Umbelina October 3, 2018 Share October 3, 2018 (edited) 19 minutes ago, sistermagpie said: She has reasons for thinking the way she does that aren't any more brainwashing than an American housewife's feeling this way about the US--plus there's the added trauma of the War that would give her even more motivation for the way she sees things. But the show itself never implies that she's wrong for keeping her Soviet perspective about itself or the US, more that she's responsible for her own actions, not them. I think the show did plenty about her motivation because of the trauma of war, they beat her father's desertion nearly to death, and, IMO, that became, for most people, her primary motivation, not to be a deserter or traitor like her father, to bring back patriotic honor to her family. I know the show was not trying to say she was wrong for her devotion to the Soviet cause. I also know they were well-aware that this was a tough sell to much of their audience, many of whom are blind to their own countries faults and contributions to world chaos. I'm not really faulting the writers here, but what I am saying is that this particular documentary, slanted though it may be, adds much more depth and motivation to Elizabeth's character, for me. If nothing else, The Americans certainly motivated me into much more research about our own history, and the history of both Russia and the Soviet Union, and certainly about spies! Ha. ETA, this documentary/show certainly does delve into the dastardly deeds of the CIA and FBI by the way, it does not touch on the KGB much, mentions spies caught in Canada, and I think that's about it. Edited October 3, 2018 by Umbelina 1 Link to comment
sistermagpie October 3, 2018 Author Share October 3, 2018 (edited) 5 hours ago, Umbelina said: I think the show did plenty about her motivation because of the trauma of war, they beat her father's desertion nearly to death, and, IMO, that became, for most people, her primary motivation, not to be a deserter or traitor like her father, to bring back patriotic honor to her family. Fwiw, I wouldn't say they beat it to death really. I think there's only thw one scene where she remembers being told about it. I think the show had her leaning more on just identifying with the defenders during the war. She herself does say she has a horror of betraying her country. But not to bring back honor. I thought it was just a general desire to stand up to the enemy. They didn't choose to have her remember being ostracized because of her father or anything. She didn't even know about it for a pretty long time. Personally I associated her father's story more with her wondering about her mother's love than a feeling of disgrace. She seemed to have already worshiped the idea of her heroic father before the truth. It's got to be important given what we know about her but I could believe she even blocked it out. Edited October 4, 2018 by sistermagpie Link to comment
Umbelina October 16, 2018 Share October 16, 2018 (edited) I was re-watching season 4 last night, always thought it was my favorite season. SO much happened, it was edge of the seat time throughout most of it really. Then, it occurred to me that "all that stuff" that happened led to a very disappointing season 5 for me. That "stuff" lead to Nina, Gaad, and William dead. It lead to Martha, Oleg, and Arkady leaving the main action, and the disappearance of Tatiana, until they needed her to look like the idiot storyline of Renee very late in the 6th season. I know some didn't really care for Tatiana, but I really liked her, she was unusual, not from a wealthy family, earned her position, and was about to be named the first ever4 Station Chief, and I also liked her very much with Oleg, the quiet to loud sex, the BEEPS, all of it. She was respected, really the only female from the Residentura that had power. Speaking of that, we also lost the Residentura, all for a dramatic scene with Gaad's replacement kicking Arkady out of the country. I understand why we lost Young Hee and her family, she was a just a season long spy arc, ditto the AA woman and her creepy husband, and of course Anton. Still they were all gone as well. In season 5 we also basically lost the FBI office, as well as the Residentura, and there was much less Stan and Philip interaction as well. Thank God we FINALLY lost the Pastor and his wife, but still? That's a hell of a lot of major cast changes for a show to absorb, and for me anyway, they lost so much of the flavor of the show, and certainly most of the ensemble feel that made everything mean more, and gave so much interest to our main characters, and the behind the scenes tension of knowing what the Residentura and FBI offices were doing/thinking/planning/working on. Anyway, still love season 4, but in retrospect, I would have taken slightly less action happily, if we could have maintained at least some of that cast. Edited October 16, 2018 by Umbelina 1 Link to comment
sistermagpie October 16, 2018 Author Share October 16, 2018 59 minutes ago, Umbelina said: I was re-watching season 4 last night, always thought it was my favorite season. SO much happened, it was edge of the seat time throughout most of it really. I remember the first time I saw the preview for that season--the commercial came on during some show and my heart was beating fast by the end of it it was so tense because of everything that was set up in S3 (Pastor Tim knowing, Philip and Elizabeth maybe having to run, Martha!). It led to S5 but not all of it was inevitable from it. Martha was going to have to leave (or whatever they did with her), but a lot of the other people they probably could have written differently. Arkady's departure really came out of nothing because Gaad's death was just bizarre. The show might have kept Gaad alive even as just a sounding board for Stan while having stuff happen at the FBI. Or find some way to keep Gaad on even if he's in trouble over Martha (Stan was still there after threatening his bosses). Tatiana was still at the Rezidentura so we could have stuck with her--she was in S5 briefly. There was just a big decision to have everything fall away so it felt almost like it was just Philip and Elizabeth and a lot of Paige. You can see where they wanted to get to--Henry in boarding school and basically independent, Paige being whoever she was supposed to be in S6, Oleg and Arkady in the USSR to set up that spy plot, the summit. But when I think of S5 I do still think of it as a lot of missed opportunities. The storylines just don't resonate with me at all the way storylines from other seasons, both as themselves and as the foundation of S6. Oleg's adventures in corruption don't really seem necessary to getting him where he is in S6. Paige gets a ton of screentime in both seasons. In a way, Henry's even more of an odd choice since they presumably knew they were writing to Philip letting him go, something they've been foreshadowing for Philip since S1. Yet in the last season Henry's going to be at home they set up a "What's going on with Henry" mystery while Philip on his own has this whole "Gee, I never knew my father and maybe that's why I'm obsessed with him..." story without giving the two of them scenes together that now play more significantly in retrospect. All the showing and telling in S6 to remind us they were and are close still didn't take for many people. 1 Link to comment
Umbelina October 16, 2018 Share October 16, 2018 (edited) Yes, it was strange watching it this time. I've ALWAYS loved season 4 so much, but this time...all I could think was about all we were going to miss. Gaad's replacement never did it for me. I seriously missed Arkady and Tatiana, and the Residentura. Losing Arkady just so House's cheating assistant could have a moment? Boo. Hiss. Now, if Gaad had that moment to expel Arkady? It might have been worth it. Really though, it was like they jettisoned most of the cast in season 4, and they didn't make the additions to the cast as meaningful as previous seasons. 59 minutes ago, sistermagpie said: There was just a big decision to have everything fall away so it felt almost like it was just Philip and Elizabeth and a lot of Paige. Exactly. For me, that was not enough. Even in season 6 all those losses resonated for me. Hell, when Tatiana killed that Russian, most people didn't even know who she was. It was such a cheap Renee fake out anyway, and a stupid set up, because Granny would have never even alerted the Residentura if Elizabeth didn't spill her guts about not wanting to kill him. I mean, seriously, WHY, logically, WHY would Elizabeth do that if she wanted to keep him alive? Since when is Elizabeth such a blabbermouth? Or stupid? Martha maybe did have to go, and it was a hell of a story arc for her, but did she really have to be gone from the screen two episodes after Nina was killed, and however many (not many) before they offed Gaad, and then banished Arkady and shipped Oleg off a few after that? It's a lot. I think it was a mistake. Imagine what could have been? If they wanted Arkady and Oleg in the USSR for their big "Elizabeth makes a choice" series finale? Promote Arkady back to Russia at the end of season 5, have Tatiana take over the Residentura with some incompetent new Chief, and have Arkady ask Oleg to join him as deputy for his job back in Russia. When did Gabriel leave? That was another huge hit. I really missed the Stan/Philip relationship as well, and frankly, it could have made the resolve in the garage much more meaningful. Instead? Stan is busy with Renee. Ugh. ETA since season six was a time jump anyway, Arkady and Oleg could have both gone to Russia for the series finale Elizabeth's choice thing. Just have Tatiana take a call from Oleg or something, saying he and Arkady are working well together, or blah blah. Establish the Residentura and Tatiana, and Oleg and Arkady's place that way. Also, for season six, delaying ANY FBI office for so long, when Elizabeth was on an unprecedented murder spree and service members were being murdered as well just made far too many of us roll our eyes at their apparent incompetence. Edited October 16, 2018 by Umbelina Link to comment
sistermagpie October 16, 2018 Author Share October 16, 2018 16 hours ago, Umbelina said: It's a lot. I think it was a mistake. Imagine what could have been? If they wanted Arkady and Oleg in the USSR for their big "Elizabeth makes a choice" series finale? Promote Arkady back to Russia at the end of season 5, have Tatiana take over the Residentura with some incompetent new Chief, and have Arkady ask Oleg to join him as deputy for his job back in Russia. Or they maybe could have drawn out Oleg's choice more. Because his reason for going back was a really good one--he gave up William and then ran back to the USSR thinking it would keep him from being blackmailed over it. They might have been able to come up with a story where it took a while before the CIA wanted to lean on Oleg or something, or Stan could have stalled them. Maybe that would be impossible, but I can see why it was important to have Oleg go back to the USSR because of what he did with William--that's character-defining and it's the thing that makes Arkady go to him for his plan. But I don't think they needed the corruption plot to get him to where he was in S6. That makes me think of how you mentioned Elizabeth telling Claudia that she scuttled the plan etc. because it seems like they did a really solid build-up to the other side. The four guys on Team Oleg all act in ways that make sense for what they're doing and you never doubt, given their characters, that this is what they would do. It makes sense that Claudia would be part of this coup and that Elizabeth wouldn't ask questions and would be on Philip's side once he forced her to, but it almost feels like they just really wanted the Claudia/Elizabeth ending for meta reasons. Like Claudia and Elizabeth as characters would have good reasons to not let each other live, but the show was enamored of the idea of them having great respect for each other. Even though there's a lot of thematic/character/plot foundation for Elizabeth killing Claudia (or vice versa). 16 hours ago, Umbelina said: When did Gabriel leave? That was another huge hit. Season 5. So he was there until the time jump, mostly. With him at least I can see why he wouldn't have a place in S6 unless they somehow got him onboard in the USSR. He probably wouldn't be naturally part of Team Oleg in the USA--or even the USSR. Just practically it seems like that would be a stretch. 16 hours ago, Umbelina said: I really missed the Stan/Philip relationship as well, and frankly, it could have made the resolve in the garage much more meaningful. Instead? Stan is busy with Renee. Ugh. Yeah, that's another relationship where I'm surprised they didn't write scenes just to build up that ending. It seems like a lot of people really jumped on any Stan/Henry interaction no matter what it was about but ultimately it was Stan/Philip that was far more important and there's not a lot of Stan/Philip scenes that are very memorable at all for emotional reasons. Even in the last season where suddenly they seems to be working overtime to have them comment on how they're friends. 16 hours ago, Umbelina said: Also, for season six, delaying ANY FBI office for so long, when Elizabeth was on an unprecedented murder spree and service members were being murdered as well just made far too many of us roll our eyes at their apparent incompetence. It is especially strange that they didn't make a specific thing about how angry the FBI would be about the people killed in Harvest. They mostly just focused on the Intel they got from that. I know these guys aren't people Stan knows like Amador, but this would have been really personal for the FBI and that would go straight back to Elizabeth and Philip as well. Elizabeth because she's not only led the FBI to their door and killed Gennady and Sophia, but because she and Philip together murdered FBI agents--something they hadn't actually done before except with Amador, which was a great big deal. 2 Link to comment
Umbelina October 16, 2018 Share October 16, 2018 30 minutes ago, sistermagpie said: It makes sense that Claudia would be part of this coup and that Elizabeth wouldn't ask questions and would be on Philip's side once he forced her to, but it almost feels like they just really wanted the Claudia/Elizabeth ending for meta reasons. Like Claudia and Elizabeth as characters would have good reasons to not let each other live, but the show was enamored of the idea of them having great respect for each other. Even though there's a lot of thematic/character/plot foundation for Elizabeth killing Claudia (or vice versa). Yes to everything you said. Commenting on this one though, specifically. It's absolutely bizarre to me that someone with Elizabeth's training would suddenly start spilling her guts (and jeopardizing both the man she respected and wanted to save, and later, her own family's future) to Claudia. If we are supposed to think that somehow, Elizabeth, who has almost always hated Claudia, and never trusted her, suddenly bonded by grooming Paige? They WHY a short season? SHOW us how Elizabeth has "changed" into this massive trust/respect for Claudia. Even then though? I will never buy that a spy who has remained alive and uncaught in very difficult circumstances for over 20 years, suddenly becomes stupid or illogical. She would NOT tell Claudia about the Russian guy she wanted to save, that only endangered him. She would MOST DEFINITELY not tell her that she and Philip are working against the Coup, her, the head of Directorate S, at least one general, and rumored many others. Why? There is no answer to that. There is nothing that can make that make sense, unless Elizabeth is on drugs or has a brain disease. Spies only share information they NEED someone else to know. Or, IF Elizabeth had decided to tell her (for God knows what reason for either case) then certainly, the last word-vomit that endangered Philip? She WOULD have killed her after telling her. We are suppose to believe she respected Claudia more than she loved Philip? Link to comment
sistermagpie October 17, 2018 Author Share October 17, 2018 4 hours ago, Umbelina said: Commenting on this one though, specifically. It's absolutely bizarre to me that someone with Elizabeth's training would suddenly start spilling her guts (and jeopardizing both the man she respected and wanted to save, and later, her own family's future) to Claudia. If we are supposed to think that somehow, Elizabeth, who has almost always hated Claudia, and never trusted her, suddenly bonded by grooming Paige? They WHY a short season? SHOW us how Elizabeth has "changed" into this massive trust/respect for Claudia. I get the impression the show was saying she stopped hating her and naturally started gravitating towards her as soon as the Paige thing started even back in S3. In S5 she was also having little chats with Claudia about Paige and how Philip would just never support the project, one that she knew Claudia could understand. Maybe it was something to do with her linking Claudia to her mother in some way? Like despite her early tantrum she longed for her WWII-era approval? It does kind of parallel Paige with how she continuously dismisses her father's freely offered support to chase her mother's approval and admiration? (It just occurred to me the other day that there's no scene I could think of that had a moment of Paige doing something nice for Philip where there are little moments like that with Elizabeth. Like just little moments where Paige is obviously making a point of offering emotional support or complimenting her.) I mean, in that last confrontation it feels like there's supposed to be a big understanding between them and Claudia's telling her that there's nothing left for her is Claudia speaking to the woman Elizabeth so claimed she wanted to be, the one who was like Claudia. In watching S1 Claudia really does seem totally capable of manipulating Elizabeth easily--and it also seems like she already kind of assumes Elizabeth is "hers." Even when Elizabeth is at her most badass in trying to talk to her, Claudia chuckles at her indulgently. Then she easily gets Philip kicked out of the house. She probably thinks she's vanquished him completely by S6 but ultimately Philip's the one who wins by understanding who Elizabeth is deep down. All of which goes towards making a fatal ending logical. I guess it's like a lot of Elizabeth's final arc in a way to me. She avoided the harshest reckonings she was headed for, including this one. Instead she got a scene that mirrored (presumably intentionally) the scene with Elizabeth and Paige, who are just really a girl and her mother. Link to comment
Umbelina October 17, 2018 Share October 17, 2018 Elizabeth was reporting to Gabe in the beginning about Paige, not Claudia. Also, in the three skipped years, Elizabeth suddenly was emotional rather than logical? Touchy feely rather than cold blooded and straight ahead to do whatever needed to be done? No. There was absolutely no reason for Liz to have to go guard that diplomat, except, oh yeah, SHE TOLD CLAUDIA SHE WOULD NOT KILL HIM, so she knew Claudia would send someone else. Why not skip all that and just pretend to Claudia that she'd be taking care of it? Link to comment
sistermagpie October 17, 2018 Author Share October 17, 2018 15 hours ago, Umbelina said: Elizabeth was reporting to Gabe in the beginning about Paige, not Claudia. Yes, she was reporting to Gabe--I didn't mean she and Claudia were working on/bonding over that. B I don't think she hated Claudia anymore. Back in S2 where Claudia is telling Elizabeth how she was wrong about Philip because she understands wanting somebody--it's when she confessing that she spilled the beans to some guy. Then in S5 Claudia's back as their main contact and by then it seems like Elizabeth's pretty cozy with her and they know they're on the same page about Paige where Philip (who never changes his opinion of Claudia, it doesn't seem) never will be. So she really only hates Claudia briefly in S1 -- and it always seems pretty emotional to me. Like there's a big part of Elizabeth for whom Claudia's everything she thinks she should respect. None of which should apply to this, though: 15 hours ago, Umbelina said: No. There was absolutely no reason for Liz to have to go guard that diplomat, except, oh yeah, SHE TOLD CLAUDIA SHE WOULD NOT KILL HIM, so she knew Claudia would send someone else. Why not skip all that and just pretend to Claudia that she'd be taking care of it? ...because that goes beyond Elizabeth just not hating Claudia or even having some great respect for her or whatever. Claudia's never been Philip who she can trust to always protect her and respect her even when they disagree. The main way Claudia showed favoritism to Elizabeth was in always assuming Elizabeth was loyal--like in Trust Me she does drag Elizabeth in, just clearly not in the way she drags in Philip. (It seems like her main use there is against Philip, really.) In S6 she's lying to Elizabeth on the same principles--it's really kind of funny that Elizabeth is even suddenly taking a stand on being lied to by Claudia, as if they've ever had reason to trust each other that way. Link to comment
Umbelina October 17, 2018 Share October 17, 2018 She didn't even have to "lie." All she had to do was keep her mouth shut. Honestly, Elizabeth spilling her guts to Claudia (TWICE!) and endangering first, a man she respected and agreed with, and later, her entire family? Was the most ridiculous thing this show has ever done, and to do it in the series finale final two episodes? Had Elizabeth then killed Claudia (as we all know she should have) then, OK, at least the second word vomit would make sense. There is nothing that excuses the first one though. At all. New subject. I wish they had expanded Aderholt's role after they jettisoned more than half the cast. Stan and Dennis (honestly, I had to look up his first name, that's how little the show bothered with him) could have filled in many gaps of the cast lost, and kept the FBI on screen as vital (not busy work "recruiting" as they showed FAR too much, a little of that would have been plenty.) The reason I say this is that there was a very interesting potential dynamic between the two, that the show touched on, almost accidentally really, but could have been fascinating and a counter point to the different styles of our main KGB agents, thoughtful Philip and follow orders Elizabeth. Stan had great gut instincts, and didn't follow rules, which led to some rather spectacular results, as well as one horrendous mistake, killing Vlad, which is what really blew his op with Nina. Dennis though? Perhaps because he was black, and from a working class family, followed every rule. He was a paperwork guy, which also led to some pretty important FBI work. For example, it was Dennis who went back through paperwork, and discovered the death when the mail robot was being repaired. Together? They could have made a pretty spectacular team, and been far more interesting than watching wheat grow or holes dug. It would have made Stan's betrayal of the FBI and his country at the end more resonant as well really. As you said though, they wanted all focus on Paige and Elizabeth, and threw only Philip some leftover bones, and one great scene which earned him an emmy. Link to comment
sistermagpie October 18, 2018 Author Share October 18, 2018 4 hours ago, Umbelina said: The reason I say this is that there was a very interesting potential dynamic between the two, that the show touched on, almost accidentally really, but could have been fascinating and a counter point to the different styles of our main KGB agents, thoughtful Philip and follow orders Elizabeth. Stan and Aderholdt are really interesting early on. I'm watching S1 (in Duty & Honor now) and I forget how there used to be interesting stuff going on with Stan. It was never clearly linked to his undercover work or whatever, but his estrangement from his family is one of my favorite arcs on the show--one that to me seems like it ends in at least a partial failure (I tend to lean more towards total failure given Renee). But his first interactions with Aderholdt were so interesting--Aderholdt really had his number. I remember him talking about his experience with Directorate S and accidentally basically telling Stan that Nina was playing him. Stan got really defensive and thought Aderholdt might have been out to get him. Aderholdt seems to me like the better agent, but part of what makes him good is that he's noticed that Stan's wild hunches work--and Stan is also a good agent, of course. It's not like he's some idiot savant. But he's more the rebel who has hunches like the Captain Kirk where Aderholdt is Spock methodically chasing down leads and not being emotionally involved. But he saw Stan's talent and never blew off his hunches. After the time jump they just establish that Stan has this other friend now from work who comes to the house for dinner parties and Thanksgiving with the Jennings. 4 hours ago, Umbelina said: As you said though, they wanted all focus on Paige and Elizabeth, and threw only Philip some leftover bones, and one great scene which earned him an emmy. Gotta say, though, those scenes where Philip is desperately trying to rally his staff at the agency is some great work by MR. At least it's the thing that really impressed me. KR was great throughout as well, but she got to be cool and steely the whole season. Plenty of people didn't even realize she was fucking up because it almost seemed like her actual job was murdering as many people as possible as an end in itself. MR had to look bad over and over, really commit to that stuff and make it believable. I feel like that's got to be much harder than stalking around with a gun in the dark. 1 Link to comment
Umbelina October 18, 2018 Share October 18, 2018 (edited) 18 hours ago, sistermagpie said: After the time jump they just establish that Stan has this other friend now from work who comes to the house for dinner parties and Thanksgiving with the Jennings. Which is really bizarre frankly, especially after jettisoning more than half the cast. WHY introduce someone new for Stan, when there really seemed to be un-mined gold with Aderholt? Alone, OK, no biggie, but when you add the losses of Nina, Oleg, Arkady, Gaad, Tatiana, Martha and the rest? WHY lose Aderholt as well? Yes, I know some of those remained in the cast, but they were removed from the main action. It's like DC metro was empty of anyone we knew or cared about, except the Jennings family. We barely saw Stan either. 18 hours ago, sistermagpie said: Gotta say, though, those scenes where Philip is desperately trying to rally his staff at the agency is some great work by MR. At least it's the thing that really impressed me. KR was great throughout as well, but she got to be cool and steely the whole season. Plenty of people didn't even realize she was fucking up because it almost seemed like her actual job was murdering as many people as possible as an end in itself. MR had to look bad over and over, really commit to that stuff and make it believable. I feel like that's got to be much harder than stalking around with a gun in the dark. Oh MR is an amazing actor, who can make gold from peanuts really, and he did. I really disagree about Elizabeth only being cold and steely though. She had that, but a TON more to play, exhaustion, lots of veins popping in that forehead, anger, loving mommy, doubting mommy, lying mommy, scared shitless in Chicago, mean, resentment, and then the touchy feely stuff with the artist, and then round that all out with her difficult conflict about what to do for the final resolve of the series. She got to play sneaky seductress with Philip, then fury at him, and jealousy about Kimmy. Hell, she even got to play deep pain (Paige at the train station) and shock, and spunky smiley resolve when they were back in the USSR. She also had "powerful" scenes with Granny, which I'm leaving out because they were stupid, but had the nostalgic reminiscing drunk sex talk cute scenes which were good too. She got to contemplate her own death with her necklace in the airplane, and more meaningful jewelry scenes with the wedding rings as well. The writers really wrote for her, they were trying to hand her that Emmy, but more than that, this whole season was really about Elizabeth. Honestly, I think that's one reason she may not have been seriously considered to win. It was such a gimme, much as The Handmaid's Tale did all second season, wrote Emmy scenes for their amazing actresses. That kind of shit backfires, I don't think Emmy voters respond to Emmy-bait writing, and I don't blame them. Frankly, it definitely hurt the show in THT, and IMO, it hurt TA as well, but not as severely. MR played day to day drudgery, kind of like Death of a Salesman stuff, no flash, just REAL, and he did it so well. He had ONE great scene with Paige, beating the crap out of her. He, and Noah, also made a very unbelievable scene meaningful and powerful, they BOTH deserved Emmy's for that. I'm still pissed Noah didn't even get a nomination, that was acting at it's finest, and it took both of them playing an A+ game to even sell it, let alone make it powerful. Basically though? KR got everything AND the kitchen sink to play in the final season. Oh, and angry smoking as well. Edited October 18, 2018 by Umbelina kept adding more stuff Elizabeth got to "play." Link to comment
sistermagpie October 18, 2018 Author Share October 18, 2018 1 hour ago, Umbelina said: I really disagree about Elizabeth only being cold and steely though. She had that, but a TON more to play, exhaustion, lots of veins popping in that forehead, anger, loving mommy, scared shitless in Chicago, mean, resentment, and then the touchy feely stuff with the artist, and then round that all out with her difficult conflict about what to do for the final resolve of the series, hell, she even got to play deep pain (Paige at the train station) and shock, and spunky smiley resolve when they were back in the USSR. Oh, I didn't mean that was all she played--I agree she played a lot of different things. I was just using the warehouse scene as an example of a scene that's not going to make anybody cringe with second-hand embarrassment. Even in scenes where she was vulnerable she was a badass. I think sometimes things like the Travel Agency flop sweat get over looked as acting compared to all these things, but I imagine it's hard to do! He'd have to break that scene down to show all the layers of what's going on the same way he and KR would when they're talking about leaving Henry or in the garage, for instance. But people have really strong reactions to it that they might not have had if the actor wasn't willing to really look bad. 1 hour ago, Umbelina said: Which is really bizarre frankly, especially after jettisoning more than half the cast. WHY introduce someone new for Stan, when there really seemed to be un-mined gold with Aderholt? Alone, OK, no biggie, but when you add the losses of Nina, Oleg, Arkady, Gaad, Tatiana, Martha and the rest? WHY lose Aderholt as well? Yes, I know some of those remained in the cast, but they were removed from the main action. It's like DC metro was empty of anyone we knew or cared about, except the Jennings family. We barely saw Stan either. This is a thing that's really striking me watching the first season, how there's *a lot* going on in both families. Stan's situation is really complicated right from the beginning. We don't have an explicit thing about him dealing with whatever happened to him undercover, we just see the situation he's in then. This is maybe a Stan thread thing, but it's also re-watch. By Duty & Honor he's got this thing with Sandra where she's trying to get through to him, we understand they used to have a good marriage, and he's just clearly unable to come closer to her--it's believable. He's Gaad immediately focusing on him at work where he's got great instincts. Amador's encouraging him to have an affair but he's not reaching for that either--but he *does* have some kind of strong feelings already for Nina, who he's protecting and sees as being vulnerable. He also has this tentative, maybe not-quite-understandable-to-himself draw to his neighbor. A guy who on the surface is everything Stan isn't but actually has something about his affect that is a bit reminiscent of Stan. (He's not drawn to Amador who's very much part of the world, but to Philip who's more diffident and wary). Then there's Matthew who's getting more furious by the second. Compare that to Stan in S6 and there's just so much less. He has a perfectly-bland marriage with Aderholdt and his wife and Philip and Elizabeth as "couples friends" who are also just sort of bland and socially correct. It's all very hearty on the surface. He's in an easy department at work. Mentions of Matthew are also cheerfully bland. I guess it's partly a parallel to Philip, like he and Stan are both sleeping until the events of S6 force them to wake up and remember who they actually are. But it's a big contrast to how the show feels so the ending feels less like trains speeding towards a wreck and more like everyone starting to exit the stage to leave Philip and Elizabeth standing alone again. (Paige being the last person to realize this.) 1 Link to comment
Umbelina October 18, 2018 Share October 18, 2018 (edited) Honestly, it's easier to think of an emotion Keri didn't get to play in the last season. I do think that not having at least some of the few remaining cast members have important things to do did hurt the show, especially in season five. In five, instead of capitalizing on the amazing cast they had, and characters we'd grown to care about? They just slung a lot of new faces in, didn't develop or explain them well, and honestly, though they all had POTENTIAL to be memorable, they really weren't. Bad teeth woman came the closest, which makes sense because they were going to have Elizabeth brutally murder her and her happy traitor soccer star lover in front of her child later. WHY did they need to "pare it down" to just Elizabeth and Paige, with a bit of sulky worried Philip, and cameo's by Henry before season six though? Especially with the 3 year time jump? We still could have had an amazing season five with the cast they already had, or a few of them. No, I don't count Oleg walking the streets of Moscow as him being on screen, and frankly, though a bit of Russian has been one of my favorite things about this show? ENDLESS long, confusing scenes with Oleg talking to people we don't give one shit about over stuff that could be handled more quickly, and frankly never was resolved? I couldn't even watch the screen I was so busy reading the translations which were fast and furious. WHAT? Just no. I guess we are supposed to assume that somehow Oleg escaped being imprisoned, never did shit with the illegalities about the food distribution, and daddy managed to get him into his department and safe from prison? I would have been interested in that. I did care a bit about Oleg's mom and dad, especially her, having been in a Gulag (which could have tied in nicely with Philip and his abandoned memories from his time in a Gulag with dead daddy and never mentioned current fate of mommy, or brother....) We were really robbed of so much potential goodness, I wish Oleg's resolve had more to do with Stan, those two were magic together on screen, actually Oleg was magic with all of our known characters, shipping him off to Moscow was probably the stupidest mistake they made, in my opinion of course. I don't think I will ever understand why showrunners would look at this cast, and KNOWING they were all great and creating magic on screen, would then decide to toss them into outer darkness, and bring in a whole new string of characters as the show was wrapping up. Edited October 18, 2018 by Umbelina Link to comment
sistermagpie October 19, 2018 Author Share October 19, 2018 3 hours ago, Umbelina said: I would have been interested in that. I did care a bit about Oleg's mom and dad, especially her, having been in a Gulag (which could have tied in nicely with Philip and his abandoned memories from his time in a Gulag with dead daddy and never mentioned current fate of mommy, or brother....) I wonder what their feeling was about exactly this--it seems like there was a choice to sort of define Philip by absence there. Because as you say, one thing that was interesting going on with Oleg back in Russia was him digging into his family's past, asking his mother about being in a horrible camp, his father revealing himself as too honorable to take bribes and waiting for her to come out even though she was of course nothing like the person she was when she went in. I did like his relationship with his parents and it was a good foundation for what happened to him in S6. At the same time in the US we've got Gabriel regretting having sent people to camps when he wasn't executing them and Philip realizing that his paltry memories of family life when he was all of 6 are telling him that his father was a guard in the place. He says explicitly that he's realizing he never knew his family and that's sad...and this leads him to take Paige, who already knows the secret, to meet Gabriel. Yet there's no scenes that I can think of where they seem to be underlining that he's recreating this situation with Henry. I get that the ending is that the Jennings are actively lying to their kids, so they can't do that--it's the opposite of Oleg's family. Elizabeth's still lying to Paige, Philip's decided to completely erase his Mischa-self from Henry's life. But it's like he does it so completely it's not dramatic. In S5 there's the one line about how Philip was the smartest kid in school, we know he's the family member that removed himself just as Henry will do, but they weren't at all tempted to do any Philip/Henry interaction in S5 that used this. Like when Philip's the only family member to not want Henry to leave, they just have him say he can go, then have a little blow up where he says he can't, which he'll obviously then take back. But there's no scene where Philip, like, actually talks to Henry seriously about the reality of leaving home, one where the audience knows Philip's talking from experience, maybe giving us a hint about feelings under the surface there that he can't get out to Henry. (Something we know Henry would probably remember later.) It just seems like another surprising decision. I guess I get stuck on it even more because season 5 was so often described as the season that was supposed to be character driven (and thus slower-feeling) yet it doesn't actually seem all that memorable in terms of good character stuff. Especially since none of the characters introduced in that season are that compelling either in themselves or in what they draw out in the others. (I'd say Tuan's easily the best one there.) Elizabeth's character development is clear as always and Gabriel's is pretty clear too in that season, imo. Paige I can see what's going on there, but it wasn't very compelling for me to watch. Henry and Philip seem like they get these little mystery arcs that where we get a solution to the mystery without digging into what it says about the character. It seems like good evidence of this is how many people seem to think Henry will have forgotten Stan Beeman isn't his father by the time the ball drops on 1988. 2 Link to comment
Umbelina October 19, 2018 Share October 19, 2018 (edited) I agree with all of that @sistermagpie Honestly, and I'm not trying to be snarky or negative, but I think the answer is pretty clear, to me anyway. This was always the Elizabeth show. Philip and Paige only mattered as far as they interacted with Elizabeth, and since Henry really didn't? He didn't matter at all. OF course they should have paralleled Philip's childhood with Henry, but that didn't impact Elizabeth so they didn't. You mentioning Tuan is another failing, IMO, obviously he was brought in to out-Elizabeth even Elizabeth, thus making her more sympathetic, or perhaps showing that she couldn't do it alone either, as eventually happened in season six. It was such a waste though, because nuance and definition were completely lost or left unexamined, even though the actor playing Tuan certainly gave it his all, and, for me, not for others, was compelling in spite of the writing. The Russian couple and their kid could have been very compelling too, but it just fizzled into absolute nonsense at the end. They needed a lot less hole digging and a lot more character development if they were going to bring in a slew of new people and expect us to be anything but irritated. Edited October 19, 2018 by Umbelina Link to comment
sistermagpie October 19, 2018 Author Share October 19, 2018 (edited) 14 hours ago, Umbelina said: Honestly, and I'm not trying to be snarky or negative, but I think the answer is pretty clear, to me anyway. This was always the Elizabeth show. Philip and Paige only mattered as far as they interacted with Elizabeth, and since Henry really didn't? He didn't matter at all. OF course they should have paralleled Philip's childhood with Henry, but that didn't impact Elizabeth so they didn't. That does seem to be the most logical solution! And it's there from the beginning, clearly. I remember even by season 3 having noticed that every season was organized around Elizabeth getting from one state of mind to another. (The least movement happening there in S5, but that seemed to be true with everybody--she was more just solidifying where she was in that season.) But it's still surprising to me how *much* they focused on that. I mean, it's not like Philip doesn't have things going on. His changing is probably the biggest motivator for Elizabeth, especially since his changes are mostly there through action--she's having to deal with these actions he takes that throw her for a loop over and over (like walking in and seeing him out of disguise with Martha or him triumphantly announcing that he's fatally sabotaged her dumb plan with Kimmy or is spying on her with Oleg--ha!). It just surprising how they seem to have wanted to keep the audience out of his head as much as Elizabeth is. Like we see him doing things, but they intentionally avoid giving us specifics like we get with Elizabeth even when they give us enough to let us know there's something there. When we get a new piece of information about Elizabeth it always fits pretty naturally into the trajectory of her life as we know it. We've got some gaps, but they're easy to fill in. But with Philip it's like every time we get a little piece of information it's kind of over the top big and raises questions! ETA: Basically, it seems like it's not that they weren't interested in Philip because if they weren't they could have given him a more ordinary life than Elizabeth. Instead it seems like they made a strong choice to make him a mystery nobody really knows so when we do get a little detail about his past it's often something huge that the creators would have to know that. Like they're the ones who decided that where Elizabeth had a story about her mother being sick and getting better with Elizabeth's help, Philip murdered people before he hit puberty. Even the kid who knows he's a spy has no idea who he is. They were just really passive about saying it. Like he fools the audience as much as other people so there's still some people who think there's just nothing really to know about him because he's just some guy. Edited October 19, 2018 by sistermagpie Link to comment
Umbelina October 19, 2018 Share October 19, 2018 (edited) Yes. I get it, and it's not necessarily a bad thing. I see what they were trying to do. For once, a woman was the focus of an action/drama/spy/crime/relationship show, and they worked hard to keep it that way. Because of that, I think she was their primary interest, and since they decided the ending before season two even began? They had to also focus on Paige, but really, mostly Paige's relationship to Elizabeth. They had a generational story going on, and they kept to that, hell or high water. Elizabeth's mom, Elizabeth, and Elizabeth's daughter. Elizabeth's dad being a traitor was part of that too of course, and played out with Elizabeth not relying on men, and of course the big one, Elizabeth removing that stain from her family by being super-patriot. What's that saying in dance, the men present the flower/star of dancing, the woman? Now of course male dancers must be equally talented to do that well, but still, their job is, in couples dancing, to present the woman. Mathew did that very well. Beyond that though, I kind of wonder if the fact that Keri and Mathew had a real-life relationship played into their writing at all, perhaps (luckily for us) fleshing out Philip even more, or them realizing that "the marriage" was such a huge departure from "don't rely on a man" Elizabeth that it made her (or presented her) with even more layers and places to shine? Also, Mathew has chemistry with everyone, so making him more of a people person also worked well for the story, and allowed the "different!" story of the woman being the strong one, the patriot, the hero, or antihero, the one who made the rules. When I think of Mathew's main relationships with women on the show, it's also interesting to think of them in terms of Elizabeth, and that HER reactions to each were telling. Paige: They fought all the time about Paige, about the baptism dress, about the record album gift, about spying, and when Elizabeth might be dying from the bio-weapon, she told him to take the kids and "be Americans like you always wanted." When they were deciding between missions once they knew one was blown, Elizabeth wanted to keep the dangerous one, because "the kids like you more." Most of all though, Elizabeth HAD TO BE fostering Paige's contempt for Philip as a spy who gave up, or Paige would never have talked to him like that, been so insulting, so dismissive. So in the finale years, Elizabeth had her daughter to herself. Kimmy: Another place for Elizabeth to show jealousy and domination, most of Philip's seductions gave Elizabeth lots of jealousy to play through the years. It also gave her the big power play at the end, and her fury that he would not endanger Kimmy via kidnapping/blackmail. Irina: Once again, Elizabeth got quite a bit of mileage out of that, jealousy, then all the stuff about going to Gabe to save his son, a huge fight about him LYING to her, etc. Martha: See above, only add much more, including the kinky "make love to me like you do to her" stuff, and the "she was simple" fight, as well as Elizabeth being the one to find her when she ran, and of course the famous drinking scene at Martha's apartment, numerous fights and the most jealousy throughout the entire run really. Analeise: "I didn't know she looked like THAT!" Elizabeth's spy seductions didn't do that, Philip seemed mostly concerned for her safety and for the emotional toll of them, while he may have had some jealousy about her work, his biggest reaction was when he saw the bruises after that mark beat her with a belt, and of course, after he found out Timoshev had raped her. His main focus seemed to be protecting Elizabeth, not jealousy about who she had sex with. Of course, once he found out Elizabeth actually LOVED Gregory, carried on a decade long love affair with Gregory, and had lied to him about it all of those years, before and after finally sleeping with Philip and having children? He was devastated by that, not the suspicion that she found him more desirable, or that she loved him, that was fact, and Philip had to deal with that, knowing he also worked with Gregory through the years, and both of them had played him for a fool. As far as Elizabeth's other men/marks though? If they hadn't harmed her, Philip had no reaction scenes of any kind. I hadn't really thought of that before, but even Philip's relationships gave Elizabeth great scenes. Edited October 19, 2018 by Umbelina Link to comment
sistermagpie October 19, 2018 Author Share October 19, 2018 Yup--it also occurred to me regarding children specifically that they did consistently give Philip a good track record with kids overall with Elizabeth the opposite. Most obviously in the last season the kids are split between parents, and Elizabeth finally gets the daughter she's always wanted (she thinks). She gets to toss away the identity she claimed was fake and really be the mother she thinks she should be, one who's teaching her daughter to be strong and believe in the right things and living a life of purpose. She gets to hold onto Paige by making her a co-worker. Makes everyone else either an enemy or a failure. Holds herself up as the Great Role Model. But the results are terrible. Paige is an incompetent spy who doesn't really get it and isn't really impressed with what Elizabeth wants her to be impressed with. She isn't Russian. She doesn't see herself as a tool for the state. Elizabeth's actually doubling down on treating Paige like a baby, clinging to a PG-rated vision of the future for her and presenting a PG version of the things she herself does to Paige. More importantly, Paige seems stunted as a person, arrogantly lashing out, no friends besides Mommy and fake Grandma who are duping her. The kids that are "Philip's department" are a big contrast. Not that this is down to Philip alone, by any means, but they are embodiments of his philosophy of parenting just as Paige lives out Elizabeth's. He wants them to be independent and choose who they want to be, encourages whatever thing that is. Henry's maybe a little too independent too quickly for his tastes, but part of him probably realizes that's only a good thing for him. It got him farther away from the danger. The other kid I'm referring to here is Kimmy. Jim really does seem to be a big influence in her life and we see him parenting her the same way. He makes her feel cared for, encourages her to have healthy relationships with others, recognizes it when she's grown up. Even in S6 it's significant that she's the same age as Paige and seems more like Henry. 2 Link to comment
sistermagpie October 25, 2018 Author Share October 25, 2018 (edited) Just finished re-watching Duty & Honor. This is always a hard one for me because the whole Irina thing just seems like such a mess and stays that way. So starting with other things, the show starts with Elizabeth as harried suburban mom with the kids never being so demanding and American as they are here. Henry's whining about the TV show being boring and he's lost the remote (anachronistic, imo--people did not rely on remotes in 1981), Paige is complaining about wanting more leg warmers (which we never see her wear, btw), rolling her eyes at the idea of kids starving in Africa (something she'll lecture about later) and calling her mother "incorrigible." When Philip comes home the kids barely acknowledge his presence after a trip. Also as an aside Paige is way obvious when they go to dinner at the Beeman's that she's mostly there to see Matthew. Elizabeth takes the kids over for dinner with Sandra--well, it's supposed to be Stan and Sandra but Stan begs off. This wound up being one of the more interesting parts of the ep for me. It shows us that Matthew even by now is resentful of Stan and can see exactly what he's doing. It's not that he's working too many hours, as the Jennings kids also experience with their parents. It's that he's obviously using that as an excuse to be out of the house, something that's already obvious to Sandra. He's not emotionally present even when he's there. Sandra gives Elizabeth a similar speech to the one Renee will later give to Stan and you know, it's quite possible that Renee learned this speech through the Centre since Elizabeth would naturally have reported domestic issues there. It's the one where Sandra says that Philip and Elizabeth seem like a team and she and Stan aren't. Sandra also gives one of the most insightful descriptions of marriage as defined by the show--Sandra's always been one of the most emotionally intelligent characters. She says that marriage is just deciding to keep going. Stan has clearly decided to not keep going by this ep and in S6 both the Jennings are still determined to keep going no matter what problems they're having with each other then. I think this ep and this whole marriage arc in S1 is also important in showing how much Elizabeth really does love Philip. His devotion to her is often more obvious since she's so much more high-maintenance but Elizabeth can be quickly reduced to a tiny child when she thinks she's lost him. I've always loved the Stan/Matthew relationship--one that I think Stan's still blowing by the end of the series, but it's interesting to see how clearly Matthew sees him even this early in the show and even with Stan having been gone for 3 years. Maybe that gives him a better perspective, like Henry somewhat has later with his mother. Philip and Stan both cheat on their wives in this ep, though they clearly don't mean the same thing. I had forgotten that Stan slept with Nina after going to the bar with Amador who encourages him to get "some strange." Amador is really committed to being a pig! Anyway, Stan's tryst with NIna is really out of line. He just gets drunk and calls her to meet and then without even having to say it makes it clear that he wants to have sex with her. She reassures him that the whole thing is just fine and it won't be used against him and he shouldn't see things so black and white. But Stan's obviously not going to stop seeing things that way--by the next day he wants to pull Nina out. And this must be the first time Nina feels like she has any leverage here at all. It's only good for her if this guy values her personally even if it's just for sex. Still, it's pretty low of Stan to do this knowing that he just recently ordered her into a sexual relationship with some other guy. In a way that's a parallel to Philip and Irina in that it seems like both women are just representing something to the guy in that moment. In Philip's case he seems to be perfectly aware of this. He doesn't really think he's in love with Irina, but for whatever reason he slept with her in the moment. Stan's already desperately clinging to Nina for whatever she represents. The big thing of the episode is still Irina, though. In discussing how her life might have worked I remember someone once suggesting to me that she wasn't an Illegal like Philip who was deeply embedded for years, but rather somebody like that woman who helped out with the Young-Hee story by just jetting over to the US for a short time. That seemed a cheat to me since at the point we meet her we not only haven't seen any of those people (and to be fair we don't really see them ever anyway--it's only that one woman iirc) but there's just nothing in this ep that suggests her life isn't the same as Philip's. Why, for instance, would she be so burnt out and wanting to live like a human being if she's already doing that in Russia? She can't have a real life in Russia and think she has to run away to find one. If she's only coming over for short trips, she has one. I also wondered if it was possible that Irina was intentionally tricking not only Andrzej but also Philip--like that she knew she was supposed to sleep with Philip and tell Claudia, so when she laments having ruined Andrzej's life she's also hating herself for being used against Philip? Not sure if that actually works at all or if it would be necessary for Claudia to know they slept together. (She might have been bluffing too.) So watching it this time I really felt like she was definitely an Illegal like Philip based in Canada, especially based on their last scene together. It made the most sense to me emotionally here, having now seen the whole story to the end, that she was embedded like Philip and just had a relationship with her son the way Elizabeth did with her mother, via tapes and the occasional picture. In the scene where she talks about him she quickly goes into talking about how she prayed to the God she didn't believe in that she and Philip would get back together. That's followed by what looks like some weird ritualistic punishment that's actually Philip roughing her up to make it look like she was attacked, but it's still weird to watch. If Philip asks her any details about this boy and how he was raised, we don't see it and it doesn't seem like he does since he never knows much about him. (This would make sense if he knew she couldn't give him that many personal details.) The moment that made it seem like Irina was embedded was at the end at the train station. (Btw, it looked like Grand Central and they don't announce trains leaving--they also don't have trains leaving for Montreal.) We last saw the two of them on a bench with Irina asking Philip to come with her. We don't see his answer as if it's a cliffhanger even though obvously he's not going to say yes. At the station she thinks he is coming with her when he shows up. When he says he isn't her first question is about whether he's ratted her out, which he hasn't. He gives her his blessing to run. Then she asks him to come again and he says he can't. She thinks he's referring to his job and tells him the Centre doesn't care about him. He clarifies that he has a wife and kids and she looks resentful, asks what he's doing there then. He says, "The boy. Is he real?" She snottily says only duty and honor are real, isn't that what they were told? And leaves it at that. The line that struck me was that exchange about the kids. First she naturally assumes that his being unable to leave is his job--this is the same thing that she said motivated her before. When she explains why she didn't tell him she was pregnant she says it was because he would have stayed for the baby and not followed his dream...their dream. (Note: Irina's dialogue here really sounds wrong, as if they just couldn't make her not sound like an American woman here--first she's praying for them to be together again and now she's suggesting that Mischa/Philip ever would have had any expectations of "following his dream" in life. That entire concept should have gotten a puzzled look from Philip. It's up there with "be yourself" as foundational childhood messages for American kids.) Dialogue details aside, Irina's work-focused in both scenes, but particularly at the station when she assumes that Philip's telling her he can't leave his responsibilities to the Centre. When he says no, it's his family he wouldn't leave and she resentfully asks what he's doing there Philip brings up the child. Iow, Irina is focused on their romance and wanting to run away while Philip's making it clear that for him the important person here, the person he's tied to, is the child. When Irina talks about him she says he's a good boy, that he's doing his military service before university, he wants to serve. (Did he throw away a chance university when he became a dissident? He's working in a factory last we see him.) These are things she could know based on a long-distance relationship--things that might even give a false impression of him as a person. Likewise, none of Mischa's later dialogue with his grandfather, iirc, is anything he wouldn't have gotten long distance, especially once Irina was apparently able to communicate with him outside official channels. More importantly, it just seems like for Irina Philip is representing "real life" or "living like a human being" more than her son--he's her NIna, to parallel the Stan scenes, the person who symbolizes whatever she's missing. When Irina imagines this real life she's running away, never seeing her child, but being with his father, who may have been the last real relationship she had. The husband she mentioned, if he was assigned, may not have been that for her. Basically, this set up just makes her make far more emotional sense to me. If deep down she never really feels like a mother to herself, not only does it explain why she'd look foward to running away from her child forever, but why she'd send the kid to Philip later. Because here in this scene he's acting more like a parent than she is. She resents it in the moment that he's revealing that he's there for Mischa and not her, but given time to think she might see that as a reason it was important the two be finally be brought together. Philip will be a real father to him despite the history. Oh, and that brings me to the other thing that jumped out at me in this ep, which is that it's the first but not the last time that Philip will be faced with foreshadowing about family separation. Here he's learning that he was separated from a child he didn't know he had, and he's watching Irina leave her child. Earlier when he's getting dressed in his hotel room he's watching an interview Charles is doing with Andrzej where he, too, talks about having lost his wife and children--possibly through becoming a Polish dissident. Like they might not be dead. This is something that sort of stalks Philip throughout the show. Elizabeth is never as emotionally responsive to this idea even when she's involved in the same story. The time she does feel something about a family story it's with Young-Hee where she's feeling guilty at having *destroyed* a family, not identifying with a family separation. In this ep Elizabeth assures Sandford, while dressed in a vampiric look that she's "not his wicked stepmother" and that also seems fitting in this ep where Elizabeth seems to see Irina as some kind of seductive threat to Philip. Watching Philip lie at the end makes me want to scream at him to not be such an idiot, but at the same time I can see why in that moment he probably felt like he was somewhat telling the truth in that Elizabeth asks if he still loves Irina and "did anything happen" and for the first part, no he doesn't. "Nothing happened" in that he doesn't feel any ties to Irina. For him the romance was a lot of drama that was just a distraction from his real life. It is all Elizabeth. But otoh, a ton of stuff happened that he's never going to tell. He's protecting Irina's secret that she's running away and not sharing her revelations about the kid. He'll only do that when it becomes a more objective reality, but Mischa becomes real to Philip in this ep. This somewhat reminds me of Philip protecting Oleg in S6. He just doesn't always know if he can trust Elizabeth to not be an informer. He'll trust her with his own secrets, but when it comes to other people he usually sees them as his responsibility and not something Elizabeth could be trusted to back up. I like the way that this conflict between them is consistent and it absolutely justifies making this the thing Elizabeth has to accept for the marriage to be real. He's a secretive guy and she's never going to feel completely sure of what he's thinking. She's always going to have that doubt about him not being true to the cause--and he's always going to have that doubt about her putting the Cause above people. Edited October 25, 2018 by sistermagpie 1 Link to comment
sistermagpie October 30, 2018 Author Share October 30, 2018 One other thing I forgot to mention in Duty & Honor is that in this ep Philip and Elizabeth both have people pointedly using their real names in order to manipulate them. Granny calls Elizabeth by her real, full name twice in a row and Elizabeth tells her not to call her that. Calling her Nadezhda is exactly on track with what Claudia is always doing, trying to claim Elizabeth's Russian self as her own and make a connection between them. She would have loved it if Elizabeth allowed her to call her that, but Elizabeth was still angry over the events in Trust Me. Even without the name, Claudia continues using that same manipulation, setting up a choice between Claudia who's supposed to represent Elizabeth's duty and the USSR and the Cause vs. Philip who can't be trusted because he's not like them. Irina, too, starts calling Philip Mischa, using the familiar form of the name as she had in the past. He allows it, but like I said, he seems pretty in control of just how much this is working. It seems less like he's enjoying the name and more like he just doesn't care which name he's using which at this point in the series would make a lot of sense for him. It's only later he starts to try to figure out any true identity at all (later it's him who will say to Paige that he misses his old name). More interesting is that while Irina calls him Mischa he calls her Irina. So he does use her real name instead of sticking with her cover name Ann, but he doesn't call her Irish like he did in the flashbacks. He undercuts the coldness that would imply by using the American pronunciation, making it maybe less cold but also less intimate. All of which may have just been about the show not understanding the naming conventions (the Russian translator would be the one changing it to Irish in the flashback) but if it's a mistake it works for the characters. The Claudia stuff makes the last season interesting, too. There she's doing everything but referring to Elizabeth as Nadezhda in her full-court press to represent the homeland. But in that season Philip also claims his on identity as a Soviet, one who lives more in the present and is less didactic about what it means. (Makes you wonder what Claudia would think of that wedding...) Link to comment
Umbelina November 2, 2018 Share November 2, 2018 (edited) In other threads we've been discussing aggressive spy/agent recruitment. I think the term "aggressive" is being confused with cruel or horrifying. The way I intended to use aggressive was: pursuing one's aims and interests forcefully, sometimes unduly so, synonyms: assertive, pushy, forceful, vigorous, energetic, dynamic; bold, audacious, no holds barred, anything to achieve goals, etc. I can certainly see how some would use the word as hostile or cruel though. So, the other arguments about Paige's recruitment may just be semantics. That said, it got me thinking, in your minds, what was the most hostile/cruel/upsetting recruitment or use of the various agents Philip and/or Elizabeth used? I'm torn because I do think their recruitment of Paige may have been the most ruthless in many ways, since they left her with no options, not even a friend to talk with honestly, and because she had an emotional bond with Elizabeth, which was ruthlessly exploited. Leaving her out of it for now though? Which was the worst for you guys? Martha's? Young Hee and her husband? Annaleise? For now, before you guys remind me of even worse situations, I'm going to go with Evgheniya Morozova, even though the story was resolved idiotically, that was about as cruel a recruitment as it gets. Her life was completely ruined, and her chances of being happy in the United States subverted deliberately. Her only child was made miserable and then nearly died. Now she's off to be used by the KGB, with no or limited training, to spy on her lover, a very skilled and experienced CIA chief, which will beyond doubt get her killed or imprisoned, while also ruining her husband's life and probably her son's as well. Edited November 2, 2018 by Umbelina Link to comment
sistermagpie November 2, 2018 Author Share November 2, 2018 I think I'd go with Evgheniya as well. She's going to be stuck actively working for the KGB unlike, for instance, Don and Young-Hee who were manipulated and possibly destroyed but only to get Don to leave strangers in his office for a short amount of time. Martha made some of her own choices. Less so Anneleise, but her death was quick. Evgheniya lost her husband, her son lost his father forever as far as she knows. She tried to do the right thing for him but she'll wind up blaming herself and assuming the whole reason she was stuck was because of her affair. Plus, as you say, she probably won't be up to the task of spying on a professional and they might start pushing her to do more, especially if the guy loses interest. While the KGB, Philip, Elizabeth and Tuan were the real people responsible for what happened to her, she was also a mother stuck between her two male family members 100% focused on what they wanted. The one time she reached out for something for herself it was the thing that trapped her. Link to comment
Umbelina November 2, 2018 Share November 2, 2018 2 minutes ago, sistermagpie said: I think I'd go with Evgheniya as well. She's going to be stuck actively working for the KGB unlike, for instance, Don and Young-Hee who were manipulated and possibly destroyed but only to get Don to leave strangers in his office for a short amount of time. Martha made some of her own choices. Less so Anneleise, but her death was quick. Evgheniya lost her husband, her son lost his father forever as far as she knows. She tried to do the right thing for him but she'll wind up blaming herself and assuming the whole reason she was stuck was because of her affair. Plus, as you say, she probably won't be up to the task of spying on a professional and they might start pushing her to do more, especially if the guy loses interest. While the KGB, Philip, Elizabeth and Tuan were the real people responsible for what happened to her, she was also a mother stuck between her two male family members 100% focused on what they wanted. The one time she reached out for something for herself it was the thing that trapped her. I agree that her affair trapped her, but who knows if she would have been happy if the KGB would have left them alone? If she had, she may have never needed that affair. For example, the bullying at school of their son, which frankly, I find very odd anyway, could have been dealt with. IMO though, having a Russian kid in class would have been pretty cool for most DC metro kids, and he was fairly good looking too. Let's just say that all happened without Tuan prompting it though. The state department, wanting to keep them happy, would have transferred their kid to a better school in a heartbeat, and they would have also been working to help them assimilate, invite them to BBQ's or take her shopping, get their own kids to be friends with the son, etc. Given time and removing the problems with the son? I think her husband's joy at being in America could have spread to the mom and kid. They never had that though. Instead they got the KGB posing as friends and ensuring every part of their lives were fucked up. Speaking of that though, I don't think the FBI watch on them would have been quite that loose, back then, defectors were still prized and cared for, and I think they would have investigated anyone and everyone that came in contact with them. Actually, that would have made a better story, but everything in season five was half assed. Link to comment
sistermagpie November 2, 2018 Author Share November 2, 2018 1 minute ago, Umbelina said: I agree that her affair trapped her, but who knows if she would have been happy if the KGB would have left them alone? If she had, she may have never needed that affair. True, I agree. It was the situation at home being so awful that drove her to it. It was already a problem before the Eckerts showed up, but they might have worked through it--they were already starting to a little. Certainly they should have tried a different school--wtf! The sad thing is I think that *she* will blame herself and the affair, not realizing how she was being manipulated even before then. 1 Link to comment
Umbelina November 2, 2018 Share November 2, 2018 8 minutes ago, sistermagpie said: True, I agree. It was the situation at home being so awful that drove her to it. It was already a problem before the Eckerts showed up, but they might have worked through it--they were already starting to a little. Certainly they should have tried a different school--wtf! The sad thing is I think that *she* will blame herself and the affair, not realizing how she was being manipulated even before then. She may realize it, she's not a fool. When she looks back, everything that happened may be examined, including the Eckerts rushing into the house during her son's suicide attempt. She's been in the USSR a long time, I'm sure she realizes how the KGB works. Much as the light finally dawning for naive Martha, but with a ton more knowledge. Link to comment
Dev F November 3, 2018 Share November 3, 2018 (edited) On 10/25/2018 at 1:38 PM, sistermagpie said: So watching it this time I really felt like she was definitely an Illegal like Philip based in Canada, especially based on their last scene together. It made the most sense to me emotionally here, having now seen the whole story to the end, that she was embedded like Philip and just had a relationship with her son the way Elizabeth did with her mother, via tapes and the occasional picture. Ha, it's funny, because I'm the one who mentioned before that I always assumed Irina wasn't a long-term illegal, and my most recent rewatch only made me more certain that this interpretation is correct. I had a whole list of reasons why, most of which centered around the fact that the episode seemed to portray Irina as the love Philip left behind, not someone who moved forward with him on a parallel track. But while I was reviewing the episode just now to get my thoughts together, I stumbled upon what to me seems like a much more concrete reason to think I'm right: "Your life in America -- is it a full life?" "Yes." "You're married?" "Yes." "Children?" "Two -- a boy and a girl. You?" "I was married.""Divorced?" "He died." "Children?" "Yes. A son." If Irina were a deep-cover illegal, the marriage they're talking about here would be to another officer, just like Philip's marriage is. So why would Philip's first assumption be that they got divorced? Wouldn't "died in the line of duty" or "was recalled to Moscow" be a much more probable way for such an arranged marriage to end? Indeed, when Philip suggests to Elizabeth in the next episode that the two of them could get divorced, he presents it as a new option that they would have previously considered unthinkable. The only way it makes sense for Philip jump to that conclusion with Irina, it seems to me, is if her late husband was a real one she married back in the motherland. Also, Irina's explanation gets very complicated if she's talking at one moment about her cover husband in Canada and then in the next about her and Philip's son being raised by her parents back in Russia. It goes beyond a lie of omission into confusingly cobbled-together fabrication in a way that it doesn't if she's talking about her late husband in Moscow and the boy they raised together there in between her temporary international missions. Edited November 3, 2018 by Dev F Link to comment
Umbelina November 3, 2018 Share November 3, 2018 53 minutes ago, Dev F said: Ha, it's funny, because I'm the one who mentioned before that I always assumed Irina wasn't a long-term illegal, and my most recent rewatch only made me more certain that this interpretation is correct. I had a whole list of reasons why, most of which centered around the fact that the episode seemed to portray Irina as the love Philip left behind, not someone who moved forward with him on a parallel track. But while I was reviewing the episode just now to get my thoughts together, I stumbled upon what to me seems like a much more concrete reason to think I'm right: "Your life in America -- is it a full life?" "Yes." "You're married?" "Yes." "Children?" "Two -- a boy and a girl. You?" "I was married.""Divorced?" "He died." "Children?" "Yes. A son." If Irina were a deep-cover illegal, the marriage they're talking about here would be to another officer, just like Philip's marriage is. So why would Philip's first assumption be that they got divorced? Wouldn't "died in the line of duty" or "was recalled to Moscow" be a much more probable way for such an arranged marriage to end? Indeed, when Philip suggests to Elizabeth in the next episode that the two of them could get divorced, he presents it as a new option that they would have previously considered unthinkable. The only way it makes sense for Philip jump to that conclusion with Irina, it seems to me, is if her late husband was a real one she married back in the motherland. Also, Irina's explanation gets very complicated if she's talking at one moment about her cover husband in Canada and then in the next about her and Philip's son being raised by her parents back in Russia. It goes beyond a lie of omission into confusingly cobbled-together fabrication in a way that it doesn't if she's talking about her late husband in Moscow and the boy they raised together there in between her temporary international missions. You both make good points. I guess I always thought Irina was "embedded lite." She'd obviously been trained in languages, and had established a Canadian identity (and possibly a few others with all those passports she'd picked up along the way.) I just pictured her, not as official Directorate S, but a subset of KGB officers who can travel on shorter missions with heavy cover already established. For example, it wouldn't surprise me at all if she lived as an illegal for months at a time to become familiar with her covers, but could also easily travel between countries for one-off missions. Once Canada was established, for example, she could travel to attend school in the UK, or use that Canadian passport and persona to travel to Africa, France, etc. for certain missions, then back home to the USSR to prep for other missions. ???? Link to comment
sistermagpie November 3, 2018 Author Share November 3, 2018 (edited) 1 hour ago, Dev F said: If Irina were a deep-cover illegal, the marriage they're talking about here would be to another officer, just like Philip's marriage is. So why would Philip's first assumption be that they got divorced? Wouldn't "died in the line of duty" or "was recalled to Moscow" be a much more probable way for such an arranged marriage to end? Indeed, when Philip suggests to Elizabeth in the next episode that the two of them could get divorced, he presents it as a new option that they would have previously considered unthinkable. The only way it makes sense for Philip jump to that conclusion with Irina, it seems to me, is if her late husband was a real one she married back in the motherland. I think there's actually plenty of ways they could be divorced. The Centre could have had a reason to move them around with a separation where nobody died. Philip himself will soon take a second wife as part of his job. Irina might have had a situation like that if she was an Illegal--maybe she Renee'd some old Canadian government official. (Even more reason for her to fixate on Philip.) I think Philip says that first because he's a guy in 1981 in the west and divorce is a much more common way for marriage to end (it's also a lighter option) so it fits the bar chat they're having. What's new for Philip is them getting divorced because they don't want to live together. Sucks to be any husband Irina had back in the USSR who stayed home to take care of her kid while she jetted off to do sex work for the USSR. I'd have expected that marriage to end in divorce rather than his death! 1 hour ago, Dev F said: Also, Irina's explanation gets very complicated if she's talking at one moment about her cover husband in Canada and then in the next about her and Philip's son being raised by her parents back in Russia. It goes beyond a lie of omission into confusingly cobbled-together fabrication in a way that it doesn't if she's talking about her late husband in Moscow and the boy they raised together there in between her temporary international missions. I think her story's explicitly meant to be cobbled together there. She's trying to introduce her son knowing Philip will think he's some other guy's. She's tricking him on purpose. Of course, cobbled-together fabrication is the way her story has always been for me from beginning to end. LOL. I don't think the writers had planned out all the details when they started--I could swear they admitted they didn't know if Mischa was real at first and intentionally took out a line that settled it as him being real. Irina's tape to Mischa in Amber Waves could be interpreted to fit either scenario. She says she's sorry she's not there to welcome him home from the war and that she should be--that could imply that he had an expectation of her waiting there for him, Or it could mean she's not there to greet him for the same reason she's never been there. To me, this fits better logically with her next line that she's not there to greet him because she chose the wrong life for both of them. She's apologizing for the whole life rather than just this one thing with her not being there for him now a symbol for her not being there. She says she chose the wrong life for both of them, which imo is insulting if she raised him since it's that life that was so wrong she had to flee it. Raised him and then ran away so that she could finally live as a human being. She could also be saying that she chose the wrong life for both of them by sending his father away, but it's not very natural sounding way to say that imo. Because if she raised him then she did basically choose the right life, she just also chose a job she didn't like and didn't marry the boy she wanted. They might have split up if Philip stayed. Here too, to me, she sounds like a woman talking about a life on her own, one with the side effect of giving him a separate life. Of course this could just be because they want Irina to sound like this could be Philip's own words to his son for thematic reasons, so they need to avoid anything she'd naturally say in reference to the details of their actual life together. Edited November 3, 2018 by sistermagpie Link to comment
kokapetl November 3, 2018 Share November 3, 2018 Didn’t Evgheniya gain incredibly convenient employment teaching Russian to CIA agents, and chose to have that affair with her student, without any encouragement or involvement from Dee Eckert? Sure, she’ll be pressured to maintain a relationship with CIA guy when she returned to the USSR, but that is not a relationship anyone could expect to last beyond the short term. Her marriage was always doomed, plus she and Pasha had no friends in America and never warmed up to the place. Link to comment
Umbelina November 3, 2018 Share November 3, 2018 12 hours ago, kokapetl said: Didn’t Evgheniya gain incredibly convenient employment teaching Russian to CIA agents, and chose to have that affair with her student, without any encouragement or involvement from Dee Eckert? Sure, she’ll be pressured to maintain a relationship with CIA guy when she returned to the USSR, but that is not a relationship anyone could expect to last beyond the short term. Her marriage was always doomed, plus she and Pasha had no friends in America and never warmed up to the place. Yes, but Philip, Tuan, and Elizabeth made sure she was miserable, which led to the affair. The whole thing is stupid anyway, from start to finish. Our spies would have known and checked every single person that interacted with them, and Philip and Elizabeth would have been busted 3 years earlier. It's as insane as having a housewife "run" a CIA station chief. Complete BS, like all of season 5. 1 Link to comment
sistermagpie November 18, 2018 Author Share November 18, 2018 It occurred to me today that in the sixth season there's possibly meant to be a real parallel between Stan and Paige. I was thinking how I always feel a bit dissatisfied with the Paige story and I think it's because I'm often looking for a story that isn't there instead of focusing on the story that is. Because mostly all of Paige's pro-active scenes, scenes where she's expressing her own interests are about sex. It's very consistent. She tells mom about the intern, sleeps with the intern, reads the book and focuses on honeytrapping, argues with mom over the intern as source, talks about intern as a source, is troubled looking at his badge after sleeping with him, has that sex talk with Elizabeth and Claudia, flirts with the guy in the bar, says how her worst fear is never finding that special someone and of course ultimately confronts Elizabeth about Jackson. That's also really consistent with her throughout the show. Watching S1 I've seen that looking for that ideal romance is central to Paige from day 1 and when she starts going out with Matthew she asks the same questions about getting info from him. Until Jennings, Elizabeth I had misread all these scenes as Paige being interested in honeytrapping and even maybe finding power in it, but it was the opposite--the idea always worried her. She could see that not only did her secret act as a barrier to being honest herself, she saw how romance made people share things with the other person. Although she never said it outright she was basically begging them to assure her that they didn't use sex for work. That's where I think that's a parallel with Stan. Many thought he was being stupid in S6 by doing things like breaking into the Jennings house when he could just look up whether or not Philip and Elizabeth were real. But to me that made total sense because he wasn't looking for proof they were spies, he was looking for reassurance they weren't so he didn't have to face the truth. But every time he looked for reassurance, whether from their empty house or from Henry, he didn't get. I feel like that was the idea with Paige in S6 too. Her spying work and Russia lessons were ultimately just distractions--maybe too distracting because a lot of the audience saw them as far more important. That's where I think some of the dissatisfaction feeling for me comes in, because those things just peter out. There's no explicit moment where Elizabeth definitively understands that Paige doesn't care about Russia or has to admit that she's a useless spy. Paige herself never pushes that angle because she doesn't care enough about it to do that. The closest we get is maybe Elizabeth's defensive speech to Paige about Jackson, but that's so tied up in the slut-shaming it's hard to just see it as that. The writers didn't choose to have Elizabeth be surprised that Paige is horrified at the idea of going to Russia, for instance, in START. These things are really just there as an absence. There's no time where she's either being competent or getting satisfaction out of competence, nor does she ever show any interest in her Russian lessons. So both Stan and Paige in S6 are starting to see things they've always seen unconsciously and worried about. Paige has always been worried about her parents having affairs--it came up a lot in her early suspicions. Stan suspected the Jennings in the pilot but never wanted them to be guilty after that. As S6 draws to a close things start getting too close to ignore when Stan makes the connection between Harvest and Thanksgiving and Harvest and Joyce. More importantly he sees more to Philip in Harvest. And finally he has to confront them. Paige, likewise, circles closer as she gets older but is also eager to accept Elizabeth's reassurances until she can't because the Jackson situation brings it too close for even her to deny. Both characters wind up confronting a Jennings and getting a denial that finally looks fake even to them even though they went into it probably hoping for reassurance. Henry, meanwhile, just spends the season telling everyone over and over that he does *not* want to be included in any of this until he gets his wish maybe beyond what he bargained for. Link to comment
Umbelina November 19, 2018 Share November 19, 2018 I think you are giving the writers WAY too much credit there @sistermagpie. I think they just wrote two characters in, both to define/plague our leads, and then just left them there, with "no ending endings" and bailed. Link to comment
sistermagpie November 19, 2018 Author Share November 19, 2018 38 minutes ago, Umbelina said: I think they just wrote two characters in, both to define/plague our leads, and then just left them there, with "no ending endings" and bailed. That is kind of where I started with Paige--because when I think of her in S6 it seems like there's just so much stuff that doesn't actually build to any ending. Namely, Paige having these Russian lessons that don't seem to mean anything to her and Paige being a terrible spy and Elizabeth in denial about it. It's not a waste, but it doesn't build to a reckoning for Elizabeth and they don't mean much to Paige. She's just politely listening to whatever they say about Russia and not much caring about whether she's good at spying or not. The one thing they do seem really focused on is building to Paige's big revelation that her mother sleeps with people for her job because they keep coming back to that. Likewise they are clearly writing to Stan starting to suspect the Jennings in a similar way. I mean, they're writing to that plague moment for both of them. Of course with Stan it's something central to everything where as Paige's big scene just left a lot of people a) just realizing that she was even more clueless than they'd thought and b) marveling that *this* is a big dealbreaker for her when she's committing actual treason and still hasn't noticed all the murders. It made me think, actually, of when Paige is basically telling Elizabeth she wants to be recruited in S5. She says she still wants to go to the food bank but that she's not longer into "the churchy stuff." "Churchy stuff" is a bizarre way for an actual Christian to refer to their faith even if they've lost it. By calling it that she kind of admitted that none of this stuff had ever penetrated and it turns out the whole spy story really is the same thing. Pastor Tim/Elizabeth was supposed to be her role model and she was the teacher's pet but then they personally betrayed her so they suck now. She's no longer into the spy-y / Russian-y stuff. Link to comment
Umbelina November 19, 2018 Share November 19, 2018 17 minutes ago, sistermagpie said: The one thing they do seem really focused on is building to Paige's big revelation that her mother sleeps with people for her job because they keep coming back to that. Likewise they are clearly writing to Stan starting to suspect the Jennings in a similar way. I mean, they're writing to that plague moment for both of them. Which honestly, should have had an incredible impact, but while Keri acted the hell out of that scene, IMO, the writing was a fail there too, it should have been huge, revealing Philip's marriage to Martha, or something similar. Instead, for me anyway, it was a hell of a lot of buildup to a rather flat and somewhat confusing "reveal." I've been rewatching True Blood and Breaking Bad, when those writers build up for years to a scene? They fucking deliver. 17 minutes ago, sistermagpie said: Of course with Stan it's something central to everything where as Paige's big scene just left a lot of people a) just realizing that she was even more clueless than they'd thought and b) marveling that *this* is a big dealbreaker for her when she's committing actual treason and still hasn't noticed all the murders. Again, a reason I'm so disappointed with the final two seasons, 6 was certainly better than 5, but damn, this show went from an all time favorite I practically bribed people to watch, to a "don't bother" or ignored secret show of mine alone. 17 minutes ago, sistermagpie said: It made me think, actually, of when Paige is basically telling Elizabeth she wants to be recruited in S5. She says she still wants to go to the food bank but that she's not longer into "the churchy stuff." "Churchy stuff" is a bizarre way for an actual Christian to refer to their faith even if they've lost it. By calling it that she kind of admitted that none of this stuff had ever penetrated and it turns out the whole spy story really is the same thing. Pastor Tim/Elizabeth was supposed to be her role model and she was the teacher's pet but then they personally betrayed her so they suck now. She's no longer into the spy-y / Russian-y stuff. Which is why, to me, the character of Paige resulted in a complete fail. Ignoring how boring she and the Pastors were, ignoring the acting without nuance and the blank face, ignoring the "she's brilliant, she's got a Russian soul, she can do anything!" season 6 reverse into "she sucks, she's stupid, she's incapable of any kind of reasoning, and obviously doesn't even read newspapers, or have even the slightest comprehension about her latest cause, or the ramifications for her country or herself" while certainly more in the actress's range and worth a "finally! At least this is believable for me!" ? Led me to the only possible conclusion about this character that they shoved down our throats just so they could have their big moment of Paige staying behind, so Elizabeth was sad? Was this: she was a groupie, a complete follower willing to follow anyone who pretended to care about her. She would have cheerfully drunk Jim Jones' koolaid, happily chanted "hari Krishna" while begging for money and wearing dirty ugly saffron robes, or enthusiastically stabbed a pregnant Sharon Tate for Manson. If you are writing a character like that? OK, could be interesting, but GO THERE. Stop saying and doing other shit and trying to shove it down our throats, only to end a series with crap. Link to comment
sistermagpie November 20, 2018 Author Share November 20, 2018 5 hours ago, Umbelina said: Which honestly, should have had an incredible impact, but while Keri acted the hell out of that scene, IMO, the writing was a fail there too, it should have been huge, revealing Philip's marriage to Martha, or something similar. Instead, for me anyway, it was a hell of a lot of buildup to a rather flat and somewhat confusing "reveal." Yeah, I have to agree. I feel like that's of why it falls flat, that as a reveal it's a bit confusing. As a scene for Elizabeth it's great watching her get pushed into a corner and defend herself. But it also seems like it's supposed to be a very important scene for Paige and the whole Paige/Elizabeth story. The fact that Paige not only calls her a name but talks about "Looking back" and how she's "always known" when she was lying and how she ought to have gotten as far away from her as possible like Henry did--this all points to Paige coming to making a really final breach, even if Elizabeth wins the argument as usual, though I didn't know exactly why. n the parallel scene with Elizabeth and Claudia we at least knew there were bigger stakes around the whole "you lied to me" thing. The real break was Elizabeth not agreeing with her about the coup. But with Paige it's like the opposite. She really is mad at her mom for lying to her and being gross and the treason, murder, Cause etc. doesn't actually mean anything. But the audience is aware of it. It's like if Martha's greatest problem with Clark was she just couldn't believe he had a head of curly dark hair. It might have been just as effective--even more so--if rather than put in this fight they'd just had Philip and Elizabeth show up at her apartment in START and have Elizabeth expect Paige to be kind of excited about going to Russia but Paige is horrified instead--making Philip have to explain that she's actually committed treason against the US and did she not understand that's viewed as a change of allegiance? Then they could go off together like they did and Paige's getting off the train would be understood as, among other things, a rejection of all of it. An admission that she never cared. I don't know if that would have been good or not but it would reveal Paige's detachment from reality in a way that acknowledged the bigger issues. From Elizabeth's end it seems like that's the more important part. She can defend herself against charges of being a whore but realizing Paige really doesn't any of these things seems like the bigger blow that she avoided. 5 hours ago, Umbelina said: Led me to the only possible conclusion about this character that they shoved down our throats just so they could have their big moment of Paige staying behind, so Elizabeth was sad? Was this: she was a groupie, a complete follower willing to follow anyone who pretended to care about her. She would have cheerfully drunk Jim Jones' koolaid, happily chanted "hari Krishna" while begging for money and wearing dirty ugly saffron robes, or enthusiastically stabbed a pregnant Sharon Tate for Manson. If you are writing a character like that? OK, could be interesting, but GO THERE. Stop saying and doing other shit and trying to shove it down our throats, only to end a series with crap. I wonder if part of the idea is that she's a follower but probably wouldn't wind up on the level of Manson because she firmly wants to stick within the bounds of normal behavior. I mean, even when she's working for the KGB she's still basically annoyed any time anything's demanded of *her* as opposed to getting something out of it herself. She'll make declarations about how she wants to do it but doesn't put much effort into the "work" she's doing. Not that a skilled con man couldn't manipulate her (and those men were that!). You know who would have really have made mincemeat of her, more than Elizabeth? Philip. Philip if he had targeted her as a source. We barely see Elizabeth run any long-term sources on the show. We don't see her adjusting to them when they're nervous etc. Usually she's doing short term stuff or kills them when they freak out. Her greatest triumph was Gregory who, of course, she recruited as herself. That's what she's doing with Paige but she holds back either for her own reasons or because she knows Paige can't handle any more. Paige says she's like Gregory, somebody who just wants to make a difference, but really she's Martha. She's exactly the type Philip always targeted. 1 Link to comment
Roseanna November 27, 2018 Share November 27, 2018 On 6.8.2018 at 5:27 AM, sistermagpie said: A central point of the episode is that Robert and Philip are friends. Even if Philip's emphasizing that fact to be against Gregory, Claudia herself says Robert trusted Philip above anyone else. So originally they gave Philip a friend who was another Illegal (in another city, too). It seems almost odd to imagine it now. But they matched him up with a guy who was trying to have a life outside of spying and this is the first time Philip is leading the charge on protecting somebody on principle even if they could be a liability because Robert's his friend. - - - So onto the meat of the episode, the big triangle. First, really interesting to remember that Elizabeth will later throw Philip out for lying about sleeping with Irina, and she'll make a big deal about people lying to her elsewhere, but here when Philip accuses her of lying by keeping her affair with Gregory secret she says, "I lied? What does that even mean to us?" Iow, she's saying lying doesn't even matter. She fully intended, it seems, to just never tell Philip about her affair which was a much more important thing than Philip sleeping with Irina once. She's angry with Gregory for telling Philip. For all her demands that people tell the truth to her Elizabeth very often decides that other people don't need information that might hurt them or, more importantly, make things difficult for her. (She lets Gregory die thinking she realized she should have stayed with him, she lies to Paige about the truth of spying, she wants to keep her affair with Gregory secret, advises Philip to lie to Martha about joining her in Moscow, etc.) This is a frustrating triangle for me because objectively I can totally defend Elizabeth. She didn't owe it to Philip to share the details of her personal life outside of him with him.. It's not so cut and dried wrong as Philip lying about Irina. But I *so* feel for him in the situation she puts him in. She has this tendency to hang out with people who think he's inferior and want him out of her life and even if they're not directly talking about him they're always pushing that idea so her hanging out with them always coincides with being anti-Philip herself. It would be completely humiliating to have somebody tell you not just that they are your gf's ex (as of 5 minutes ago) and she's not telling you that, but that a large part of their relationship is as a refuge from you and the life you value and she doesn't. Philip, btw, never throws this last part in her face. He never repeats Gregory's claims about her being ready to sacrifice their family or being horrified at having to "raise this child." Even though the 6th season, with Elizabeth at her worst, does have her kind of doing that--she risks Paige's life, makes Henry feel like an afterthought, dreams about not caring about hurting her baby by smoking. The closest Philip ever comes to referencing this is in David Copperfield when he says he's sorry the love of her life died and she's stuck there with him. Both men, in a way, have been telling themselves a comforting fiction about Elizabeth that's broken in this ep, I think. Gregory has always lived by the idea that the Cause comes first a corner for Elizabeth so a corner is all any man can hope to occupy in her life. Now he learns that Elizabeth is capable of sharing a whole life with someone. Philip, too, probably just told himself that Elizabeth wasn't really capable of more affection than she gave him in their home--now it turns out that she's capable of passionate affairs. Both men are sort of living that quote from When Harry Met Sally: "All this time I said he just didn't want to get married. But the truth is, he didn't want to marry me." They sort of get hit in their blind spots--a big theme in the ep. (It could have been titled that, in fact.) Joyce disappears from a blind spot on the street, Philip beats up two guys for standing in his blind spot. Stan gets hit from behind on the racket ball court. Gregory and Philip spent years talking about her fake cover life so he thought that part of her life was safe from threat. Philip, too, managed to never suspect Elizabeth's affair. And then Elizabeth, too, gets blindsided by Gregory when he reveals her secret to Philip. In two other scenes characters check their blindspots with good results: Stan spots Curtis reflected in a side mirror of a parked car; Philip studies Claudia in the diner in the reflection from the napkin holder. (Philip and Stan also both seem to recognize Curtis and Claudia when they see them a second time in a different context.) In the past I haven't found Gregory such a weasel as I did this time. At every turn he's trying to destroy any feelings between the Jennings and then he has the nerve to couch in as "trying to do the right thing" like he's being noble. He tells Elizabeth that if she wants to be married to Philip that's fine but she can't do it based on a lie. Only that's a lie in itself. He doesn't think it's fine for her to want to be married to him. Elizabeth only knows he told Philip about them being a couple. She doesn't know that Gregory's whole monologue is about how they could never have as good or real a relationship as him and Elizabeth do. That's also the subtext with Joyce. He points out that Robert maybe wasn't Philip's friend since he didn't tell him about his wife--just like Elizabeth didn't tell him about Gregory. He pushes the idea that the personal connection doesn't matter because his whole relationship with Elizabeth is based on putting the Cause above all else, with him being the only person who understands this. He wants Philip to know that Elizabeth will sacrifice their family just like they should Joyce. Their life doesn't really matter to her, so neither does he. (I'd also note that Gregory claims that he and Elizabeth both understood that it wasn't about Vietnam or race, it was about equality--making their goal that much more out of reach.) Gregory's not respectful of Elizabeth's choice at all. In talking to Philip he advises him to "let her be" whether Philip himself loves her or not. Iow, Philip should simply decide for Elizabeth that the relationship is a bad idea and unilaterally end it since Gregory can't unilaterally end it himself. It's like the only time he speaks to Philip it's to position them as two men "protecting" Elizabeth's little bit of "realness" in her life. (The logic seems to be that they both agree that Elizabeth could never really love Philip so he should protect her sense of reality by breaking up with her.) That's the thing that really struck me in this ep about Gregory and Elizabeth's relationship--how much of their interactions involve Gregory gaslighting her and telling her what she really thinks or ought to be thinking. It's amazing that she stands for it--and probably wouldn't except that Gregory is always speaking with the authority of the Centre, scolding her to be what she already thinks she should be. They've already softened her up to be that. Seriously, it's in every scene. When they first meet Gregory offers her a smoke and she says no, she's "trying to be good." (In S6 smoking pretty much represents Elizabeth rejecting a future.) Gregory says, "It doesn't suit you." That could just come across as flirty banter--if Gregory wasn't constantly correcting her behavior for real throughout. They go inside and there's a joke about how she "doesn't know shit about art" and she laughs and agrees. Foreshadowing to S6, of course, where Elizabeth understanding art is directly tied to her reaching out to life (and away from smoking). Gregory also gets to be a little superior here--she's the one who doesn't know shit. Obviously a familiar joke between them--in fact, for all that this is supposed to be Elizabeth's "real life" she puts on a clear persona when she goes to see Gregory, a cool, sexy one that sort of mirrors Gregory himself. Even her outfit seems designed to match him and his decor. She then broaches the subject of the break-up. She says things are changing at home with Philip and Gregory immediately directs the convo to "You're finally leaving him." (Obviously that idea's come up with them a lot.) When she says it's the opposite Gregory laughs and tells her that's impossible, that Philip's her cover. Then he just dismisses the whole thing. Okay, so he's shaken and can be forgiven for just reacting with denial. (And she plays into it, telling Gregory that Philip's "her husband" as if that's the reason she needs to be with him.) But in their next convo, the one where he's lounging on the couch, he's straight up lecturing her. Again he tries to get her to smoke--pot this time, and when she says no because it burns her throat he says it "makes her horny" like that's the real reason she doesn't want to smoke with him. She reaches out for the joint and he's pleased (thinking he'll get her back into their old groove entirely soon enough), but then not pleased when she stubs it out, saying she needs him sober. That inspires his lecture--she doesn't have to worry about him (baby!), but herself. She's "lost"--her marriage isn't real, her husband isn't real, the domestic shit isn't her. Elizabeth the big feminist's boyfriend's telling her she can't trust her own thoughts and feelings. She's just been befuddled by...living in the suburbs or raising kids. Then he goes behind her back and doesn't just tell Philip about them so that she's not building her life on a lie, but explicitly tells Philip to break up with her because this relationship can't be real for Elizabeth. (He'll happily win by default with Philip leaving the field--and later probably thinks he's winning by leaving the field so heroically it seals his position forever.) Then they have a third conversation. This time Gregory, who's just intentionally started this whole thing with Philip on the job, claims that *Elizabeth* is making emotional decisions. He claims her decision is emotional because she's trying to protect Joyce--where as Gregory the objective one sees she should be killed. Really, of course, Joyce has become a symbol of what Elizabeth values. If she only cares about the Cause (and Gregory) she'll vote to kill Joyce and be against Philip. Elizabeth argues about Robert being "their" friend who went to them (not Gregory) for help. Gregory again tells her she's not thinking clearly. He says Robert wasn't her friend (again Gregory's the authority on what relationships count), he was Philip's friend and her guilt is "clouding her judgment." (Note that he's not suggesting that she's being influenced by love for Philip here, but guilt--presumably because that fits more with the scenario where she's just confused about what her feelings for Philip should be.) But it's also possible that Elizabeth is just being influenced by Philip's way of thinking--that's something that's more in keeping with her arc on the show. She's not just trying to do something nice for Philip, she's making an argument herself in favor of Joyce that agrees with the one Philip himself made earlier. That Robert was their friend and came to them for help by telling Joyce to place the ad. This also kind of mirrors the S6 "don't leave a comrade behind" dilemma. You can care about people and the Cause when possible. In the end Philip and Elizabeth seem to prevail--they don't kill Joyce. But unbeknownst to them (or not--they must know it's a possibility), Claudia and Gregory get their way behind the scenes. Claudia and Gregory being the two people in Elizabeth's life who even at the end of the series will represent her choosing death over life, a cause over people. Claudia will also lecture Elizabeth about how her choices are wrong and that being left with Philip, Paige and Henry is being left with nothing. But in the kitchen, Elizabeth admits that a big draw with Gregory back in 68 was that he was passionate about her personally, something Philip probably never seemed to be no matter how in love with her or not he might have been whenever. In the end Philip is the one putting her above everything. Gregory is sensitive to any little thing about Elizabeth that's different and rejects it as her losing herself as if her only true self was the person she was at 26. I guess one could also see that attitude in Elizabeth in S6 in the way she's explicitly trying to turn Paige into a Russian person she'll never be and cuts Henry off because she's too inflexible by then to relate to him--all while also being afraid of change in the USSR. Philip, in this ep, tells her to just see Gregory whenever she wants, essentially throwing down the opposite gauntlet. He *only* wants her with him because she wants to be there in that moment. Ultimately it seems like that's what the central things is in the relationship. Philip doesn't represent putting family above the Cause vs. Gregory being the opposite, he represents Elizabeth choosing what she truly thinks or wants or believes, defining herself herself. On 6.8.2018 at 9:52 PM, sistermagpie said: I think that's the thing that surprised me, that he's just acting like such an average lover through the whole episode. I maybe remembered him as seeming like something more besides that, but he's really just being such a jealous boyfriend. Now it makes me think about her surprise when that Ben guy from S5 turns out to have lots of girlfriends. He seems like he totally would have a lot of girlfriends, but Elizabeth doesn't have much experience, it seems, with just run of the mill guys like that. Of course I get why he's trying to hold on to her--I wouldn't expect him to just let her go even if they didn't have the relationship they had. But it was still surprising to me to watch someone be told over and over again they can't think for themselves. or that they're making "emotional decisions" when that other person is being emotional all over the place, and not get annoyed. But the fact that it really starts even before she breaks up with him and the way it happens later makes sense given their whole relationship seems built on Gregory always telling Elizabeth who she is. And who he tells her she is echoes a crowd of other people in her life saying the same thing. He's allowed to speak to her with authority because he speaks in the voice of The Authority. Philip's the opposite. When he challenges her he's just speaking as himself. Oh, definitely I can see why Elizabeth would love Gregory. But I would say Gregory was not just everything she thought was honorable and strong, he was also everything Elizabeth thought she *should* think was honorable and strong. She not only would love a guy who shared her passion and beliefs, she'd think that was the whole point. At 23 or whatever, she was attracted to Gregory and not Philip who was not only assigned to her (so she automatically resents that) but doesn't think or act like her. (And doesn't seem to hold any big physical attraction either.) But that's also why it doesn't surprise me that an older Elizabeth outgrows Gregory and not Philip. Philip is the only person who values her for something other than what everyone says is good about her (her passion for the cause and willingness to sacrifice everything, blah blah blah). She's got plenty of people who tell her this is what's good about her and what makes her worthy. Philip gives her the thing she's afraid to even admit she wants by putting her above orders. (And not just her--it's obviously built into his character.) I would imagine this is something that gets more important as she watches her kids grow up and does question whether that's what she wants for them. After 20 years together Philip and Elizabeth do still share basic values. As for why he would stay with her I do think he was pretty willing to settle. He didn't feel entitled to a big romance with the woman he was assigned to, but they both loved their children and he probably thought the children needed their mother. They worked well together. He's probably seen enough of her over the years to see things to love--he's very empathetic and however much Gregory might think of himself as her husband, he always occupied a limited space in her life while Philip had the day-to-day. Gregory can't have a total understanding of her if he thinks her domestic life is a lie--there's a limit to the truth of that. Philip's adept at living on scraps and their homelife doesn't seem particularly bad. I've heard it's not unusual for arranged marriages, in particular, develop into relationships that sort of resemble siblings. He might have loved her before the start of the show, but not the way he did after their real romance started. - - - I wasn't sure exactly what he meant so I could totally be wrong, but I got my reading from wondering what Gregory meant by specifically saying that Philip should "let her have a little piece of something real." This comes after saying that if Philip doesn't love her he should "leave her be" and if he does love her he should...also "leave her be." Like even if Philip really loves her he should stop this because the relationship itself takes away Elizabeth's only little piece of something real. So to me that made sense as saying that if Elizabeth continued this relationship with Philip she would have lost her grip on reality--Gregory, after all, has been flat-out telling her that everything she's saying is because she's "lost" and reminding her that Philip's her cover, that her husband and marriage isn't real. So if it became real nothing would be real. (This being a TV show and Philip being committed to not answering him, he doesn't reply to this by saying, "Um...what?") It seems like if the problem was that it would damage her he would have said that, but his focus throughout the ep seems to really be on how Philip the husband/love can never be a thing. When Elizabeth first tells him this and says, "Things change" he says, "Not that thing." It seems very important that Elizabeth always see her entire domestic life in Falls Church as false--he frames this as being very important to Elizabeth, but of course it's probably much more important to Gregory. Before the baby was born he and Elizabeth probably planned for exactly this--that Gregory would always be her reality so her life wouldn't become a lie. But that night she was a young woman about to give birth for the first time and she was terrified. Vow indeed! There was some things that I doubted in Gregory's words. How could he know that Elizabeth coudn't have a real relatioship with Philip? Nobody else than themselves could know for sure what kind of relationhip they have and could have. And Philip making Elizabeth weak - blääh! The jealous, manipulative boyfriend is a good concept. But you make Gregory so good in manipulating Elizabeth (although he finally fails) that he could be her handler. Link to comment
sistermagpie November 27, 2018 Author Share November 27, 2018 5 hours ago, Roseanna said: There was some things that I doubted in Gregory's words. How could he know that Elizabeth coudn't have a real relatioship with Philip? Nobody else than themselves could know for sure what kind of relationhip they have and could have. And Philip making Elizabeth weak - blääh! Yeah, it seems like he's obviously got a very strong idea in his mind of what their marriage is and presumably a lot of it came from Elizabeth talking to him about it. But there's no way what she was saying gave him the full picture--not just because nobody can understand it just by listening to one person but also because obviously she wasn't going to be sharing everything she felt about it. And Claudia's the same way. A couple episodes later, the one where Claudia tells him Philip slept with Irina (I'm re-watching that one now) she lectures her that their marriage isn't real because "the men" don't see it that way. Claudia doesn't understand why Philip slept with Irina, doesn't know about Gregory and Elizabeth it seems, but feels she can lecture a lot about the Jennings marriage. Elizabeth was able to handle what Gregory was saying, but with Philip's lie she swung all the way back to Claudia and Gregory. Link to comment
Roseanna November 27, 2018 Share November 27, 2018 On 17.8.2018 at 7:48 AM, Umbelina said: I enjoyed the Mossad agent story though, (you got to know when to hold 'em) He really got under Philip's skin by saying that he had a job in the US but then he will return to Israel and spend Easter with his family, but Philip's whole life was a lie. Arkady was very sympathic: he was willing to do his all in order to save his agent (Philip), even to risk his career. Of course he hit two bird by exhanging the scientist the USSR wanted with Israel. Arkady also said that the Russians die for their principles that would save the world, but the Jews die for their tribe and the latter must be ready to sacrifice herself - as if millions of Russians and others Soviets hadn't been sacrificed. Link to comment
sistermagpie December 3, 2018 Author Share December 3, 2018 Just re-watched Mutually Assured Destruction so here's a long post on that... I really like how in the first season, since things aren’t weighted down by history on the show yet, the storylines in eps tend to connect and comment on each other. In this ep we have a lot of break-ups and relationships. Oh, and we also have another professional family with the weapons dealer in Baltimore. His little daughter pulls a gun on Elizabeth. Philip disarms her and says, “Nice henchman.” Little foreshadowing with the Jennings daughter too there later on too. We start out with the Jennings being as gooey happy as they’ll ever be and talking about the Beemans having “trouble in paradise.” By the end of the ep it’s the Jennings who’ll be split up. The spy plot concerns the KGB having hired an assassin to kill a bunch of scientists and then thinking better of it. Now the Jennings have to stop the guy with very little information. Elizabeth, too, will have a change of heart in this ep and in both cases, the change of heart is too late to stop the events set in motion. So looking at the relationships, they’re basically set up in triangles or squares. The assassin and the hooker in the bar aren’t really a couple, but when she asks him what he’s into he says it’s way perverted. Later we see her having sex and I mistakenly thought she was with the assassin and wondered if his big perversion was women having sex with their bra on. (It’s actually the FBI agent and that TV thing where women do that.) Onto the actual couples: Stan/Nina and Clark/Martha develop together--and Philip will of course continue to see Stan as a Martha throughout the show, even while Stan thinks he's Clark. When Martha gets annoyed at Clark pushing too hard about work (he’s trying to get info about the scientists) he backs off to make out. He tries to put off actual sex by not having a condom but Martha has some leftover from presumably Amador. After sex Martha’s more generous so Clark can now pretend to agree with her they shouldn’t talk about work so she can draw it out of him. Then he creates a scenario where a new boss is demanding results on threat of termination. Plus he laments different agencies not working together because everyone wants to ‘be a hero.” By the end of the scene Martha suggests Clark can “be the hero” with her help and she comes through with flying colors. She’s the key to stopping the whole plot. With Nina and Stan it’s definitely Nina who’s in the Clark role. I’d forgotten that when Stan invites Nina into his new safehouse he tries out more Russian than ever, asking her to come in and if she likes it. Nina stresses the personal relationship. She insists she’s there because she wants to be, noting that Stan seems scared to think she imagines she’s giving him sex as a job. Later she tells him she’s gotten promoted, emphasizing that she has told this to Stan as the one person she’s going to trust. She’s read Stan perfectly and is encouraging the part of him that wants to “be the hero,” subtly reminding him he’s taking advantage of her and that her life is in danger. Both Clark and Martha present themselves as helpless so Martha and Stan want to protect and help them. Meanwhile, on the other side of the square, we’ve got Amador and Martha. We never know the details of their relationship, but it’s been there from the beginning. Martha refers to him as her ex, but later insists they “didn’t break up.” The Martha/Amador relationship is really a great little thing that represents the life Martha would have been having without Clark--and it's not exactly great. Amador actually does sound like a bad boyfriend, though not as bad as Clark! Some have argued that Amador suspects Martha’s up to something and that’s why he starts stalking her, but I just don’t see evidence for it. The FBI doesn’t have a mole that they know of, they know about the scientists because Philip and Elizabeth gave them a heads up. Plus it’s a running theme throughout the ep that personal relationships are making things happen in the professional world. It’s much more in keeping with those themes for Amador to be stalking Martha not because he thinks she’s a mole but because he’s able to do something about that aspect of his life where he can’t go after the people who killed the FBI agents. (It’s ironic that the one will lead to the other without him knowing it.) Amador even expresses annoyances that the US will not be going to war over this. On the other side we’ve got Sandra. The Jennings and the Beemans have a slightly awkward dinner party with both couples heading for a breaking point. At first only the wives are aware of it. Philip picks up there's a problem pretty fast, but Stan seems to remain totally clueless and so even hurtful about it. When he praises Elizabeth’s horseradish-infused meatloaf Sandra comments that he doesn’t usually like spicy things and Stan just says it seems he likes this. The whole thing sort of sounds like a metaphor for Stan’s new Russian horseradish spicy girlfriend. His openness to trying it seems to echo his willingness to try out Russian with Nina. Both women recognize what he’s doing; Nina finds it charming since it’s aimed at her; Sandra recognizes it’s aimed at someone else. When Stan goes back to work he even offers to bring leftovers to the guys there. Poor Sandra. Paige and Matthew, btw, are also a quasi-couple here. Paige tries a little too hard in clearing the plates (all the women do the dishes despite having made all the damn food as well). Matthew tries to make a joke that doesn’t come off. In fact, there’s a shot of Matthew looking at Paige that looks really creepy. Like he’s just gormlessly staring at this 13 year old he’s too old for. Anyway, that’s their thing. In a way, Stan and Henry are a little linked in that they’re the two at the table unaware of any romantic tension (again foreshadowing of future dinners where they're the only ones unaware of underlying tension) and also both of them draw negative attention by being honest about what they think of the food. In Henry’s case, he turns down more mashed potatoes because they’re kind of cheesy and gets scolded by Elizabeth and mocked by Paige. Sandra tightly says it’s fine—Henry’s just unwittingly echoed Stan’s metaphor by not caring for Sandra’s food. Then there’s the central issue—Philip and Elizabeth. There we’ve got triangles with Martha and Claudia. Martha/Clark really ramps up in this ep, like that’s one more reason for Elizabeth to associate Martha with romantic rivalry. Philip is distracted during sex by Elizabeth’s necklace dangling in his face, a souvenir from an earlier fight that led to him sleeping with Irina. He tells Martha she’s kind, as if making a hidden apology to her. The biggest conflict is with Elizabeth and here’s where the ep starts to really foreshadow the endgame as so much in S1 seems to do. Claudia tells her Philip slept with Irina and she’s a fool for thinking the marriage could be real. As usual, Claudia sets it up in feminist terms: This is a mistake women make while “the men don’t think of it that way.” This is ironic since we know the opposite is true—it’s Philip who’s considered their marriage more real. Claudia frames it the way she does everything, but putting herself and Elizabeth in the victim role so anything they do is justified. In this case Elizabeth is being duped by men, according to Claudia. She specifically makes her feel like a fool, probably, for her earlier attempts at jokes and comments on how the scientist and his wife seem romantic. Elizabeth starts off defensive but quickly comes around to Granny’s pov. By dinner she’s reached the stage where she can barely hide her anger at Philip telling Stan the secret of her meatloaf—that’s when Philip gets that something’s really wrong—though he already got a clue earlier when Elizabeth announced she’d forgiven Granny for the events of Trust Me and now sees her as just doing her job. (Note that Elizabeth still focuses on Granny for the events of Trust Me rather than the Centre because in that case Claudia *was* just doing her job, even if she maybe hoped Philip would behave in such a way as to lose Elizabeth.) It also foreshadows the ending in how Philip focuses on the personal and Elizabeth on duty. She says she’s thinking about the first time they met and Philip hesitantly tries to make that a personal memory between them—he was surprised at how pretty she was. But Elizabeth was really just setting him up to say that it was a professional alliance. Basically, she’s saying they were ordered to pretend to be married and that’s all they’re going to be. She’s going full Granny. This is also a reverse of S6 where it’s Philip who tells Elizabeth she’s being lied to—by Claudia, it turns out. A big difference there being that when caught, Philip apologizes. Here Philip says sleeping with Irina was a mistake, lying about it was a mistake and he’s sorry and he loves Elizabeth (first time he says that and she dismisses the word). In S6 he confesses without being caught, apologizes for keeping a secret but stands by his actions. Claudia responds to being caught more like Elizabeth often does—she doesn’t apologize and justifies herself. In this she kind of represents the State who also doesn’t apologize, while Philip has learned his lesson. This gets more interesting later when Elizabeth ups the ante. They stop the assassin but miss the bomb he’s already planted that kills several people. Elizabeth is now embracing full responsibility for the failure and linking it somehow to her romance with Philip. It doesn’t hold up logically, but you can see how emotionally she would link the two together. Also, in trying to impress on Philip how bad this is she says that the Americans will “assume” it’s us. Note she doesn’t say the Americans will “know” it’s us. Because it is them. She’s like Claudia, automatically and maybe even unconsciously disconnecting her side from blame. That’s also a consistent conflict from In Control through S6 where Elizabeth and Granny simply doesn’t see aggression on their own side. (That’s again echoed in Granny’s whole argument that Elizabeth’s been a fool by opening her heart to Philip because he was secretly plotting against her. There can be no marriage or peace agreements in Claudia's world, only victory.) But here Philip can actually flip things with his own perspective. Elizabeth announces that they will go back to the way things were before, where they’re just pretending to be married. Although she probably isn’t thinking about it in these terms, she’s using her orders to her advantage. She doesn’t really have to choose between Philip and duty. But Philip calls her bluff using the main arguments he’s associated with. He tells her America is a modern country and their cover doesn’t require their being married, so if she doesn’t want to be married she’s free to make that choice for herself. Iow, he uses his familiarity with American culture in his argument—in 1965 they needed to be married to fit in; this isn’t true in 1981. He also thinks their orders through. Rather than just considering it an order to be married, he points out the reason behind the order and how it's no longer true. In accepting Elizabeth’s decision to declare the marriage fake, he forces her to make her decision to end it real by taking away the cover story. Oh, and another really cool foreshadowing is that when Claudia and Elizabeth have their first conversation where Claudia gives her the orders about the assassin Claudia explains that there was disagreement and that’s why the guy’s being recalled. She says some people thought this needed to happen and others disagreed. Elizabeth asks who disagreed. Claudia ignores her and just explains why it’s important to stop the guy. Iow, total foreshadowing of how the Centre is made up of different people who might disagree. Claudia is privy to these disagreements but Elizabeth is not. And Elizabeth doesn’t want to think about it. In a way that’s also a nice comment on the rift the Jennings are having here. The kids are also about to deal with the fallout of an authority in conflict (their parents) who took an action and are now reversing course in a way that affects the kids. (Only unlike the Centre, they’re not blaming the kids for it.) These scenes also made me really wish we knew more about Philip’s family dynamic. He revisits his first meeting with Elizabeth twice in this ep and will once more later on. She brings it up apparently to remind him the marriage is a sham but for him it’s an important personal moment—in the later ep he will imply it was an even bigger moment than it seems here. In this ep the first time he brings it up he lamely tries to use it to compliment Elizabeth, saying he was surprised at how pretty she was, or relieved—really dumb thing to say, especially since it makes him sound just like Claudia described him, as a man out for sex. Also we know Philip isn’t that vulnerable to beauty. Annelise is also beautiful and he just thinks she’s nuts. (He’s not impressed with Kate either.) Later he brings the meeting up in what seems to be a more honest and self-centered way, saying that his first impression of her was that she was disappointed and wanted him to be someone else. What made me want to know more about him here is that okay, we know this guy is going to be loyal to this woman for decades. He claims this moment in particular was the start of it. He describes it as feeling like a lightning bolt. Presumably if Elizabeth had not actually turned out to be someone he could love he wouldn’t have really loved her, but to him the two things do go together. And here he describes what he actually got from Elizabeth in that moment as disappointment. That just seems really significant to me. That the biggest relationship in this guy’s life, the guiding star, is with a woman he mostly associates with disappointment in him. I mean, it’s not just in that moment. It’s also here in this ep where he says she’s doing it again. And it’s the subtext of a lot with Gregory as well. It’s presumably the reason he lied to her about Irina as well in that moment. I want to know if there’s something in this guy’s formative years about this. I mean, we see the pattern of Elizabeth’s relationship with the Centre with her mother. Hell, she explicitly says she was taught to express and expect love a certain way—Philip is the rebellion for her. We can see Philip being driven by not wanting to let people down elsewhere too and I’d have liked to have seen something that made that more specific. With Elizabeth I can understand where the spark of romantic love comes from (and it took a while). Philip almost seems to imply that it was love at first sight because no one had ever made him feel like a failure that fast. Maybe that was a relief for him! 3 Link to comment
Roseanna December 3, 2018 Share December 3, 2018 (edited) 10 hours ago, sistermagpie said: These scenes also made me really wish we knew more about Philip’s family dynamic. He revisits his first meeting with Elizabeth twice in this ep and will once more later on. She brings it up apparently to remind him the marriage is a sham but for him it’s an important personal moment—in the later ep he will imply it was an even bigger moment than it seems here. In this ep the first time he brings it up he lamely tries to use it to compliment Elizabeth, saying he was surprised at how pretty she was, or relieved—really dumb thing to say, especially since it makes him sound just like Claudia described him, as a man out for sex. Also we know Philip isn’t that vulnerable to beauty. Annelise is also beautiful and he just thinks she’s nuts. (He’s not impressed with Kate either.) Later he brings the meeting up in what seems to be a more honest and self-centered way, saying that his first impression of her was that she was disappointed and wanted him to be someone else. What made me want to know more about him here is that okay, we know this guy is going to be loyal to this woman for decades. He claims this moment in particular was the start of it. He describes it as feeling like a lightning bolt. Presumably if Elizabeth had not actually turned out to be someone he could love he wouldn’t have really loved her, but to him the two things do go together. And here he describes what he actually got from Elizabeth in that moment as disappointment. That just seems really significant to me. That the biggest relationship in this guy’s life, the guiding star, is with a woman he mostly associates with disappointment in him. I mean, it’s not just in that moment. It’s also here in this ep where he says she’s doing it again. And it’s the subtext of a lot with Gregory as well. It’s presumably the reason he lied to her about Irina as well in that moment. I want to know if there’s something in this guy’s formative years about this. I mean, we see the pattern of Elizabeth’s relationship with the Centre with her mother. Hell, she explicitly says she was taught to express and expect love a certain way—Philip is the rebellion for her. We can see Philip being driven by not wanting to let people down elsewhere too and I’d have liked to have seen something that made that more specific. With Elizabeth I can understand where the spark of romantic love comes from (and it took a while). Philip almost seems to imply that it was love at first sight because no one had ever made him feel like a failure that fast. Maybe that was a relief for him! Or a challenge? In the old romantic novels, the hero has often got all women he had wanted, except the heroine who at first hates and/or distrusts him. But unlike the standard hero, Philip hasn't seemingly done anything to win Elizabeth's love, only waited patiently. One detail: Philip looks at Irina's picture just before he meets Elizabeth, so he is presumably in love with her, but just before he comes in, he rips it and throws it away. Edited December 3, 2018 by Roseanna Correcting and adding more 1 Link to comment
sistermagpie December 3, 2018 Author Share December 3, 2018 10 hours ago, Roseanna said: Or a challenge? In the old romantic novels, the hero has often got all women he had wanted, except the heroine who at first hates and/or distrusts him. But unlike the standard hero, Philip hasn't seemingly done anything to win Elizabeth's love, only waited patiently. I did always think that there was some of that going on. That is, Philip seems to spend so much time--and not just at work--adjusting himself to be the person the person he's with needs or wants. But with Elizabeth she just doesn't want him, period, so he almost has to just be something like himself. I really do think that was unique for him and it might not have happened if Elizabeth had been looking to him for something more personal. So when she does love him, it's not out of manipulation or strategy on his part. 10 hours ago, Roseanna said: One detail: Philip looks at Irina's picture just before he meets Elizabeth, so he is presumably in love with her, but just before he comes in, he rips it and throws it away. Yeah, that does always seem interesting given the way he later describes this meeting. We know that Irina dumped him and not vice versa so I read that moment as him throwing away who he was before as well as any hope or longing for Irina. He knows he's getting ready to meet the woman he's going to be partnered with as a husband so he's not just saying good-bye to Irina the person but his previous dreams of marrying for love. Another thing we never got details on was Gabriel's claim that Philip was the second man Elizabeth was paired with because she rejected the first one. Link to comment
Domestic Assassin December 3, 2018 Share December 3, 2018 38 minutes ago, sistermagpie said: Another thing we never got details on was Gabriel's claim that Philip was the second man Elizabeth was paired with because she rejected the first one. Despite Gabriel's claim in season 5 that he never lied to Philip or Elizabeth, I always read this as a lie. It never fit with the story as it was told in season one, and the way he said it in that conversation in that episode came across as very manipulative. 2 Link to comment
Roseanna December 3, 2018 Share December 3, 2018 59 minutes ago, sistermagpie said: Another thing we never got details on was Gabriel's claim that Philip was the second man Elizabeth was paired with because she rejected the first one. 17 minutes ago, Domestic Assassin said: Despite Gabriel's claim in season 5 that he never lied to Philip or Elizabeth, I always read this as a lie. It never fit with the story as it was told in season one, and the way he said it in that conversation in that episode came across as very manipulative. If Gabriel had lied to Philip about Elizabeth dumping the first partner chosen for her, it would have been a stupid lie, because Philip could talked about Elizabeth. Gabriel wasn't so stupid that he would have lied about anything that could be revealed as a lie. 2 Link to comment
sistermagpie December 3, 2018 Author Share December 3, 2018 It's funny that even Philip says it doesn't seem true. But afawk he never does ask Elizabeth. Did he fear she'd tell him it wasn't true? Dis he think it would upset her in some way? Obviously Gabriel tells him in that moment for a reason. 2 Link to comment
Umbelina December 3, 2018 Share December 3, 2018 1 hour ago, Domestic Assassin said: Despite Gabriel's claim in season 5 that he never lied to Philip or Elizabeth, I always read this as a lie. It never fit with the story as it was told in season one, and the way he said it in that conversation in that episode came across as very manipulative. While Gabriel doesn't come off as a liar, and certainly not as much as Claudia? This could be true. We know he lied about Philip's son after all. Still, as pointed out below, it might be TOO easy to discover, and possibly wreck his handler status with Gabe forever, so I think it's probably true. Although Elizabeth is obedient, she has been raped, and that might just make her pickier than she would have been. If the guy, in any way, came on too pushy or even reminded her at all of Timochev, I can easily see her saying no, and accepting the polite and rather timid Philip instead. 1 hour ago, Roseanna said: If Gabriel had lied to Philip about Elizabeth dumping the first partner chosen for her, it would have been a stupid lie, because Philip could talked about Elizabeth. Gabriel wasn't so stupid that he would have lied about anything that could be revealed as a lie. Yes, I have to agree. That kind of easily dis-proven lie could blow everything up. 38 minutes ago, sistermagpie said: It's funny that even Philip says it doesn't seem true. But afawk he never does ask Elizabeth. Did he fear she'd tell him it wasn't true? Dis he think it would upset her in some way? Obviously Gabriel tells him in that moment for a reason. Philip never trusted him as much as Elizabeth trusted him. I think he could easily ask the question, in a non creepy way if he chose to, a way that wouldn't trigger Elizabeth at all. Still, who knows, maybe he did off camera, or maybe this time he knew it would be an idiotic lie for Gabe to tell, so he believed him? Link to comment
Umbelina December 3, 2018 Share December 3, 2018 I put on Season Two last night while trying to sleep. What jumped out at me was the whole "we don't use our kids" thing, and other statements by Elizabeth and Philip about how they wouldn't involve their kids, and how, while they can reasonable expect disaster for themselves, she, Elizabeth specifically says, she never thought it could or would impact them. This was just after they discovered the bodies of the daughter and their married coworker friends in that hotel room, and Elizabeth was freaked out by the utility truck suddenly hanging out across the street. They didn't know who had killed them, of course. It struck me as deliberate and strong foreshadowing, since the writing team had decided in the break between season one and season two how they would end this. Link to comment
sistermagpie December 4, 2018 Author Share December 4, 2018 (edited) On 12/3/2018 at 6:40 PM, Umbelina said: While Gabriel doesn't come off as a liar, and certainly not as much as Claudia? This could be true. We know he lied about Philip's son after all. Still, as pointed out below, it might be TOO easy to discover, and possibly wreck his handler status with Gabe forever, so I think it's probably true. Also Gabriel is probably pretty good at defining "lie" in a good way. I could absolutely believe that Elizabeth turned down the first guy she was presented with. Maybe the guy gave off a vibe that she just couldn't take. (Aside from that weird moment in the Pilot Philip's pretty much defined as being not-pushy so she could easily have felt safer with him than some arrogant dude.) Maybe she just had to feel some control so she said no to prove she could. The manipulation is more that Gabriel is sort of trying to suggest that Elizabeth had some instant liking for Philip like he did for her, and that was obviously not true. At most she didn't fear and despise him on sight. Edited December 5, 2018 by sistermagpie 2 Link to comment
Umbelina December 7, 2018 Share December 7, 2018 I've had season 2 and now 3 on while wrapping presents. Two was really all about Paige, since they had by then decided that Paige/Elizabeth was their end game. It really stands out now on rewatch. Anyway, I'm on 3 now, again tons of Paige for the finale scene on the train platform, but some other stories that were interesting enough the first time, but on re-watch I noticed something. It's probably just for me, but still. WHAT did I care about watching again? I kept fast forwarding through all but certain scenes. ALL of the FBI office scenes were my top "must watch" scenes. Aderholt finding the bug in the pen? Gold. Mr. Taffett? Gold. Anything Martha related? GOLD. I also never fast forwarded through a scene with Philip, unless he was with a large group (the Africaan's murder stuff for example) or talking to Paige. I realized that Philip, more than anyone, held this series, or at least season, together for me. I watched most of his scenes with Elizabeth, but not all, watched all of his scenes with Kimmie (she was also gold by the way, IMO, born out by all the work she's getting now, she is on fire.)Her are just two things showing how much work she's now getting, this article https://wwd.com/eye/people/julia-garner-ozark-maniac-dirty-john-1202890083/ and her wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Garner https://www.vulture.com/2015/04/americans-julia-garner-kimmys-daddy-issues.html link about her on the Americans. Anyway, her scenes were also must watch for me, and I remember people (not me) who didn't like her on this show... Fast forwarded through most of Nina in prison, been there, done that, both actors were great, but it was just too removed from the main show. The supporting cast was outstanding too, including the Danish girl she betrayed. It's just a separate show to me. I loved watching all of the residentura scenes, Oleg, Tatiana, Arkady, and also especially adored all scenes with Stan and Oleg. Speaking of that, I love the fake USSR traitor Stan exposed as well, watched all of her. Skipped all of Elizabeth's spying scenes (the hotel guy, the black American AA couple, etc.) I did watch the guy from South Africa tell her some truths about the USSR. Watched all of Henry's scenes, not many. Watched all of Gabriel's scenes, but wasn't riveted. So, for me, tops must watch: Philip The FBI The Residentura Martha Kimmy Stan Henry/Gabriel I'm half way through, so this may change, but I don't think so. It's shocking to me how little I cared to watch Elizabeth in season 3, she was good, as always, I just didn't care. Link to comment
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