her, and forget I'm looking at an actor. Like I've said, however, the writers and directors have done her very few favors.

[AllyB]

7 hours ago, dr pepper said:

He could have done it better. Something like: i've done a lot of travelling and i've seen a lot of things, and there's one thing i really need to share with you, namely that there are some bad people out there looking to catch american kids off their guard and kidnap them. So, please. If you meet anyone new there, no matter how nice they seem, and they ask you to come with them to another country, just don't!

But he didn't want to tell her like that. The minute he said the word 'communist' he knew it would set all her alarm bells off. He knew she would start to wonder, even on some small, mostly disbelieving level, that Jim was never who he said he was. He knew that she would suspect that he had a very specific reason for telling her not to go to a communist country. For telling her someone might approach her and want her to go into 'enemy' territory. He wanted her to understand that she was a target of a KGB plot. Kimmie is not stupid or naive, she has proven herself reasonably insightful and she knows her father is a high ranking CIA agent. She will understand that Jim was giving her a very specific warning for a very specific reason. She will understand that Jim has some sort of knowledge that he was covertly attempting to share.

Philip knows that he told her enough to potentially send her running to her father to tell him about Jim and lead to the listening device being found. But he was willing to take that chance because he does not want Kimmie to be kidnapped. He started out by trying to give her the message that she would 'be ok' if she is kidnapped. But he knew she didn't have a hope of understanding that and in any case he doesn't want her to go through it. So he just went fully scorched earth and gave her as much information as he could risk, to ensure she doesn't end up in KGB hands.